“I’m sure he will not, but you should give him the chance. I will join you in one moment. Oh, and tell me his direction first.”
He ran upstairs and down as fast as he could, but by the time he was at the parlour door, Morris was already well into a hectoring speech, ranting over Titus’s lower, pleading tones.
Nico strode into the room without ceremony and kicked the door shut with his heel. “Monsieur Jean-Foutre. Still here?”
Morris swung round, his red face as ugly as his waistcoat. “I don’t know who you think you are. I suppose he’s paying you to warm his bed?”
“Henry—” Titus began.
“If you’re going to betray me for some pretty Frog, I’ll seeyou get what you deserve,” Morris snarled. “You think you can just toss me away like soiled rags when you have done with me? I will tell the world what sort of man you are!”
“You don’t know what sort of man he is,” Nico said. “You have not the capacity. But I know what sort of manyouare, and so I make you an offer.”
“I don’t want your offer,” Morris said, “I want you— Hey! What are you doing?”
That was because Nico had walked up to him, and kept walking, forcing him to step back. He tried to stand his ground; Nico shoved him hard in the chest. “Hey! Stop this!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Nico said, and pulled his knife.
It was a Spanish folding knife, a navaja de muelles with an engraved steel handle. It opened with a distinctive, menacing set of ratcheting clicks that Nico always thought of as the sound of a fight starting. His father had given it to him on his tenth birthday, which was entirely typical of his father.
Morris’s shoulders hit the wall. Nico settled the point at his belly, pressing hard enough for him to feel the sharp steel. Titus made a noise of protest, which Nico chose not to hear.
“Right,” he told Morris. “The offer is, you piss off and you don’t come back. You do not see him again, you do not speak to him again, you do not write to him or talk about him or think about him again. If he’s coming down the road, you turn round and walk away. You don’t evenconsidergoing to the law. And in return—” Nico dragged the blade up his torso, rucking the linen of his shirt, and rested the point at the hollow of his throat. Morris made a noise.
“In return, I won’t cut you open,” Nico said softly. “I won’t unseam you from the balls to the throat, watch your guts spill out, and kick you into a ditch to die.Ifyou stay away. That’s my offer. I think it’s generous.”
Morris’s noises were unseemly. Titus was frozen in thecorner of Nico’s eye. He might be overdoing it a bit, but subtlety was overrated.
“I don’t like you,” he informed Morris, in case it wasn’t clear. “Just give me an excuse to come round number eleven Lamb’s Conduit Street: I won’t be as friendly next time. Do you understand?”
Morris blubbered something. Nico leaned in. “I didn’t hear you.Do you understand?”
“Yes! Yes! Titus—”
“Don’t speak to him!” Nico shouted, loud and close enough to make Morris jerk back and bang his head on the wall. “I told you, you piece of shit!”
“Please! I’m sorry!”
“You should be,” Nico said, leaning back and switching to a pleasant, relaxed speaking voice. “You’re a prick, Morris. You’re a miserable turd, and nobody will care when you die. Be a better person. Or jump in the Thames, whichever seems easier.” He stepped back, snapped the navaja shut, dropped it into his pocket. “Off you go. Don’t come back.”
Henry Morris departed, trembling and with the stiff-legged gait of a man trying to control his bladder. He kept his head angled away from Titus, Nico was pleased to see. Still, he strolled after the fellow, and watched him take his hat and coat from Mr. Thorpe in silence, before the door shut definitively behind him.
Mr. Thorpe gave Nico a questioning look. Nico winked at him, and after a second, the butler’s face relaxed.
Nico went back into the parlour, to find Titus exactly where he’d left him, eyes wide.
“Bon,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Uh. You—”
He looked terrified. Nico went over, reaching for him, and saw him flinch. Shit. “Ah, mon ami, do not fear! It wasonly a performance, acting a part. I play the villain as well as your brother, you see? The Paris stage likes stronger meat than London, and the gambling hell positively demanded it. When one is not large, one must learn to be intimidating in other ways.”
“You had a knife!”
Nico felt in his pocket for the smooth-handled knife, took it out, held up his other hand demonstratively, and jabbed the blade into his palm. Titus cried out in alarm, and then said, “What the—?!”
“An actor’s prop, no more. The blade goes back into the handle, you see?” He demonstrated with the stage knife again. The navaja’s very real and razor-sharp blade could be his and Morris’s little secret. “It has a reservoir for blood too. For the dramatic effect.”