Page 31 of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
“Is that a compliment?” Percy’s voice was light, but Kit thought there was a hidden weight to his question.
“You’re a good fighter. You use your brain and your body.” Kit felt slightly lewd saying body, as if he weren’t supposed to have noticed that Percy had a body at all. Kit wondered what would happen if he admitted that he had been half hard the entire time Percy had sparred with the errand boy the previous week.
“Huh,” Percy said, faintly surprised and a touch embarrassed, like he didn’t quite believe Kit. Which was ridiculous, because surely Percy, inexperienced as he was, knew he was competent. It was almost as if he wasn’t used to praise.
“There isn’t much more I can teach you,” Kit admitted.
“Ah. We won’t be doing this anymore?” Percy asked. For a moment Kit thought he heard a trace of disappointment in the other man’s voice, but that couldn’t be right. The Duke of Clare’s son surely had many more interesting things to do with his time.
And yet—he had been coming to Kit’s nearly every day, sometimes hours earlier than necessary. And when he finished here, if he was anything like Kit, then he was probably in no condition for anything more trying than a hot bath.
All of which made Kit wonder when Percy found the time tobe Lord Holland. When did he find time for dinners and trips to the theater and whatever else gentlemen did with themselves. There were lords and ladies who had to be wondering where Lord Holland was.
And all the while, Lord Holland was here, in a dirty and badly lit room, sharing cheap ale with a criminal. Kit turned his head, resting his temple on the cool wall behind him. He was facing Percy now, their noses only a few inches apart. There was no possibility that this man would miss Kit’s company, was there? It was laughable. Risible. Kit should be embarrassed for even thinking of it.
Percy liked the looks of him and seemed to enjoy trying to make him blush with wry insinuations and a sort of one-sided flirtation that Kit did nothing to discourage. But wanting to ogle somebody—hell, wanting to fuck somebody—wasn’t the same as deliberately spending all one’s time with them.
They were so close together. Kit could hear every soft exhale from Percy’s lips, could smell his scent of clean sweat, lemony soap, and leather. The hair around his face had come loose from his queue and now curled damply around his temples. Kit badly wanted to tuck it behind his ears.
It wasn’t only Percy who was choosing to spend all his time with Kit—Kit was ready to drop everything as soon as Percy walked in the door. He caught himself putting aside the buns with the most currants and the cakes with the heaviest dusting of sugar, and then casually putting the dish within reach of Percy’s coffee cup as if by accident. Every day he looked forward to Percy’s arrival with a complicated blend of hope and confusion, which was complicated even further by the fact that when he looked at Percy, he saw Percy’s father’s face.
He felt like he had betrayed himself, had betrayed his family. He tried to imagine what Jenny would say if she could see him now, if she knew he was wondering what might happen if he leaned forward and ran his tongue along the plump lower lip of the Duke of Clare’s son.
He thought of all the graves the Duke of Clare had put in the ground, thought of all the love and care and hope he had buried.
What did it mean that he could forget all that? Or, if not forget it, then shove it out of sight.
“Well?” Percy said. “Does that mean we’re not going to be doing this anymore?” He gestured around them, as if Kit needed the reminder about what they were doing here. And maybe he did.
“Yes,” Kit said. “We won’t be doing this anymore.”
It didn’t matter whether Percy looked disappointed.
Chapter24
Percy sat on the floor of the antechamber of his apartments at Clare House, his swords on the carpet before him, the morning sun glinting off their freshly polished blades. Carefully he wrapped the weapons in soft leather and put them in the bag he had stored them in while traveling around the Continent. He slung the strap of the bag over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of himself in the cheval glass.
The problem was that he looked too much like himself. He wore the same outfit he had worn to spar with Kit. He didn’t look anything like a gentleman—what gentleman would go about bareheaded, let alone even consider wearing anything so outlandish—but he didn’t want to run the risk of being identified as Lord Holland.
What he really wanted was a beauty patch. A stupid littlemouche, right under his eye, would alter the shape of his face enough. But a patch would be all wrong with all this leather—he was trying to be fearsome, not foppish.
“Collins,” he said slowly, “what do actors use to create warts and scars?”
In the mirror, he saw his valet go pale and clutch his chest. Hewas not taking this turn of events as stoically as Percy might have hoped. “Give me an hour,” he said faintly. “And I’ll see what I can do.”
An hour and fifteen minutes later, Percy had a scar the length of his hand, reaching from the outside corner of one eye to the edge of his mouth. It was pink and ragged and proclaimed that this was a man who didn’t give a fig about getting maimed. It was perfect.
“All right,” he said. “I’m off to disgrace myself.”
It was, he thought as he approached the scaffold in Covent Garden, not the most foolhardy thing he had ever done. That honor went to approaching a highwayman to assist him in committing a capital crime with his own father as victim. It would take a lot to surpass himself.
He walked up to the man who looked like he was in charge—or at least the man who was in charge of money, based on the pouch of coins he held closed in his fist.
“How do I join the fun?” Percy asked, realizing too late that he ought to have disguised his voice, or at least his accent. But the false scar tugged at his mouth and gave his speech a slightly clipped quality, so there was that.
The man looked him up and down, then regarded the sword Percy wore at his hip and the dagger sheathed beside it.
“Wait over there,” he said, gesturing with his chin at a group of men Percy gathered were the other combatants. “You can go first.”
