The Queer Principles of Kit Webb - Cat Sebastian Page 0,15

instead of brewing coffee. But somehow he had whiled away the entire afternoon.

One of the remaining patrons got to his feet and made not for the door, but for the stairs. “That garret still empty, Kit?” he called when he was already on the bottom step, so he must have been fairly sure of the answer in advance.

“It’s yours.” Webb glanced up from the counter, where he was counting out the day’s earnings into neat stacks of coins. “Mrs. Kemble is on the floor below, so mind that you tread lightly. You know how she gets.”

That was the most Percy had heard Kit say that day or any other day, and it was the first time he had heard the man speak in anything other than a grumble. He had a nice voice, too—low and a bit rough. His accent was hardly polished, but neither was it rustic. He didn’t sound illiterate, and indeed, now that Percy thought about it, he had seen Webb reading books from his own library. One could put him in a respectable coat, introduce him to the concept of a hairbrush, and scrape off that stubble and he would pass for a prosperous shopkeeper, a respectable member of the middling sort—which was, Percy supposed, exactly what Webb was, felonious past notwithstanding.

“Stop staring at me like that,” Webb said when the two of them were alone in the shop. He didn’t look up from his coins.

“No, I don’t think I shall,” Percy said.

“You’ll get yourself arrested if you carry on acting like that.”

Percy raised his eyebrows. “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting to receive counsel on being a law-abiding citizen from you.”

Webb made a noise that it took Percy a moment to realize was a laugh. Webb recovered himself immediately and scowled at Percy, as if he were cross with Percy for being amusing.

“You’re not going to tell me that a man like you minds a brush with the law,” Percy said.

Webb gave him an odd look, but still there were no offended dramatics about him not being that sort of man, how dare Percy, et cetera and so forth. The man wasn’t even blushing.

“Did you take my advice?” Webb asked.

“To stop staring at you?”

Webb looked up, exasperated. “To hire a thief.”

“I already told you why that wouldn’t work.”

“Ah, yes, because your father has guards.”

If Webb thought he could so easily get Percy to admit that his target was his father, he could guess again. “What a fool you must think me to fall for such a trick,” Percy said. “How demoralizing.” He got to his feet and walked out the door, taking the tattered first volume of Tom Jones with him and pointedly dropping a penny into the bowl, feeling Webb’s eyes on him all the while.

Chapter 8

Kit leaned heavily on his cane, looking at the familiar building. The same lace curtains fluttered in the evening air as fiddle music drifted out to the street on a breeze. He thought he might even be able to smell the women’s perfume all the way from the pavements, but that was probably his imagination.

He knocked, and the door was opened by a girl Kit hadn’t seen before. She had red hair and beneath her powder he could see a smattering of freckles on her cheeks.

“Good evening,” she said in what sounded like it was supposed to be a seductive lilt but actually came out with a bit of a nervous stammer. Kit knew the girls who were truly nervous didn’t work the door. This one, with her half-concealed freckles and her shyness and the way she moved a hand to her chest as if in an arrested effort to tug her bodice higher, was there to appeal to the sort of man who wanted to take care of a girl. Scarlett knew what she was doing, and so did this girl. He’d bet that within six months she would be set up in a cozy house by some man who was set on rescuing her. And bully for her. Kit hoped she fleeced the fellow.

“Would you tell your mistress that Kit Webb is here to see her?”

She opened her eyes wide, and he couldn’t tell whether she recognized his name or whether she did that to all the men who called at the house. He took off his hat and she showed him through a series of rooms papered in shades of rose and ivory. They passed a salon in which a handful of men clustered