“Come,” said Lem from the door, waving his hand. “Bring the pie.”
“I’d rather leave it here,” Jasper said with a grimace as he stood, brushing his front free of wrinkles. “Do you need your papers?”
“No,” said Lem as Romeo and Juliet reset their death scene and prepared to do it all over again. “I am leaving for the courthouse forthwith.”
“Right-o,” Jasper managed, scrambling to the door. “Good luck with that. And congratulations, etcetera.”
“Hm,” said Lem, still faintly smiling. Still very, very tall. “Thank you.”
“Erm, pardon if it’s untoward,” said Jasper, scratching at his hair, turning to watch the other man pass. “You found your pa, did you? Here in Brighton?”
“That is what the papers say,” Lem answered, his smirk expanding to reveal a flash of teeth. “So it must be true. I will sign. My apparent sire will sign. And then I will have a full name.”
“Oh,” said Jasper, frowning. “Erm. Who was it? Anyone I know?”
“Indeed,” said Lem, chuckling. “It is Julian Harcourt.”
And at that revelation, Jasper couldn’t think of a single thing more to say.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Libba heard thearguing before the door opened again and turned her head to see not only Jasper, for whom she was bracing, but Lem, attempting to shake the other man off his large, ebony bicep.
“Off!” Lem said, likely for the third or fourth time. “Be easy!”
“Youcannot. Not right now!” Jasper was insisting, wild-eyed. “They willsee you.”
Libba sighed and stepped forward, pushing her hands between the two men and spreading her arms in increments until they were divided.
Malcolm, presumably thinking he was the one who would have to be pulled, bodily, off Jasper today, was blinking at the scene in bemused shock.
“What,” she managed, gritting her teeth, “the hell?”
“Templeton-Raths,” Jasper said shrilly. “With Harcourt. Lem going to Harcourt!”
She blinked at Jasper, and then at Lem. “You’ve an appointment today?”
“Indeed,” said Lem, leaning casually against the doorframe.
“He’s Harcourt’sson!” Jasper announced, startling both Libba and Malcolm.
“What?” Mal managed to say, giving an incredulous laugh. “He is certainly not.”
Lem shrugged. “The barrister has decided that he will claim me because your family cannot. He is a bachelor with no children, so he thought it the perfect solution. I would have told you sooner, but you have been…” He paused, glancing at Jasper. “Occupied.”
Libba, for a brief moment, was too stunned to speak. She stared at her friend. At her lover. She craned around to look at her brother, and they did the whole sequence again.
“What?!” she finally managed to exclaim, throwing her arms out, hands-up, as though God might drop a scroll into them with a simplification in ink.
“It is much simpler than the other ways,” Lem said. “He came yesterday evening to tell me and asked me to review the papers. We are to go together to get a date with a magistrate today. I must be there.”
“Youcannot!” Jasper said again.
Lem paused, narrowing his eyes. “I must.”
“Lem, they can’t see you,” Libba said reasonably. “You can get a date with the magistrate any other day, can’t you?”
“I have long waited,” Lem said, frowning. “I do not wish to continue waiting.”
