Page 33 of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
“It doesn’t fucking matter,” Brannigan said. “Next fight, make it last.”
Brannigan’s words were still ringing in his ears as he started the next match, this time against a grizzled man who had to be twice his age.
The problem was that Percy didn’t know how to make a fight drag out longer than strictly necessary. He knew how to be ruthless, efficient, and spare. He didn’t know how to be entertaining.
Now he felt foolish for having thought he could take his one talent and use it to earn money. He was utterly unfit for earning a living. He didn’t know how to take a skill that he sometimes thought might be an art and make it into something fit for theconsumption of—he let his attention get drawn to the crowd—rabble. Frankly, they didn’t deserve it. This was all profoundly beneath him, and he shouldn’t be here in the first place.
That was when his opponent’s blade got him, right in the meat of his upper arm.
Chapter25
Kit had long ago learned to trust his instincts. When something nameless and frightened in his gut told him to halt, he halted. He knew from experience that a vague suspicion that things were not what they ought to be was often founded in some small, hidden truth.
For weeks now, he woke in the mornings with a sense of something left undone. He went to sleep only after limping downstairs and checking for the third, fourth, fifth time that the bolts were fastened, the windows closed, the fire safely banked. He walked Betty home every night, and every morning he paced the floors until she arrived safely.
He listened in at the whispered conversations that took place in the darker corners of the shop. Outside, he watched for tails and kept a hand on his dagger.
He asked Scarlett if something was brewing, and she had looked at him with eyes that seemed older these days and sighed. “Something’s always brewing,” she said, impassive as ever. “You know this.”
He didn’t tell Betty anything, because he didn’t need to. Shehad one eye on him all day lately. She watched him like a pot about to spill over.
“It’s your gentleman,” Betty said. “Something’s wrong there, and always has been. Hire a highwayman to pick your da’s pocket? Rubbish. Hire a highwayman who happens to have every reason to toss your da to the wolves?Fuckingrubbish.”
“I know,” he said, because what else could he say? They both knew that Kit’s sense of watchful unease had been steadily increasing from the first time Percy walked through the door. He wanted to tell Betty that he trusted Percy, but he didn’t. How could he? He hoped Percy wasn’t idiot enough to trust him, either. He didn’t trust Percy, but he believed him in a narrow, fragile way. He believed that Percy needed that book; he believed the loss of the book would harm the Duke of Clare. That was all he needed. As for the rest of it, he could look out for himself.
The notion that he shouldn’t trust a lord wasn’t even interesting, certainly not enough to make him wary. And he didn’t trust Percy, not even in those quiet moments after sparring, when they both let their guard down a little, when they sat against the wall, tired and satisfied. That wasn’t trust; it simply couldn’t be. The Percy who existed in those moments was a person Kit grudgingly had to admit he was more or less fond of. But that didn’t mean he liked who Percy was in the rest of his life, let alone trusted him. The fact that it felt like trust, felt in his heart like something that mattered, like something he could count on—that he would just have to ignore.
It was only that he needed to keep reminding himself of that, which was something he really shouldn’t need to do. It ought to be obvious, and it wasn’t, and Kit didn’t like what that meant.
He was getting ready to close the shop, watching the minute hand move on the tall casement clock until it was a reasonable time to kick out the few remaining stragglers, and trying to pretend to himself that he wasn’t disappointed that the day had passed without Percy stopping by. The sun had set, and the only light in the shop came from the hearth and the handful of oil lamps and candles that were scattered around the room. In an effort to encourage the last customers to leave, he began snuffing the candles one by one.
When the door opened, letting in a gust of cold air, Kit turned, ready to send away whoever thought this was a decent hour to get coffee. The man was entirely in shadows, was nothing but a dark silhouette against an even darker background.
This was it, Kit thought. This was the danger he had been waiting for. One hand went to the knife at his hip; the other grasped the handle of his walking stick even more tightly.
But then the man tilted his head and a beam of light glinted off a strand of hair that was visible beneath the brim of his hat. The hair was a pale gold, and Kit took a step forward.
“I hate to impose,” said a thin, precise voice.
“Percy,” Kit said. He didn’t recall rushing to Percy’s side, didn’t quite know how he got past the tables and benches that stood between him and the door, but there he was.
He couldn’t have said how he knew something was wrong. Maybe it was that Percy was leaning against the door frame instead of standing with the sort of posture that more than once Kit thought must have been whipped into him. Maybe it was just that he didn’t walk in as if he owned the place.
“What’s the matter?” Kit asked. And then, over his shoulder, “We’re closed, lads. Out you go. Faster!” He put a hand on Percy’sarm, not sure if he had ever touched the man when they weren’t fighting. Percy flinched, but not before Kit felt the wet warmth under his fingertips. “Fuck,” he muttered.
Percy stepped aside to make way for the customers to leave, and Kit bolted the door behind them.
“What happened to you?” Kit asked.
“It’s only a minor injury,” Percy said, the faintness of his voice giving the lie to his statement.
With a hand at the small of his back, Kit led Percy to the chair before the fire. “Take off that coat.”
When Percy complied, dropping an oddly shaped sack to the floor beside him, Kit saw that he was wearing the same clothes he wore to spar in the back room. As he was trying to puzzle out why that would be the case, he got distracted by the blood that soaked the top of Percy’s sleeve.
“Were you attacked?” Kit asked, even though he didn’t think Percy was foolish enough to fight off armed footpads. Although—hadn’t Kit been teaching him to do almost precisely that? Perhaps Percy decided to put his lessons to the test.
“Not exactly,” Percy said, his voice strained. “I think it’s only a scratch. I’m just—I’m not particularly good with blood, and I thought to myself, Percy, you know a man who will know just what to do with a bit of a gash.”
