Chapter Fourteen
Nico hung on to the good feelings the next day. He needed them.
He had very nearly made a bad mess of finding Vespasian. Titus could easily have taken umbrage about what might, in some lights, seem like a gross, unsolicited interference in his personal affairs.
He really needed to think things through more, he told himself for the thousandth time.
It was his besetting sin: A thing needed doing, so he did it without considering the consequences.
Yes, of course I’ll abandon my life in Paris and come to London to commit fraud with Eve.
Oh, that very large man is kicking a dog or bullying a woman, better step in.
Titus wants his brother so he must have him!
And never mind that he was embroiled in a nightmare, that he’d got into multiple fights, that he’d stuck his nose into Titus’s private business.
He should have told Titus what he intended.
Although, in fairness, he had no idea when he could have said, I’m trying to find the brother you lost. It would have been a broken promise if he hadn’t been able to track the man down, and once he had found him, he hadn’t wanted to introduce yet another nagging parasite into Titus’s life.
Especially given he’d received more of those letters that made him flinch.
Nico badly wanted to know about those letters.
Despite the volume of correspondence he received, most of it nonsensical demands for money, Titus had refused to hire a secretary or pass it all to Mr. Carnaby.
He wanted to open every letter himself. That led Nico to conclusions he didn’t like about people who extorted and manipulated and leeched money off good, decent men with absurdly kissable mouths.
He’d make his own manipulation right once he’d cleared Eve’s debt to Jacky Gaskin.
He’d come clean about living here under false pretences and feeding Titus lies; he’d apologise for all of it, and wipe the slate clean so that they could write other things on it.
And until then he would pretend he didn’t see how Titus watched him, or think about the way their fingers curled together so instinctively.
He wouldn’t touch his hand again, come to that.
Nico was a toucher, and Titus was a man desperate for touch, and it came so very naturally to reach out to him.
He had to stop doing it. He’d seen the flare in Titus’s eyes; he knew damned well he could pull him over whenever he chose.
But Nico was lying to him, and though he could feel Titus’s wanting, with his yearning eyes and delicious mouth and fingers that would cling and clutch, he was not going to respond until he had a right to.
Once he’d got the money. Unfortunately, his faith that he could do that was starting to dwindle.
Chilcott Baynes hadn’t responded to Nico’s letter upping the price by five hundred pounds, an addition he’d made for verisimilitude and also because he could really use five hundred pounds.
Sir James Roud wasn’t interested. Mr. George Rankin was interested but not enough, and Nico couldn’t force his hand without competition.
Which was why he was currently on his way to visit Mr. George Rankin and explain that Sir James Roud had made him a generous offer for the painting. He hoped the scuttlebutt that they didn’t talk to one another was true.
It would be another set of lies piled on his immortal soul, which must be staggering under the weight at this point, but Nico couldn’t afford to worry about that now. He just wanted the whole horrible business over with.
He returned to Carey Street four hours later feeling like a wrung-out dishcloth.
There was something peculiarly unappealing in collectors of Marie Antoinette artefacts.
They were, to a man (they were all men), a little bit too avid, a little bit too ready to dwell on the imaginary picture of the Queen of France being pawed by a lover in a dark garden, or the very real image of the widowed Queen in dirty clothes, being dragged to sharp-edged death in front of a crowd screaming hate.
Nico didn’t give a damn for royals dead or alive, but the way Messrs Baynes and Rankin talked about Marie Antoinette in the tumbril made him want a bath.
He’d listened to the fellow, though, and smiled, and lied, and please God Rankin would take the bait. For now Nico only wanted to go home. It had been a long afternoon, and he’d missed teatime.
Titus had had a painting lesson today. Maybe he’d be ready for a late cup of tea, or an early glass of sherry.
He would probably want to talk about it in the fascinated, detailed way he had which Nico found deeply soothing, especially when he had no interest in the subject.
Titus could care about things for them both, and it settled Nico’s abraded nerves wonderfully.
So he came back to Carey Street in hope of peace, took one look at Mr. Thorpe’s face in the hallway, and demanded, “What’s wrong?”
“Henry Morris is here,” the butler said, voice low.
“Who?”
“You don’t know?”
“No, I do not. What is going on?”
“A man named Henry Morris arrived an hour ago. Mr. Pilcrow has mentioned his name before, not in a happy manner. He has been closeted with Mr. Pilcrow in the parlour ever since and there have been raised voices.” The butler hesitated, then lowered his voice even further.
“I went in to offer wine, and Mr. Pilcrow appeared extremely distressed.”
“You think something should be done?”
Thorpe didn’t drop his gaze. “It seems necessary, Comte.”
Nico handed over his hat. “Excuse me.”
He could hear the voice through the parlour door. He couldn’t make out words, but the tone was insistent. Hectoring, Nico thought, so he gave a perfunctory knock and walked in before anyone could tell him not to.
Titus was hunched in a chair, his head bowed and his clenched fists up by his ears. He uncurled at Nico’s entry and looked up, and his face was a horrible combination of misery and despair and a sudden glimmer of wild hope that flickered out almost at once. His eyes were wet.
There was a man standing over him, some pointless piece of shit in an ugly waistcoat. He was looking at Nico with a resentful expression that came naturally to his stupid fucking face, which Nico was going to punch because Titus was crying.
“Mon ami. I trust you excuse my interruption,” he said, forcing the urbane words through a throat thick with rage.
“Who’s this?” said Ugly Waistcoat. Nico didn’t like his coat either. Or his boots. Or his existence.
Titus looked like a man in a nightmare. “Uh—this is—it isn’t—”
“Nicolas-Marc, Comte de La Motte,” Nico said, curling his lip. “You may address me as Comte. Who are you?”
“Comte?” Morris repeated.
“Oui, monsieur?”
Morris looked from him to Titus. “Well? Are you not going to introduce me? Am I not good enough for your new friends?”
“I’m sorry,” Titus whispered. “Comte, this is Mr. Henry Morris.”
“Mr. Henry Morris,” Morris parroted mockingly, in the annoying manner of an annoying schoolchild. “You might put a little more effort into the introduction for a friend.”
And, oh, the note in his voice. Nico hadn’t needed to see Titus’s flinch to recognise that note and the way it conveyed a whole hinterland of You never do anything right and I shouldn’t have to tell you and most of all Nobody else would put up with you, which was, really, always the message.
One of the girls in the gambling hell had had a man like that.
He’d been affable in company, but Nico had paused outside doors and heard his mosquito-drone of reproach and complaint for months as he slowly sucked the life out of her.
She’d finally agreed to let a few of the portiers swat him. Nico had very much enjoyed putting the boot in, and he wasn’t waiting that long again.
“Monsieur Morris,” he said with a bow. “I wish a word with Monsieur Pilcrow in private. Perhaps you will await us outside.”
“I will do no such thing. I am a guest here. Who is this man, Titus? What is he doing in this house?”
“A peculiar tone to take with its master,” Nico said coldly. “Mon ami, step out with me for a moment. I am quite sure Monsieur Morris will attend your return.”
“Nico—” Titus managed.
“‘Nico’?” Morris repeated. “Oh, ‘Nico,’ is it?”
Nico ignored him, locking eyes with Titus. “Allons-y,” he said gently, and extended his hand.
There was a very long minute when he feared Titus wouldn’t move. Then he got up, mumbled, “Excuse me—moment—” in Morris’s direction, and followed Nico out. They left the room in silence.
The hall was empty. Nico grabbed Titus’s elbow and dragged him through to the next room, kicking the door shut. “Merde alors, quelle charogne. I will get rid of him, yes?”
“You can’t.”
“Oh, I can.”
“No, you mustn’t! He’ll ruin me!”
“Blackmail?”
“Don’t,” Titus whispered. “Please don’t ask.”
Nico took his hands, clasping them in his own. “Tell me, mon ami. I will help you, I swear I will, but I must know the situation.”
“It’s—he wants—we were—” His eyes were darting, flicking round the room. “Uh, he, we, it’s not—”
This wasn’t getting them anywhere. Titus was in a devil of a state, and he probably didn’t want to admit to having fucked Morris. Nico wouldn’t either.
Desperate times. He reached up for Titus’s face with both hands, stood on tiptoes, and kissed him.
It wasn’t ideal. He hadn’t asked, and Titus was distressed, and as his lips met Titus’s and found them cold and tense, Nico had a fraction of a second to wonder if he’d just made everything a hundred times worse.
Then Titus made a noise in his throat. His mouth softened, loosened, and Nico pressed a touch harder, and this time Titus kissed him back.
Nico had his face cupped in his hands. He pulled Titus down towards him, and Titus moaned in his mouth and clutched his shoulders, and then they were kissing, frantically locked with tongues and lips and hunger and aching need, Titus clinging on to Nico, Nico arching up to meet him.