Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“And instead you opened your home to me. You treated me like a man, a friend, a person of worth. Not a dubious foreigner, or a harlot’s son, or a pretty fool.
I have got very tired of being the Comte de La Motte in England.
But you were good to me, and I wanted to do my best for you while I took your kindness.
And I got caught up in you, Titus. It has been such a joy to see the world with you—” He broke off there.
Titus saw his throat move convulsively before he began again.
“It is not a great virtue that I didn’t want to cheat you further than I was, or for you to stop seeing me as the hero I am not.
But I did not want those things, so I pretended.
” He gave a twisted smile. “I pretended I was worth you while I set out to cheat someone else, because I told myself that if I could pay Gaskin off, if I did not have to ask you for the money, then I could explain everything. I thought that might give us a chance. I would say, I lied, and I am sorry; please forgive me, and you might even have listened. You have no idea how close I came.”
“But I would have given you the money,” Titus said hopelessly. “And you needed it, so why could you not have asked?”
“Because once I asked, you would have doubted me,” Nico said. “And not the things you should have doubted. You do not have a high opinion of yourself, mon ami. Could you truly have handed me two thousand pounds and not started to wonder, Is that what he always wanted? Is that why he is in my bed?”
It hurt staggeringly. “I am not Miss Whitecross!” Titus protested. “I don’t think everyone is trying to cheat me. Do I?”
“You would have reason if you did,” Nico said, with that sharpness in his voice that so often meant he was defending Titus.
“I felt quite sure that if I put out my hand—like your brother, the Laxton, the Morris, all the rest—you would have wondered again how I came into your life, and asked yourself what I really wanted with you, and reached the worst conclusions. Am I wrong? Would you not have looked for the shadows in the picture?”
“At least I would have known they were there. It would have been better than finding you trying to steal from my brother.”
Nico started to respond, stopped. There was a tiny, miserable silence.
“Yes,” he said at last. “Perhaps. I have made a damned mess of this and I know it. I can only say that I did not want you to doubt my feelings for you, and I wish you will not doubt them now. I am a liar and a charogne and everything you care to say, but I love you, and you were never, ever wrong to believe that.”
He had spoken with a fair amount of composure throughout the conversation, but his voice cracked on that last. Titus had to swallow hard himself.
He couldn’t reply, and after a moment Nico went on.
“You need not say there should have been nothing between us while I lied to you. I know that. I have not done well by you and I regret it bitterly, but it has also been everything I wanted, and I would almost certainly do it all again. I’m sorry. ”
Titus stared at him. At Nico, who had fought for him, and given him strength in a hundred ways, and helped him find his path, and even discovered Vespasian. And lied and cheated and been part of a criminal conspiracy to defraud people for thousands.
“I need to think,” he said. Nico nodded. Titus took a turn about the room, trying to make it make sense, fighting back the competing urges to rage and rebuke, to assure him it was all right, to beg him to say I love you again, to let it go.
He took a deep breath. “You know, one of Henry’s worst traits was that he never apologised. He never accepted fault, or admitted wrongdoing; he always tried to turn it back on me. I appreciate that you are saying you’re sorry. I do believe that you are.”
“I truly am. Titus—”
“I believe you didn’t want to hurt me,” Titus went on as steadily as he could.
“I feel less stupid knowing that I was a minor part in your scheme rather than its target. But I am tired of being pushed into minor parts. You have listened and thought about what I wanted more than anyone else ever has, but even you didn’t let me choose my own role in my own life.
I owe you a great deal for everything you did for me.
I don’t think I would have the strength to say all this now if it hadn’t been for the ways you’ve helped me.
But what you did was wrong, in a way I cannot bear.
You manipulated me and tried to direct how I thought as much as Henry ever did, and I cannot let that happen any more. ”
No,” Nico said, eyes huge and dark. “No, of course you cannot. I didn’t think I was doing that, but— I’m sorry. I’m glad I did something well at least, and … I will not forget you, mon coeur.”
It hurt so much. Titus wanted to demand of Nico why he had had to do it, and more, demand of himself why he cared. Why he could not just let it go, forgive and forget, ignore the bad because the good was so very good, and simply hope Nico didn’t do the same thing all over again.
He knew why. He’d lived through that once already.
“You should go,” he said, and was distantly proud his voice didn’t wobble.
Nico nodded. He stood, looking at Titus for a silent moment, and then he turned and left without a word.