Page 23 of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
“I beg your pardon, Marian,” Percy said graciously. “I suppose I ought to follow my father’s example and confine my breakfast-table conversation to the ordinary sort of whorehouse.”
“Percy,” Marian said, her eyes daggers. She sat pale faced and stiff backed, her plate empty and her hands in her lap, as she did nearly every meal.
Percy supposed that in the normal course of things, it would be wise to ingratiate himself to the duke so as to secure some sort of livelihood or settlement after the truth came out. But Percy didn’t for a minute think that his father would willingly toss so much as a spare coin in his direction, however agreeable Percy tried to make himself. Besides, Percy reasoned that if he suddenly started acting civil to the duke, after twenty-three years of open hostility, it would make the man suspicious. It would make the entire household suspicious, come to that. Everybody knew that the duke and his heir—ha!—didn’t get along; depending on one’s alliance, that was either because the duke was a belligerent and controlling mean-spirited tyrant or because Percy was a lazy sybarite with a taste for unspeakable vice.
Besides, that was the point of acquiring the book—it would be foolish to depend on the duke’s unlikely largesse when they had extortion as an option.
“It’s time for you to find a wife,” the duke said.
For one wild moment, Percy nearly laughed. With some effort, he schooled his features into something like boredom. “I rather thought that the point of this”—he gestured between his father and Marian—“was insurance in the event that I never sired a son.” He could sense Marian bristle at the other end of the table, and he regretted needing to refer to her union with his father in those terms. But he had a part to play. He took an idle sip of tea. “Indeed, I thought it remarkably prudent of you, given my inclinations.”
Percy had always known that he would need to marry. As his father’s only son, he had a pressing need for an heir. He had never questioned it, and, if things had gone according to plan, he would at some point in the next year have married a suitable woman and done what was needful. Now, however, it would be unthinkable to marry. He could hardly wed a woman who thought she was marrying the future Duke of Clare but who instead turned out to be a penniless bastard. He already knew he couldn’t offer a wife a love match; to also deprive her of title and fortune was outright villainy.
“In case you had not noticed, you are still the only son I have,” the duke ground out.
Percy nearly said that he damned well hoped he was, because all this situation needed was the arrival of a French peasant on the scene claiming to be the rightful heir to the dukedom. Instead, he stirred some sugar into his tea. “Quite right,” he said, and enjoyed the confusion and disappointment that passed over his father’s face. Percy realized that the duke had been longing for a quarrel that morning and had picked a fight with Percy simply because he was near at hand.
For years he had regarded his father as a casual sort of nemesis,one who had no real power to harm him. But it occurred to him now that as soon as news of his illegitimacy was public and he was no longer heir apparent to the dukedom, he’d not only lose whatever protection he had as a wealthy and titled man, but he’d also open himself up to attack from his father. The duke could see to it that Percy was arrested, pilloried, locked away in the sort of asylum that existed to hide family members with inconvenient or unpleasant proclivities. Once the duke had no obligation to treat Percy as his heir, Percy would be vulnerable in a way he never had been before.
Percy rose to his feet, having lost all interest in verbal combat. “Perhaps you or your secretary could furnish me with a list of acceptable wives,” he said, casting one last look at his untouched breakfast. He hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the previous night and now he was famished. But even as he formed the thought, he remembered Kit giving him coffee and dry biscuits, catching him as he drunkenly tripped, covering him with a blanket. The memory was unwanted, a discordantly tender intrusion into a moment that required Percy to operate without any blunted edges. “Good day, Father, Marian.”
When he climbed the stairs and reached his bedroom, he paused for a moment with his back against the closed door. Percy had never had an actual enemy and he had never before faced real danger. It felt disturbingly apt, as if he had been born to this. He recalled his Talbot forebears whose grim faces lined the portrait gallery at Cheveril Castle and thought that quite possibly he had been born to this. Talbots were made for war and enmity. They let those with weaker blood have their easy peacetime delights.
If Percy were honest with himself, easy peacetime delights sounded grand. He’d much rather be planning a garden partythan a felony. He’d much rather not plan anything at all, and just while away his days drinking coffee and reading books, and if that brought to mind Webb’s coffeehouse, it was just further proof that his mind was addled and his priorities askew.
He took out his whetstone and sharpened his sword.
Chapter19
When Kit woke, stiff necked and muddle headed, in the hard chair by the fire and noticed that Percy had gone, his first thought was disappointment, followed quickly by horror that he regretted the man’s absence. He ought to be pleased that Percy was out of his hands, back where he belonged. He ought to hope that Percy never showed his face again.
Instead, Kit had to admit that he had... not minded Percy’s presence the previous night. He had even enjoyed it, enjoyed the man’s drunken chatter as much as he enjoyed his sober chatter. He had found it surprisingly satisfying to put Percy to bed, to know he was keeping Percy safe. It had been a long time since Kit had taken care of anyone, since anybody had needed him, and he found that he missed it. He didn’t think of himself as a particularly nurturing person; God knew taking care of Hannah hadn’t come naturally, and look how badly that had turned out. After Jenny had been taken away, Kit hadn’t been fit to look after a cat, let alone his sickly, motherless daughter. Looking after the adult heir to a dukedom after a night of drunkenness was hardly the same thing, even though it prodded that same old place in Kit’s heart.
Kit’s heart, frankly, needed to sod off.
When Betty warned him against letting his feelings get tangled up in this job, she had been talking about anger, resentment, and vengeance. She teased him about being weak for a pretty face, but neither of them really thought that he’d care about the fucker. And Kit didn’t care about him—it was just that tucking him into bed and keeping him safe had tricked his mind into thinking he gave a damn. That was all.
He brought the blanket and pillow upstairs before Betty could come in and ask unwelcome questions, then made sure he rinsed out the cup Percy used and put everything to rights.
Still, when Betty walked in, she narrowed her eyes, swept her gaze across the room, and stared at Kit. “You look shifty,” she said.
“No, I don’t,” he said immediately, and, he quickly realized, unhelpfully. “What do I have to be shifty about?” he added.
She only shook her head.
“It’s not natural,” he said as he set out the coffee. “You’re twenty years old. You shouldn’t be able to look so disappointed. There are grandmothers who would envy that expression.”
“The trick is that I really am disappointed,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. He threw a coffee bean at her head. “Also, I have practice being disappointed in every small-time pickpocket who thinks I’m going to be bothered to fence a single teaspoon or a pair of handkerchiefs. My face does disappointment very naturally now.”
She spoke with an air of pride that belied her words. Kit knew that she liked her work—liked having taken over from her father, liked solving the puzzle of how to dispose of stolen goods without them ever being traced back to her, the thief, or the originalowner, and liked being at the center of things. It made him miss his old work more than ever. Maybe it was good, he thought, that Percy had come to him when he did.
Even as he formed the thought, he knew it was nonsense. He was getting different kinds of want mixed up in his mind—the old urge for revenge, the need for excitement, the seeds of desire he felt for Percy. All those wants were met in this one job, and that was making it hard to think clearly. That was all. The stirrings of—it was distressing to realize that tenderness was the only applicable word—he had felt the previous night were only the wisps of desire that clung to everything he forbade himself.
But perhaps it was time for some insurance. That evening, after bringing Betty home, he went to Scarlett’s. The door was opened this time not by Flora but by another girl. He was shown to an unoccupied parlor, where he waited several minutes for Scarlett to arrive.
“Twice in as many weeks,” Scarlett said when she entered. “I’m a lucky woman.”
“You’ll soon change your mind, because I’m here for another favor.”
