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‘You don’t wear the fur any more.’
‘Long gone, I fear.’ He rapped something hard against Jem’s arm. ‘Here.’
Jem uncapped the flask he’d been handed and took a sniff. ‘Scotch?’
‘It should be wine for a fully nostalgic experience, but I’m too old to drink wine from the bottle.’
Jem took a mouthful of the smoky spirit and winced at the burn. ‘Thanks.’
Nicky took it back and Jem heard him swallow. ‘Gah. Well.’
‘Why are we up here?’
‘Because it’s too hard to talk down there,’ Nicky said. ‘Do you remember coming here before?’
‘Of course I do. You told me about Toby’s family and how he wasn’t necessarily the heir.’
‘Do you know what happened with Lord Crenshaw afterwards?’
They both usedafterwardsin the same way. There was no need to specify; there would never be any other event from which time was measured. ‘No.’
‘His baby, the heir who supplanted Toby, died of croup. Crenshaw sued for divorce on the grounds of adultery, and Lady Crenshaw contested it on the same grounds, with photographs. It was all over the society pages for months. Toby’s grandfather died, I assume in self-defence. His uncle got his divorce, became the marquess, and now resides in a sanatorium, where he is drunk from dawn to midnight. If Toby had lived, he would once more be poised on the brink of his expectations.’
‘Good God. Where does that leave Ella?’
‘Nowhere. When the new marquess drinks himself to death, the title will descend to some cousin or other, who must be thanking his lucky stars.’
‘You aren’t suggesting?—’
‘Of course not. If this chap had decided to Macbeth his way to the marquessate, he’d have started with Crenshaw and the baby. No point in killing anyone lower down the line of succession.’
‘I suppose not. So Toby would have got the title after all. But if he hadn’t thought he was out of the succession…’
‘Quite.’
‘A lot of things wouldn’t have happened.’ Jem’s throat felt tight. He could see Nicky, curled up and cradling his blood-raw heart, those brutal finger marks on his wrists.
‘Perhaps.’ Liquid sloshed softly in the bottle. ‘Jem, I owe you an apology.’
‘You don’t.’
‘Of course I bloody do.’
‘You don’t,’ Jem said, ‘because it makes no difference if you apologise or not. It changes nothing. You said what you said. I made a fool of myself?—’
‘You behaved with extraordinary dignity, while I was a coward and Toby a brute,’ Nicky said. ‘I don’t expect to change anything, and I’m not asking for your forgiveness: I don’t merit it. I simply need to tell you that—well, I made a number of poor decisions a decade ago, and if I was given the power to change a single one, I would choose not to have said those things. I’m sorry. I lied to you, or about you, and I threw your honesty and generosity back in your face, because I was afraid.’
‘Afraid,’ Jem repeated. ‘Of what?’
‘Oh, Jem. My god was a jealous god, and he did not choose that I should worship except at his altar.’
Jem sat, staring ahead. ‘Do you mean—Were you and Toby?—’
‘Oh, heavens no. Toby kindly permitted me to suck him off once or twice, but he had no real use for anything except my devotion. He did, however, expect that. He was amused by dalliances that didn’t matter; he was not amused to learn about you. Not in the slightest. We argued, afterwards.’
‘In the Mitre?’
‘Once you’d all left. He—ah well, it doesn’t matter now.’
