everything as soon as Percy walked in the door. He caught himself putting aside the buns with the most currants and the cakes with the heaviest dusting of sugar, and then casually putting the dish within reach of Percy’s coffee cup as if by accident. Every day he looked forward to Percy’s arrival with a complicated blend of hope and confusion, which was complicated even further by the fact that when he looked at Percy, he saw Percy’s father’s face.
He felt like he had betrayed himself, had betrayed his family. He tried to imagine what Jenny would say if she could see him now, if she knew he was wondering what might happen if he leaned forward and ran his tongue along the plump lower lip of the Duke of Clare’s son.
He thought of all the graves the Duke of Clare had put in the ground, thought of all the love and care and hope he had buried.
What did it mean that he could forget all that? Or, if not forget it, then shove it out of sight.
“Well?” Percy said. “Does that mean we’re not going to be doing this anymore?” He gestured around them, as if Kit needed the reminder about what they were doing here. And maybe he did.
“Yes,” Kit said. “We won’t be doing this anymore.”
It didn’t matter whether Percy looked disappointed.
Chapter 24
Percy sat on the floor of the antechamber of his apartments at Clare House, his swords on the carpet before him, the morning sun glinting off their freshly polished blades. Carefully he wrapped the weapons in soft leather and put them in the bag he had stored them in while traveling around the Continent. He slung the strap of the bag over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of himself in the cheval glass.
The problem was that he looked too much like himself. He wore the same outfit he had worn to spar with Kit. He didn’t look anything like a gentleman—what gentleman would go about bareheaded, let alone even consider wearing anything so outlandish—but he didn’t want to run the risk of being identified as Lord Holland.
What he really wanted was a beauty patch. A stupid little mouche, right under his eye, would alter the shape of his face enough. But a patch would be all wrong with all this leather—he was trying to be fearsome, not foppish.
“Collins,” he said slowly, “what do actors use to create warts and scars?”
In the mirror, he saw his valet go pale and clutch his chest. He was not taking this turn of events as stoically as Percy might have hoped. “Give me an hour,” he said faintly. “And I’ll see what I can do.”
An hour and fifteen minutes later, Percy had a scar the length of his hand, reaching from the outside corner of one eye to the edge of his mouth. It was pink and ragged and proclaimed that this was a man who didn’t give a fig about getting maimed. It was perfect.
“All right,” he said. “I’m off to disgrace myself.”
It was, he thought as he approached the scaffold in Covent Garden, not the most foolhardy thing he had ever done. That honor went to approaching a highwayman to assist him in committing a capital crime with his own father as victim. It would take a lot to surpass himself.
He walked up to the man who looked like he was in charge—or at least the man who was in charge of money, based on the pouch of coins he held closed in his fist.
“How do I join the fun?” Percy asked, realizing too late that he ought to have disguised his voice, or at least his accent. But the false scar tugged at his mouth and gave his speech a slightly clipped quality, so there was that.
The man looked him up and down, then regarded the sword Percy wore at his hip and the dagger sheathed beside it.
“Wait over there,” he said, gesturing with his chin at a group of men Percy gathered were the other combatants. “You can go first.”
This, Percy knew from having watched no fewer than a dozen of these matches over the past several weeks, meant he was the sacrificial lamb. Newcomers went first and were usually knocked out of competition after only a match or two. The prize, after all, went to the last man left standing, and newcomers were made to work the hardest.
Percy had been counting on it. He knew he could best whatever badly skilled swordsmen he’d