Talbots do not belch.”
“Give her over,” Kit laughed, holding out his arms. “There now,” Kit said, firmly patting the child’s back.
“I tried patting her. I’m not entirely incompetent with— Oh, that’s revolting. Eliza, I’m appalled. We need to discuss standards.”
Kit laughed as the baby gave him an indignant look that closely resembled one of Percy’s. “Have either of you managed any sleep at all?”
“Well, not recently. She seems to be getting a new tooth and is under the impression that it’s my fault.”
“They often are,” Kit said, and saw a stricken look flicker over Percy’s face as he recalled how Kit came by his knowledge of babies. “This one, however, comes from a long line of complainers, so I daresay she came by it honestly.”
The baby was getting to the age where she was a bit too heavy and wriggly to hold with one arm, so Kit sat before the fire and let her chew on the collar of his coat.
“Put that kettle on, will you?” Kit asked, then watched as Percy glanced around, as if not entirely clear what a kettle was or where it was supposed to go. “On the hook over the fire,” he clarified. “Then come here.”
Percy came to sit on the arm of his chair. When Kit tilted his head up and raised his eyebrows, Percy bent down for a kiss. He tasted of tooth powder and smelled of shaving soap, and Kit’s heart thrilled at the normalcy of it.
“You could come for supper,” Percy said softly. “Collins hired a cook, because apparently he’s far too grand to get his food from taverns and chophouses.”
Kit was impressed with how well Collins had maneuvered Percy into living in a way that Percy—and, presumably, Collins—would find acceptable. “The baby will need nourishing food to eat with all these teeth you’re insisting she grow. Collins is staying on, then?”
Percy sniffed. “He’s being quite unreasonable. I told him to go to Marcus, because Marcus doesn’t have a valet, and I tell you, Kit, it shows.”
As Percy spoke, he pulled the leather cord from Kit’s queue and proceeded to plait Kit’s hair at the nape of his neck. “Would you like to know something exceptionally droll?” Percy asked. “I haven’t stopped being invited to things. If anything, I’m getting more invitations than ever, presumably from people with a taste for scandal and disorder. One imagines I’m invited as a spectacle, but I’m invited nonetheless.”
That reminded Kit of something he had been turning over in his mind for the past month. “I wonder,” he said, “if you’d like to help me with a project.”
“Anything,” Percy said.
“I don’t know if Rob got to me or if Betty did or if I’ve just stopped trying to argue with myself. But I loved planning that holdup, Percy. And not just because your father was the target, although that was part of it. God help me, this is probably prideful in a dozen different ways, but I think I can right wrongs. With some information from Scarlett, a proper burglar, a runner, and a fence, I’d have enough to go on. But what I really need is someone to get access to the homes of targets—someone to open a window, leave a door unlocked, draw up the layout of the house.”
“I’d be delighted to turn traitor to my class,” Percy said easily. “Honestly, I’ve been wondering when you’d ask.”
Percy knew he had promised Kit supper, but when Kit came over that night, he found Percy sitting on the bare floor of the empty sitting room, surrounded by yards of sky-blue silk and staring at a framed portrait.
“Did you do this?” Percy asked. He knew it was obvious he had been crying, and he didn’t even care.
Kit knelt beside him. “I thought you might like it, but I’ll take it all away if you don’t.”
“How did you manage it?”
“I very politely explained that you required your bed hangings and your mother’s portrait, and the housekeeper wrapped them up immediately.”
Percy laughed wetly. “That’s all it took?”
“I reckon you were expecting a daring heist, but I took a gamble that the servants would either be fond of you or . . . less than fond of your father, and it worked.”
Knowing what Cheveril meant to Kit, Percy could hardly believe that Kit had willingly gone back. He took Kit’s hand and kissed it. He was being maudlin. Soft. And he reveled in the freedom to be that way.
“I don’t have any supper for you,” Percy said. “Because I