voice.
“Percy,” Kit said. He didn’t recall rushing to Percy’s side, didn’t quite know how he got past the tables and benches that stood between him and the door, but there he was.
He couldn’t have said how he knew something was wrong. Maybe it was that Percy was leaning against the door frame instead of standing with the sort of posture that more than once Kit thought must have been whipped into him. Maybe it was just that he didn’t walk in as if he owned the place.
“What’s the matter?” Kit asked. And then, over his shoulder, “We’re closed, lads. Out you go. Faster!” He put a hand on Percy’s arm, not sure if he had ever touched the man when they weren’t fighting. Percy flinched, but not before Kit felt the wet warmth under his fingertips. “Fuck,” he muttered.
Percy stepped aside to make way for the customers to leave, and Kit bolted the door behind them.
“What happened to you?” Kit asked.
“It’s only a minor injury,” Percy said, the faintness of his voice giving the lie to his statement.
With a hand at the small of his back, Kit led Percy to the chair before the fire. “Take off that coat.”
When Percy complied, dropping an oddly shaped sack to the floor beside him, Kit saw that he was wearing the same clothes he wore to spar in the back room. As he was trying to puzzle out why that would be the case, he got distracted by the blood that soaked the top of Percy’s sleeve.
“Were you attacked?” Kit asked, even though he didn’t think Percy was foolish enough to fight off armed footpads. Although—hadn’t Kit been teaching him to do almost precisely that? Perhaps Percy decided to put his lessons to the test.
“Not exactly,” Percy said, his voice strained. “I think it’s only a scratch. I’m just—I’m not particularly good with blood, and I thought to myself, Percy, you know a man who will know just what to do with a bit of a gash.”
Kit tore the shirt at the place where the knife had slashed it, then pushed up the sleeve to get a clear view of the injury. It was a clean slash, about two inches long, not particularly deep. He had gotten worse slicing hard bread. A bit of pressure and a few days of bandaging and it would be good as new.
Kit found that he still wanted to hunt down whoever had done this and tear them apart, slowly and with great relish.
Percy glanced down at the wound Kit had exposed and visibly shuddered, then went even paler than usual. “I dare say it wouldn’t have bled half so much if I had bandaged it right away, but I rather desperately needed not to look at the thing.”
“So, you came here,” Kit said, wetting a rag with water from the kettle.
“I thought I’d spare my valet the trouble. I’ve already been quite a trial to him today, you see. And also, I was a bit unsteady on my feet and doubted I could walk that far. One doesn’t want to bleed all over a hackney.”
“We’ve bloodied one another’s noses,” Kit pointed out. He dabbed at the wound, and Percy’s only reaction was a slight hiss. “You’ve split your knuckles, I’ve bit my tongue. I never saw you go faint at the sight of blood any of those times.”
“Yes, well, I was having fun, wasn’t I? I assure you I was not having fun at the moment this occurred.”
“Footpads?”
Percy pressed his lips together. “No. And I’m not going to talk about it, so let’s not be tiresome. Will I be fit for our trip to Hampstead tomorrow?”
“As fit as a fiddle,” Kit promised.
Kit took the sleeve he had torn off Percy’s shirt and folded it into a bandage, then wrapped it around the wound. When he finished tucking in the loose end of the cloth, he saw that Percy was looking intently at him. Kit felt his breath catch. There wasn’t any mistaking the nature of that look, and even if there had been, it would have vanished when Percy’s tongue darted to wet his bottom lip. Christ. Kit’s gaze skittered away, then flicked back over the swell of Percy’s exposed arm, the sharp line of his jaw, the damp plumpness of his lips.
They had been looking at one another for weeks—Percy shamelessly, and Kit at first reluctantly but now hungrily, avidly, as if there were no sight in the world quite as worth looking at as Percy.