Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nico sat up, pushing the coat away. “Thank God. I thought I would suffocate.”
“Oh, did you? Because I thought I would have an apoplexy! What the devil just happened?”
Nico came over to him. Titus rose, and Nico walked into his arms, warm and firm and close, and it was so perfectly right and natural for him to be there that Titus could have cried.
“You were magnificent,” Nico said, face muffled against Titus’s chest. “Magnificent, mon coeur.”
“Awfully good,” Vespasian agreed from the door, where he was lounging with the maid on the other side. Or rather, Evelyn Perreau in a dress. Titus had noticed he never seemed to need a shave, but had put it down to honed valeting skills.
He was still holding Nico, he realised. He glanced down, and up at Vespasian, who just gave him a broader grin and said, “Maybe there should be two of us treading the boards.”
“No, thank you.” Titus reluctantly released Nico. “Could someone please explain?”
“Just a moment. Alma is bringing wine,” Vespasian said.
“Without turmeric in, I hope.”
“I told you he was good at yellows,” Nico remarked. “Sit, mon ami. Are you all right?”
“No, I am not. Laxton held a gun to my head and made me write— Oh God, the banknotes!”
“I didn’t send the letter to the bank, Mr. Pilcrow,” Alma assured him, entering with a bottle and four glasses.
“Oh great God, thank you. One for yourself as well, please, I will use this glass. Er, why not?”
“Let us start from the beginning,” Nico suggested, as Vespasian poured wine for everyone. “How did they get in?”
“The footman let them in here without asking me.”
“I said James was no good,” Alma said with professional affront. “I bet he takes bribes. Pa will send him packing.”
“I imagine they joined forces when I threw them both out yesterday,” Titus went on. “Baynes wanted the picture; Laxton wanted ten thousand pounds. He admitted he killed Miss Whitecross, and said he would kill me. I was terrified. I don’t know what happened then.”
“Alma took charge,” Eve said.
Alma blushed. “Oh, no. Well, sort of. Only, sir, you looked awfully odd, and I heard that Laxton’s voice, and I knew you didn’t want him in the house. So when you gave me the letter, I might have—you know, by accident—”
“Whatever you did saved my life, and ten thousand pounds,” Titus assured her.
“I listened at the door,” she said in a rush. “And I could tell something was wrong. And Eve was in the kitchen, so I told him and he got the Comte—”
“Wait,” Titus said. “Why aren’t you both halfway to France?”
Eve glanced at Alma. Nico met Titus’s eyes. “Because neither of us felt able to say goodbye.”
Alma’s blush intensified. “Anyway, I got them, and I’m afraid we opened your letter, sir.”
“I made that decision,” Nico said. “I knew you would not give the Laxton anything by choice.”
“So Eve said we could get the guns and kick them out,” Alma went on, “but the Comte said it wouldn’t be enough.”
“Baynes wanted the painting too much,” Nico said. “He would not give up, and if he took it and found he had a fake, he would come back for the real thing. He had to see it destroyed, but not blame you, so we needed a story, a performance. Then the good Vespasian arrived, and voilà, we had a cast.”
He had gone French again. Titus could have cried.
“I arrived for tea and was promptly recruited as chief villain,” Vespasian said.
“You have the most astonishing household, Titus. And, may I say, hidden depths. I was afraid you might not grasp what was going on—nobody could have blamed you—but you improvised to the manner born. Where were we? The Comte and I agreed on the script, Alma tampered with the wine, your valet became the maid—”
“I’m sure I could have done it,” Alma muttered.
“Laxton would not believe you were always a secret spy for the Bourbons,” Eve pointed out, squeezing her hand. “And your father might find out I put you at risk, and he already hates me. But next time you shall hit the charogne, and welcome.”
“You were both wonderful,” Titus said. He would cherish the memory of Eve giving Laxton a cake platter to the face for the rest of his life. “So you destroyed the painting. And killed Nico—?”
“To shock and confuse,” Nico explained. “People are more easily persuaded when they are discomposed. Laxton and Baynes thought they had seen a murder, so they believed in the poisoning. Which you took over magnificently.”
“Well, you had already given me my script.” Titus remembered that silly conversation from before they were lovers; he thought he might remember everything Nico had ever said to him.
“Laxton fell for it perfectly. Do you know, when I offered him the fake antidote, the horrible man attempted to drink the whole thing. Baynes had to fight him for it. Serves them both right.”
“It does not at all,” Eve said mutinously. “Baynes would have killed Nico, and Laxton would have killed you, and they have escaped quite free.”
Titus shifted in his seat. “Actually, no, they haven’t. I daresay it was very bad of me, but I didn’t think it would be convincing if they had no symptoms at all.”
“Ah.” Eve smiled at that, a slow, relishing smile that left Titus astonished he hadn’t seen the resemblance to Nico before.
Nico was not smiling. “What did you put in it?” he asked apprehensively.
“Gamboge. Only a trace, but Laxton is going to regret drinking so much of it. I was careless with gamboge once and spent two days feeling like the Fleet sewer.”
Nico winced. “You are ruthless, mon coeur. Never poison anyone again, hmm?”
“It isn’t my habit. None of this is my habit. Masquerading and melodrama and poison and pistols and forgeries—”
“You handled it like a master, brother mine,” Vespasian assured him. “I’m very proud of you.”
“Absolument,” Nico added. “You took your turn at centre stage, unscripted, and you were superb.”
“Because you were here,” Titus said. “You came—” His throat dried abruptly.
“Well, I think I should take my leave,” Vespasian said, rising. “Let’s have tea tomorrow, Titus. Or whenever seems convenient. Let me know.”
Eve and Alma rose too. Vespasian and Alma headed out; Eve hesitated. “Monsieur Pilcrow, a moment?”
“Eve—” Nico said.
“No. Monsieur, all this, every part of it, was my idea and my fault. Nico was caught between you and me. The blame is mine.”
“I do understand,” Titus said. “And thank you, but perhaps you should be apologising to Alma, rather than me?”
Eve bowed, an odd effect in the dress. “It is already done, monsieur.”
“Do more” came a firm voice from the doorway.
That took Eve out of the room in haste. The door shut with a click. Titus and Nico looked at one another.
“Your cousin is remarkable,” Titus said, since nothing better was coming to mind.
“Eve has the backbone of two men, and the common sense of neither. It may run in the family.”
“I can see that. Were you really just playing dead to be convincing?”
“No,” Nico said. “I was not going to leave you alone with those lunatics. How could I?”
The Comte carries a knife, Alma had told him while recounting the incident with Gaskin’s men, and Titus was fairly sure he had held something behind his back throughout the whole little performance. Titus had played out the scene himself, but Nico had been ready to fight for him if he was needed.
“Thank you,” he said. “Nico—”
Nico held out his hands. Titus took them, his stained fingers against Nico’s brown ones, just as when they’d first met.
“Nico, you did so much for me. You made me feel I mattered. You noticed me all the time, and acted on what you noticed and—and I have not been used to that. I have been very used to being disregarded because someone else’s desires were more important, and when I thought you had done that to me too, it hurt so much that I couldn’t listen to you. I’m sorry I didn’t try to understand.”
“You should not have had to understand,” Nico said. “I should have told you everything, but I was too much a coward.”
“I think we both made a pig’s ear of it,” Titus said. “You were in an impossible position, and I didn’t help. And when you did try to explain, I was hearing other people, not just you. I decided today, I was going to come after you.”
“Come—to France?”
“I didn’t want you to go,” Titus whispered, and Nico’s grip on his hands tightened painfully.
“I did not want to go either. I didn’t go.
Titus, I swear, if you forgive me now, I will not make it necessary in the future.
I will not, I will never disregard you again.
And I will love you always, if you let me.
I love your courage, and your kindness, and your colours, and your way of being yourself when the world demands we are someone else.
You once told me that most things are ugly when we know too much about them—”
“I remember.”
“It isn’t true. The more I know you, the more I want to be with you. And I realise that now you know me, which is less good, but—”
“I want to be with you too,” Titus whispered. “I have never felt more myself than when I’m with you, and I love everything you do, even the ridiculous things, because I didn’t know anyone could live like this, and I want to and I need you. Please don’t go.”
Nico pulled. Titus pulled at the same time, and then they were jammed up against one another, hands clutching, mouths locked and kissing frantically. Nico’s lips on Titus’s, tongues and teeth and desperation illuminated by the glory of returning hope.
“Mon Caesar,” Nico whispered as they broke for breath.
“My comte. Or not. What name ought I say?”
“Nicholas Kemp for English, Nicolas Perreau in French. Have you a preference?”
“I like you sounding French,” Titus admitted. “Though Perreau might be confusing if Eve is to remain my valet.”
Nico’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Well, if he cares to, but he’s very good and if he wants to be with Alma, it seems the obvious solution for now. Er, I’m saying ‘he,’ but could you clarify—”
“Eve is best understood to be simply Eve,” Nico said. “‘He’ suffices where necessary. Do I understand you have a plan?”
“Well, I was thinking of travelling. The weather is hot, and I should like fresh air, and also Mr. Baynes and Mr. Laxton are about to have an extremely unpleasant time of it, and it is not impossible they will blame me. Well, it will be my fault.”
“Your doing, rather than your fault, and anyway Laxton has larger problems,” Nico said with certainty.
“He owes Jacky Gaskin a lot of money and lied to him about it. Nothing good is coming his way. I trust you are not going to feel guilty, mon cher,” he added at Titus’s flinch.
“He brought this on himself, and he may take the consequences. Miss Whitecross’s soul will rest easier for it. ”
Titus considered his benefactress, and couldn’t argue with that assessment. “What about Baynes?”
“He will scamper back to his rustic solitude and his self-polluted collection and, I hope, live in fear of Bourbon agents forever. He has no reason to bother you further.”
“And the Comte de La Motte is dead. Or is he?”
Nico cocked his head. Titus said, “Well, if Baynes is a recluse and Laxton is, um, unlikely to be mixing in society in the future, you need not actually be dead. Unless you wanted to be, of course, but it might be quite difficult for you to stop being the Comte de La Motte in London. Your face is memorable.”
“Thank you, cheri.”
“We can discuss it,” Titus said. “I took that house in the Lake District. I thought we could go up—with Eve and Alma too, if that is what they want. We could talk things through there and consider what we all want to do. Because I feared I might die today, and you came back, and I have an absurd amount of money, and I want to go to Paris.”
“I’m sure that was a logical sequence in your head,” Nico said. “You feel the world is bursting with opportunity and you wish to take it?”
“That was what I meant, yes.”
Nico grinned at him, his firelit eyes crinkling. “Excellent. It is all excellent. But— Titus, in the spirit of honesty—”
“You have debts. Give me a total and I will see to it,” Titus said. “And perhaps we can discuss how we will handle our finances when we both feel a little less battered by the subject. After all, it would have been your money if not for chance and Mr. Laxton.”
Nico shrugged in his arms. “If I had got the money, I should not have met you.”
“Yes, but now we could have money and one another, which is surely better. And since we do, I would like to see the world with you. Will you come?”
“To see the world, and to watch you see the world?” Nico said, his fingers tangling with Titus’s. “Mon coeur, there is nothing more I could ask.”