Page 50 of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
“My lord?” Collins repeated, this time with a note of alarm.
“I will soon find myself in reduced circumstances,” Percy said carefully. “I’ve put aside some items that I believe I can do without. Do you happen to know how one goes about selling things?”
If Collins thought this an ignorant question, he didn’t let it show. “Yes, my lord. Am I correct in assuming that my lord and his father—”
“You can speak freely, Collins. And you might as well sit down.”
“Is the duke cutting you off?”
“Not yet,” Percy said, because that much was true. “But I thought it would be best to be prepared.”
“Very wise.”
“It’s a secret, Collins.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“You ought to know that—” Percy swallowed. This was harder than he had anticipated. “You might not wish to remain in my service. Some unpleasant truths are about to emerge. I’d keep you on, but for your own comfort, you may wish to begin looking for another post.”
“I believe the customary course of action is to go to the Continent, my lord.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Collins’s cheeks went dark with embarrassment. “If one fears prosecution for the sort of activity that might be described as—”
“Ah,” Percy said. “Quite.” If Collins thought Percy was about to be prosecuted for sodomy, that was all to the good.
“We can be on the packet to Calais before nightfall, my lord.”
Percy gaped. “If my ship is to sink, there’s no reason for you to be on it. I can find you a place with a respectable gentleman, Collins. People have been trying to poach you off me for years.”
“No, thank you, my lord.”
“Collins—”
“If you wish to dispense with my services—”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Percy said hastily.
“If I may make a suggestion, perhaps my lord would be cheered by dressing in something other than dirty riding clothes? Those breeches would be enough to put anyone in a melancholic frame of mind.”
Percy glanced down at himself and saw that he was, indeed, still wearing his riding clothes from that morning. “Good thinking, Collins,” he agreed, and let himself be dressed in one of his more stylish ensembles—plum with lilac embroidery, purchased in Paris at significant expense. Admiring himself in the cheval glass, he had an alarming thought. “I suppose I’ll have to sell some of my clothes.”
“Some of it, my lord. But whatever fate awaits you, you’ll need to meet it wearing something other than rags and sackcloth.”
This advice was both sound and soothing. When Collins left, Percy considered what to do with himself for the rest of the day. It had been some time since he visited Kit’s wearing anything respectable. He could stop by now and give Kit a small thrill by allowing the man to surreptitiously ogle his ankles. But Kit hadbehaved abominably yesterday, and Percy was not in a frame of mind to reward the man.
If Percy allowed himself to see through the cloud of anger and humiliation that blanketed the memory, he could perhaps understand that Kit had been startled. Startled might even be too mild a word for whatever one felt when confronted with someone returning from the dead. It was, arguably, ungenerous of Percy to put too much stock into what Kit had said at that moment.
Ordinarily, if a lover treated Percy with less than perfect civility, he would walk away and never look back. He usually carried on his affairs with the same sangfroid with which he did almost everything else. He had been taught to keep people at arm’s length, and just to be on the safe side he typically kept them even further.
That rule applied not only to lovers but to everyone. Marian was the only real exception, and he always suspected that she had gotten in on a technicality due to the fact that they had known one another before he learned how to get the better of his emotions.Fond is another word for weak, his mother had always said.
He had believed her. He still did. His mother had taught him how to survive despite the weakness that was at the core of who he was. She had taught him how to shield himself in a carapace of pride and power.
Right now, he wanted to go crawling to Kit and demand reassurance that Kit hadn’t meant what he’d told his friend. He wanted to admit to Kit how very much he liked him and say it again and again until Kit said it back. What was worse, he wanted to tell Kit all about his problems—from his father’s bigamy to the contents of the book to the fate of his sister andMarian—not because he thought Kit could do anything about it, but because he wanted a friend to tell him that everything was going to be all right.
It was pathetic. It was the pitiful need for reassurance and affection that he thought he had long since subdued.
