“I should have visited you earlier,” Kit said, tearing his thoughts from events of a decade earlier and looking at the woman before him. It was a shabby thing to leave a woman alone with her grief.
A peal of laughter came from a room upstairs. Not that Scarlett was alone, of course. But a brothel keeper could hardly put on black crepe and draw the curtains.
“We’ve both been busy.” Scarlett glanced at his cane. “I heard you were injured but hoped it was a rumor.”
“If you heard the version of the tale that had me shot with a poisoned arrow in defense of Bonnie Prince Charlie, then I’m afraid it’s fiction. It was a very ordinary pistol and a very frightened coachman. But I didn’t come here to bore you with tales of my injuries. Somebody came to me for help,” he said. “A stranger.”
She raised her eyebrows. “After nearly a year, it’s a stranger who gets you to come to me? She must be pretty.”
“He,” Kit said absently, and Scarlett’s eyebrows rose even higher. “But no, that isn’t why I’m tempted.”
“Then why?” She toed off her slippers and stretched her legs toward the fire.
“Because,” he said carefully, “he knows who I am.” He had debated whether to tell her this. He didn’t want it to sound like an accusation. “He knows my name, and who I—who Rob and I, rather—used to be.” There were only a handful of people who knew enough to make the connection. He and Rob had been prudent about that, if about nothing else. And Scarlett was one of them.
He thought she’d protest her innocence, but instead she frowned. “That’s troubling. I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” he admitted. “I’d like to know how he found me. He wants me to do a job for him. Wants me to hold up”—he stopped himself before he could say his father—“some aristo. The job, to be frank, sounds like the sort of thing I’d have done in a heartbeat, but I’ve never worked on my own and now I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” He gestured vaguely at his leg and hoped she understood. “But I want to know who he is and why he came to me. It would help me put the matter to rest,” he said. “He says his name is Edward Percy.”
“Edward Percy,” she repeated. “I’ll find out whatever I can.”
He walked home and let himself into his dark shop, feeling something he told himself wasn’t anticipation.
Chapter 9
The girl entered Kit’s with the same air of bashful self-consciousness with which she had answered the door to the brothel a few days earlier. A hush fell over the coffeehouse at the sight of her, as not many women ventured into coffeehouses, and never alone unless they were selling their favors. Kit watched in amusement as his patrons tried to figure out if this pretty, meek girl could possibly be a prostitute.
“Mistress Flora,” Kit said when she approached the counter.
“Mr. Webb,” she answered, her cheeks flushing, and Kit longed to ask whether she was able to do that at will. “I have a message for you from my mistress.” From between the folds of her cloak, she withdrew a sealed letter and held it out to Kit in an immaculately gloved hand.
As Kit broke the seal, he could smell the scent of rosewater that always surrounded Scarlett, and he wondered if she deliberately scented her stationery or if it simply picked up the scent from being near her. He’d bet on the former: nothing Scarlett ever did was by accident. The missive was brief and direct.
“There is no Edward Percy,” the letter read. “Nobody by that name has attended any of the usual schools. No Edward Percy has ever been presented at court. No Edward Percy is known to any of the servants at any of the great houses. He could, of course, be the son of a merchant or some other personage who has taken to dressing like his betters, but in that case, I’d be even more certain to have heard about him. Yours, S.”
Kit frowned. He had hoped that Scarlett would have been able to tell him something that would lessen his curiosity, not stoke it even higher. Kit had always liked a riddle, a puzzle, a challenge. Even robbery—hell, especially robbery—had been a sort of puzzle. Does this baronet travel with a purse full of coin? Are his outriders armed? At what time would he be likely to reach that ever-so-convenient bend in the Brighton road? How many men would Kit need in order to see the job safely done? How should they get away once the job was over? Avoiding the hangman satisfied some part of Kit’s brain in the way unpicking a stubborn knot might. Now, a year after planning his last robbery, it occurred to Kit that some of the challenge may have come from how persistently drunk he had been in those days. It was more than possible that sober he’d need more than a simple holdup to occupy his mind. He might need more of a mystery.
He was interrupted by the sound of Flora delicately clearing her throat. Now, why had Scarlett sent this girl to him? She had boys she used as couriers. There was no reason to send one of her prettiest and greenest girls out on an errand, unattended. Except—of course. The whole point of this was to display Flora in front of as many men as possible. Scarlett was all but having an auction.
“We’re putting our best merchandise in the shop window today, are we?” Kit murmured. In answer, Flora ducked her head and looked up with a sly wink. Well, she was in on it, then, and that put his mind at ease. “I’m meant to walk you home, aren’t I?” Scarlett would know that Kit would never let this girl out into the street on her own. While he thought it more than likely that she could take care of herself, walking her home was a small enough favor.
“If you please, sir,” she answered. “But you needn’t do so until you’re ready to close up the shop. I have a book to occupy myself.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “Take a seat and I’ll bring you coffee and some cake.”
He watched as she sat near the window, where she would be seen by everybody walking past and everybody within. When he brought her coffee and a plate of seedcakes, he huffed out a laugh when he realized that the book she had brought with her was the Bible. He couldn’t help but grin. He hoped she landed herself a lord and took him for every penny she could.
He was still smiling when he heard footsteps approach the table where he brewed the coffee. Looking up, he saw a now-familiar wigged head and powdered face. The theme of the day, he noticed, was rose: rose silk waistcoat, rose ribbon at the nape of his neck, and he knew that if he looked down, he’d see stockings with rose clocks adorning the sides. He was predictable, orderly, this man who had taken the decidedly outlandish step of attempting to hire a highwayman to rob his father.
Only when he saw Percy’s mouth quirk up at the sides into a grin matching his own did Kit realize he was still smiling like a fool. He also remembered that Percy wasn’t Percy at all.
“You lied about your name,” Kit said, pointing a finger at the other man’s rose-clad chest.
“Did I?” the man asked. “I can’t recall.” He spoke the words as if he were sharing a private joke, rather than defending an accusation of lying. Kit had the strangest wish to be in on the jest, to know what had stolen away the man’s arrogance and replaced it with a smile that managed to be both wry and soft.
“Why are you here?” Kit asked.
“So suspicious, Mr. Webb. I’ve become rather fond of your coffee. Isn’t that reason enough to visit your establishment?”
“It’s very inconvenient, you know,” Kit said, the words leaving his mouth before he could think better of it, “not to know with what name to think of you.”
“Is it? You must think of me often if that poses such an inconvenience.” His arrogance was back in force now, written in the lift of his eyebrow and the way he leaned forward toward Kit, his hands on the table, pushing into Kit’s space ever so slightly. Kit didn’t lean away—this was his coffeehouse and he had all the power in this situation, no matter how he felt. But he could smell lavender and powder, could see that the man’s eyes were the dark gray of wet cobblestones, could tell that the patch he had affixed over his lip wasn’t a circle, as Kit had assumed, but rather a tiny heart. It was, perhaps, the heart that did Kit in—the utte
r ridiculousness of a heart-shaped fake birthmark ought to have made Kit loathe the man but it achieved quite a different result.
It was too much to hope that Percy (Kit had resigned himself to thinking of him as Percy, as the alternative was a mysterious blankness that posed the danger of becoming as peculiarly compelling as every other detail about the man, whereas Percy was a very boring and ordinary name) hadn’t noticed Kit’s reaction. “I knew it,” Percy said, leaning forward even further. Kit still refused to retreat, telling himself that it was because he would not cede a single inch of ground, but even as he formulated the thought, he knew it to be a lie.
“I don’t do that,” Kit said, because, evidently, he was an idiot.
“Do what, Mr. Webb? I hadn’t realized we had reached that stage of the proceedings.”
“Uh,” Kit said, eloquently. “I don’t—”
“But you want to,” Percy said, undeterred and unabashed. He helped himself to a seedcake from the basket that Kit had forgotten to put away. He took a small bite, chewed thoughtfully, and then brought a lace-trimmed handkerchief to his mouth. “Quite good. Why haven’t I had any cakes on my previous visits? I spent hours here without seeing so much as a crumb.”
Kit snatched the basket away and put it under the table. “I save them for the customers I like.”
“I think I’m shaping up to be your favorite customer ever,” Percy said, leaning close and taking another bite of cake. A crumb lingered on the swell of his lower lip, and Kit couldn’t tear his gaze from it. When Percy swiped the crumb away with one flick of his pink tongue, Kit thought his heart might stop.
“What’s your name?” Kit asked in a desperate bid to regain control of this conversation. “The truth this time.”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” Percy said, looking genuinely remorseful, which Kit could not begin to make sense of. “Sorrier than you can know.” He was whispering now, his words little more than a breath on Kit’s cheek. Kit could have turned his head an inch to the left and—and kissed him, he would have thought if he were having an even somewhat normal reaction, if wanting to kiss strange men in broad daylight in a crowded coffeehouse could be considered in any way normal. But no, Kit’s impulses were entirely run to mayhem, so what he actually imagined was running his teeth over the black velvet of that stupid heart-shaped patch. He was manifestly losing his mind.
Kit was usually very good at controlling this sort of urge. Hopping into bed with attractive strangers had never appealed to him very much anyway. It always seemed like a lot of hassle and risk for pleasure that never quite lived up to one’s expectations. And that was with women; with men, things were even more complicated because a heaping great dose of danger was thrown into the bargain. And while Kit was far from averse to danger, he didn’t want it in his bed. The fact was that he was spoiled by knowing what it was like to love someone and be loved in return; he knew what it felt like to want to be with someone in bed but also build a future with them. Anything other than that seemed too dismal to consider.
Although, strictly speaking, he still wasn’t considering it. What he had in mind didn’t involve any bed at all, just this counter and a bit of ingenuity. It would be easy—all he had to do was clear the shop, bolt the door, and draw the curtains. Percy seemed like he’d be game—had spent the last fortnight making as much clear to anyone with eyes and ears. Now his lips were parted, and at this close distance Kit could see his pulse coming hot and fast beneath the lace of his collar.
“Pardon me, Mr. Webb,” said a small voice. Kit looked up to see Flora holding a coffee cup in one hand and her Bible in the other. “May I trouble you for a cloth? I’m afraid I spilled my coffee all over the table and now the book is quite soaked. It was my mother’s,” she said, opening the sodden flyleaf to expose a page of smeared ink. There were tears in her eyes, and her voice had a dangerous wobble.
It was as if the girl’s words freed Kit from whatever godforsaken spell he was under. He handed her a clean cloth and showed her how to press it between the damp pages to absorb the worst of the spill. The book wasn’t badly damaged after all, and Kit more than suspected that Flora’s tears—and possibly the spill itself—had been engineered for Percy’s benefit. When he looked up, he expected to see Percy and wondered whether the man would have caught on to what was happening. But when he raised his head, Percy was gone.
Chapter 10
With a great deal of effort and the unfortunate necessity of breaking into an unbecoming sweat, Percy managed to get back to Clare House, wash his face, change into drab clothes, and return to Webb’s coffeehouse before it closed for the evening. The serving girl hadn’t been there that afternoon, and Percy wanted to see if her absence changed Webb’s routine at all. Without Betty to walk home, might Mr. Webb actually do something interesting?
Percy knew he was close to getting Webb to agree. He had to be. Percy had seen it in his eyes that afternoon. All he needed was a push, and maybe tonight Percy could get an idea about exactly what might make that happen.
Percy watched from the shadows across the street as Webb stepped outside and locked the door, accompanied by the pretty red-haired woman who had been in the shop earlier that day. Percy hadn’t been paying her any attention at the time, and his memory supplied only a lacy white cap, a demurely cut gown, and a coffee-soaked Bible. A prostitute, no doubt, but the way Webb led her through the streets was how Percy imagined a man might walk with a niece—faintly gallant but no hint of anything sexual.
Gladhand Jack had a reputation for gallantry, in fact. At least two stanzas of that idiotic ballad were devoted to his chivalry, not that Percy had seen any evidence of it in person, unless grumbles were considered particularly charming. But the ladies he robbed returned home safe and sound with tales of how Gladhand Jack allowed them to keep some favorite bauble. The husbands, needless to say, had no such tales to tell, only empty purses and a disrupted journey. Even a highwayman who fancied men—as Webb plainly did—would likely not flirt with the men he robbed, although Percy was quite certain he could while away a pleasant afternoon daydreaming about getting held up by Kit Webb, with those dark eyes and big hands.
Before he could get too carried away, Webb and the girl stopped before a building Percy recognized but had never entered. The place was a famous brothel, easily one of London’s most expensive and exclusive. Webb saw the girl inside, and no sooner had Percy congratulated himself on correctly identifying her as a prostitute than Webb descended the steps, returning in the direction from whence he came and heading straight for Percy.
It was too late to avoid Webb, so Percy ducked his head, relying on the down-turned brim of his hat, his plain attire, and the nearly moonless night to conceal his identity. He thought he had succeeded when Webb seemed prepared to walk right past him. Just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Webb looped his arm through Percy’s, spinning him so they were walking in the same direction, and led him into a side street with so little fuss that no passersby would have noticed anything amiss. Percy was almost impressed.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve followed me. Who the hell are you?” Webb demanded. The street they stood in was little more than a lane, one of those narrow passageways that seemed to exist only to confuse strangers and to provide natives a series of expedient shortcuts. It was hardly wide enough for a single cart, with the result that it was mostly shadows. It had the air—and odor—of a place seldom frequented by anyone other than feral cats.
“Haven’t we already had this conversation once today?” Percy answered. “Let’s not be tedious, Mr. Webb.”
Webb’s eyes widened, and Percy realized his error. Webb hadn’t recognized Percy as the man from the coffeehouse; he had recognized Percy as the person who had already followed him several times. But now Percy watched as realization dawned in Webb’s eyes. He stared searchingly into Percy’s face, as if looking for traces of the man from the coffeehouse, then dropped his gaze, taking in Percy’s plain and utilitarian
attire.
“Which is the disguise?” he asked flatly, and of all the questions in the world, Percy couldn’t have expected that one.
“This is,” Percy answered.
Webb shook his head. “Unless my source is wrong, and she never is, there isn’t any Edward Percy among the quality.” He pronounced the last word with an acid irony that was not lost on Percy. He was, of course, correct: there was no Edward Percy among the quality. There was an Edward Talbot, but when Talbot was stripped away, he’d be left with his mother’s maiden name. Percy shrugged.
“Who is your father?” Webb continued.
This, fortunately, was a much more straightforward matter. “The Duke of Clare.”
Percy had expected Webb to scoff, to express skepticism or to demand proof. He hadn’t expected Webb to go so pale that his colorlessness was obvious even in the scant moonlight. “The Duke of Clare,” he repeated, raking his gaze over Percy’s face again. But now he looked not curious so much as horrified. “What’s your given name?” he asked. “And don’t fucking lie to me.”
“I told you already. It’s Edward, but nobody calls me that because my family is lousy with Edwards. And honestly, everyone calls me Holland anyway—”
Percy might have kept babbling indefinitely if he weren’t silenced by the blow of a fist colliding with his jaw.
Chapter 11
Percy—no, Lord Holland, damn him—spit out a mouthful of blood with astounding delicacy. “I take it you’re not one of my father’s more ardent supporters, then,” he said, voice too steady and too wry for a man who had just been assaulted in a dark alley by a known criminal. “Well, neither am I, come to that. See, we’re going to get along splendidly.”
“Shut up, you,” Kit said, because he couldn’t decide what to do next, and the sound of Holland’s voice and the sight of blood on his split lip was making it impossible for him to hear himself think.
The Queer Principles of Kit Webb Page 5