The Queer Principles of Kit Webb - Cat Sebastian Page 0,39

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 party than 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.

Chapter 19

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