That was the crux of the problem: even a whisper of a rumor of his own legitimacy ruined the Clare legacy, and ruined it permanently. It would be passed on to his sons, and their sons, and linger like a miasma over Cheveril Castle for eternity. The more Percy fought, the worse the rumors would be.
“It would only delay the inevitable,” Percy said. “Unless we mean to burn down this church in Boulogne and murder the blackmailer as well as half my father’s old cronies, we can’t hope to keep it a secret forever.”
Marian remained silent rather longer than Percy thought it ought to take to agree that murder and arson were undesirable courses of action, however dreadful their present crisis. “That does sound impractical,” she conceded.
“Instead, if we can get the duke’s book, we can use it to force him to pay us enough to live quite comfortably. Since you have Eliza, he might not cast you off without a penny, but I’m afraid he’ll only too gladly put me out on the street. We need that book for leverage.”
“And then we let the blackmailer tell the world the truth about what a despicable man your father is,” Marian supplied.
Percy swallowed. “I think, rather, we ought to tell the world ourselves. That way we stay in control.” The idea of bringing about their own ruin was terrifying but so much better than living a lifetime in fear of having the truth exposed. “Does that sound agreeable?” he asked, as if proposing a promenade rather than a farewell to everything they had ever known.
Marian narrowed her eyes. “I plan to drain the estate of every penny we can. And, Percy,” she added, “I’m going to see your father brought as low as humanly possible. When he married me, he made a bargain. I kept my end, but he didn’t keep his. I will not be cheated, Percy.”
He took one of her hands. Neither of them were particularly affectionate by nature, but she squeezed his hand with both of hers. It was the first time since returning to England that he had truly seen a trace of his childhood playmate. When he left for the Continent, she had still been barely out of pinafores, and now she was coiffed and powdered and the mother to his three-month-old sister; she had become as cold and shrewd as all the duchesses of Clare who had preceded her.
Sometimes he wondered exactly how his father had managed to convince Marian to marry him. The union had been presented to him as a fait accompli, the news arriving at Percy’s lodgings in Florence troublingly soon after the news of his mother’s death. It plainly wasn’t a love match. Marian remained tight-lipped on the subject, and Percy and his father were hardly on cordial enough terms for such a conversation.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, pitching his voice as gently as he could.
She shook her head, and before he could say anything else, Marian’s maid returned, and they let go of one another’s hands.
Chapter 3
All sorts of people came to Kit’s. That was the point of the place, the point of coffeehouses in general. Ink-stained Grub Street hacks could get out of their cramped hired rooms, shopkeepers could pretend to be intellectuals, and well-shod gentlemen could get their hands dirty—but not too dirty.
What Kit sold was the fiction of democracy, accompanied by the aroma of coffee and tobacco and the company of a pretty serving girl. An afternoon in a coffeehouse was a chance for everyone to pretend the rules were less important than conversation. It was Twelfth Night, it was Carnival, but it took place in broad daylight, with everybody involved dead sober and wide-awake, with newspapers and hot drinks to lend everything the faint sheen of respectability.
Still, they didn’t get too many gentlemen like the one Kit noticed in the corner. He was wigged and powdered, a birthmark too dark to be real affixed above one lip. Even from across the room, Kit could tell that the man’s coat—wool of a violet so dark it was nearly blue, adorned with gold braid and brass buttons—must have cost a small fortune. The buttons alone would be worth nicking, as would the expanse of lace that spilled over the man’s wrists. He had one leg crossed over the other, revealing, beneath the hem of his violet knee breeches, thin stockings of the palest lavender, embellished with a pattern of white flowers that crept up the side of his calf. On his feet he wore shiny black shoes with silver buckles and a small but obvious heel. At his hip he wore one of those shiny, ornamental swords that gentlemen insisted on swanning about with.
The man didn’t have a newspaper open before him, nor a book, nor even a broadside. Apart from his cup of coffee—untouched, Kit noticed—his table was empty. Instead of sitting at the long table at the center of the room, which was where most unaccompanied patrons chose to sit, this man lounged at one of the smaller tables that lined the walls. It was off to the side but not in the shadows. It was almost as if he wanted to be looked at. It stood to reason, Kit supposed—one didn’t wear purple coats or high-heeled shoes if one wished to remain unobtrusive.
Odder still, the man wasn’t talking or reading or taking snuff. He wasn’t even drinking his coffee. Instead, he was doing one thing, and he was doing it incessantly—he was watching Kit.
“Don’t look now,” he murmured to Betty the next time she came out from the kitchen, “but the man at table four is up to something.”
She took her tray and made a circuit of the room, removing empty cups and exchanging remarks with a handful of regular patrons. “I could snatch his watch, his handkerchief, and his coin purse before he even reached the door,” she said when she returned. “Not that I will. Keep your hair on, I know the rules,” she added hastily and with audible regret. “My point is that the poor lamb’s about to have a very bad day. As soon as he steps one pretty foot outside, somebody’ll lighten his pockets. Maybe even before then, if I know Johnny Fowler.”
They both cast a sideways glance at Fowler, who was indeed watching the gentleman almost as intently—but more covertly—than the gentleman was watching Kit. Fowler’s mouth was practically watering. Kit sighed: he doubted Fowler would manage to wait until the gentleman crossed the threshold.
That was another thing coffeehouses were good for; an observant pickpocket could browse patrons for a likely target, follow them outside, and ply their craft. Hell, that was why Kit had thought to buy a coffeehouse in the first place—after spending hundreds of hours and countless pounds in such establishments, he figured he might as well try life on the opposite side of the till. And now it turned out operating a coffeehouse of his own was one of the few types of work—honest or otherwise—that he was fit for.
“But what’s he doing?” Kit asked. “The gentleman, not Fowler. Why is he here? Gentlemen usually come in groups of twos or threes, not on their own.”
“Maybe he’s looking to pick somebody else’s pocket,” Betty said.
“Maybe,” Kit mused. This man wouldn’t be the first thief who dressed as a gentleman in order to throw off suspicion. He wouldn’t even be the first thief to actually be a gentleman. “But he’s only looking at me, not the room.”
“You sure you don’t know him?”
Kit raised his eyebrows at her. “I think I’d remember meeting the likes of that.”
He chanced another look at the man. Kit was good at remembering faces—he had to be, both in his present line of work and his former one. And he knew he had never seen that man before. Beneath the powder, the man’s face was unremarkable—straight nose, a jaw that was neither weak nor strong, eyes of some color that was neither dark nor light. His eyebrows were a pale wheat, meaning that the hair beneath his wig was likely even lighter. It was hard to tell, what with all the stuff he had on his face, but he was probably not an unpleasant-looking man. Maybe even handsome, in a bland sort of way.