The Queer Principles of Kit Webb - Cat Sebastian Page 0,18
It was more than possible that sober he’d need more than a simple holdup to occupy his mind. He might need more of a mystery.
He was interrupted by the sound of Flora delicately clearing her throat. Now, why had Scarlett sent this girl to him? She had boys she used as couriers. There was no reason to send one of her prettiest and greenest girls out on an errand, unattended. Except—of course. The whole point of this was to display Flora in front of as many men as possible. Scarlett was all but having an auction.
“We’re putting our best merchandise in the shop window today, are we?” Kit murmured. In answer, Flora ducked her head and looked up with a sly wink. Well, she was in on it, then, and that put his mind at ease. “I’m meant to walk you home, aren’t I?” Scarlett would know that Kit would never let this girl out into the street on her own. While he thought it more than likely that she could take care of herself, walking her home was a small enough favor.
“If you please, sir,” she answered. “But you needn’t do so until you’re ready to close up the shop. I have a book to occupy myself.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “Take a seat and I’ll bring you coffee and some cake.”
He watched as she sat near the window, where she would be seen by everybody walking past and everybody within. When he brought her coffee and a plate of seedcakes, he huffed out a laugh when he realized that the book she had brought with her was the Bible. He couldn’t help but grin. He hoped she landed herself a lord and took him for every penny she could.
He was still smiling when he heard footsteps approach the table where he brewed the coffee. Looking up, he saw a now-familiar wigged head and powdered face. The theme of the day, he noticed, was rose: rose silk waistcoat, rose ribbon at the nape of his neck, and he knew that if he looked down, he’d see stockings with rose clocks adorning the sides. He was predictable, orderly, this man who had taken the decidedly outlandish step of attempting to hire a highwayman to rob his father.
Only when he saw Percy’s mouth quirk up at the sides into a grin matching his own did Kit realize he was still smiling like a fool. He also remembered that Percy wasn’t Percy at all.
“You lied about your name,” Kit said, pointing a finger at the other man’s rose-clad chest.
“Did I?” the man asked. “I can’t recall.” He spoke the words as if he were sharing a private joke, rather than defending an accusation of lying. Kit had the strangest wish to be in on the jest, to know what had stolen away the man’s arrogance and replaced it with a smile that managed to be both wry and soft.
“Why are you here?” Kit asked.
“So suspicious, Mr. Webb. I’ve become rather fond of your coffee. Isn’t that reason enough to visit your establishment?”
“It’s very inconvenient, you know,” Kit said, the words leaving his mouth before he could think better of it, “not to know with what name to think of you.”
“Is it? You must think of me often if that poses such an inconvenience.” His arrogance was back in force now, written in the lift of his eyebrow and the way he leaned forward toward Kit, his hands on the table, pushing into Kit’s space ever so slightly. Kit didn’t lean away—this was his coffeehouse and he had all the power in this situation, no matter how he felt. But he could smell lavender and powder, could see that the man’s eyes were the dark gray of wet cobblestones, could tell that the patch he had affixed over his lip wasn’t a circle, as Kit had assumed, but rather a tiny heart. It was, perhaps, the heart that did Kit in—the utter ridiculousness of a heart-shaped fake birthmark ought to have made Kit loathe the man but it achieved quite a different result.
It was too much to hope that Percy (Kit had resigned himself to thinking of him as Percy, as the alternative was a mysterious blankness that posed the danger of becoming as peculiarly compelling as every other detail about the man, whereas Percy was a very boring and ordinary name) hadn’t noticed Kit’s reaction. “I knew it,” Percy said, leaning forward even further. Kit still refused to retreat, telling himself