Chapter Twenty-Six
Titus had acted decisively, with strength and self-respect. Two days later, all those things felt grossly overrated.
He was lonely, and he was sad, and he was very much not consoled by having done the right thing. One day he would feel that consolation, but in the aching emptiness of Nico’s absence, all he felt was that if his erratic lover walked in, he would fall into his arms.
So it was for the best Nico wasn’t going to walk in. Alma had told him this morning that the cousins would be heading to Dover tomorrow, on their way to France. She had added, “And good riddance,” but her eyes were red.
Nico was leaving the country, it was over forever, and that was all there was to it.
Titus had restarted his painting lessons, and gone to see the collection at Northumberland House, where he had lost himself in the art for up to three minutes at a time, and if he continued behaving like a man who was content with his life, eventually he would feel like one again.
Right now he was going through his heap of correspondence.
The volume of invitations had dropped precipitately, with most of them now coming from artists and collectors rather than matrimonially minded parents.
That was welcome, even if the number of begging letters had not greatly diminished.
Titus was still dealing with it all for fear of Henry’s intemperate correspondence starting up again, although he hadn’t heard from the man since Nico’s intervention.
He would have to deal with Henry himself if he popped up again, and was surprised to realise that he didn’t find the thought intimidating.
Perhaps Nico’s lack hurt so much that he had no other feelings to spare.
Perhaps standing for oneself was like any other skill, and had to be learned and practiced.
There was nothing from Henry in the current pile, but there was a letter from Matthew Laxton, written in a barely readable hand on dirty paper.
The text, once deciphered, was incoherent, but its gist was that Laxton would consider all matters settled if Titus gave him five hundred pounds at once.
He wrote a curt response, and picked up the next letter, which was from Chilcott Baynes. Titus groaned aloud.
Baynes’s letter indicated that he did not accept Titus’s repeated refusals to sell the picture.
It had been promised to him by the Comte de La Motte, in what he considered a binding verbal contract.
He would be very happy to pay Titus five thousand pounds for it; he trusted he would not be obliged to have recourse to the law to enforce his agreement with the Comte.
Titus had no idea what the law was supposed to do, considering that Mr. Baynes had not paid Nico anything and had nothing in writing. He was also deeply unhappy to notice that according to the letter, the homicidal Mr. Baynes was staying in a hotel just half a mile away.
Titus sent him a note of courteous but absolute refusal, hoped that would be the end of it, and was therefore horrified that afternoon when Mr. Thorpe came in to announce that Mr. Chilcott Baynes had called and was waiting on the step.
“Oh God, no!” he yelped.
“Is there a problem, sir?”
“Apparently he’s dangerous. I don’t suppose he can be planning to attack me in my own house, but—”
“Attack?”
“He tried to murder the Comte, and Perreau.”
Mr. Thorpe’s expression suggested he had nothing but sympathy for Mr. Baynes. “Shall I call the footman?”
“Yes. Actually, no. I should deal with this, but, er, could you keep an ear out in case of trouble?”
The imperturbable butler didn’t blink. “Certainly, sir.”
Mr. Chilcott Baynes did not improve on a second meeting.
He opened proceedings by demanding that Titus should sell him the painting, explained that he considered himself the guardian of the late Queen’s honour, and then launched without provocation into an impassioned speech about Marie Antoinette’s history, character, and, inevitably, bosom.
“And thus, you see, it is necessary I have the painting,” he concluded. “It must remain secret. I cannot have the world cast more blame on her. The La Motte bitch entrapped her in some manner, whore and harlot as she was. I have no doubt of that. You cannot put it on public display.”
“I don’t intend to. I will keep it quite safe.”
“It will be safe with me. It is mine. I had an agreement with the whore’s son.”
Which you broke, Titus did not point out. He was beginning to feel that Nico had, if anything, understated Baynes’s peculiarity of mind: The man’s expression as he spoke of Jeanne de La Motte was pure hatred.
“I’m surprised you would have wanted to do business with him,” he said. “As the son of such a notorious woman.”
“Oh, I had no intention of letting her spawn profit from the Queen’s misfortune,” Baynes said, and chuckled.
It was a perfectly normal, pleasant sort of chuckle, and it brought up every hair on Titus’s neck.
“No La Motte will ever get a penny from me, or any hanger-on who tries to enrich themselves at my lady’s expense.
They think they will profit, but they soon find their mistake. ”
“You won’t pay for items relating to the necklace,” Titus said, thinking of small, slight Perreau being kicked on the ground, of broken ribs and terror, of a pistol pointed in Nico’s face.
Perreau had walked into a pit of vipers when he approached Baynes, and now the snakes were hissing around Titus’s feet. “Then what are you offering me?”
Baynes’s mouth opened and his expression darkened.
Titus hastily revised his approach. “Not that it is relevant, because you cannot have the painting at any price. You are not the only man who cares for the Queen’s reputation,” he added, in a burst of improvisation.
“The picture will not see the light of day while it is in my possession. In fact, it will go into my bank for safekeeping tomorrow. Now I must ask you to leave.”
Mr. Baynes did not excuse him. His voice rose in protest, and then in threat, and Titus did not have to stand for this in his own home.
“I said, leave.” He went to the door as he spoke, and threw it open. “Mr. Thorpe!”
“There he is!” came a slurred shout from the front door, and Titus saw Matthew Laxton attempting to get under Mr. Thorpe’s arm. “You, Pilcrow, I want to talk to you!”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Titus said. “Absolutely not. Get out. You, Mr. Baynes, leave immediately, and you, Mr. Laxton, if you don’t go away, I will summon a constable. Neither of you will have anything from me at all, and the pair of you may go to the devil and stay there. Out!”
Baynes and Laxton were bundled out, amid much protest. Titus slammed the door on them himself and put his back against it.
“Are you all right, sir?” Mr. Thorpe asked.
“No, I am not. I wish the Comte was here,” Titus said, then realised that had sounded far, far too truthful. “I mean, to deal with these dreadful people. He was better at it. I think I will go up to the Lake District shortly.”
“On your own, sir?”
“I suppose so, unless you and Mrs. Thorpe would care for a trip. It will be very pleasant.” Titus wasn’t convinced about that.
He liked peace and quiet and he wanted to spend time in greenery, so the Lake District with Nico had seemed perfect.
Now he felt that he would be not just solitary but lonely. “I’m sure it will be lovely.”
Mr. Thorpe contemplated him a moment. Then he put a hand on Titus’s shoulder, a silent gesture that could only be called fatherly, and Titus let himself take the unfamiliar comfort. He needed it.
The next day was Mr. Thorpe’s day off, so he and Mrs. Thorpe were going to visit a relative in Wandsworth. It left Titus rather unnerved. The house in Carey Street felt vulnerable without either Nico or Mr. Thorpe as his guard dogs.
He advised James, the new footman, that he was Not At Home to anyone except his art teacher in the morning and his brother Vespasian for tea. It didn’t help settle the fearful anticipation that had taken residence in the pit of his stomach.
That wasn’t just about Baynes or Laxton or any of the people he didn’t want in his life. It was about the one he had wanted, still did. It was about Nico, leaving the country today, and the knowledge that everything was over forever.
It had to be over. He could not just tell Nico he’d changed his mind; he hadn’t changed it.
Nico should not have slandered a dead woman or tried to defraud people, although in fairness Titus could quite see why the cousins had taken against Baynes.
He shouldn’t have lied. Those things didn’t feel so stark and raw now the shock had receded, but they were still wrong, and Titus had too much experience of how easy it was to persuade himself, It wasn’t that bad and He didn’t really mean it, when it was and he had.
If Nico had just asked, Titus thought for the hundredth time.
If he had said, when Titus offered, Why yes, mon ami, I am in urgent need of two thousand pounds, Titus would have given it to him.
He’d intended to share his wealth; he hadn’t expected such a vast sum, but he would not have begrudged it for his Nico.
He wouldn’t have reacted like Miss Whitecross, full of suspicion, assuming the worst.
At least, he hoped he would not.
Except he knew very well that every time Nico had refused money, every time he turned away Titus’s clumsy efforts to broach the subject, it had felt like a proof of his affection.
He must care for me, Titus had thought again and again, because he doesn’t want my money.
He’d cherished that, letting it soothe the many stings of the people who very clearly did just want the money.
If Nico had asked for a vast sum, would Titus really have handed it over and thought no more of it? Or would it have started a worm of insecurity and self-doubt, a questioning of Nico’s motives, a reversal of the inference? If he wants my money, that means he must not care for me …