off the cards. This was the best I could think of.’
‘Oh,’ he said. He felt stupidly betrayed that Jem hadn’t told him.
‘Anyway, I’m hoping that if I’m seen out enough with a devastatingly handsome and mysterious bachelor then the Earl of Wiltshire will give up.’ She tried to make it sound offhand, but her collarbones tightened. ‘One would think that at my age one would be rather above suspicion on that count.’
It twisted a stiletto in him to hear what she thought she was like, and it twisted even deeper when he remembered how angry he had been with her before. He’d thought she was careless. He should have known better.
‘Not the way you wear it,’ he said. He glanced over the hall towards Jem. ‘Speaking of Jem, he needs rescuing. You’d better sort that out.’
After an hour, he went outside to escape the heat and the friends of Agatha’s who thought they ought to make an effort to see what he was like, but who felt worried about anyone without a title. There were long gardens, and a fine walk down to the Thames. The cold was sharp after the hot hall, and the gravel on the path squeaked and splintered as the frost broke. He was only halfway to the river when Jem caught up with him.
‘Miz. Are you all right?’
Kite looked back, intensely glad to have been missed and followed, but confused too. ‘Just too hot. You? Didn’t Agatha find you?’
‘She did, but then her paperwork piled up.’
Kite laughed, though it came out forced. They walked for a little while, up the river. There were no lights there except the reflections on the water from the ships. Jem sat down on the low railing to look back at the hall.
‘You could have told me,’ Kite said. It was too abrupt, but he couldn’t hold it in. He nodded at Jem’s bruised hand. ‘My profession is punching Frenchmen.’
Jem watched him for a few seconds, then sighed. ‘I’m sorry. It just seemed so grubby, and in my head you’re so pristine, I just wanted not to … to get anything on you. Does that make sense?’
‘No,’ said Kite, but he felt a happy warmth rush right through him.
Jem pulled him close. He was warm, and his clothes smelled both new and of his cigarettes at the same time. Kite didn’t want to come up. Jem was holding the back of his neck under his collar, and it felt safe and good.
Jem made a soft sound against his hair to make him look up and then touched his lips to Kite’s temple, then his mouth, just ghosts of kisses, before he rested their heads together. Until right then, Kite had always thought of a kiss as a definitive thing, but he couldn’t tell what Jem meant by it. He didn’t dare ask in case it meant nothing at all.
Lord Lawrence was in the sitting room at Jermyn Street when Kite, Agatha, and Jem got back, both stockinged feet tucked under his tiger. He twisted around.
‘You know, my dear,’ he said in the careful way he always started his fights with her, so that he would have the appearance of reasonableness later, ‘you’ll set tongues wagging.’
‘They are. It’s doing wonders for the hospital fund.’
He frowned. ‘Don’t be glib, it’s unfeminine. The Earl of Wiltshire cornered me today. You’ve made him deeply anxious, trusting man though he is—’
She was undoing the complicated pins of the jewelled band in her hair. When it came off, it looked heavy. She dropped it in the glass bowl where the house keys lived. It was one of the things Kite loved about living with a woman: they left treasure in odd places round the house. ‘Lawrence, that was your agreement, not mine. At first it was something you implied to him, knowing full well I had nothing to do with it, and by a fascinating process of erosion you have convinced yourself in the intervening months that I am now bound to him by contract. I am not, and while I know it would be agreeable to have the Earl on your side in Parliament, there are ways to charm a man like that which do not involve parting with my entire inheritance.’
He was turning red. ‘Agatha, don’t be absurd. You know fully well a fortune can’t really rest in the hands of a slip of a girl.’
‘That’s by far and away the most flattering thing anyone has ever said to a person of thirty-six.’