Page 67 of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
“You can wait here. Or go back to London. Or do whatever you please. I’m going to Cheveril Castle and talking to Marian.”
“You realize she might have saidIshot the duke, don’t you? She might not have been setting you up, but me.” Kit groaned and rubbed a hand over his jaw. In the darkness, Percy could hear the rasp of a callused thumb over stubble. “Rob tried to convince me that you were setting me up, that you had found out about my history with your father and were trying to take advantage of me. I told him that was impossible. But Marian may have done precisely that. Where did she get my name?”
“I’m not certain. She was rather cagey on that point.” Percy didn’t want to concede that Marian had been setting anybody up, but he also didn’t want to waste his breath arguing that point.He turned his head so he could see Kit’s profile. “I’m glad you knew I wouldn’t do that.”
Kit didn’t turn his head. “So am I.”
“In any event, I don’t think you need to worry about being set up for the robbery or the shooting. The coachman and outriders saw a slim, fair man with a scar who walked without a limp.”
“I was on the side of the road.”
“You faded into the shadows. The only part of you that was visible was your pistol. Besides, if you’re worried about being mixed up in this, it’s all the more reason for you to get back to London and act like nothing happened.”
“It’s all the more reason for me to stay with you,” Kit said. “If she has any scruples about setting you up, then being with you is the best alibi I could hope for. And if she doesn’t, then I’m fucked anyway.”
Percy glared at Kit’s profile. “Well, I’m going to Cheveril Castle. It’s only a few miles from here.” He could tell that Kit was cross with him, but when Percy turned onto his side to go to sleep, Kit threw an arm over him and pressed his lips to the top of Percy’s head. And that was something Percy had never even contemplated—the possibility that someone could be cross with him but also fond of him. Come to think, Percy was more than a little annoyed with Kit—why would the blasted man not go back to London like any reasonable person would—but he didn’t think he had ever been so fond of anyone in his entire life as he was of Kit at that moment. He took hold of the hand that rested against his belly and lifted it to his mouth, pressing a kiss onto the knuckles.
“Kit,” Percy whispered when a few minutes had passed. The nighttime sounds of the forest seemed increasingly loud, and thespace around them impossibly dark and empty. Percy felt small and lost, and like Kit was the only solid and safe thing in the world. “Are you awake?”
“Yes,” Kit said, gravelly and low.
Percy knew that it was pitiful to seek out reassurance, but he had never needed it more. “How are you able to look at me after telling me the role my father played in your life?” His voice was more querulous than he would have liked. “Don’t you see him every time you look at me?”
“Yes,” Kit said simply. “Of course I do.”
But he didn’t take his arm away, and the fact that he was here despite everything that could have stood between them was more reassuring than any words he could have uttered.
“But I also see you,” Kit went on.
Percy fell asleep feeling safer than he had in weeks.
In the morning Percy watched as Kit hugged Dorothy, the old woman looking small and frail beside him. Then Kit knelt and said something to the boy.
Percy mounted Balius, who was still visibly indignant about having traveled nearly fifty miles to sleep in a shed. Kit, with the aid of a tree stump, mounted a bay mare that Dorothy claimed to have borrowed from a neighbor. Percy stowed all his belongings in the horse’s saddle bags, except for the little green book, which he kept close at hand in his pocket, and which seemed to grow heavier as Percy began to suspect its purpose.
By midday, they were within sight of Cheveril Castle, the turrets and then the gatehouse coming gradually into view.
It was only a building, Percy told himself. Stone and shingle, plaster and mortar. He knew that it was only the work of his mind that had built it into something more—a legacy, an identity. Butstill, looking at the silhouette of his home against the gray autumn sky, seeing it for the first time in years and possibly the last time in his life, he had to grit his teeth to hold back a sob.
“I’m going to ride up,” Percy said. “Do you want to wait here?”
Kit leveled a dry look at him and rode ahead toward the gate.
When the gatekeeper told Percy that the duke and duchess were not in residence, Percy nearly asked the man to repeat himself, he was so stunned. He managed to ask where the duke and duchess might be, and the gatekeeper explained that the staff expected the duke and duchess two days ago, and could only assume they had changed their plans.
Percy knew he ought to turn around and return immediately to London to see if the duke lived, to confer with Marian, to plan out their next step.
But he was this close to Cheveril, and he might never get to see it again—not, at least, as its heir. He rode through the gates. If Kit was surprised, he didn’t let on, just kept riding along at Percy’s side.
The drive from the gatehouse to the entrance had been designed to afford a visitor the best view, the facade that had been built during the time of Percy’s grandfather. On the approach, one passed through acres of parkland and gardens, then drove between matched fountains that had been imported from Italy.
This was how Cheveril appeared in Percy’s dreams—a dozen turrets, an uncountable number of windows, white stairs that were always swept clean of debris. This was how the house looked when he was coming home.
It was also art. It was the work of dozens of architects and God only knew how many craftsmen, gardeners, servants, and laborers. The amount of gold that had gone into the building ofCheveril Castle was nothing compared to the number of lives that had been devoted to making it what any right-thinking person had to concede was the finest example of sixteenth-century architecture in England, and possibly anywhere, as far as Percy cared.
“It was built two hundred years ago,” Percy said, “on the site of what had been Cheveril Priory. One used to approach the house from the south side, but my grandfather commissioned a facade that improved the roofline of the east side, and the result is what you see.” He had no idea why he was bothering with a history lesson, and one about rooflines no less, except that he wanted an excuse to linger here for another moment. He didn’t want to rush through the last time he’d come home.
“If you look to your left, you can see the Italian gardens,” Percy said, cursing himself for sounding exactly like a housekeeper giving a tour to holidaymakers. “My father put them in about a dozen years ago.” The view from the front of Cheveril Castle was now intricate garden beds, behind which lay a broad swathe of uninterrupted parkland.
