The Queer Principles of Kit Webb

by Cat Sebastian

“All right, you lot. Somebody’s been scribbling Tory nonsense on the privy walls.” Every eye in the room was on Webb, as if he were a magnet. He wasn’t even raising his voice above his usual scratchy growl. “You want to write Tory slogans, you do at it the coffeehouse across the way with the rest of the Tory scum.” As Webb spoke, he looked at his audience, and his gaze caught on Percy, and Percy knew he had been recognized. “Here, we serve Whigs and radicals.”

Perhaps it was just used to running the show, or perhaps in times of hardship one finds comfort in the familiar, and in Percy’s case the familiar was most definitely thinking with his prick. There had seldom been any reason not to.

“I thought my lord would wish to wear a hat that complemented none of his other garments, so as to keep with the theme of discordance,” Collins intoned.

The late afternoon sun that filtered through the high, dusty windows of the back room lit Percy so he was all porcelain skin and cheekbones and hair the color of a new guinea, all golden and bright.

“I used to think that revenge was about defending one’s honor, but it turns out that honor is just spite dressed up for Sunday.”

“Highwaymen wear masks,” Percy said. “Don’t they? Besides, Father won’t pay any attention to my face. If someone is beneath Father’s notice, he literally does not notice them. He still calls the footman George, even though George died ten years ago. Anyway, don’t worry about me. Think about the book.”

Percy blinked up at him. “Why?” His eyelashes were darker than his hair, lighter at the tips. Kit could have identified Percy by his eyelashes alone, which was a lowering thought.

“All right,” he said. “I’m off to disgrace myself.”

Good God, but the man was easy to look at. He clearly made no effort whatsoever with his appearance and probably never had, which made Percy both faintly jealous and peculiarly aroused.

“In any event,” Percy went on, “what I had thought were principles were merely manners, and they’re utterly insufficient for my present circumstances.

Kit gasped, like an idiot, like someone who needed to have the mechanics of kissing and possibly the anatomy of mouths explained to him, maybe with charts.

But he also knew that the moral of Scarlett’s story wasn’t that rich men abandon their conquests; it was that when you’re treated badly, you start to believe you don’t deserve any better.

Kit Webb kissed in a way that was positively unfair. It was an injustice. It was sweet and tentative and totally at odds with the bad grooming and the criminal past. He kissed Percy as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed, as if he were worried about being woken from a dream.

And throughout it all Percy couldn’t stop talking, could not stop saying things that were lamentably true and just as ill-advised. He ought to be concentrating on making this better for Kit instead of nattering on about how beautiful Kit was, how lovely Kit was being for him. A voice inside Percy’s head told him to stop being like this—weak, needy, desperate—but at the same time he saw the way Kit was responding to all of that, and thought that maybe it wasn’t so bad.

When he remembered Percy’s words in his ear, alternately soothing and chiding, he could almost feel the other man’s body pressed against his back.

Something gratified flickered across Percy’s face. Kit smiled, because of course Percy was the sort of person to be delighted by presents.

“It’s cake,” Percy said, not as if he had expected a golden snuffbox or something, but as if there was nothing in the world better than cake.

“If you haven’t figured out by now that I’ll let you buy me as many cakes as you please, as often as you want, you’re stupider than you look.” That, from Percy, was as good as a declaration, and Kit drew in a breath.

“As I said, you really don’t seem to have any problems with danger.” Kit took the remnants of cake from Percy’s hand, broke off a piece, and held it up to Percy’s lips. “I’d even say you seek it out. So you ought to be perfectly fine letting on that you need me.” Percy stared at him, and for a minute Kit thought he’d protest. But he leaned forward and ate the cake from Kit’s fingers.

“I adore you,” Kit said, and the worst part of it was that he had paused a full second before speaking to weigh his words as well as his lust-addled mind was able, so he couldn’t even blame his frankness on the sort of whim that struck a man right before coming. “I adore you,” he repeated for good measure.

“You’re strong,” Kit said as he lowered himself into the nearest chair. His words came out regrettably soft and sweet,

Kit opened his mouth to protest that of course it was all right and Percy could just shut up about it, but when he tried, all that came out was a sob, and he realized his cheeks were wet with tears. So he let Percy pet his head, and it occurred to him that Percy wasn’t as awkward at soothing as Kit might have guessed. He said things like “hush, hush,” and “there, now, I have you,” as if they came naturally to him.

Kit’s heart twisted with some unspeakable, unwanted fondness. Percy was somehow still young or naive enough to think that there was any difference between being strong and acting strong. And again, Kit found himself wanting to be there when Percy figured it out, when he learned what he was worth.

“This is the great hall,” Percy said redundantly, because it was fairly obvious where they were, with its enormous hearth and its minstrel gallery. “And this is the Grand Staircase,” he said. “We lack a certain creativity when it comes to naming things, I’m afraid. You’ll never guess what color the Blue Library is.”

“Look at you,” he breathed, and had the satisfaction of watching Percy redden to the tips of his ears.

though. The world was filled with people who felt all kinds of things and couldn’t manage to shape those feelings into something that would last.

He could tell from Kit’s awkwardness that he rarely, if ever, let anyone enter it. He nervously pointed out things like the ewer and the window, as if Percy were unfamiliar with ewers and windows.

Love, while a fine thing, might be little more than an accident. It was what came next that mattered.