Chapter Six
Titus wasn’t sure what to do about this.
He’d been warned about the Comte. Mr. Carnaby had called him “soi-disant,” which meant he wasn’t convinced by the title. Mr. Thorpe had taken him aside when the man arrived to say that he was probably here for what he could get.
It had initially seemed that way, although the Comte’s clothing gave Titus pause.
He was no expert on dress, but even he could see the Comte’s appearance dripped not just good taste, but money.
He wore a perfectly cut coat of a lovely russet brown, matched with a fascinating waistcoat of shimmering pale gold and flame-coloured satin.
The colours sang together, and Titus would have found it hard to look away if it weren’t for the Comte’s face demanding his attention.
He was extremely, almost excessively handsome.
Near-black hair; chestnut eyes so lit with orange highlights they were close to bronze (and that would be why the waistcoat made such an impact); a perfect, curving mouth; a confident, charming, slightly lazy air.
He was somewhat below the medium height, but elegantly shaped, and clearly strong, given the remarkable expediency with which he’d dispatched Laxton.
In fact, he was outrageously attractive, the sort of man who generally looked through Titus as though he didn’t exist.
Doubtless he was a cicisbeo, or whatever one called men who sold their looks and charm. That was meant to be a shameful way to go on, but frankly, Titus applauded Miss Whitecross’s taste. If he had eight thousand a year, he could imagine spending it on someone like this.
He did have eight thousand a year.
He jerked his mind away from that thought. “Speak to me? If you wish. Yes, of course.”
“Merci.” Titus wished the Comte wouldn’t keep dropping into French. He clearly spoke very good English, and surely words like “sir” and “thank you” were among the first one would learn. “Are you familiar with my history?”
“Er, no. Not at all.”
“But you know I am Nicolas-Marc de La Motte, yes?”
“Yes?”
“Oui. The son of Jeanne de Valois de La Motte.”
He waited expectantly. Titus waited back at him, for lack of better ideas. The Comte gave a tiny sigh. “The woman blamed for l’affaire du collier de la reine. The Affair of the Diamond Necklace?”
“For—” Titus’s jaw dropped. “That was your mother? I mean—her?”
Everyone knew the story. La Motte, a Versailles courtier, had persuaded the Cardinal de Rohan that the Queen of France would grant him great favour if he arranged the secret purchase of a huge diamond necklace on her behalf.
He duly guaranteed payment to the jewellers, and La Motte took possession of the necklace to give to the Queen.
But no payment was forthcoming and when the jewellers appealed to Marie Antoinette, she denied all knowledge.
Rohan was arrested, and the scheme unravelled quickly from there.
La Motte’s trial for the theft of the necklace had been an international sensation. She was convicted and gaoled; the necklace had never been seen again.
Titus’s shock must have been clear, because the Comte spread his hands. “But yes. My mother was the go-between for Marie Antoinette. It was she who took the blame when the Queen kept the necklace and refused to pay.”
“The Queen had nothing to do with it,” Titus said. “It was all a trick perpetrated by the—by, uh, Lady de La Motte. Wasn’t it?”
“The King and Queen decreed my mother was a fraud and liar, and the court found accordingly. Naturally you believe that to be the truth.”
“Well, yes,” Titus admitted. “Isn’t it?”
The Comte gave a wry, sad smile. It was heart-wrenching on a face made for joy.
“My mother was caught up in the machinations of the powerful. There were intrigues upon intrigues, plots within plots. In the end, the courts preferred to condemn my mother rather than the Queen of France, and thus Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, Comtesse de La Motte, was publicly whipped, gaoled, and branded as a thief.”
He put his hand to his shoulder with an expression of pain that made him look exceptionally handsome. Titus found his own hand mimicking the gesture in unconscious sympathy. He took it away again.
“She escaped prison and fled to London, hoping to reclaim her character. She died a lonely death here, just two years before her erstwhile mistress went to Madame la Guillotine.”
“I’m very sorry to hear it,” Titus said. He had an idea that Madame de La Motte had died after jumping out the window to avoid debt collectors, but the two fates weren’t incompatible, he supposed.
The Affair of the Diamond Necklace had changed the world.
The French Queen’s reputation had been ripped to tatters despite the court’s verdict, her chastity and honesty relentlessly attacked.
The French monarchy’s semi-divine status had been thoroughly brought down to earth, and just a few years later, the people’s discontent tipped into revolution.
Titus couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be linked to the woman who had lit that spark.
Still, at least it proved that the Comte was not soi-disant, whatever else he was. Nobody would voluntarily link himself to Jeanne de La Motte.
Titus cleared his throat. “I am very sorry for your family’s troubles. Did you live with her here?”
“Ah, no, monsieur. My parents had separated for my father’s safety; they met only once after she escaped her prison, an encounter resulting in—” The Comte gestured modestly at himself.
“My mother bore me in London in the utmost secrecy and sent me as a baby to France, where my father lived in necessary obscurity. I grew up under the rule of l’Empereur, who had no love for the deposed king or his wife.
But times change. Once again a Bourbon king sits on the throne of France; once again agents of the monarch turn cold eyes on la famille de La Motte.
” He gave a shrug—both shoulders, palms turning up—that was the most Gallic thing Titus had ever seen.
“France is an unhappy country for one bearing my name. I fled to England.”
“How unpleasant for you.”
“Merci. But I beg your pardon, I rattle on. To introduce myself is not the affair of a moment.” The Comte flashed him a smile.
It was such a smile, a curving, confidential, conspiratorial smile as though they were sharing a private joke, and it left Titus breathless.
“I have told you all this—at such length, mon Dieu! You are very easy to converse with—because there is a similarity between our positions.”
Titus blinked. “There is?”
The Comte waved a hand. “I have seen the—what do you call them—the scandal sheets on the subject of your marriage and fortune. It is not pleasant to be held up to ridicule and abuse by strangers.”
“No, it is not,” Titus said with feeling. “It is dreadful. But I brought it entirely on myself by my marriage, whereas you cannot help your parentage, and it is quite wrong you should be insulted for it.”
The Comte cocked his head. “You are most kind, monsieur. I see you as a fellow sufferer, and I should normally have regarded you with the greatest sympathy. But here we come to the matter of Miss Whitecross. I shared certain evidence with her which would prove the Queen’s complicity and vindicate my mother if I made it public. ”
“Goodness,” Titus said, but could not prevent himself from adding, “Um, if you have such extraordinary evidence, why have you not used it already?”
The Comte gave a twisted smile. “Because I dare not. The agents of the King have not forgotten the La Mottes. To bring myself to their notice at all is a danger. To restore my mother’s reputation could cost me my life.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Titus said politely.
“I am resigned to my fate, monsieur. Or, I was, until Miss Whitecross gave me hope. She wanted me to use her fortune to clear my mother’s name.”
“Miss Whitecross took an interest in French intrigues?”
“She took a very great interest in a woman wronged by men.”
That was much more plausible. “Of course.”
“She intended to wed me to spite the Laxton, naturally. But she also liked the idea that her money would let me reveal the truth. And perhaps I might have, but the wheel of Fortune turns; my chance is gone.” He puffed at his fingers, as if blowing the seeds from a dandelion clock.
“You may imagine my disappointment. I came here in anger—my temper, the most lamentable!—believing you had cozened Miss Whitecross, and cheated me. Monsieur, I am ashamed of those thoughts. I ask your pardon.”
“Not at all, Comte.”
“But yes. I saw my own behaviour in the Laxton as in a mirror, and I regret it. Miss Whitecross’s fortune was hers to dispose of, and her need was urgent.
You owe no apology that you were the man on the spot, and I must be glad for my good old friend that there was a man on the spot.
She died content, knowing her fortune was snatched from the Laxton’s grasp? ”
“I think so.”
“Then I am grateful,” the Comte said magnificently. “I accept this as my mother accepted far greater reversals, I congratulate you on your advancement, and I rejoice that you eased the last hours of a lady for whom I felt the greatest affection and respect.”
“That is most handsomely said. I am very thankful for your understanding.” Titus wasn’t sure how he might have persuaded the Comte that he was innocent of plotting and scheming, but at least they weren’t arguing now.
He also had no idea how the man could speak in such flowing periods in a foreign tongue: he couldn’t do it in his own language.
Flowing speech in a warm tenor, and that thrilling accent. Titus had lived in London for many years, and heard all kinds of accents, but there was something about the Comte’s speech that made his nerves prickle delightfully. Unless it was the speaker doing that.