It wasn’t an entire lie. Hewasdoing something of which a noble family would disapprove for his cousin’s sake. It was just that, when one got down in the detail, it was less “sacrificing my family heirloom” and more “stealing a lot of money.”
He took Titus’s hand anyway, just a swift squeeze of the fingers, because he wanted the comfort and he liked that one of them didn’t think he was a prick.
“Anyway, you spoke of Augustus,” he said, letting go precisely because he didn’t want to let go. He wanted Titus holding his hand and telling him he was doing the right thing.Not fair.“What might he say that would decide your course?”
“That’s… an interesting way to look at it.” Titus considered. “If he told me,I wish I had helped you, or said he regretted what Father did to Hadrian, or even if he simplyacknowledged that we were all disadvantaged for his benefit. That would be something to build on. But I doubt he feels that way.”
“Why not ask him?”
“How? That is, I could say,Are you sorry for what you did?, and if he says no, then it will be an answer at least, but what if he says,Naturally I regret the past, or some such? Do I take his word for it? What if he only wishes he was kinder to me because I’m rich now? It is bad enough to have so many strangers and acquaintances and people I thought were friends fawning for my money. To have it from my brother would be the outside of enough.”
“Tell him the newspaper reports were a lie,” Nico suggested. “La Whitecross’s fortune has all been embezzled, you have nothing, and you will need to live upon his new kindness. His response will reveal the truth.”
“Mmm. Do you think that would work?”
“Of a certainty, mon ami. I saw something like it in a play, and the stage never lies.”
Titus managed a grin. “Well, I could try it. No, quite seriously, I will write to him. It may not do any good, but there is no point in me wondering what he thinks andnotasking him, is there? Thank you, Nico. It has helped to talk about it.”
He raised a glass with a little smile. Nico’s heart twisted in a way he didn’t want and couldn’t afford.
“My pleasure,” he said.
Chapter Ten
A few days later, Titus was having a horrible time at Lady Farjeon’s rout.
He’d been deluged with invitations since his new wealth had become public knowledge, and now he was dressed—superbly dressed, with well-cut coats and waistcoats that were delightful joys—it was time to take them up, and make his entry into Polite Society. On Nico’s counsel, he’d initially accepted three invitations to afternoon tea, one to a conversazione, and two to routs. They had all sounded ghastly.
And indeed his first trials, two afternoon teas and the conversazione, had been exactly that. At the first tea, his hostess had eyed him up in a jaundiced manner, then produced two daughters. The elder had been silent in a way that suggested simmering indignation at being obliged to meet him; the younger had made painstaking and excruciatingly polite conversation. He’d sat stiffly on an uncomfortable chair among strangers, horribly aware of his gloves, which he couldn’t take off because of his betraying, stained commoner’s hands.
The second tea was even worse. Everyone had spoken toTitus with extreme clarity of enunciation and ve-ry sim-ple words, apparently believing that former shopkeepers were to be classed with deaf old uncles and foreigners, or commended him on his unexpectedly elegant appearance and educated speech with such patronising surprise that his toes curled in his expensive boots.
The conversazione had made both teas seem a pleasant memory. It was quite literally conversation: a lot of people sitting around talking about books, plays, politics, and mostly their mutual acquaintances’ indiscretions, with occasional musical breaks. Titus hadn’t read the books, seen the plays, or followed the politics; didn’t know the people; quite liked the music but had no idea what to say about it. He’d felt like a tongue-tied fool, and that was before he noticed the people glancing at his bright, beautiful waistcoat and whispering to one another with clear amusement.
He’d wanted to cringe into nothingness with shame. Why had he not dressed like all the other men, or even kept to a shopkeeper’s shabby black? What was the point of wearing things that were lovely if they got you sneered at?
Nico had encouraged Titus to buy the fabrics his heart longed for, and looked at Titus in his new clothes with delighted admiration. But Nico was a flamboyant man who liked to be noticed. Titus was not and did not.
He had been on the verge of deciding that he would have to buy new clothes in blue and buff when someone had walked up to him and asked point-blank, “I say, where did you pick up that waistcoat?”
Titus had replied honestly, “Mr. Hawkes.” The man’s eyebrows had gone up, the timbre of the whispering had changed, and the next comment on his waistcoat had been a compliment. As simple as that, as though the beauty of the fabric lay only in the man who cut it and how much he charged. Thatwas not unlike the art world, he supposed, but it had always felt wrong, and it still did.
He was wearing evening dress now, because apparently a rout demanded a white waistcoat. He wished he could have worn colours. He might have felt more like himself, rather than a stranger in stiff new clothes wandering round a house of people he didn’t know, pretending to have a good time.
What was the point of this? He was supposed to be mixing in Society, but nobody wanted to meet a jumped-up shopkeeper. He wasn’t here because anyone thought he’d be interesting or likeable, and indeed nobody was trying to find out if he was either of those things. Rather, his wealth had been invited, with himself as its regrettable spouse. He’d come anyway, because he was a gentleman with eight thousand a year, this was what wealthy gentlemen did, and he had no idea at all what else he might do with his time.
And, he had to admit, he’d also come because it gave him Nico’s company.
Nico had spent the last couple of days out of the house from dawn, or at least ten, till dusk—on business, he said. He hadn’t given any more detail, and Titus hadn’t wanted to press. But he’d barely seen his houseguest in that time, and, in contrast to his usual feelings about people in close proximity to him, he regretted it. The unexpected intimacy of that dark, wine-fogged evening had stayed with him all the next day. Nico’s warm voice and delightful accent, his startling honesties, the way he listened and thought and took Titus’s side as though he belonged there. Titus wanted more.
So they’d come here together. “Nobody will enjoy it,” Nico had assured him. “People go in order to spend the next few days complaining about the terrible crush and inadequate supper, and gossiping about whose dresses got torn and who snubbed whom.”
They’d have plenty to complain about. The Farjeons’ house was probably very elegant in normal circumstances, but it currently resembled a wallpapered warehouse, with all the furniture removed except for school-like benches set against the walls, the better to accommodate three hundred of the Earl and Countess’s closest friends. It blazed with candles and reeked of perfumes and wine and people, all of them talking except him. The chatter was a roar.
Nico had done a manful hour at his side on arrival, introducing him to people and running the subsequent conversations. That had been a little awkward too, because Titus felt even more uninteresting by contrast to the Comte de La Motte, and also because, although Titus was sure that everyone looked at him with a sneer, a lot of them seemed to be sneering at Nico too.
Perhaps he was wrong about that; certainly Nico didn’t appear to notice anything. He was relentlessly social and charming, ignoring remarks that Titus couldn’t help thinking were pointed and looks that felt contemptuous. Titus should do the same. Probably he was just imagining it, making himself miserable with self-consciousness, while nobody was thinking about him at all. Perhaps the origins of his wealth would be a nine days’ wonder, soon forgotten. He couldn’t quite make himself believe it, but he smiled doggedly at people anyway.