He began to rise as he spoke, and Sir Oliver took his forearm, pulling him down. “Just a moment. You’ll finish the game, as a courtesy to your fellows. That is what it means tobea gentleman, rather than dressing like one.”
His grip was hard, his words harder, and they came on breath that reeked of spirits. Titus couldn’t find a reply, but as he groped for words, Nico put his own hand on Sir Oliver’s wrist and leaned in between them.
“I think you have played enough with him.” Nico spoke very pleasantly. Nobody could call it threatening at all. “Quite enough. But if you care to play with me, Sir Oliver, I will give you a game you will not forget.”
Sir Oliver began a reply, and Nico’s hand flexed visibly: Titus saw the knuckles whiten. Sir Oliver gasped, his grip lessened abruptly, and Titus pulled his arm away.
He looked round to see Nico smiling in a way that looked purely dangerous. Sir Oliver was not smiling at all. Titusfound he wasn’t breathing, and suddenly he couldn’t bear another second.
He stood abruptly, pushing his chair back without regard for anyone behind him. “I should prefer to leave. Good evening, gentlemen.”
Across the table, the unpleasant Mr. Hinton stood too with a menacing scrape of his chair. “Gentlemenpay their losses,” he said, voice hard. “We like money on the table.”
“You know where he lives. Send a note,” Nico returned uncompromisingly. He took Titus’s arm—Titus didn’t mind that at all—and steered him briskly away.
“Can we leave?” Titus asked as they walked, and heard his voice shake. “That is, do I have to make goodbyes?”
“No. Just stay with me.”
Nico shepherded him through the crowd, repelling all approaches with an unstoppable flurry of mixed languages, and did not break stride until Titus found himself gasping for breath in the cool night air.
“Merde alors,” Nico said, exhaling hard. “My deepest apologies, mon ami. I lost you and I could not find you.”
“But.” Titus felt breathless, almost tearful. “That was a Society rout. Withinvitations. I feel like I was robbed on the street!”
“You were. Etheridge is, what do you call it, the little bird that lures the prey to its doom. I beg you will never gamble with him again, or visit any hell in his company, no matter who invites you. And Wells is a putain de saloperie de cafard de merde,” Nico said, spitting consonants like bullets, “and a cheat too, and one day someone will break his hands. How much did they take off you?”
“Eighty pounds!” It was an unfathomable, life-ruining sum of money, almost Mr. Thorpe’s annual salary, tossed away onthe roll of dice. The fact that he could easily afford such a sum did not make him feel better at all. “Do I have to pay them?”
“I regret yes, if you are to mix in the company of gentlemen.”
“If those are gentlemen, I don’t want to!”
“Consider it a lesson in the value of birth,” Nico said. “Sir Oliver Wells can trace his ancestors back to the Normans, and I expect every one of them was a charogne like him.” Titus didn’t know what that word meant, but Nico’s tone spoke volumes. “I am truly sorry. To have let them get their hooks into you—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Titus said, though Nico’s words felt unsettling. He wasn’t sure why for a second and then he remembered Etheridge.The little Frenchy’s got his hooks in you already.
“Nor was it yours,” Nico said. “Those men make a habit of fleecing the young or inexperienced or uncertain. I suppose you found it impossible to get away?”
“Entirely. What ought I do if it happens again?” Titus demanded. “Should I have just got up and left? I should, shouldn’t I? You faced them down easily enough, and I just did whatever they told me—”
“No self-rebuke, mon ami. You have never encountered that type of man before, whereas I worked in a Paris gambling hell for two years. One learns the appropriate manner.”
“Sorry?” Titus said, jolted from his self-reproach. “You did what?”
Nico grinned up at him, teeth pale in the darkness. “I served as maître d’ and portier together, welcoming guests in and throwing them out, at an establishment of no more than moderate repute. You saw me evict the Laxton, no?”
“But you’re a comte!”
“With a stomach that requires to be filled. I appeared on the stage, too, although that rarely fills stomachs.”
“You were anactor?”
“For a little while and with no great success. I have a suitable face, but no more than adequate talent.”
“But your face isverysuitable,” Titus said earnestly, before he could consider the words, and felt his cheeks flame. “That is, I’m sure you were marvellous. Er, professionally.”
“I am a better portier,” Nico said. “Short, but to the point. Mon ami, I know that type of man, and how one deals with them. You do not and you need not feel ashamed of that. They saw you were uncertain, and they used it against you.”