Page 35 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
“I did! But even more, I want you safe. I’d rather stroll down the street stark naked than have you go to prison.”
“And I’d rather burn down half of Mayfair than know you and Nick are spending one second worrying about that painting. It isn’t right, Kate.” He poured a beer for a customer and then sat beside Kate. “Look, I’m not going to do any more prowling about for that painting, so you don’t need to worry your head about it.” That moment of raw panic behind the curtains at Friars’ Gate had been enough to remind him of his priorities. If he were arrested, he wouldn’t be of any use to anyone. It would be as if nothing had changed after that day Davey died. “I know it wasn’t the wisest decision—”
“Ha!”
“But I wouldn’t have done it if it really were dangerous,” he said, knowing it was a lie. He would have walked into fire if it meant keeping Hartley safe, and that was a terrifying realization. “The house was empty,” he said, mainly to convince himself he hadn’t done anything truly mad. “Besides, I wasn’t alone.” He had meant that to be reassuring, but Kate’s dark eyes lit up with the brightness of a spark about to hit a powder keg.
“Really, now? Who were you with?”
Sam knew there was no escaping Kate’s interrogation. “Your friend Hartley.”
Kate pressed her lips together and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “I have a mind to go tell Hartley what I think of him going along with this scheme of yours.” She pushed away from the table, rising unsteadily to her feet. Kate looked even more tired than usual these days and he wanted to suggest that she go to bed for a bit of a kip before the Hodges baby really did make an appearance. But nobody told Kate what to do unless they wanted their eyes clawed out.
“It wasn’t like that,” Sam said quickly, thinking to spare Kate the trip across town and Hartley the tongue-lashing. “He had his own reasons for wanting to get back at that family.”
“Oh?” Her brow furrowed. “Oh.I see.” Kate’s dark eyes assessed him. “And you went along to help Hartley avenge his own honor rather than to be an idiot on my behalf?”
Sam didn’t know how to answer. Kate had laid a trap for him and he didn’t know how to get out. “Well,” he started. Kate’s eyes narrowed further, but she sat back down.
“You never told me how you met Hartley. I made certain assumptions about how you might have run across one another.” She paused, letting that sink in. She had apparently assumed that Sam and Hartley had met in precisely the sort of place Sam had suggested Hartley visit to pick up men that first night. Sam opened his mouth to protest but held his tongue. She may have been wrong about the precise circumstances of their meeting, but she wasn’t wrong about the substance of their friendship. He waited, and even though he’d give it twenty to one odds against her being disturbed, he felt a creeping sense of dread until she reached over and squeezed his arm.
“That’s not how we met, not exactly, but you have the lay of the land,” he said. That was the first time he had ever spoken openly about who he went to bed with. It was almost dizzyingly strange. He went on to tell her how he had gone to the address she gave him and found Hartley living there; he left out the more explicit details, just like anybody would, but he also didn’t pretend nothing explicit had happened.
At the end, Kate pursed her lips. “You and Hartley. He and I used to get along like a house on fire and I’m glad to see that he’s made out well. And here I’ve been worried about your being lonely.”
“It’s not like that,” Sam said quickly. “It’s... We had an arrangement.”
“You have a lot of arrangements that involve your sticking your neck out for another man? A rich man, even?”
She was right there. “Just an arrangement,” he repeated.
“He being decent to you? I’ll murder him if he isn’t. Wait. Are you being decent to him? I’ll murder you both if you hurt one another.” She looked so torn about not knowing who to murder that Sam couldn’t stop himself from smiling.
“Does Nick know?” Sam’s cheeks were hot. “About... me?”
Kate frowned. “Nick isn’t a noticing sort of person, bless the man. He might have seen that you don’t have an eye for the ladies, but that’s it.”
Sam nodded. That sounded like Nick. And he still didn’t know whether he was relieved Nick probably didn’t suspect, or whether he wished Nick knew and hadn’t let it change anything between them.
“It’s as good as over,” Sam said a bit later, after he had cleared some empty mugs and wiped down the bar. “With Hartley.”
“You don’t seem pleased.”
He thought about denying it. But he had lied enough today, and if he knew Kate, she was already well aware of it. “I’m not. I’m fond of him. And he doesn’t have anyone to look after him.” He remembered what Hartley’s brother had said about Hartley not answering letters or talking to his family, and wondered if the reason that Hartley didn’t have anyone to look after him was that he didn’t let anyone. Or maybe he didn’t think he deserved looking after.
“He’s a man, not a stray animal,” Kate said, petting the dog on her lap. “You can’t just keep him because he doesn’t have anyone else.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Sam said.
“Then what are you doing?”
“I don’t rightly know, Kate,” he admitted. And that was the truth.
Chapter Fifteen
It was with a sense of great satisfaction that Sam finally dislodged the bird’s nest from the chimney. It was old and brittle, the birds long since having hatched and flown away. “There, now,” he announced to the taproom at large. “That ought to take care of the smoke.”
“That’s just a chimney swift’s nest,” said an elderly patron, bent over the sooty remnants of twigs and mud. “A wee little thing like that won’t have caused all that smoke. What you’ve got is a bad chimney cap.”
