Percy had always known that he would need to marry. As his father’s only son, he had a pressing need for an heir. He had never questioned it, and, if things had gone according to plan, he would at some point in the next year have married a suitable woman and done what was needful. Now, however, it would be unthinkable to marry. He could hardly wed a woman who thought she was marrying the future Duke of Clare but who instead turned out to be a penniless bastard. He already knew he couldn’t offer a wife a love match; to also deprive her of title and fortune was outright villainy.
“In case you had not noticed, you are still the only son I have,” the duke ground out.
Percy nearly said that he damned well hoped he was, because all this situation needed was the arrival of a French peasant on the scene claiming to be the rightful heir to the dukedom. Instead, he stirred some sugar into his tea. “Quite right,” he said, and enjoyed the confusion and disappointment that passed over his father’s face. Percy realized that the duke had been longing for a quarrel that morning and had picked a fight with Percy simply because he was near at hand.
For years he had regarded his father as a casual sort of nemesis, one who had no real power to harm him. But it occurred to him now that as soon as news of his illegitimacy was public and he was no longer heir apparent to the dukedom, he’d not only lose whatever protection he had as a wealthy and titled man, but he’d also open himself up to attack from his father. The duke could see to it that Percy was arrested, pilloried, locked away in the sort of asylum that existed to hide family members with inconvenient or unpleasant proclivities. Once the duke had no obligation to treat Percy as his heir, Percy would be vulnerable in a way he never had been before.
Percy rose to his feet, having lost all interest in verbal combat. “Perhaps you or your secretary could furnish me with a list of acceptable wives,” he said, casting one last look at his untouched breakfast. He hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the previous night and now he was famished. But even as he formed the thought, he remembered Kit giving him coffee and dry biscuits, catching him as he drunkenly tripped, covering him with a blanket. The memory was unwanted, a discordantly tender intrusion into a moment that required Percy to operate without any blunted edges. “Good day, Father, Marian.”
When he climbed the stairs and reached his bedroom, he paused for a moment with his back against the closed door. Percy had never had an actual enemy and he had never before faced real danger. It felt disturbingly apt, as if he had been born to this. He recalled his Talbot forebears whose grim faces lined the portrait gallery at Cheveril Castle and thought that quite possibly he had been born to this. Talbots were made for war and enmity. They let those with weaker blood have their easy peacetime delights.
If Percy were honest with himself, easy peacetime delights sounded grand. He’d much rather be planning a garden party than a felony. He’d much rather not plan anything at all, and just while away his days drinking coffee and reading books, and if that brought to mind Webb’s coffeehouse, it was just further proof that his mind was addled and his priorities askew.
He took out his whetstone and sharpened his sword.
Chapter 19
When Kit woke, stiff necked and muddle headed, in the hard chair by the fire and noticed that Percy had gone, his first thought was disappointment, followed quickly by horror that he regretted the man’s absence. He ought to be pleased that Percy was out of his hands, back where he belonged. He ought to hope that Percy never showed his face again.
Instead, Kit had to admit that he had . . . not minded Percy’s presence the previous night. He had even enjoyed it, enjoyed the man’s drunken chatter as much as he enjoyed his sober chatter. He had found it surprisingly satisfying to put Percy to bed, to know he was keeping Percy safe. It had been a long time since Kit had taken care of anyone, since anybody had needed him, and he found that he missed it. He didn’t think of himself as a particularly nurturing person; God knew taking care of Hannah hadn’t come naturally, and look how badly that had turned out. After Jenny had been taken away, Kit hadn’t been fit to look after a cat, let alone his sickly, motherless daughter. Looking after the adult heir to a dukedom after a night of drunkenness was hardly the same thing, even though it prodded that same old place in Kit’s heart.
Kit’s heart, frankly, needed to sod off.
When Betty warned him against letting his feelings get tangled up in this job, she had been talking about anger, resentment, and vengeance. She teased him about being weak for a pretty face, but neither of them really thought that he’d care about the fucker. And Kit didn’t care about him—it was just that tucking him into bed and keeping him safe had tricked his mind into thinking he gave a damn. That was all.
He brought the blanket and pillow upstairs before Betty could come in and ask unwelcome questions, then made sure he rinsed out the cup Percy used and put everything to rights.
Still, when Betty walked in, she narrowed her eyes, swept her gaze across the room, and stared at Kit. “You look shifty,” she said.
“No, I don’t,” he said immediately, and, he quickly realized, unhelpfully. “What do I have to be shifty about?” he added.
She only shook her head.
“It’s not natural,” he said as he set out the coffee. “You’re twenty years old. You shouldn’t be able to look so disappointed. There are grandmothers who would envy that expression.”
“The trick is that I really am disappointed,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. He threw a coffee bean at her head. “Also, I have practice being disappointed in every small-time pickpocket who thinks I’m going to be bothered to fence a single teaspoon or a pair of handkerchiefs. My face does disappointment very naturally now.”
She spoke with an air of pride that belied her words. Kit knew that she liked her work—liked having taken over from her father, liked solving the puzzle of how to dispose of stolen goods without them ever being traced back to her, the thief, or the original owner, and liked being at the center of things. It made him miss his old work more than ever. Maybe it was good, he thought, that Percy had come to him when he did.
Even as he formed the thought, he knew it was nonsense. He was getting different kinds of want mixed up in his mind—the old urge for revenge, the need for excitement, the seeds of desire he felt for Percy. All those wants were met in this one job, and that was making it hard to think clearly. That was all. The stirrings of—it was distressing to realize that tenderness was the only applicable word—he had felt the previous night were only the wisps of desire that clung to everything he forbade himself.
But perhaps it was time for some insurance. That evening, after bringing Betty home, he went to Scarlett’s. The door was opened this time not by Flora but by another girl. He was shown to an unoccupied parlor, where he waited several minutes for Scarlett to arrive.
“Twice in as many weeks,” Scarlett said when she entered. “I’m a lucky woman.”
“You’ll soon change your mind, because I’m here for another favor.”
She looked neither pleased nor surprised. “Well, make it fast, and I’ll forgive you.”
“The man I asked you about, Edward Percy?”
“The man who doesn’t exist.”
“He’s the Duke of Clare’s son and heir, Lord Holland.”
Something passed over Scarlett’s face. He had known her for nearly ten years, had been what he’d call friends with her for most of that time, but had seldom seen her face express anything outside the narrow range between mild consternation and mild pleasure. But now she looked shocked. It lasted only a moment, but it had happened, and Kit had seen it.
He was put in mind of Percy, who had the same outward impassivity, the same ability to hide his feelings. They were both so accustomed to deceit that they schooled their expressions as a matter of course. When the mask dropped, it meant something.
Kit’s only question was whether she was surprised to learn Percy’s identity, or whether she was surprised that Kit knew.
> “Of course,” she said. “They all do call him Percy. I ought to have made the connection. And—good God—he’s the one who wants to hire you to rob someone. He knows who you are. This is all most unfortunate.”
“Do you know him?” Kit asked, trying not to betray his eagerness to know the answer. He needn’t have bothered, because she didn’t so much as look at him.
“He’s never been here,” she said.
Kit almost laughed. “I gathered that he wasn’t likely to be among your customers.”
Now she looked at Kit shrewdly. “Did you, now?”
He swallowed. “He hardly makes a secret of it.”
“I see. To answer your question, no, I don’t know him. He went to one of the usual schools, then idled about town for a while before traveling through Europe for two years. He returned earlier this autumn but has seldom been seen in society since then.”
Kit might have thought this an impressive amount of information for Scarlett to have at the tip of her tongue—especially about a man who wasn’t even among her clientele—if he hadn’t seen her perform the same feat many times over the years.
“Is he cruel to his servants? Does he fail to pay his bills?” Kit dearly wanted any information that would kill his desire for the man.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Come, Scarlett. There has to be something unpleasant you’ve heard.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “Why do you want to know?”
“Why do you care? Maybe I want to rob him and am looking for proof that he deserves a comedown.”
“You aren’t, though.”
“Please, Scarlett.”
“He doesn’t get on with his father. They’re faultlessly civil in public, but they quarrel like the Furies at home. Holland’s mother died while he was away on the Continent. Everyone’s first thought was that the duke had finally killed her, but in fact she was carried off by a cancer. Disappointing to gossips, but reassuring to friends of Her Grace. Almost immediately, the duke married Lord Holland’s childhood playmate, Lady Marian Hayes, the only daughter of a doddering old fool of a nobleman whose property abuts the Duke of Clare’s Oxfordshire estate. She and her brother were educated at home with Holland until the young gentlemen went away to school. She gave birth to a daughter shortly before Lord Holland’s return to England.”
“The duke’s marriage was not, I take it, a love match.”
“It might have been.” Scarlett smoothed her skirt. “The duke is still handsome and widely considered to be one of the most charming men in London, not to mention rich and a duke. I’ve heard that he can be very winning.”
Kit could not care less whether the duke’s manners were winning. “Tell me more about the son.”
“Lord Holland is Edward Talbot, commonly known as Percy. His mother was Lady Isabelle Percy, the only child of the Earl of Westmore and the last of that line of Percys. She, and everyone else, called her son Percy.”
Kit waved this information away. “Any notorious love affairs? Mistreated servants? Anything.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “I never would have thought of you as a blackmailer.”
“I’m not,” Kit said a little too defensively.
“Oh,” said Scarlett, drawing in a sharp breath. “I see. You want me to put you off him.”
“I don’t—”
“You’re in danger of liking the man.” She regarded him with wide, astonished eyes. “Well, I never thought you’d be in danger of becoming fond of a lord.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It had better not be. You want me to put you off him? How’s this. The heir to the Duke of Clare will be one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. How do you think things usually turn out for people like us who get involved with men like them? Hmm?”
“Scarlett, you’re involved with men like them every day.”
“I take their money and their secrets. They take nothing of mine. Nothing, Kit. I’ve known you since you were little more than a boy, and you don’t have what it takes to hold back the parts of yourself that matter. Stay away from Holland and his father.”
Kit opened his mouth to protest and then realized that Scarlett had given him exactly what he had asked for: a reason not to like Percy. The fact that he wanted to argue with her was not a good sign.
Chapter 20
Percy frowned at his reflection in the cheval glass.
“If my lord could explain precisely where he intends to go in this . . . attire,” Collins said, his voice wavering on that last word, as if he couldn’t be certain that Percy was in fact wearing clothing rather than being garbed in the stuff of Collins’s personal nightmares, “then perhaps I could be of some assistance.”
“I’m going to a new fencing studio,” Percy lied. “One that abides by slightly different, ah, règles du combat.” If he was going to spend a few hours getting knocked onto the floor of Kit’s back room, then he wanted an extra layer of fabric against his skin. His buckskin riding breeches would do, but his riding coat wouldn’t allow him nearly enough range of movement in his arms. He raided the attics and came up with a short-waisted sleeveless jerkin made of soft black leather, which fastened with buttons all the way up to the neck. Worn over a plain linen shirt, it would give him more protection than an ordinary waistcoat.
“If I may say,” said Collins, an edge of panic creeping into his voice, “the pairing of brown buckskin with black leather is not a choice I would have expected of your lordship.”
“It’s very bad,” Percy agreed. “And we haven’t even got to the matter of shoes.” He planned to wear his oldest, softest, and least-presentable boots. Paired with the riding breeches and the old-fashioned jerkin, the effect would be bizarre.
Bizarre, but not exactly unflattering, despite the lamentable looseness of his buckskins. He tied his hair into a queue, and remembered the sound of Kit’s voice the other night. I’ve never seen you with your hair down, he had said, as if Percy had been keeping a secret from him. He took the tie out of his hair. Then he put it back again. There was vanity, and then there was lunacy.
Collins whimpered in protest.
“Nobody will recognize me,” Percy assured him. “It’s been years since anybody who knows me has seen me with a bare head and clean face.” Other than Kit, that was. “Your professional honor will not be sullied. However,” he added, thinking that Collins was due a concession, “a new pair of buckskins—fitted this time—and a new pair of boots would not go amiss.”
Collins seemed slightly mollified, and Percy proceeded down the stairs. Then, realizing he had forgotten something, he dashed back up to his bedchamber, where he found Collins waiting with a tricorn hat in his outstretched hand.
“Thank you,” Percy said, grabbing the hat and pulling it low over his brow.
“I thought my lord would wish to wear a hat that complemented none of his other garments, so as to keep with the theme of discordance,” Collins intoned.
“Yes, yes,” Percy called over his shoulder as he left. “Thank you!”
He went to Kit’s on foot, avoiding the main thoroughfares, and arrived an hour before the shop was due to close. He seated himself at the end of the long table he had come to think of as his own. It was Kit who spotted him first, and Percy had the satisfaction of watching Kit scan the room, pass over Percy, and then dart back to him, studying his face, dropping lower over the rest of him.
He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, aware that its color and lack of powder made it conspicuous, and also aware that Kit was watching him.
Betty was on the other side of the shop, so Percy assumed he’d have a while to wait for his coffee. But Kit brought a cup after only a few minutes, placing it on the table without any audible resentment.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” Kit said. “You left without a word.”
Percy paused with the coffee cup halfway to his mouth. He hadn’t thought the circumstances warranted a formal leave-taking. He
had woken up on Kit’s floor, covered by a blanket, a pillow somehow having found its way under his throbbing head. Kit himself was asleep in a nearby chair, his head resting on a table atop his folded arms. Percy had been badly hungover and even more badly embarrassed.
Percy didn’t get drunk. He certainly didn’t drunkenly call on people. That was not only beneath his dignity, it was vastly imprudent.
But he had shown up here, and Kit had listened to him ramble and then put him to bed right in front of the hearth.
Percy wasn’t sure whether to apologize or to leave. Or, maybe, to hide under the table until he was certain he could fight off the blush that threatened to creep up his cheeks. One of the many advantages of face powder was that it concealed his lamentable tendency to blush.
He swallowed. “If today is a bad day for a lesson, I’ll come back another time.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Assuming your offer still stands.” He dabbed at his mouth with his handkerchief. “Why do you not have proper table linens? All the better coffeehouses have serviettes and tablecloths.”
“Odd that you think I give a damn about running a coffeehouse for people who want tablecloths.”
“How silly of me,” Percy conceded. “What can I have been thinking. I hadn’t realized that wiping one’s mouth on one’s sleeve was something radicals enjoyed.”
A moment passed during which all Percy could hear was the din of conversation and the rattle of cups in saucers, and somehow, over all of it, the pointless pounding of his heart.
“Are you always like this?” Kit asked.
“That depends on what you mean by this,” Percy said.
The Queer Principles of Kit Webb Page 10