Chapter Nine #3
“The first, an unequivocal no,” Nico said. “If I push you over a cliff and you land on a heap of gold, that does not make me your benefactor. The second … also no, because absolution does not come into it. You have been sacrificed on the altar of family twice over, and that is quite enough.”
“Goodness,” Titus said. “You have a turn of phrase.”
“Am I wrong?”
“No, I daresay not. But all the same, he is the head of the family and my only remaining brother unless Ves ever comes back, and he was not obliged to lend me money just because I asked for it. So I do wonder if I ought to forgive and forget.”
“Did he ask your forgiveness?” Nico enquired.
“Good Lord, no. He complained that I had not written in a long time. I stopped writing to him after he refused the loan, you see. I had always written twice a year, and I wondered if he would write to me if I stopped, and he did not. This is the first communication between us in almost four years, and it comes when I am rich. I wish I found that more surprising.”
“But you did not throw his letter away,” Nico said.
Pause. “No,” Titus said at last. “No, I did not.”
“Because…”
Titus was silent a moment longer, then reached for his glass and took a deliberate mouthful of wine, followed by the grimace of a man who didn’t usually do dramatic drinking.
“Because I would like to believe my remaining brother cares for me, or at least that we could repair our relations. Maybe that is very stupid, but so many other things have changed for me. Is it not possible for my family situation to change too?”
Nico wouldn’t have put money on it, but he said, “All things can change. It might be he is ashamed and does not know how to say so. Perhaps your good fortune was the excuse he needed to write?”
Titus was examining his face with the intensity of the slightly drunk. “Do you think that’s likely?”
Nico did not think so at all, but Titus looked like he needed to hear it. He opened his hands. “Can people not grow, and learn, and do better?”
“I don’t know,” Titus said. “I really don’t know if they can. The wisest advice I ever heard was that if you want to know what someone will do in the future, look at what they did in the past.”
Nico tried to stop the flinch, but clearly he failed, because Titus’s brows drew together. “You don’t agree?”
“I don’t disagree, but I hope you are wrong.
I have made far too many mistakes for that.
No, not mistakes, but decisions. Poor decisions, selfish decisions, reckless decisions.
Even now—” Shit. He’d also had too much to drink, he realised, because the urge to blurt out the truth to Titus was all at once near overwhelming.
Put it all on the table, beg him to help.
Watch any interest in his eyes flicker and die at the request for a fortune.
If he kicks you out, you and Eve are dead.
“Even now?”
Nico sipped wine, scrabbling to get his thoughts back in order. “I am in England to conduct some business on behalf of my cousin, with whom I was brought up. My cousin is in great need of funds, and to cut a long story short, we must sell the family heirloom.”
“Oh. I am very sorry to hear it.”
“It is for Evelyn. I would sell the moon if I could make someone buy it.”
“I don’t see there is anything wrong with that at all.”
Nico fervently hoped he never would. “My father would disagree. He would say the legacy of our family is more important than the comfort of its younger members.”
“Ah. Yes, I understand that very well. The family is what matters, except that most of the people in the family don’t actually count as the family.”
“Exactement. Well, I say that my family is my cousin, and I will do anything that is required of me. I would sell our family name to the highest bidder, and be pleased to do it.”
“Good,” Titus said with force. “Good for you. If Augustus had cared even a fraction as much for any of us as you do for your cousin, I might still have some of my brothers.”
He reached out as he spoke. It was clearly an involuntary movement, offering a touch of comfort for Nico’s moral dilemma, which would have been a balm to his soul if he’d actually been telling the truth about it.
It wasn’t an entire lie. He was doing something of which a noble family would disapprove for his cousin’s sake. It was just that, when one got down in the detail, it was less “sacrificing my family heirloom” and more “stealing a lot of money.”
He took Titus’s hand anyway, just a swift squeeze of the fingers, because he wanted the comfort and he liked that one of them didn’t think he was a prick.
“Anyway, you spoke of Augustus,” he said, letting go precisely because he didn’t want to let go. He wanted Titus holding his hand and telling him he was doing the right thing. Not fair. “What might he say that would decide your course?”
“That’s … an interesting way to look at it.
” Titus considered. “If he told me, I wish I had helped you, or said he regretted what Father did to Hadrian, or even if he simply acknowledged that we were all disadvantaged for his benefit. That would be something to build on. But I doubt he feels that way.”
“Why not ask him?”
“How? That is, I could say, Are you sorry for what you did?, and if he says no, then it will be an answer at least, but what if he says, Naturally I regret the past, or some such? Do I take his word for it? What if he only wishes he was kinder to me because I’m rich now?
It is bad enough to have so many strangers and acquaintances and people I thought were friends fawning for my money.
To have it from my brother would be the outside of enough. ”
“Tell him the newspaper reports were a lie,” Nico suggested. “La Whitecross’s fortune has all been embezzled, you have nothing, and you will need to live upon his new kindness. His response will reveal the truth.”
“Mmm. Do you think that would work?”
“Of a certainty, mon ami. I saw something like it in a play, and the stage never lies.”
Titus managed a grin. “Well, I could try it. No, quite seriously, I will write to him. It may not do any good, but there is no point in me wondering what he thinks and not asking him, is there? Thank you, Nico. It has helped to talk about it.”
He raised a glass with a little smile. Nico’s heart twisted in a way he didn’t want and couldn’t afford.
“My pleasure,” he said.