Page 40 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
Graham snorted. “The crowd did seem to like it, at least.”
“The problem was in the third act,” Hartley said before he could think better of it. He had downed two glasses of gritty, bitter wine in quick succession in order to combat his unease, and now his mouth was running a full minute ahead of his mind.
“Oh?” Graham said, raising his eyebrows. “Tell me more.”
“Well, if the baron is meant to be a villain, he ought to act like a villain. Instead he pulls his punches. I kept waiting for the baron to abduct that poor daft Clara creature. Who, by the by, I would have abducted by myself if I hadn’t been twelve rows back.”
“Up close she’s even worse,” Graham lamented. “She simpers.”
“Precisely!” Hartley said. Some kind-hearted soul had filled his glass once again so he drained it, and now he was in fine form. “She simpers, she wrings her hands, and her brother has the ancestral jewels that our villain requires for his fell purposes. Why on earth not abduct her?”
Graham raised an eyebrow. “Do you know the playwright?”
“No,” Hartley said. “Is he here?”
“If you knew him, you’d understand that he’s revoltingly decent.”
“Oh, to hell with decent people. They’re exhausting. Make one feel so evil, when really one simply has one’s own concerns.”
“I could not agree more.” He leaned close to Hartley, and since Hartley was against the wall he couldn’t step away. They were only a hair’s breadth closer than normal talking distance, just enough to make it clear that this was an approach. It occurred to Hartley that in the right circles, his reputation would make picking up bedmates vastly less confusing and fraught with peril for everyone involved. Graham was even fairly good-looking, in a scraggy sort of way. If Hartley were an entirely different person, they could disappear to another room and pass a pleasant hour.
But the proximity made Hartley feel sick. Even the look of interest in the other man’s face made Hartley feel pinned to the wall, exposed. Unsafe. “I need to leave,” Hartley managed, and was out the door before he heard Will calling after him.
“Damnation,” Will muttered, catching up to him. “Did Edgar do something?”
“No. I’m a bloody mess, that’s all.” Hartley leaned against the damp stone of a building. His head swam from an excess of wine and his heart raced but he no longer felt actively terrified. He had the relief of waking from a nightmare but the certainty that he’d have the same dream the next night.
“You are not,” Will said with more loyalty than sense.
They walked a few paces in silence. “I met someone.”
“Ah. The fellow behind the curtain, I reckon.”
“I can almost stand to let him touch me and look at me.”
“That’s good, Hart. That’s really good.”
“It’s nothing of the sort. It’s a piss-poor thing to offer a good man.”
“I reckon he’s a better judge of that than you are.”
They continued walking, and when Hartley found his feet straying from the pavement, Will steered him in the direction he required. “His name is Sam and he keeps a public house.” He had to work hard to annunciate his words. “The Bell.”
“The Bell,” Will repeated. “Sam Fox? I know him. He’s your man behind the curtain?” He let out a low whistle. Hartley elbowed him clumsily in the ribs and then lost his footing. Will laughed and tugged him upright, and they made their wobbly way home.
Hartley walked right past the clerk’s desk and into the solicitor’s office, somehow managing not to cringe at his own unmannerliness.
“Mr. Sedgwick,” the clerk protested, calling after him. “Mr. Philpott is engaged.”
Philpott was not engaged. He was at his desk with no company but a stack of papers.
“Thank you so much for seeing me,” Hartley said with all the effusive gratitude of a client who had been granted a proper appointment, rather than someone who was no better than a trespasser. “No doubt your schedule is frightfully busy. I’m so glad you could find the time to talk to me.”
“Mr. Sedgwick,” Philpott said, plainly flustered. “I told you to consult another attorney. I’m not prepared to represent you in any legal matters.”
“Of course not,” Hartley said cheerfully as he settled into a chair, crossing one leg over the other. With a negligent air, he glanced around the room. There were four cabinets of the sort lawyers used to store papers, none large enough to hold paintings unless removed from their frames and rolled up. “But it’s not a legal matter at all. It’s quite illegal, in fact. And I do think you’ll want this door closed while we discuss it,” he advised.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
