“The Comte de La Motte?”
“That’s it. God alone knows how he found me: I have not gone by Vespasian Pilcrow in years. Do the French have Bow Street Runners? Anyway, he said you would welcome a visit from a brother, though not a would-be pensioner. And I am not that, so I came. But if you feel it is an imposition, or you doubt my motives, or simply don’t care to renew our acquaintance—”
“It isn’t an imposition,” Titus said hoarsely. “I did tell Nico you would not come for money, and I do very much want to see you and find out what you have been doing. Please don’t go. Sit down. Sherry,” he added, and fumbled for glasses.
A smile spread over Vespasian’s face—and that was what was different, Titus realised; these days he looked like a man who smiled a lot. “It’s good to see you too. And I must know exactly how you have married a fortune because I will say, Titus, of all the men I might have expected to do such an extraordinary thing—”
“Oh, Lord, don’t. Iknow.”
Vespasian took a seat, and the sherry Titus held out. “All right, little brother. Tell me everything.”
Nico returned to the house at around six that evening. He went straight up to dress and came downstairs for dinner looking self-possessed, perfectly groomed, and entirely without embarrassment.
“Hello there,” Titus said.
“Bonsoir, mon ami. Has it been a good day?”
“An interesting one. I had a visitor.”
“Ah?”
“My brother Vespasian. Who said he came to see me because you went to see him.”
“… Ah.”
“What on earth? You went looking for him? You didn’t tell me you did that!” Titus yelped.
“I did not,” Nico admitted. “I didn’t wish to raise your hopes if I could not find him, and when I did, I wanted to know if there was anything of which I should warn you. I was going to tell you about it tonight, but I take it he was moreeager to see you than I knew.” He examined Titus’s face a little warily. “Did it go well? I hope I did not overstep?”
“Overstepping” didn’t even cover it. He had taken Titus’s casual, inebriated reminiscences of his long-lost brother, found him, and brought them back together, and done it all without a word of warning, let alone permission.
It was an act of breathtaking presumption. Titus didn’t think anyone had ever gone so ludicrously out of their way to make him happy.
He shook his head, speechless. Nico’s brows drew together. “If this is a problem, I shall—”
“He’s not a problem,” Titus choked out. “He’s mybrotherand you found him for me. Nico—”
He opened his hands helplessly. Nico took a couple of quick steps over and grasped them, his warm fingers wrapping Titus’s palms. “Mon ami, it was my pleasure.”
Titus held on. He didn’t think, or hope—but he could have this, the touch of Nico’s hands, the evidence that he truly cared for Titus, if only as a friend. The closeness and those glorious eyes looking up at his, and if he just bent his head now…
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Nico let go and stepped back. Titus barely had time to feel the shock of rejection before the door opened for a footman he hadn’t even heard coming.
“Ah, merveilleux, we eat,” Nico said with smooth cheerfulness. “So now you must tell me all about the good Vespasian, or rather, Monsieur Valentine Harper.”
Titus pulled himself together as he took his seat. “Uh, yes indeed. He became an actor, just as he wanted. He hoped to be a comedian at first, he loves comic parts, but he says he has the looks for a villain—I think that’s rather unfair—so he has developed a good line in playing evildoers instead.”
“Villain parts often have a great deal of comedy to them,” Nico observed.
“That’s what Ves said. So he has done well, and if I were a theatregoer, I might have seen him on stage at any time.” And since he wasn’t, he might have gone on never knowing his brother lived in the same city, close by. “How on earth did you find him?”
Nico gave a pitch-perfect rendition of a casual shrug. “You said he had dreamed of the stage. I was an actor once, and it is a profession of connections. You would have located a Vespasian Pilcrow easily enough, so I concluded he was using a new name, and it seemed unlikely that a man named Vespasian Pilcrow would become merely George Smith. Alors, to begin with, I put the word out for a tall man with a striking first name beginning with V, who had joined the profession around five years ago. I was fortunate, et voilà.”
“That’s utterly ridiculous. You are a marvel, Nico, and I can’t thank you enough.”
“You have thanked me too much: It was nothing. No, I assure you, a bagatelle. Tell me how he is.”