With the powder, patch, and rouge, not to mention that very stupid wig and a frankly unethical quantity of purple silk, though, he was exquisite. There was, unfortunately, no other word that did the man justice. Kit found it hard to look away. Within an hour of the man’s arrival, he could have described the precise number and variation of flowers on the bastard’s stockings.
There was always the possibility that he knew who Kit was, but Kit had covered up his tracks pretty well. Only a handful of people knew Kit in both his identities, and nearly all of those were past confederates in whose interest it was that Kit never be exposed. Still, he had always suspected that revenge would come to find him one day, but he hadn’t expected it to arrive in a purple coat and with lavender ribbons in its wig.
But no, this man wasn’t looking at Kit with anything like malice. If anything, he looked . . . curious. Maybe even appreciative. Kit was just letting his imagination get the better of him.
So Kit ignored the man, or at least he tried to. He filled and refilled the kettles that hung over the hearth. The sun began to set behind the gray stone buildings across the street. The patrons at the long central table gradually filtered out and were replaced by new customers. Kit brewed pot after pot of coffee, and whenever he looked out of the corner of his eye, he saw dark velvet, a shiny shoe, and a pair of keen eyes.
His mind, he decided, had been finally driven over the brink by too much boredom, and now it looked for intrigue where in reality there was only a reasonably attractive man paying him too much attention.
Finally, Kit left Betty to manage the shop and stomped upstairs to punish himself by balancing the books.
He always left the door to his office not only unlocked but open. Across the landing, the door to his bedchamber was fastened by a heavy bolt, but he wanted Betty to be able to reach him—and his dagger, his pistol, and the rest of the modest arsenal he kept about his person—with a single shout. He also wanted to be able to hear the hum of voices from down below. He wanted to hear the clatter of cups, the sound of chair legs scraping across the wood floor, all almost loud enough to drown out the sounds of the street outside his window. Anything was better than silence.
And in through that unlocked door walked the powdered, beribboned gentleman.
Kit didn’t say anything, nor did he get to his feet. It would be not only useless, but an admission that he didn’t have the upper hand, if he asked what this man thought he was doing. Instead, he calmly rested his dagger on the table before him, his hand relaxed on the hilt. For some reason, the sight of this made the stranger break into a broad, slow smile, revealing a row of small white teeth that transformed what might have been a pleasant face into something altogether vulpine.
“Oh, marvelous,” the stranger said. “Really, well done. You are Kit Webb, are you not? Short for Christopher, middle name Richard, alias Gladhand Jack?” He pulled a chair out from the wall and brought it to face Kit’s desk, and then he sat, one leg delicately crossed over the other as he had done downstairs. That surprised Kit, even more than the fact that this man knew who Kit was. This man was rendering himself vulnerable, open to any attack Kit might choose to make, and surely he knew that Kit had every motive to attack him. “I’m Edward Percy.”
At the name, Kit’s fingers involuntarily closed around the hilt of his dagger. Not because he recognized it, but because he didn’t. He had never had any dealings with a man of that name, and if this stranger were acquainted with a friend of Kit’s, he would have led with that information. Instead, he had announced that he knew exactly who Kit was and what Kit had done. Briefly Kit considered telling this Percy that he had the wrong man. But this stranger knew. Kit could see it in his eyes. Somehow—and Kit would dearly like to know who had informed on him—Percy had found out, and denying the truth would only make getting rid of him more tedious.
Percy’s gaze traveled to Kit’s hand, still wrapped around the hilt of the weapon, and then back to Kit’s face. Nothing in his posture changed, nothing to indicate that he knew he was in danger, not the slightest trace of fear or even vigilance. That, in Kit’s experience, meant one of two things: either the man was enormously stupid and overconfident, which were certainly common enough traits among the wigged and powdered set, or he thought knowing who Kit really was would be enough to keep him safe, in which case he was very stupid indeed.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Percy?” Kit said, trying to imbue his words with as much boredom as he could, barely bothering to turn his voice up at the end.
“I have a proposition for you,” Percy said, crossing his legs in the opposite direction. His silver shoe buckle caught a beam of light from Kit’s candle, drawing Kit’s attention to Percy’s ankle. It was thin, almost delicate, and those clocks on his stocking seemed almost to writhe before Kit’s eyes. For one mad moment, he wondered if he might like whatever proposal Percy had to offer, however insulting.
“Eyes up here, Mr. Webb,” Percy murmured softly, and Kit felt his cheeks heat at having been caught out, but also at the lack of rebuke in the man’s voice. There were times when a lack of rebuke was almost an invitation, certainly a concession, and Kit did not know what to do now that he found himself in one of those situations.
“You enjoyed looking at me downstairs, too,” Percy went on. And, damn it, Kit knew he ought to have been more discreet. He hoped the dimness of the room concealed his flushed cheeks but had the sense that he was rapidly losing whatever upper hand he might have had at the start of this interview.
“I wasn’t the only one looking,” Kit replied.
“Indeed, you were not,” Percy said promptly. “Can you blame me?” He slowly raked his gaze down Kit’s body, and Kit had the inane idea that this man’s penetrating eyes had rendered the heavy oak desk as transparent as glass. “But work before play, Mr. Webb,” he said, a note of arch reprimand in his voice, as if Kit had started this, whatever it was. “Not to put too fine a point on it, I’d like to engage your services.” He paused, as if deliberately giving Kit a chance to get ideas about what those services might be, and whether he would like them. Kit let his thoughts trail down this path for a moment. Patrons were forever attempting to purchase Betty’s favors, so perhaps it wasn’t so very odd for one to attempt to do the same with Kit.
The fact was that Kit didn’t let himself look at men the way he was looking at Percy, at least not often, and certainly not so obviously as to get caught. He wondered what it was that had tipped his hand to this gentleman. Kit’s closest friends, such as they were, didn’t even know. He had the uncomfortable sense that this man saw everything Kit wished to conceal.
“I’d like to hire you to remove some papers from the possession of a man of my acquaintance,” Percy said, a trace of laughter in his voice, as if he knew precisely what Kit was thinking and that it wasn’t about stealing papers.
It took a moment for Kit’s brain to catch up with Percy’s meaning. “No,” he said, any thoughts of well-turned ankles and slender calves evaporating into the air. “I don’t do that.”
It would have been easy for Percy to point out that Kit didn’t do that anymore. But Kit had already learned that this man never said the obvious thing. Instead, the gentleman nodded. “Quite. I’m hoping you’ll make an exception for the right price.” He uncrossed and recrossed his legs, as if he knew what that did to Kit’s ability to think straight—and he probably did, damn it. “And for the right person,” he added, as if to drive home the point.