Chapter Twenty-Six #2
He ought to have questioned Nico’s motives, of course. They were highly questionable. But he had a horrible feeling that he might, rather, have questioned why such a beautiful, confident, wonderful man could possibly want Titus Pilcrow. It had always seemed implausible, after all.
Perhaps Nico hadn’t been trying to manipulate Titus so much as trying to avoid hitting him somewhere he knew would desperately hurt.
Titus stared at the wall, thinking of that, and Nico taking a ship for France today, disappearing into Paris and out of his life, and clenched his fists against the thought that he’d got this terribly, terribly wrong.
It was a brief relief when Gideon arrived for their art lesson, though Titus produced nothing of any value because he kept finding himself wondering how one might go about visiting Paris and hiring someone to search gaming hells for a short, handsome doorman.
Nico would know how to do it, he thought, and could have wept.
He stayed behind to tidy up when Gideon left, rather than seeing him to the door, and was sitting among his paints, taking what comfort he could from the familiar sharp scents, when the footman James came upstairs.
“Mr. Pilcrow, sir. You have guests in the parlour.”
“In—? For goodness’ sake, why was anyone admitted? I said I am not at home!”
James gave him a lofty look. Titus hadn’t warmed to him: he seemed to find Carey Street an unimpressive place to work, and Titus quite beneath his dignity. “I believe they have visited before, sir, so I showed them in.”
Nico and Perreau, Titus thought immediately. Could it be? To say goodbye?
“Very well,” he said, and hurried downstairs. His heart was thumping absurdly as he pushed open the parlour door.
There were indeed two men there. Neither of them was Nico, and the disappointment hit so hard, it took him a second to realise who they were. Chilcott Baynes and, marred by a terrible, purpling black eye, Matthew Laxton.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Titus said. “What are you both doing back here? I told you to go away!”
“We have a bone to pick with you, Mr. Pilcrow,” Baynes said. He was rocking on his toes, hands behind his back. “You are an intransigent man.”
“I am a perfectly reasonable man. The problem is that neither of you understands the word ‘no.’ I will not give you money, Mr. Laxton, and I will not sell you the portrait, Mr. Baynes. Go away.”
“No,” Laxton said. Aside from the great bruise, he looked dreadful: pouchy, sallow, and grubby, in an ill-fitting, baggy coat. “Sit down.”
“This is my house,” Titus said furiously. “Leave or be escorted out.” He drew a breath to shout for the footman, and almost choked on the inhalation as Baynes withdrew his hand from behind his back.
He held a pistol.
“What—?!”
“Sit down,” Baynes said. “You damned pander to the whore’s son, sit!”
“And be quiet.” Laxton extricated a pistol of his own from under his coat, with a momentary struggle to free it from the fabric that made Titus fear it might go off. “If you shout, I’ll shoot.”
He walked round to shut the door firmly as Titus sat, pulse pounding. Baynes’s eyes were bright and glittering. Laxton was red-faced. When he moved, Titus could smell wafts of brandy.
“I wish you had been reasonable,” Baynes remarked peevishly. “This is a great inconvenience to me.”
Titus attempted to marshal his voice. “What is going on? Why are you together? What—” He gestured in lieu of words, and Laxton raised his pistol sharply, as if threatened. Titus shoved his hands under his thighs.
“We have a common cause,” Baynes said.
“That you are a damned nipcheese,” Laxton added bitterly. “That spiteful hag thought she could put one over on me at the last; well, I won’t have it. I need my money, and this fellow wants some painting or what-have-you, so you will give them to us.”
“I will have the painting,” Baynes said. “It is mine, it was promised to me, and she wants me to have it. I know she does. I will not rest until it is safe. You will give it to me, and you will give this gentleman ten thousand pounds.”
“What?”
“It’s the least I should have, you damned thief,” Laxton said. “Pay up or—” He wagged the pistol indicatively.
“But I’m in my house,” Titus said blankly. “You can’t just shoot me in my house. People would hear. It would be murder.”
“You think I care? Christ, you think it’s the first time? The first time in this house, even?” he added, and gave a little involuntary snigger.
Titus stared at him. “You did it, didn’t you? You tripped her. I always thought you did, but—”
“And now you may be sure, for all the good it did me, or will you. But I’ll have my pay. You’re going to send to the bank for ten thousand. Two notes of hand, five thousand each—”
“And the painting!” Baynes said insistently. “I want the painting.”
Laxton jerked the pistol. “Get on. Write.”
“You can’t shoot me,” Titus repeated, striving for calm. “You’ll swing for it.”
“Swing? You bloody fool, if I don’t pay my debts, I’ll be face down in the river by tomorrow night!
” Laxton took a step forward and jammed the end of the pistol against Titus’s temple, the metal cold against his skin, grating painfully on the bone.
“My life isn’t worth tuppence, so what difference does it make how I end it?
I’d as lief take you with me, so write or by God I’ll blow your brains out! ”
Titus couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The fear thumped through him with every wild beat of his heart. Laxton ground the pistol’s mouth against his temple, harder. “Do it!”
“All right,” Titus managed. His tongue felt thick. “All right.”
He had paper and ink on the sideboard. He wrote up a letter for the bank, requesting two notes to the value of five thousand pounds each, to be made out to Bearer.
“What about the painting?” Baynes demanded. “There is nothing here about that! Are you trying to trick me?” He raised his own pistol.
“It’s upstairs!” Titus yelped. “Not in the bank.”
“Then get it!”
“When he’s sent to the bank,” Laxton snapped. “We’re sticking together in this, old fellow. You’ll get your picture when I get my money. Ring the bell, druggist, and don’t try anything. If you raise the alarm I’ll put a ball through you.”
The men positioned themselves to hide their pistols, Baynes behind a chair and Laxton behind the door, as Titus rang the bell. Alma answered in her father’s absence, looking red and tearful and entirely preoccupied with her own concerns. Titus wished Mr. Thorpe were here.
“Mr. Pilcrow?”
“I need this taken to the bank at once. Send—” He would normally ask Mr. Thorpe to do this.
Anyone else might steal notes made out to Bearer.
Anyone at all might rob him, betray him, for the money that had made his life this wretched place, and desolation swept over him at the realisation. He had never felt so alone.
“Mr. Pilcrow?” Alma asked again, sounding a little puzzled.
Titus could see Laxton in the corner of his eye, sweaty and tense. “Just, send someone to the bank and bring back what they give you. Someone trustworthy. Quickly, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what about the picture?” Baynes demanded, on a rising pitch.
Titus was in this mess because he had not wanted Baynes to have the forgery, in case he exposed Nico or, as was an increasing possibility, tried to kill him over it. But Nico was on his way to France, and exposure would be a problem for another day, assuming Titus lived to see one.
“Alma, I will need a painting fetched. The picture of a woman wearing a necklace—”
“I know it,” she said, voice hard.
“It is in the paint room, against the wall, with the face turned in. Please bring it down once you have had the letter taken to the bank.”
She curtsied. Titus shut the door at Laxton’s gesture and said, “There. You will get what you want. You can put away the pistols now.”
“We’ll put them away when we have what we want. But first you’re going to give me your vowels for ten thousand in the way of gambling debts, so we don’t have any unpleasantness later on.”
It was a clever precaution, Titus supposed, as he wrote, at Laxton’s dictation, a note stating that he owed Matthew Laxton ten thousand pounds in gaming debts, which Baynes signed as witness.
Laxton could insist the money he was extorting was payment of a debt of honour, and Titus would struggle to prove otherwise. Men ran up greater debts every week.
“That’s that,” Laxton said, folding the IOU and stowing it carefully in a pocket. “Now we wait. Oh, and when the girl comes back, tell her to bring wine, and something to eat. It is past two and I have had no luncheon.”
“Go to the devil!”
Titus surprised himself with that, but the shame and fury were bubbling up uncontrollably.
He could afford to be robbed of ten thousand pounds, and letting it happen was doubtless the most sensible course in the circumstances.
Standing up to bullies was all very well, but not when they had pistols.
But it was one thing to be robbed at gunpoint in his own house, and quite another to serve his assailants refreshments.
“You do as you’re told,” Laxton snarled.
“This is my house!”
“It should have been mine!”
“And where is the girl with my painting?” Baynes put in. “She is taking too long. I have been extremely patient—”
“For God’s sake, shut up for five minutes,” Laxton snapped. “I want wine and food, you damned muckworm! Give the order!”
Baynes took a seat, muttering under his breath. Titus sat too, hunched in on himself, cursing the whole wretched mess.
If Nico hadn’t … he thought, and then, If I hadn’t … but that didn’t work. It was more, If Nico and Augustus and Baynes and Laxton and Miss Whitecross and Perreau and Perreau’s mother and Jeanne de La Motte hadn’t. A great tangled confusion with no way out.