Likely they wanted to get in, whoever it was. There seemed to be a total dearth of servants in the house. Anyway, nobody come to dub the jigger, as she would have put it in her misspent youth. That was a reliable clue it might be a bad idea to do so and, anyhow, this was none of her business. Surprising how much trouble you stayed out of if you minded your own business. Lazarus used to mention that to her from time to time. Papa did, too.
Could be bailiffs or savages from Borneo or jealous husbands on the other side of that door. No doubt a matter best left alone.
But she’d got curious. When she opened the door, there was a skinny cove in a rumpled suit, three laborers, and five great wood crates with rope handles, all crowded onto the porch. Not bailiffs, at least.
The skinny cove marched right across the threshold. “Tell Standish I’m here.” He passed over his hat. “I need tea. Dustcloths. Footmen with crowbars. And Standish.” When she stood there, holding his hat, he added, “Shoo. Shoo,” and made brisk sweeping motions. “Tell him I’ve brought the collared-rim urn and the grooved ware. Don’t stand there like a goose.” He set about haranguing the laborers, who looked bored.
He didn’t seem to be dangerous, even if he was about to fill the front hall with large crates. Likely, worse things were happening somewhere in London this morning.
She left them to it and dropped the hat on one of the tables they had handy, probably for that purpose, and followed the corridor to the back of the house.
Standish was the name of Kennett’s uncle, so now she knew for sure. I’m in Kennett’s house. One question settled.
This time of day, she could follow the smell of breakfast and have a good chance of finding somebody. The door was closed. I never know whether to knock or not. About a million rules, the gentry have. She pushed it open and walked in.
There were clay pots everywhere. A big, glass-fronted case filled half the room, full of dark brown pots, mud-colored pots, pots with designs scraped on the sides, old Greek pots with people, pots in three-legged stands, and pots lolling on their side showing their bellies, pots stacked up four and five high. Regular armies of pots, with the auxiliaries called up.
An old man and old woman sat at an oval table in front of the window with the light spilling all over them. They were ordinary people. The man was untidy in his brown wool jacket and limp neckcloth. He had a craggy face and wild black hair, getting gray at the temples. The woman was neatly dressed. Nothing fashionable about her. Behind them, the window showed a vivid, bright garden, overgrown with green. The Sheridan sideboard next to the wall held silver dishes, covered, keeping breakfast warm.
The man laid down a book. The woman looked up from a newspaper.
This had to be Kennett’s uncle and aunt, Standish and Eunice Ashton. It was all in the files on her desk back in the warehouse. They’d raised Kennett when his father didn’t show any inclination to do it. Word was, the old earl wasn’t best pleased to have his little mistake brought up in plain sight by his brother and his sister-in-law. Word was, Eunice Ashton never gave tuppence what the earl thought.
The old earl was dying, nastily and at length, in Italy. One of those just retributions, that particular disease.
Everyone in Whitechapel had heard of Eunice Ashton. She gave refuge to women in trouble. Any woman. Whores, too, and it didn’t matter who owned them. She’d face up to the devil himself, they said. Even Lazarus let her pass unmolested in his territory.
And here they were . . . decent folks, eating a civilized breakfast. If Sebastian Kennett was Cinq, she was going to smash this pretty, comfortable world into a thousand bits.
“Good heavens, child. You’re awake.” Eunice Ashton held out her hand. “Come in. Come in.” She was no carefully preserved beauty. Her face was wrinkles and deep lines, honestly old, like a countrywoman who’d been out in all weathers and never coddled herself. The steady eyes were bright as jewels. It was a warm hearth on a freezing day, the kindness in that woman’s face.
I’m going to hang Cinq, and he’s probably your nephew. No matter what you are—decent, kind, wise, loving—it won’t make any difference.
She didn’t want to talk to them. Didn’t want to be in this house at all. She groped behind her for the doorknob.
Eunice Ashton was already on her feet. “You must sit down. You don’t look at all steady. I’m sorry not to have been with you when you woke up. I looked in earlier and decided you’d sleep for a good long while yet. There now. Standish will pour tea.” The old woman was beside her, taking her hands, both of them, inside her own. “I don’t know if tea really helps when one feels precarious, but it does give one something warm to hold on to. A kitten would work just as well, but we don’t have one at the moment. They will grow into cats. Sit, dear.”
Jess found herself guided into a chair. It was like when the pilot takes the wheel in some tricky port. All of a sudden the ship, even a big, wallowing three-master, goes smooth and easy and glides past the breakwater and the sand bars, through the rip currents, tame and docile, up to the dock. It was a magic pilots had. Maybe they signed an agreement with the ocean.
One minute she was at the door, trying to think of a way to leave without being rude. The next she was sitting at the table.
The old man looked at her over a beak of a nose—that was the same nose Kennett had—and smiled vaguely and found the teapot. He poured tea, and added milk and sugar, and stirred, all without looking at what he was doing, and set the cup in front of her.
She saw no guile in the old man. No meanness in the old woman. She might not be the steel-trap judge of people Papa was, but she would have built houses on that assessment. Whatever it took to send Englishmen to their deaths for money, it wasn’t in them. If Kennett was Cinq, they had no part in it. That made it worse, knowing she’d be bringing shame and disaster on them, and they’d have no warning.
The man nudged the cup toward her.
Tea. Yes. She could drink tea.
It was South China, good enough in its way. She was used to Russian tea, smoky from being heated over charcoal and blunt-flavored from a caravan trip across half the world. She had a taste for it after living in St. Petersburg so long. Papa always kept a supply.
Her stomach would stop being sick and cold if she put tea into it. Maybe her head would stop aching. She’d take a few sips of tea, and thank them, and leave. And there was somethingpolite she should be saying. Lord, all the money Papa’d spent on governesses, she should know her manners.
“Thank you for taking me in.” She put both hands around the cup. They were right. Hot tea was good to hold on to. “I’m sorry to impose myself on you this way. It’s . . . I’m not sure what happened, exactly. There were men after me, I think. And I fell. I was standing in the rain, thinking I might get myself hurt . . . And then I did. Get hurt. I’m not sure how.” It occurred to her she was babbling. “Sorry. This isn’t coming out right. My head’s not working well.”
“Of course it isn’t.” A capable hand, thin-skinned, marked with brown spots from age, closed over hers. “You will stop hurting soon. I’m Eunice Ashton. You are not to worry about anything.”
“I don’t remember it all, you see.”
“Of course not. One doesn’t, I believe, after a blow to the head. You met with some accident by the docks, and you weren’t in any state to tell us where to take you. Where can we send word you’re safe? They must be frantic, looking for you. What’s your name, child?”
But no one was looking for her. Not a soul. If she didn’t show up at Meeks Street, Papa would just think his jailers were keeping her away. Pitney knew she’d gone hunting Cinq and where, but he wouldn’t expect her at the warehouse today. Kedger would worry when she didn’t bring him his piece of kipper this morning, but a ferret couldn’t precisely raise the alarm, now could he? Nobody else would notice if she dropped off the face of the earth. Gave her a chill, knowing that.
She swallowed. “I’m Jess. Jessamyn Whitby. There’s nobody looking for me.”
The old woman’s eyes were wise and unreservedly kind and very practical. “Well then, Jess, you shall drink your tea, and we will decide what is best to do about this.”
“Lady Ashton . . .” Or is it Lady Eunice? Or something else? Lady Standish? Sometimes it’s nothing at all. They don’t make it easy.
“Eunice, dear. Just Eunice. Or Mrs. Ashton, if that makes you feel more comfortable. And I will call you Jess, if I may. Really, the most useless and unpleasant people seem to have titles. So much simpler to discard titles altogether and be just a Jess and a Eunice, don’t you think? Have you read Lalumière’s Ten Questions?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Or An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice by Godwin? Well, I suppose not. I’ll lend you a copy when you’re feeling better. So eloquent and lucid.”
That sounded like books on philosophy, and one of them by a Frenchman. It was probably a mistake to read too many books like that. You believe what they put in books, and who knows what you’ll do.
Kennett probably read philosophy if his aunt was fond of it.
Lady Ashton . . . Eunice . . . poured tea and started after the milk jug, murmuring, “Rousseau, perhaps.” Strange as three-toed snakes, some of the gentry. What an odd conversation she was having. “Well. Yes. All right.”
The old man gave a shy, rather sweet smile. “She won’t make you read today. Or do anything else you don’t want to.” The book propped in front of him had a German title that translated to A Study of Striation Patterning in the Milo-Archaic Pottery of Bavaria, which explained the pots cluttering the place. Over the top of the book, his gaze focused on her with a startling intelligence. “You don’t have to be worried. Eunice will take care of everything.”
“Of course, Standish.” Eunice tapped the plate beside his book. “You have toast.”
Jess could feel herself relaxing, muscle by muscle. Even her sinews and bones knew these were good folks. No wonder Kennett made houseroom for thirty thousand pots and a battalion of rescued harlots. If she’d had an uncle and aunt like this, she’d have let them keep elephants.
Before Standish got a bite of toast, the door of the parlor slammed back to the wall, shaking every pot in the room. A skinny, untidy maid stood in the doorway. “That professor fellow’s brung a bunch of them bleeding great boxes. You want ’em put upstairs?”
Crikey. She’d forgot. The foyer could be three-deep in crates for all the use she was. She clattered cup into saucer. “Oh Lord. My fault. I opened the door. I was supposed to tell you—”
“Excellent. That’ll be Percy at last.” Standish used the toast to mark his place in the book. “Pots from Glamorgan. Excuse me.” He kissed his wife neatly on top of her head and stalked out like a long-legged wading bird in search of fish.
“More pots,” Eunice said. “And not another square inch to put them in.” She rose as she spoke. Lightly, she put her arm around Jess. “We’ll manage somehow. Now, tell me what has happened to you and why there’s no one who knows or cares where you are. That seems a very melancholy state of affairs, if true.”
Being held by Eunice Ashton was like having sunlight wrapped around you. She closed her eyes. “It’s not like that. My father’s careful of me, generally. It’s not his fault.”
“Where is your father?”
She could say anything to this woman, anything at all. It was no secret, anyway. Half the port knew by now. “They arrested him a couple weeks ago.” Hurst arrested him. Even with everything that happened, I thought he was Papa’s friend.
“Good heavens.”
“It’s not Newgate or the Tower. They haven’t even laid charges yet. It’s not that bad.”
“It sounds very bad indeed.”
“He’s ‘detained for inquiry,’ whatever that means.” She was pulled close and held, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Cold spaces inside her opened to let the warmth in. “I try and I try, and I can’t shake him free. I go to our friends and they try, but nothing works.”
“Is your father Josiah Whitby? The Whitby who owns those warehouses and the ships? Whitby Trading?”
“That’s him.”
“Then he should be taking care of you, arrested or not. He hasn’t left you on your own, has he, with no one looking after you?”
“I take care of myself, mostly. I do a better job of it, generally. ”
“I’m sure you do. That doesn’t mean you should be left alone.” Eunice sounded tart, and that was comforting, too. “You must be very frightened.”
Frightened? Oh, that hit the nail on the head. There was no end to how frightened she was. Oceans of fear stretched out on every side. She was scared when she jerked awake before dawn, and scared in the office. Scared when she pounded her brains all day, tweaking out the patterns that might show her Cinq. Scared when she went to see Papa in that discreet, sneaky house at Meeks Street. She was scared when she lay down at night, not sleeping, her hands clenched in the sheets, hour after hour.
“I go to Papa every day at teatime. He worries . . .” Then somehow she was talking about the house at Meeks Street. How they listened to her, behind the walls when she was with Papa. How he was acting so bloody calm and cheerful it set her teeth on edge. How she was looking for Cinq.
She was saying things she hadn’t said to anybody else. By the time she explained that the British Service wasn’t feeding Papa properly, and he didn’t look well, not at all, she was doing it all muffled into the cotton print Eunice wore.
“You will solve this. I think you must be very good at solving problems.” She felt Eunice wipe tears off her cheek.
Wiping her face. The last person to do that was her mother, dead of fever, ten years back. “I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t cry.”
“Of course you don’t, child.”
“Crying’s pointless. It means you can’t think of anything better to do. There’s always something to do.”
“Always. We must simply decide what it is. Not, however, this morning.” Eunice sat next to her, still speaking in that unruffled, deep voice. “First, you will drink your tea. It’s getting cold.” And the teacup was somehow between her hands again.
“Yes.” She’d just sit here for a while and hold on to it.
“I think, since your father can’t be with you, you should stay here with us.”
She couldn’t stay here. All kinds of reasons not to stay. “I can’t—”
“We have plenty of room, even if we’re rather cluttered with pots. I can’t be easy with the thought of you going back home with no one but servants to take care of you. And there’s that nasty accident at the docks. So worrisome. Let me give you some toast. The toast is better than the muffins today. The bread comes from the baker, and Cook made the muffins. I’m afraid this is not one of her good mornings. She drinks.” As she spoke, Eunice spread marmalade on toast.
She was being managed. It had been a long time since anyone tried managing her for her own good. Maybe she’d let it happen for a while.
The plate in front of her was Sèvres, with roses painted on it. A nice piece of china. Whitby’s had to bribe two sets of customs officials and change ships to get Sèvres porcelain. They sold it in Boston. Good markets in the Americas.
Papa wouldn’t live to trade with Boston again unless she found Cinq.
“You don’t like marmalade?” Eunice said. “There’s a lovely man in Hampstead who sends me pints of it on Boxing Day every year. We never seem to get through it all before he sends some more, and he does make it himself. Have some tea first.”
She wasn’t hungry, but to be polite she took a sip of tea and picked up a piece of toast. She’d get up in a minute and make her good-byes and leave. All kinds of things she had to do at the warehouse. From the hall outside came the sound of something heavy, thumping, and Standish saying, “Do be careful with that,” repeatedly.
“He’s taking them to the salon to unpack.” Eunice filled up the cup. “It isn’t so much the
pots, you understand, but they send them packed in straw. Straw everywhere, and sand, and sometimes fleas. He won’t let me give the pots a good wash. I have hit upon a system, however . . .”
It had been weeks since she’d just sat, doing nothing, not thinking at all. Eunice didn’t expect answers or explanations. She was an extraordinarily comforting person to be around. Probably lots of people cried down the front of her dress.
She’d stay just a few more minutes, being polite.
She listened to Eunice talk about pottery. Seemed to be lots one could know about pottery. When she opened her eyes, the light didn’t stab in. And her head hurt less. She drank more tea. Then there were two new slices of toast on her plate, and she ate them, too. The tea was good, of its sort, but she’d send some Russian tea to Eunice.
The door opened. A tall man in waistcoat and shirtsleeves walked in. “Good morning, Aunt Eunice.” He leaned and kissed the woman’s cheek. His black hair was straight and thick as Russian sable.
“My nephew.” Eunice picked up a new cup and began pouring. “He carried you in last night, when you were hurt. Bastian, this is Jess Whitby, who’s come to stay with us a while.”
He sat down and faced her and became Sebastian Kennett.
Seven
SHE REMEMBERED HIM STANDING BESIDE HER IN THE rain. He’d set the tips of his fingers, careful and rough-textured, on her lips, and she’d shivered from it.
“Sebastian . . .” The one soft word escaped before she saw what was in his face. His eyes were like the black ice on one of those marsh ponds in Russia, cold and brittle and hard as steel.
“. . . Kennett,” she finished.
His gaze moved deliberately across her, like he was taking inventory of the parts he’d seen naked. She had the thought that if she reached out and put her hand up to his cheek, her skin would freeze to him, like she was touching cold metal in the winter.
My Lord and Spymaster Page 7
