Page 43 of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
“This your people, Baron?” asked one of the men.
“Good heavens, no. God forbid,” Percy answered. “I’ll settle with the barman,” he told the table at large, then got to his feet and turned in the direction of the bar without acknowledging Kit. He continued to ignore Kit while he dropped an eye-watering amount of money on the bar, while he walked out the door into the dusky early evening, and while he continued across the square.
“What in hell did you think you were doing?” Kit growled, barely keeping up.
“Eating and—”
“The swords, Percy. I’m talking about the fact that apparently you like to risk your bloody neck in front of a crowd.”
“Yes, well, evidently I do,” Percy said, coming to a stop and reeling on Kit. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Do I— Yes, I damned well do have a problem with that.” Kit was almost inarticulate with helpless rage. He kept remembering the sword slicing through the air, inches away from Percy’s throat. He had the insane urge to pull back the man’s collar and check for wounds. “This is how you got hurt the other day! You let some blackguard—”
“Kindly lower your voice,” Percy said, taking hold of Kit’s sleeve and pulling him into a lane. Kit was put in mind of the last time they had been in a dark, secluded lane, when Kit had punched Percy. At the time, he had noticed that Percy seemed to know how to duck to avoid a hit, and now he bloody well knew why. He also knew why Percy seemed to know how to fight, even when he had hardly been able to make a proper fist.
“You don’t think that your talent with swords might have been useful information for me to have before I taught you to fight?”
“Why, Kit, you think I’m talented,” Percy said, regarding Kit through his lashes. “Thanks ever so.”
“You know bloody well how good you are, so save your breath. Why did I teach you to fistfight when you can use a knife and sword as well as any man I’ve ever seen? We could have had this robbery over and done with.”
Kit hadn’t realized how close they were standing until Percy drew back. “I do apologize for wasting your time, Kit. It had occurred to me that you might have been enjoying yourself, but now I see how silly I’ve been.”
“Don’t be like that. Come now.”
“Don’t be like what, exactly, Kit?” Percy asked, his eyes glittering with anger. “Annoyed that you’re being impossible? You never asked me if I knew how to fight with a sword. You may have noticed that every gentleman in this town wears a sword on his belt, but it didn’t occur to you that some of us know how to use them? You never asked me,” he repeated, “so how was I to know it was relevant? You just threw me in front of Betty and told me to hit her. I’ve never witnessed a highway robbery. I don’t know what they involve in terms of weaponry. That is why I came to you, if you recall. It was your bright idea to teach me to do it, so you can hardly blame me for not being able to read your stupid, stubborn mind.”
Kit was stunned by this volley of words. He wanted to defend himself by pointing out that any idiot could have understood that fighting of any variety would come in useful during a robbery, but he remembered how tentative and awkward Percy had been during their first lessons. He had been almost silent, for God’s sake. Kit remembered how willingly Percy had let Kit take his hands and make them into fists. He had put himself entirely in Kit’s hands, assuming himself to be an absolute novice.
“I apologize,” Kit said. “You’re right.”
“I—I beg your pardon?” Percy looked flustered. Color seemed to be creeping up his cheeks, barely visible in the half dark.
“I made too many assumptions. Do you have any other hidden talents? Knife throwing? Archery? I don’t know—juggling, perhaps?”
“Now you’re mocking me.”
“I’m not,” Kit said. “I’m really not. You looked—Christ—amazing up there, you know.”
“I’m well aware,” Percy sniffed, sounding slightly mollified. “I generally do.”
“That’s a fact.” Kit moved in a little closer.
“I was making new friends and you dragged me away,” Percy said, glaring anew at Kit. But there wasn’t any real heat in it. Percy wanted something from Kit, and whatever it was, Kit wanted to give it.
“That was wrong of me.”
“You’re forgiven.”
“Is that so?” Kit moved closer still, until they were chest to chest. He put a hand lightly on Percy’s waist, feeling like he was trying to coax a stray cat closer.
“And last night I didn’t get to go to bed with you. Instead, I had to go to a dance and get lectured by a former lover while getting my bollocks frozen off outside. It was highly unpleasant.”
Kit forbore from pointing out that Percy had been the one to leave without a word. Instead, he moved his hand to the small of Percy’s back. “You’d have rather been in my bed?”
“Obviously,” Percy said, sounding just a tiny bit outraged. Outraged, and like he wanted to be pacified.
Kit bent his head to kiss the soft underside of Percy’s jaw. “We can still do that,” he said. This was all so excessively... tender, Kit supposed. It shouldn’t be anything of the sort. He had tried to tell himself that they would just be having fun together. But here in a dark and damp alleyway, they had crossed into something different and dangerous.
