But none of that was true anymore. He had known as much for months, but he felt that he had to learn it again and again. Marian seemed to have assimilated the truth into her life in one fell swoop, but Percy was repeatedly shocked to rediscover who he was, and who he wasn’t.
“Oxfordshire,” he said faintly, and felt Kit’s eyes on him. Then he felt the gentle pressure of Kit’s foot against his own. He hadn’t told Kit about the precise nature of his predicament, of course, but perhaps Kit had inferred that a man who wished to rob his father at gunpoint might have a welter of confused sentiments about a good number of things, including his home. Or perhaps Kit simply knew Percy well enough to know when he was distressed.
Percy pressed back against Kit’s foot, to let him know the sympathy was appreciated.
Miss Jennings turned her attention to the Bible she held open on her lap. When she caught him looking, she smiled shyly at him. “This was my mother’s,” she said.
Percy did not know if this passed as normal conversation for commoners, or for prostitutes, or if the girl was attempting to engage him in what she assumed was decent conversation. “How lovely for you,” he said. “One does like to have a memento of one’s mother.”
Miss Jennings looked altogether too pleased with Percy’s answer, though. Percy wondered if this was an attempt at social climbing.
When they arrived at the village, all four disembarked. Percy escorted Miss Jennings and her maid to her aunt’s cottage while Kit arranged for the horses and coachman to be fed at the nearest inn. Miss Jennings safely deposited at the house of her aunt, Percy walked to the inn, where he found Kit waiting for him.
“They’re saddling a pair of hacks for us,” Kit said, shoving a pint of ale across the table for Percy.
Percy wiped the seat off with his handkerchief and sat. “What exactly is your relationship with Miss Jennings? I thought she was an, ah, aspiring courtesan.”
“And so she is. Do you know Mistress Scarlett’s establishment?”
Percy raised his eyebrows. “I followed you there, if you recall.”
“It’s run by an old friend. Flora works for her.”
“Do you typically escort ladies of the night around the countryside?” Percy asked, knowing already that Kit was not in the habit of doing anything so interesting.
“I needed an excuse to go to Hampstead Heath in a carriage because I can’t ride that distance anymore. And Scarlett was quite insistent.”
“I’m certain that she’s very talented at getting men to accede to her wishes,” Percy remarked.
Kit snorted and took a sip of his ale. “She’s just an old friend,” he said, and Percy wasn’t sure if it was his imagination that Kit’s words were meant to allay Percy’s suspicions. Not that Percy had any suspicions—Kit was free to consort with however many brothel keepers he pleased.
“I’ve never taken a courtesan to visit her aunt, nor have I ever surveyed potential scenes to stage robberies,” Percy murmured, leaning across the table so only Kit would hear. “This is a day of many new and fascinating experiences for me.”
He stayed that way, his forearms resting on the table, his forehead inches from Kit’s own, and watched Kit’s lips curl in a smile.
Good God, but the man was easy to look at. He clearly made no effort whatsoever with his appearance and probably never had, which made Percy both faintly jealous and peculiarly aroused. He looked like he had slept in those clothes, then rolled out of bed and into his boots, and still Percy wanted to crawl into his lap. There was the ever-present stubble darkening his jaw, and the hair that refused to stay in the queue where it belonged. Even Kit’s shabby old tricorn, which looked like it had been run over by a stagecoach and then taken part in a shipwreck, somehow looked alluring in a disreputable way.
Percy knew he was leering. In fact, he knew he spent a shocking portion of his time around Kit ogling the man. He might have stopped if Kit didn’t do it right back. Kit was doing it that very minute, in fact, shooting furtive little glances at Percy’s mouth, then his hands, then his neck.
He expected Kit to throw back his drink and stand up, but instead he stayed where he was.
“I wonder,” Kit said, in that rasp of a voice that made Percy want to moan, “if you’re ever going to tell me what it is you’re hoping to steal from your father. What kind of book is this?”
Percy frowned. Discussing his father was certainly one way to dampen his ardor. He thought of the girl’s Bible, and remembered what his cousin had said about the Bible being the only book the late duchess had carried around. “Perhaps I’m only looking for a memento of my mother. Does it matter?”
“Not especially,” Kit admitted. “But maybe you’ll tell me anyway.”
“Maybe I will,” Percy said. For a moment he let himself imagine what it might be like to be the sort of man who took people into his confidence. He had been trained to keep his secrets close to his chest, though, and didn’t know how to do anything else. But he let himself imagine what it would be like if he and Kit were at this inn, sharing a meal and sharing confidences, not plotting and scheming.
“Maybe you won’t,” Kit said, still not moving away, the half smile still present on his lips, as if he knew Percy would always be guarded and secretive and he didn’t expect otherwise.
“Maybe I won’t,” Percy agreed, feeling his own mouth curve in response. “Maybe I won’t.”
Chapter 27
The road hadn’t changed much in the past year, and Kit managed to get to the copse of trees he remembered without falling off his hired horse, so he was mightily pleased with himself. He would have been more pleased if he could have managed to ride the horse at a pace faster than a slow walk, and he would have been happier still if Percy hadn’t noticed, but he’d take what he could get.
“Find a tree where we can hitch the horses,” Kit said after Percy dismounted. As soon as Percy’s back was turned, Kit began the slow and awkward process of sliding off his horse. He managed to do it without falling on his arse, so he was counting that as yet another victory.
“What we want to do,” Kit said, after the horses were secured, “is find a place where we can see the road but stay hidden. Do you see that bend? That’s bloody perfect. It’s fucking gorgeous.” He grinned at Percy and found the other man looking at him with a slightly dazed expression.
“Gorgeous,” Percy echoed.
“Look at the road, not at me. Listen,” Kit said, as he heard the sounds of approaching hoofbeats. He pulled Percy behind a tree. Percy was wearing clothing that looked almost startlingly normal—no high-necked leather jerkins, no silk coats the color of hothouse flowers—so they’d have some camouflage. During the actual holdup, they’d have to do something about his hair. As it was, it caught too much light.
“Now,” Kit went on, leaning in so his mouth was close to Percy’s ear, “as the carriage rounds the bend, you can see it for a full ten seconds before they see you. That gives you time to get into the road and into position before they can draw weapons. You and whoever we hire—Tom, most likely—will stand in the road. The sniper—I have the name of an archer who does tricks at fairs—”
“An archer?” Percy repeated. “Isn’t that a bit theatrical? Why use a bow and arrow rather than a rifle?”
“Better aim. And quieter.”
“All right,” Percy said doubtfully.
“Anyway, she’ll be in the tree.”
“In the tree?” Percy repeated.
“In a tree, she can hide and also get a clear shot, and if she’s in a good position, she can see down the road in both directions and let you know if another carriage is approaching.” He could see it clearly in his mind and felt his blood sing with anticipation as the carriage approached. “One, two, three, and there. That’s where you step into the road and call out. You and Tom first take the weapons, then the valuables. Half a minute, that’s your goal.”
The carriage rattled along the road, around the bend and out of sight.
&nbs
p; “I thought we weren’t going to be shooting at anybody,” said Percy, who was evidently still caught up on the archer.
“She’s insurance.” Percy remained silent. “I told you not to waste my time or your own if you weren’t willing to hurt people,” Kit said.
“I know, I know. I’m just . . . readjusting my principles.”
“You’re doing what, now?”
Percy bit his lip and looked like he was searching for words. Kit had never known the man to have anything less than five dozen words at the tip of his tongue. “Well, before all this started,” he began, and Kit assumed “all this” was whatever had incited him to hire Kit, “I never really thought of myself as a particularly good person or a bad person, but I assumed I had to be at least slightly good. I carried on in the way things were always done. Comme il faut, just like everybody else.” He shot Kit a wry look. “In which ‘everybody else’ is people like me, of course. This was the natural order of things, you understand. One doesn’t steal from one’s father or endanger the lives of coachmen.” He swallowed. “But what I’m doing is right, in its own way, or at least it isn’t wholly wrong. It’s doing right by the people I care about, and if I can manage to pull this off properly, I’ll prevent a good deal of harm.”
Kit watched him. He had rather assumed that Percy’s goal was revenge, which was a good enough reason, as far as Kit cared. But he found that he wasn’t terribly surprised to find that there was more to it.
“In any event,” Percy went on, “what I had thought were principles were merely manners, and they’re utterly insufficient for my present circumstances. I keep running into information that makes me have to sort of reorganize everything in my brain. You know when you get a new book, you have to slide everything on your shelf over to accommodate it?” He seemed to remember who he was talking to and huffed out a laugh. “Of course you don’t. You just jam the new book in there helter-skelter. I’ve seen the state of your shelves. Sensible people, however, attempt to maintain order.”
Kit had the dizzying sense that Percy would get on well with Rob, of all people. They shared the same flexible understanding of right and wrong. Kit had never really questioned that stealing was wrong; Rob had always thought it was perfectly fine, if done for the right reasons, but Rob was a madman.
Percy evidently took Kit’s silence for disagreement. “I see that I’ve shocked you,” he said slowly, his eyes searching Kit’s face. “Was I supposed to say that I think we’re very bad men?”
Kit laughed, some combination of amusement and relief—although relief at what, he could not quite say—bubbling up inside him. “No,” he said, and then his hand was on Percy’s jaw. “It’s just that sometimes, you actually make sense. A man’s allowed to be shocked.” The words came out stupidly tender, an impression that was probably only compounded by the thing his thumb was doing to Percy’s cheekbone. He was afraid it was a caress, that he was actually caressing Lord Holland. Lord Holland who had made an argument for the virtues of crime, Lord Holland who was Percy, who maybe thought Kit wasn’t so bad—
He wasn’t sure which of them moved first to close the gap, but that was a lie because it was definitely Kit, it was definitely, lamentably Kit who put his hand to the back of Percy’s head and held it there very carefully when he leaned closer. He moved slowly, carefully, as if giving Percy a chance to think twice.
His hand slid into Percy’s hair at the same moment their lips met. It felt familiar—not the brush of lips over lips, not the fact that he thought Percy might actually be smiling—but everything else. The way their bodies fit together. The sound of Percy’s breathing. The way he smelled like lemons and soap. The sure grasp of his hand at Kit’s hip. All the fighting had made them familiar with one another’s bodies, and God knew they were used to wanting one another, so the only thing that was different was the actual fact of their mouths touching, the pure sensation of it.
And Percy was smiling, damn him. Kit could feel it with his own lips. It was probably that smug little smile that Kit really shouldn’t like half so much, and Kit was going to tell him to stop it, he really was, and that was why he opened his mouth. He got distracted by Percy’s teeth closing around Kit’s lower lip and biting down, not particularly gently. Kit gasped, like an idiot, like someone who needed to have the mechanics of kissing and possibly the anatomy of mouths explained to him, maybe with charts.
Percy licked into Kit’s mouth, and that was when Kit realized he wasn’t in charge of this kiss, not in the slightest. And that was good, but it was also like falling out a window, so he backed Percy up against a very conveniently located tree. He kept his hand at the back of Percy’s head, so he didn’t get hurt. Percy grabbed Kit’s hat and threw it to the ground. “In the way,” he muttered against Kit’s mouth, as if Kit needed an explanation, as if Kit gave a damn about hats, or anything that wasn’t Percy’s mouth.
Their bodies were flush against one another, and Kit was simultaneously relieved and embarrassed to discover that they were both hard. He felt like he ought to be cataloging all the ways this was different from kissing a woman, but it wasn’t, really. Not in any of the ways that mattered. He thought that he might be on the verge of some kind of profound revelation when Percy slid a leg between his own, and all Kit’s thoughts evaporated, only to be replaced by the finally, finally, finally that his heart seemed to say with every thumping beat.
Kit dragged his mouth away from Percy’s and began kissing his way down to the hinge of his jaw, then to the soft curve of his neck. He felt the flutter of Percy’s pulse beneath the thin skin there. He bit that spot, then gentled over it with his tongue. Percy groaned.
Kit pulled back to look at him, to take in the sight of Percy with his eyes half-closed and his lips swollen and wet, his cheeks red from rubbing against Kit’s stubble.
“I should stop,” Kit said.
“You should fuck me,” Percy countered. “You can, you know.”
There was something about Percy’s tone on those last words—prim, matter-of-fact—that made Kit feel slightly hysterical. He started to laugh.
“Oh, delightful,” Percy said. “Precisely what a man wants to hear in the middle of a tryst.” He shoved Kit half-heartedly with one palm.
“I can, can I?” Kit asked. “Christ. Everyone who’s spent more than a quarter of an hour at the coffeehouse over the past month knows I can. My God, you are a lot of things, but subtle isn’t one of them.”
“I am plenty subtle. Just not with you, because you’re clearly not a man who understands nuance. I take it you aren’t interested in fucking me.”
“I’m very interested,” Kit said with a helpful gesture toward his prick as corroborating evidence. “But we’re in the middle of the woods.”
“It’s really more of a stand of trees,” Percy said, hooking a finger into the top edge of Kit’s buckskins and tugging him close again.
“Oh, well, in that case.” Kit rolled his eyes.
“You have a spider the size of a duck egg living in your stairwell. I thought you’d feel quite at home.”
“We are not fucking and then getting on horseback,” he said firmly. “I have a bed.”
Percy’s counterargument was a slow, filthy kiss as he ground against Kit.
They were interrupted by the sound of hoofbeats and carriage wheels. Kit had nearly forgotten what they were doing there in the first place. He broke the kiss, pausing with his forehead against Percy’s as they caught their breath. “Your turn,” Kit said, gesturing at the road.
Stepping away from Kit, Percy peered out toward the road. “I would step out into the road at three, two, now.”
“Very good,” Kit said. “You’re a quick study.”
That made Percy go still, made the tips of his ears turn pink. “I try,” he said lightly but not meeting Kit’s eyes. They were a few steps away from one another now, and neither of them made any attempt to close the gap.
“That was really all I wanted to show you,” Kit said. “I wanted
you to see for yourself, so you can get a picture of it in your head when we plan out the next stage. The actual robbery won’t be here, of course, but somewhere nearer to Cheveril Castle.” He swallowed, and for a moment the only sound was the rustle of dry leaves in the surrounding trees and the call of a distant bird. “But the principle is the same.”
“I suppose we ought to be getting back,” Percy said, still not meeting Kit’s eyes.
Kit agreed and went to untie the horses. He glanced around for a tree stump or fallen log that he could use to mount the horse, annoyed that he hadn’t thought of that beforehand. He still wasn’t used to accounting for all the ways his abilities had changed since his injury, and was cross with himself for his lack of forethought.
“Here,” Percy said, making a cup out of his joined hands, as one would do to help a woman or a child mount a horse.
“I’m too heavy,” Kit said.
“Try me,” Percy said. And for lack of any better ideas, Kit did. He found that he wasn’t even surprised that Percy didn’t crumble under his weight. After he had a leg over the saddle, he felt Percy’s hands firmly grip his hips, steadying him. It ought to have been mortifying.
Maybe some of his thoughts showed on his face, because Percy squeezed his thigh. “Come on,” he said, mounting his horse and heading toward the road. Kit followed.
Chapter 28
The sun was setting by the time the carriage rolled to a stop in front of the coffeehouse. It hadn’t yet closed, and it occurred to Percy that they would have to wait some time before they did anything involving that bed Kit had promised.
The Queer Principles of Kit Webb Page 14