Page 57 of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
“You know,” Betty said, glancing in the bag, “you’re plainly up to no good, and I don’t usually hold that against a man, but if you hurt Kit, I’ll come after you. You hear me?”
“I never doubted it for a minute,” Percy said. “Speaking of which, Kit seems to think he’s coming with me on the, ah, errandI’m running. Do you think you could persuade him to stay in London?”
“I don’t think I could keep him away from you unless I locked him up. Even then, he’d find a way. And I think you know that.”
“Surely, he knows it’s a bad idea, what with his leg.”
“Kit does a lot of things that are bad ideas,” Betty said, pointedly flicking her eyes over Percy.
“Seriously, Betty, he listens to you.”
“That’s right. He does. And so should you. When the pair of you are done with this job, let him be. He deserves better. There’s more to him than you know, and he’s had enough misery in his life without you adding to it.”
“I see,” Percy said, because while he didn’t care for being ordered about, he also couldn’t disagree with anything that Betty said.
Betty looked like she was about to say something, but then something over Percy’s shoulder caught her eye. “Well, I’ll be fucked,” she said.
Percy turned and saw a woman enter the shop. She wore a cloak of black velvet and had unpowdered red hair. At first, he thought he was looking at Flora Jennings, so strong was the resemblance, but then realized this woman was several years older, at least forty.
“And who would that be?” Percy asked. “Does Kit have a policy of only allowing women into the shop if they have red hair?”
“That’s Scarlett,” Betty said. And then, when Percy snorted in disbelief, she added, “Obviously it’s not her real name, but she’s Mistress Scarlett, you know?”
“Ah.”
“And she’s also—”
Betty was interrupted by the entrance of Rob from somewhere else in the building. He strode over to Scarlett and embraced her, all but lifting her off the ground. “Mother, darling,” he said.
“She’s Rob’smother?” Percy asked, astonished. “Which means that Flora is his sister?”
Betty gave him an appraising look. “I’m not sure about that. It could just be an uncanny likeness.”
Percy regarded the pair and tried to recall Flora’s face. Rob and Scarlett didn’t resemble one another terribly, apart from the red hair and a suggestion of sharpness about the jaw and cheekbones. Flora, in fact, looked more like Scarlett than Rob did. Rob looked more like— Percy tilted his head and searched his memory, but couldn’t quite arrive at the resemblance.
Through the general din and clatter of the shop, Percy heard a heavy, uneven tread on the stairs and automatically turned his head in time to see Kit duck underneath the spider web. Percy had watched that blasted thing grow to shocking proportions in the past few weeks, and he would have taken it upon himself to dispose of it if not for the fact that Kit seemed to like it there. This time part of the web caught in Kit’s hair—which, given the state of Kit’s hair, was hardly surprising—and Kit carefully disentangled it. Then he murmured something that looked awfully like “beg pardon” to the spider.
Percy stared, some combination of emotions he preferred not to identify roiling in his heart. Then he crossed the room. “You’re an industrious little monster,” he told the spider. The spider did something ghastly with one of her neatly wrapped trophies. Percy decided not to think about that, either. “You wove a pretty web, but you are not in the least bit practically minded. One relates.This is a terrible place for your home, however lovely I’m certain it is.” He reached his hand up toward the creature.
“What are you doing?” Kit asked, sounding irate.
“She’s going to wind up lost in your hair, and that’s no life for an honest spider. I’m going to move her someplace where nobody will bother her and she can eat all the flies and midges she pleases. All right?” When Kit didn’t object, Percy let the spider crawl onto his hand, somehow managing not to faint or shriek while doing so. “All right, madam, away you go,” he said, carrying it over to the bookcases. “You’ll make your home on the very top shelf, over where the proprietor sees fit to keep Mr.Hume. Nobody is in the least likely to disturb you there.”
That accomplished, he dusted his hands off on his breeches and found Kit looking at him oddly, but escaped into the street before he had to figure out why.
Chapter40
“What’s this?” Rob asked when Kit and Betty were sorting through the contents of the parcel Percy had left with them. The shop was closed, and they worked by the light of an oil lamp, separating out the items that could be sold immediately from those that would need to have monograms or other marks polished off.
Kit didn’t answer right away, because it was more than obvious they were receiving stolen goods. The objects on the table were a motley assortment of silverware, handkerchiefs, earbobs, and buttons. Kit hadn’t been surprised that Percy wanted to raise some quick money—in his circumstances, selling off a couple of shirt studs was honestly something he ought to have done quite a while ago. What surprised him was the sheer assortment of silverware on the table: Kit had counted spoons with at least eight distinct monograms. This could mean that Percy had been busily pilfering from every dinner table he visited, but given the earbobs, Kit rather thought he had help from the mysterious Marian.
“What did your mother want?” Betty asked Rob.
“To scold me, which is all anybody wants from me these days.”
“Poor you. Imagine, people being upset with you after the stunt you pulled.”
“I keep telling all of you that it was unavoidable. Consider how much it hurts my feelings not to be believed.” Bending over the table, Rob picked up a spoon and held it up to the light. “Monogrammed,” he said disapprovingly. Then he looked at a silver hairbrush. “And so is this. This is the Duke of Clare’s coat of arms. Do you want to tell me what you’re doing with the Duke of Clare’s hairbrush?”
