“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.” [loc. 2120]
London, 1751. Former highwayman Kit Webb, crippled by a gunshot wound that prevents him from resuming his previous career, runs a successful coffee house in Covent Garden, and dreams of vengeance against the man who he blames for the death of his family. Edward Percy, exquisite fop, conspires with his stepmother Marian -- with whom he's been friends since childhood -- against his bigamous and abusive father, the Duke of Clare. Percy's sure that if he can steal the small green book his father carries everywhere, he'll be able to gain the upper hand. Time to enlist a dashing highwayman for one last heist!
Of course it's not that simple. Kit is no longer a gentleman of the road, beguiling though he finds Percy. And Marian has a secret she's not sharing with her co-conspirator.
I felt this novel needed another edit: it's a headlong, well-paced read with plenty of period detail, but there are occasional clumsy sentences, and some plot developments which would have been more convincing with a little foreshadowing. I did occasionally feel that Kit's sexual interest in Percy came out of nowhere -- he's never done anything with a man before -- but with hindsight I'm inclined to read him as demisexual: he doesn't seem especially interested in sex with anyone, male or female, until Percy saunters into the (nameless) coffee shop.
A thoroughly enjoyable adventure, with echoes of Heyer and some intriguing minor characters: I especially liked Percy's valet Collins, and Betty who works in Kit's coffee shop. Kit himself, half-dead of boredom with his world shrunk to the coffee shop and its customers, is amiably rude and thoroughly competent, and educates Percy on the iniquities of the English class machine. Percy, with his hidden talents and his growing disinclination to embrace his noble heritage, is colourfully foppish and extravagantly queer without being mocked or feminised. (Well, Kit mocks him, but Kit mocks everyone.) And there's to be a sequel next year, featuring Marian and .... but that would be telling.
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