“Yes,” Titus said. “Everyone is doing that.”
He could hear the bleakness in his own voice, and it silenced Nico, though only for a moment. He was not an easily silenced man. “Is it only that experience? Is there something else wrong?”
“Everything else. The house is still being besieged.” Beggars tugged at his coat-tails when he came down the steps, and the higher sort of mendicants called five times a day. “I’m taking up these awful invitations to awful events in the hope I’ll make friends, which I will not because nobody is interested in anything except my eight thousand a year. Of course I was rooked by those men: I was invited to be rooked. The only reason anyone at all speaks to me is in the hope of transferring money from my pockets to theirs. And I know that makes me sound like Miss Whitecross, but I can see exactly why she became so bitter. Why am I doing this?”
“Doing—?”
“Going to parties I don’t want to attend with people I don’t like. I know why,” he went on before Nico could speak. “I’m doing it because it’s what’s done. I’m doing it because everyone else thinks it’s marvellous, or at least they say they do.Maybe absolutely nobody enjoys any of it, and they’re all just pretending to like standing around making pointless chatter, and everyone would be relieved to stay home.”
“That would explain a great deal.”
Titus sighed. “I daresay other people love it, really. I know I don’t enjoy company as everyone else does. But since I’mnoteveryone else, why do I have to behave like them?”
“You do not,” Nico said. “Nobody is making you do it but yourself. And you have enough money to do as you please. Unless you are seeking a good marriage, or a seat in Parliament or some such?”
“No. No, I’m not.”
“Then what are other people’s opinions to you?”
Titus wasn’t sure how to answer that. The fact was, there were frameworks to life. Rich people mingled with rich people, everyone aspired to rise in their social class, oldest brothers inherited everything, and there was one acceptable shape for a love affair to take, namely a man, a woman, and a wedding. The frameworks were clearly marked out to tell you what was right, in case any or all of it felt horribly wrong.
“If I didn’t go to parties,” he said slowly, “who would be the loser?”
“If you wish to claim a place in Society, only you. If you don’t, nobody at all is the loser except that jean-foutre Wells, and he can—” Nico finished that sentence with a string of French that probably included a reflexive verb.
Titus breathed out, long and hard. “Yes. Quite. It’s just—when there is a done thing, it is very hard to say,I will not do it. Especially when one doesn’t know what else to do.”
Nico shrugged, as befitted an aristocrat who had worked in a gaming hell. “I find it very easy to refuse demands, but I had not your upbringing.”
“No. No, indeed. My brother replied to me.”
Nico took the non sequitur without a blink. “Augustus?”
“He said he had always done his duty to the family. He said Vespasian was sadly ill-conditioned, and Hadrian regrettably womanish, but at least Claudius and I had fulfilled our roles, and he looked forward to my further support. He gave instructions for me to come down and visit immediately. He would like me to bring him a porcelain dinner service, and some bolts of silk for his wife.”
“Quelle enflure.”
“Does that mean something rude?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Titus said. “I’m so tired of this. It’s starting to make me believe that everyone around me is hiding greed behind a mask, like some sort of ghastly nightmare where you’re hunted by monsters that look like people. Did I tell you, Miss Whitecross called the money a curse?”
“Would that she had cursed me with it and saved us both the trouble,” Nico said rather drily.
Titus felt a guilty pang. To have complained so much about his situation, to a man in difficulties, was unforgivably selfish. “Yes, of course. I realise I am very fortunate—”
“No, no, no. Titus.” Nico’s hand closed on his wrist, warm and firm and shocking, pulling him to a stop in the dark street. “That was a stupid remark on my part; please forget it. You are distressed, and you have every right to be. We will go home, and you will sleep, and we will speak tomorrow, hmm?”
Titus’s nerves were quivering like violin strings. It was the aftermath of that horrible, frightening encounter, he knew, and of blurting out more than he’d meant to say, and it was Nico, so close, warm hand strong on his skin.
Are you here for my money too?The words trembled on his tongue, after Etheridge’s implications, but that was stupid. He knew very well that Nico had turned up with his eye on MissWhitecross’s fortune. If he didn’t want to trust people, it was the height of stupidity to be pouring out his misery and fears to this of all men.
Except that Nico had actually helped. He’d listened, and sympathised, and stepped in, and he might be hiding greed behind a mask, but it was an exceptionally beautiful one.
If Titus were to express a desire for himself, he knew exactly what it would be. God knew he had caught himself sketching little pictures of Nico too often, whenever he had pen and paper and five minutes to daydream; he’d thrown several bills and letters guiltily into the fire, afraid of discovery.
But if charming, confident Nico wanted a useless, inept fool who couldn’t stand up for himself, he would have mentioned it by now.