“It sounds marvellous.” Nico’s voice was a little throaty. “I will need to be sure I have concluded my business, but that would be perfection.”
“I shall look into it, then,” Titus said with a glow. “Erm, on the subject of your business—”
“Pilcrow!”
It was a coarse bellow, carrying across the street. Titus looked round and said, “Oh,bother.”
It was Matthew Laxton. He had come once more to thehouse in Carey Street after Nico’s memorable eviction, and Mr. Thorpe had not let him over the threshold. Now he was storming across the street.
Nico said, “Jean-foutre,” with quiet intensity. Titus could feel him bristling.
“Pilcrow!” Laxton shouted again loudly, causing heads to turn. He was red-faced and sweaty, and looked as though he had slept in his clothes, possibly for a couple of nights in a row. “You damned sneaking thief. Walking down the street bold as brass when you stole my inheritance!”
“That will do,” Nico said sharply, which created an odd choral effect because Titus had said it as well.
Nico glanced at him, then made acarry ongesture, giving way. Titus squared his shoulders. “That will do,” he repeated. “You are slanderous, Mr. Laxton, and if you repeat that slander, I will instruct Mr. Carnaby to take legal action. Do you want me to tell the world why your aunt disinherited you?”
Laxton’s mouth dropped open. “How dare you!”
“How dareyou? Presenting yourself as a loving nephew, behaving as if you were wronged. I will not tolerate it. Go away. If you bother me again, you will not like the consequences.”
Laxton was brick-red now. “Look, damn you, I had a reasonable expectation. I am her heir—”
“No, you’re not.”
“—and it is an injustice to cut me out. The least you could do is acknowledge that I have been disappointed and excluded.”
“I do acknowledge that you have been excluded,” Titus said, deploying his honedThe invoice is overduevoice. “Miss Whitecross made it clear that was what she wanted, and I have no intention of going against her. Stop asking me for money.”
“You grasping miserly shit!”
“And a good day to you, sir. Come, Comte.”
He strode off. Nico kept a couple of steps behind and didn’t catch him up until they turned the corner.
“Beautifully done,” he said then. “Magnifique.”
Titus exhaled. He felt a little tremulous with alarm and anger, and undeniably quite pleased with himself. “Well, we are having such a lovely day, and I did not want him ruining it. I should probably contact Mr. Carnaby. Laxton sent me a most offensive and quite incoherent letter earlier, and now this. I do wish he’d go away.”
“You would not pay him off?”
Titus turned to him with shock. “Payhim?”
“To make him go away.” Nico blinked. “Is that wrong?”
“Of course it— Good Lord, I haven’t told you, have I? Miss Whitecross said he tripped her on the stairs. He deliberately caused her to fall.”
Nico made an explosive noise. “Bon Dieu. Truly? But he was not charged?”
“No. It was her word against his, and Carnaby said no jury would convict. But apparently he is in a great deal of debt and, er, he could not wait for her to meet a natural death.”
“You mean, he could not risk her marriage,” Nico said. Titus had hoped he wouldn’t see that, but Nico was always quick. “Is that it? She offered to marry me and he killed her?”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Bien sûr it is not. It is the fault of that saloperie de cafard de merde who pushed her, and if I see him again, I will make him sorry. Thank the heavens you married her and he did not profit.”
“I expect that’s why he is so unwilling to accept matters,” Titus said. “It would be dreadful to know that one did such a thing, but if one didn’t even gain anything from it—”