Page 57 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
Sam gave his head a quick shake. “I already said I don’t need it.”
“Neither do I.”
“I don’t want your money.” He heard Hartley suck in a breath and felt his body stiffen. “Not because of how you got it, you silly git.” He kissed Hartley’s hair.
“Then why? I tell you, it would be a trifling amount to me.”
“But it wouldn’t be trifling to me. If five hundred pounds—” he made up that sum, since he couldn’t fathom how much it would cost to repair the Bell “—means nothing to you, but means the world to me, then I don’t see how we bridge that gap.”
“I’m trying to!” He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at Sam. “That’s why I want to help, but nobody will let me. Will won’t take my money, Alf says he’d rather work for you than for me, and I had to badger Sadie into accepting a blasted christening cup. I feel like you all know you’d be contaminated by touching anything that comes from my purse. It makes me feel so dirty, Sam, as if—”
“Hush,” Sam said, smoothing his hands down Hartley’s back. “It’s not that. Sometimes people need to get on by themselves, to know that they’re building good things with their own hands.” That was what Sam had been telling himself—that the work he did at the Bell wouldn’t be good enough unless he did it on its own, that accepting money would be cheapening what he thought of as service and turning it into ordinary work. But there was no shame in plain work, and maybe he needed to think his way around that over the next few days. But he couldn’t think straight with Hartley so near.
“I care about you more than I know how to manage,” Hartley finally said, looking up at Sam with wet eyes. “More than our circumstances will allow.”
Sam’s voice rumbled. “I think you care about me just the right amount.”
“I want more than occasional nights, more than hushed conversations outside the pantry. I want a life with you. When one of us needs something, I want us to take for granted that the other one will help.” There was a note of helplessness in his voice, and his words came in a whispered rush. “I love you, and I want to keep loving you, all the time, without your demons or mine coming in the way. But we can’t have that, and even if we could—”
“Damn it, Hart. I love you too. God.” He could hear his own frustration. “I don’t know how we do this.” When he looked down, the grim resignation he saw in Hartley’s face made him doubt that they could ever see their way through. “But we will, though. Hear me? We will.”
Chapter Twenty-three
During the next week, Sadie got back on her feet and the baby thrived. Winter set in, leaving its frosty traces on morning windowpanes. The household settled into something like a rhythm. Hartley mostly fended for himself, Alf ran errands, and Sadie stayed in the kitchen. The baby either nestled in a shawl across her mother’s chest or slept in a cradle Alf found in the box room. Only after several days did it occur to Hartley that this must have been Martin’s cradle; he waited for some kind of distaste to set in, but it didn’t happen.
Hartley found himself spending most of his time in the kitchen. At first he pretended it was because he couldn’t be bothered to haul his own coal up to the library, and the kitchen was both warm and conveniently located to the food. He maintained that pretense for maybe two days before acknowledging to himself that he just wanted to hold the baby and make idle conversation with Sadie and Alf.
Sadie informed him that babies reared on the most modern scientific principles required regular fresh air. Hartley, who was rather taken with the idea of children being raised according to any principled system whatsoever, volunteered to take the infant for an airing in the park. He ordered Alf to sell two of his waistcoats and a coat that had lately seemed a bit too fine, intending to use the proceeds to purchase the best pram money could buy.
“You that hard up?” Alf asked when Hartley handed over the garments.
“No,” Hartley said. “Well, not exactly. I live within my means. If I don’t have ready money, I need to either sell something or touch the capital.”
Alf’s gaze traveled around Hartley’s bedchamber. “I suppose I never thought about someone who lives like this not having money. If Sam had taken you up on your offer to pay for the Bell’s repairs, what would you have sold? I suppose it would have cost more than a few brass buttons.”
Hartley busied himself in arranging his shirt studs in a drawer. “I would have sold the house.”
Alf let out a low whistle. “Maybe you can sell it anyway? Just to spare Sadie the trouble of having to sprinkle salt on the windowsills to keep out the evil spirits that live in the attic.”
“What kind of good would salt on the windowsills do if the evil spirits are upstairs?”
Alf shrugged. “I suggested holy water but Sadie says that’s papist. About the Bell, Kate told Sadie that Sam still needs to pay rent even though it’s unusable.”
“That can’t be right.”
“I reckon landlords do a lot of things that aren’t right, and even more if they have a tenant who looks like Sam.”
“Sam let me think he had the repairs underway.”
“He’s proud, though.”
Hartley was surprised to realize that he didn’t feel hurt by Sam misleading him. He understood the urge to hide behind a protective screen. He just wished he could figure out how to offer a kind of help that Sam would agree to accept.
Upon receiving the pram, Hartley wrapped the baby in approximately seven shawls and took her for a walk in the park. It was the middle of the day, right when Hyde Park was busiest with the very people who had shunned him, but he was too preoccupied with worries about the infant catching cold to think overmuch about the whispers and stares of the beau monde. Indeed, the child finished the outing tucked warmly inside Hartley’s coat.
When he came home, the kitchen was warm and steamy and scented with cooking. Alf chopped nuts while Sadie ground something with a mortar and pestle. The light slanted feebly through the high window, making Hartley wonder when it had last been cleaned. The house was acquiring the slight shabbiness of a well-worn coat, and he found that he didn’t mind.
“Is that nutmeg?” he asked Sadie, gesturing at the contents of the mortar.
