Page 14 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
“Oi!” He brought his hand instinctively to his cheek. His fingers came away red with blood. He had probably been hit in the same place dozens upon dozens of times, but not lately, and the sharp pain of broken skin was familiar and surprising at once. “The hell is the matter with you? Get out of my pub.”
The stranger didn’t step away. He was plainly furious and utterly soused, and looked ready to swing at Sam now. His pale skin was flushed with drink and rage.
“None of that. Away you go.” Sam grabbed the man by his shoulders and steered him toward the door. But before they reached the door, a man Sam recognized as the constable entered.
“Now, what do we have here?” the man asked. His name was Merton, Sam thought, but Sam had tried his damnedest to avoid having any reason to deal with the police. “Don’t tell me there’s fighting in this pub.” He spoke with the glee of a man about to make trouble.
“There was a friendly altercation, sir,” Sam said kindly. He dabbed at the cut with his bar apron. There wasn’t much blood, at least.
“Doesn’t seem too friendly to me,” said Marston. “Let’s have a look at that back room.”
Sam was confused about what the constable wanted with the back room, but murmured his assent as he led the way.
They used the back room to store casks of beer. It smelled of hops and the sawdust they kept on hand to dry up spills. In a slightly more elevated establishment, this room would be a snug or a private parlor for more genteel customers. In a slightly lower place, this would be the place for cock fights or, as in Sam’s youth, boxing matches.
Boxing matches. He understood, then. Merton thought they were holding prizefights. He opened his mouth, but snapped it shut when he realized that a hasty denial would only confirm the constable’s suspicions.
“I remember you,” Merton said, holding up his lamp to examine Sam’s blood-streaked face. “I saw you in Croydon. I thought it was you. Did that lad ever wake up?”
Sam had fought several matches in Croydon, but he knew the one Merton meant. “He woke up,” was all Sam said. That had been Sam’s last match. After that, he had started training Davey, who was made of stronger stuff, he had thought.
“What was it they called you?” Merton tapped his mouth with one finger as if he had trouble remembering the filthy nicknames people had given Sam. “You were a beast.” His lip curled in slight distaste. “I won’t have any of that on my watch,” he said. He glanced around the back room. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’ll bring you down.”
Sam wanted to protest that there was no evidence of fighting in the back room. There was a broken glass and drops of his own blood in the taproom, and a dozen witnesses who would say that he had been breaking up a common tavern brawl. But he thought of what Constable Merton had seen upon entering the Bell: a crowd of people on their feet, looking in the direction of the back room. A prizefighter with blood on his face. The same prizefighter who had only escaped a manslaughter trial because the man he had knocked out had finally woken up, three days later.
When Merton left, Nick had already begun sweeping up the broken glass, and Kate had topped off everyone’s drinks. Sam let out a sigh. They weren’t doing anything wrong. The business was entirely aboveboard. But he felt dirty and small, he felt like he had when Hartley had maneuvered him away from the front door. He felt like all the nasty things he had ever been called.
Sam was saved by any further ruminations by the entry of Kate’s dog, which had been banished to the outdoors during the busiest part of the evening and now came in with grievances to air and food to scrounge. Now he was perched in Nick’s arms with his tongue hanging out and his ears up as if he had done something remarkably clever. When he and Nick had been boys, their mother had never let an animal into the house, let alone onto anyone’s lap.
Maybe sensing his gloominess, the dog scrambled out of Nick’s arms to dance around Sam’s feet, as if Sam’s mood would be improved by having untold foulness on his clean clothes. He had to wonder what neat, fussy Hartley would think about this dog. A man who kept his hands so clean and his hair so smooth would not be impressed with a dirty mongrel. He pictured the look of revulsion that would doubtless appear on the man’s face, how he would shudder and turn his nose up.
Later he and Nick did the washing up while Kate dozed by the fire with the dog in her lap. “If you want to talk about it—and I’m not even saying there’s anitto talk about, even though there definitely is, but it’s fine if you want to pretend I haven’t noticed—I’m here. And I’m not talking about Merton. He’s an arsehole, but a bog standard one. I’m talking about whatever had you bothered earlier today. I’m here. For God’s sake. If you killed a man, all I’d ask was where you wanted me to help you bury the body. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” Sam lied. He wiped a dish and stacked it on a shelf. Sam hadn’t ever told Nick that he preferred men. He hadn’t ever told Kate, either, but she had guessed; he hadn’t corrected her when, a few years ago, she had tipsily whispered to him that she wished he’d find some nice bloke for himself. But it was different with his brother. After not mentioning it for his entire life, he felt that he couldn’t start now. And there was always the risk that Nick would react badly. Still, Nick had to have noticed that Sam was nearly thirty and had never so much as walked out with a girl.
Even if he could speak freely to Nick, he couldn’t very well explain that he was feeling miserable because a near stranger had sucked him off and then told him not to use the front door. Not so many years ago, he had risked his life and his safety while crowds of people hurled insults at him. He might think it was silly for a former prizefighter to complain about being put in his place by a single unarmed gentleman. And Nick might ask what on earth Sam was doing with a rich man in the first place. Sam didn’t have an answer to that, not even one he could voice to himself.
By the time they finished tidying up the kitchen, they could hear Kate snoring by the fire, and had to bite the insides of their cheeks to keep from laughing too loud and waking her. Tiptoeing as quietly as two large men could, they peered into the parlor. The dog was passed out on Kate’s soft lap.
“I cannot believe she lets that dog sit on her lap,” Sam said.
“She says it’s earned all the fine things life has to offer,” Nick whispered.
“Not lately, it hasn’t. Sleeps, steals food, leaves fur on the floor of the Bell.”
“I used to wash him under the pump when Kate wasn’t looking,” Nick admitted. “But she caught on and told me not to. Said he’s been through enough.”
Inspiration struck Sam. “Tomorrow I’ll take the little fellow for a long walk.” Tomorrow would be Sunday.
Nick looked at him suspiciously. “He’s old and has three legs. He won’t get far.”
“I’ll carry him then,” Sam said, and refused to answer any more of Nick’s questions. He told himself he’d bring the dog to Hartley to settle the score, but he knew that he just wanted an excuse to see the man. The fact that he couldn’t even convince himself of his own lie was a bad sign indeed.
Chapter Seven
It didn’t take long for Hartley to figure out what had gone wrong with Sam. He had time on his hands, endless empty hours to puzzle out what that blank expression on Sam’s face had meant when Hartley had showed him to the kitchen door. Sam must have thought Hartley was putting him in his place, or that Hartley didn’t want the world to see a black man in a worn coat leaving the front door of his house.
He was mortified, embarrassed out of all proportion to the significance of the event. But when one didn’t have that much going on in one’s life, things didn’t stay in proportion. That hour with Sam Fox had been one hundred percent of Hartley’s social calendar. Bollocksing it up was therefore a signal failure. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter at all whether Sam was offended, but even though Hartley wasn’t one of nature’s most warmhearted creatures, he couldn’t quite convince himself of that.
