He’d assumed Jem would lose interest in him now that he had people of his own quality to talk to.
‘They’ll be downstairs,’ Kite said. ‘There should be a proper breakfast by now—’
‘Lawrence says you don’t eat with them,’ Jem interrupted. He gave him a cup and a wry look, as though he was telling a joke they both knew and he was waiting for Kite to join in for the punchline.
Kite had no idea about the joke. ‘No, it wouldn’t be proper.’
‘Apparently your father was a carpenter.’
‘Yes,’ said Kite, nervous he was being told off for not admitting that he had no business befriending noblemen, even lost ones.
‘And your sister seems content with this segregation.’
‘Half-sister. I don’t know she’s noticed. Why?’
‘It’s stupid. May I come in?’
‘It’s not very …’ Kite trailed off, because Jem had already settled down in the sunbeam in the middle of the narrow bed. So had the tiger.
‘I’m supposed to come up with a new name for myself,’ Jem said. He looked worried about it. ‘But Castlereagh isn’t the name the others will have told the French.’
‘Sorry? Why not?’ Kite had just sat down on the edge of the bed and the tiger had got her claws caught in the hem of his shirt.
‘Because my real one – wouldn’t go down very well in … well, a place like this,’ Jem said. ‘Castlereagh is my mother’s name.’
Kite felt absurdly double-crossed. ‘What’s wrong with your real one? What do you mean, a place like this?’
Jem only shook his head. ‘I’ve only known you for a week, so I don’t – know how you’d take it. Sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound distrustful, just–’
‘No,’ Kite interrupted, coming to his senses. He didn’t understand what could possibly be so bad about Jem’s real name, but it wasn’t any of his business to try and poke at it. ‘No, you’re right not to trust people.’ He hesitated. ‘So no one is looking for a Jem Castlereagh?’
‘No.’
‘But – it is Jem?’ Somehow that was very important.
‘It is Jem,’ he confirmed. He sighed. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I’ll tell you one day.’
‘No need.’ Kite wanted to say he was just grateful that Jem had climbed four flights of stairs to tell him, but it sounded crawly even in his head, so he stayed quiet and drank his tea.
Jem came back every morning after.
Just after Christmas, Agatha sent Jem a note to meet her at a department store. It was an invitation to get a dress uniform made for the Admiralty’s New Year ball. A boy delivered it straight to the table at Mr Mahmud’s where Jem and Kite were sharing a piece of cake and Kite was trying to find out why Jem had bruised knuckles. Jem said he’d just flung himself into a door at a funny angle like an idiot, but Kite was worried that Lawrence might have done something, and searching about for a way to ask that without asking. It meant he was too distracted to think twice about what Agatha might do, which he regretted later.
Harding Howell & Co. of Pall Mall was bright in the dreary morning, lamps alight inside and out. It was just off St James’s Square, and the women coming out were in fur-lined cloaks and deep-coloured silk, comet-tailed by girls or footmen who carried packages tied up with ribbon.
The store was only four sections long, but they were broad, high-ceilinged sections, and mazey. The walls were lined with what scholars in a thousand years’ time would probably mistake for funeral alcoves – the whole place had the proportions of a church – but in fact they were for rolls of fabric. Each one had been unrolled just enough to bring a swathe of it right down to the floor, where the edges hung arranged over prettily upholstered chairs or over the shoulders of mannequins. They went in order of cost, starting with cotton and muslin, through to painted chintz from India, to silk, brocade, and damask that glinted in the lamplight. Everything smelled of brand-new carpets and fresh-cut fabric.
Agatha had brought her own tailor, his apprentice, and a lot of pins. They had an encampment in a private room. Kite stopped in the doorway, not wanting to climb over anything. Jem had gone ahead to look at the fabric, as easy with the apprentice as he was with Lawrence.
‘You run everywhere and then hesitate at the door, you look like a tradesman,’ Agatha said to Kite, beginning to laugh.
He edged in by another six inches or so, certain that she would consider it a lot more tradesman-like to nosedive over fourteen feet of teal brocade.
‘Is your dress uniform still all right?’ Agatha asked. She was, he realised now, halfway through a fitting, in just her stays under the drapery.
For a mortified second he couldn’t believe what was happening, and then dragged Jem outside.
‘You’re coming as well,’ she called after him.
‘I am not,’ he said. People had more properly asked their gardeners to come to Admiralty balls.
‘You bloody are. Jem and I will need some human company.’
The tailor’s apprentice snorted appreciatively to hear her swear.
‘Oh,’ she added, ‘Jem. You can see the clerk about the dress uniform, just stick it on my account.’ She came right out the door, still only in her stays. ‘It’s under my name, but there’s a number as well if they don’t believe you.’ She gave Jem a slip of paper.
A clerk Kite had seen on the way in walked past, again, quite obviously to get another look at her. A passing old lady snapped open her fan and marched by, steaming. Kite wanted to sink through the floor.
‘Thank you,’ Jem said. ‘Are you sure?’ He sounded for all the world as if he thought talking to
