“With—”
“Chrome yellow has been in use for little more than a decade.”
Nico’s mind froze. He simply couldn’t think of a response.
“Of course overpainting is always possible,” Titus went on steadily, “but I looked very closely, and the daffodils are unfinished, just a few brushstrokes. I can see the weave of the canvas under them. And they are an integral part of the composition: it would be grossly unbalanced without them there. I have to conclude that this painting is a few years old at most. And that means everything you said of it was a lie.”
Nico couldn’t speak. Perhaps there was nothing to say.
“It didn’t hang in your childhood home. It doesn’t prove Marie Antoinette’s guilt. I thought for a moment you might have faked it to salvage your mother’s reputation, but of course that isn’t true, because you have kept the painting secret. And not because of Bourbon spies or any such fantastical stuff. You wanted to keep it secret because it is fraudulent and—and so are you.”
“Titus—”
“Who are you?” Titus said, and his voice was no longer steady. “Are you even the Comte de La Motte? Isanyof it true? What did I do to deserve this?”
“Nothing,” Nico said, balling his fists rather than reaching for him. “Nothing at all. You have always deserved only the best, and I am sorry, I truly am. I didn’t want any of this—”
“Then why did you do it?” Titus shouted. “Why did you lie to me about everything? What sort of game was this? You must have realised I’d have given you everything you wanted!”
“I didn’t want you to!” Nico shouted back. “I wasn’t trying to cheat you! Christ almighty, I tried not to take your money!”
“Not very successfully,” Titus said, with a sharp rap to his voice, and there was nothing at all Nico could say to that. “Isuppose it is my fault, really: I was warned that you were untrustworthy from the start, and I thought I knew better. I believed you, and I believed in you—is this why you pushed me to interest myself in art? To meet people who buy paintings?”
“No!”
“But that man Baynes talked about me being in the running. I was your rich friend who buys paintings, just as I was your rich friend who buys expensive clothes. You didn’t have to take my money when you could use it to take other people’s.”
That was grotesquely, horribly accurate. Nico couldn’t breathe. “It was not— Yes, I did do that, but—”
“It is one thing that you lied to me all this time. But it is outrageous that you brought dangerous men to my house and that Alma and Perreau were threatened. Is that dealt with?”
“Yes,” Nico managed.
“Well then. If two thousand pounds has bought me your—your company and your help for these last weeks, and it has purchased Alma’s safety now—I will not say it’s a bargain. But I have had a lesson in who to trust, and I daresay that is invaluable. I’d like you to leave my house today.”
“Yes. But please, Titus, can I explain?”
“Explain what? Why you presented yourself under a false name and let me believe your lies all this time? If you wanted toexplain, you might have done it before you sold me a forged painting for a fortune!”
“You bought it knowing it was forged!” Nico couldn’t help protesting.
“I bought it so you could not cheat my brother, and so my brother could not discover he had been cheated by my friend. I daresay you have explanations, and I am sure they are very plausible, but I don’t care to have yet another man explain to me why I have no reason to be angry when I know very wellthat I do. Did you have to do this to me?” His voice broke on that. “I thought you were gammoning me at the start! But you made me believe you, and trust you andlove—”
He tried to swallow that, too late. The word hung in the air between them, a flaming sword.
After a horrible moment, Titus went on more calmly. “You knew I cared for you. If you had been honest with me—if you had just said you were in debt and asked for my help, or even accepted it when I offered it—I don’t understand why you could not have done that!”
“I didn’t want to take your money,” Nico repeated doggedly, as if that would somehow wipe out two thousand pounds and a lot of lies.
“But why couldn’t you tell me the truth?”
“Why couldn’t you tell me the truth about Henry?” Nico demanded, his voice rising abruptly. “You didn’t give that till you were forced—”
“Don’t youdare,” Titus said. “Don’t you dare blame me for that, and don’t you dare turn this back on me and make it my fault. I will not do this. No, don’t say anything more. I don’t want to hear it. Just go. Leave me alone.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nico was gone by the afternoon, slipping out of Titus’s life as easily as he’d slipped into it. Perreau went with him, a lack Titus didn’t even consider because it was nothing to the gaping wound of Nico’s absence. Why would he need a valet, anyway? Why would he want to take care of his appearance? The last thing he needed was another lover, now or ever, since he clearly couldn’t pick a decent man to save his life.