The Queer Principles of Kit Webb - Cat Sebastian Page 0,82
sick, but with a sneer. Percy didn’t know what that sneer meant, but it put him on familiar ground.
“A friend,” Percy said carefully, “suggested that I ought to regard my father’s first marriage as a youthful peccadillo. And that my quest for revenge is ungenerous of me.”
“The world is filled with people who quietly choose to forget the marriages they made when they were young and didn’t know any better. Sometimes that’s the only way people have a chance at happiness. But your father isn’t some traveling tinker. He had a responsibility.”
“To the estate,” Percy said, nodding.
“Fuck the estate,” Kit said with venom. “No, he had a responsibility to you. He let you believe a lie—a lie about who you are and what your place is. He let you prepare your whole life for a purpose you don’t have.”
“What else could he have done?”
“Other than tell the truth? Well, instead of letting you believe that your worth hinges on your place in a hierarchy that men like him made up centuries ago—a hierarchy that is deranged and infantile and does a great deal of harm, I’ll point out—he could have rebuked all of it. He could have given away his wealth, renounced his title, and lived like the rest of us. He could have lived the sort of life that you’re now meant to live.”
“I don’t think one can renounce a title,” Percy said, because that was the only part of Kit’s speech he could engage with. The rest was not only radical but felt somehow blasphemous, possibly treasonous.
“He should have done it anyway.”
There were moments when the world appeared to remake itself. It had already happened to Percy once this year, when he had learned of his father’s betrayal. And now it was happening again—everything tearing apart at the seams, only to be sewn up in a different shape altogether. The world he now saw was Kit’s, a world where one could refuse to accept the existing order of things, a world where old truths could be jettisoned and new ones put into place.
Percy felt oddly vulnerable, newly hatched in a world where he didn’t know his way. He leaned instinctively toward Kit, not realizing he was doing it until Kit reached out and pulled him close. Percy shut his eyes and rested his forehead against Kit’s.
“Sorry,” Percy said after a few moments, unsure what he was apologizing for but aware that he was taking up Kit’s time.
“Shut up,” Kit said, and kissed him.
Chapter 38
“Stay,” Kit said, speaking the words against Percy’s mouth. He had spent weeks committing to memory every detail of Percy’s various appalling ensembles and now wanted to remove every stitch of this one. The gold braid alone could—and should—be snipped off and sold for enough to put bread in the mouths of all Saint Giles’s urchins for an entire week, and those buttons could pay the rent on a decent set of rooms for a year. But he also wanted to trace the line of that gold braid with his heated fingers, then undo each button with his teeth.
He decided not to inquire too closely into either of these urges.
“I only have an hour,” Percy said, pulling away but leaving his hands on Kit’s hips. “I need to accompany Marian on her visits.”
“She’s important to you,” Kit said looping his arms around Percy’s neck. “Did you hope to marry her?” It was probably a tactless question, considering who she was married to—or not married to—presently, but Kit wanted to know, for reasons he had firmly decided were not jealousy.
Percy furrowed his brow. “I thought it might come to that, although of course I always hoped Marian would make a match with someone who could be a proper husband for her.”
“Do you not ever fancy women?” Kit asked, weighing his words carefully.
“Oh, no. Never even bothered trying to fool myself on that score. I take it you’re, er, more broad-minded in your preferences.”
“Mmm.” Kit was momentarily distracted when Percy began kissing his neck. “But not broad-minded enough to let you leave that wig on while you’re kissing my neck that way.”
Percy complied without taking his lips from Kit’s neck, tossing the wig onto Kit’s desk. Kit undid Percy’s plait and then ran his fingers through the silky strands with something like relief.
“How much else do you want me to take off?” Percy asked.
“If we only have an hour, not much. It probably takes a full hour to button you into that getup.”