Page 49 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
“There’s the washing up.” Sadie’s hands were wrapped tightly around a heavy wooden spoon and her voice was choked. She looked very, very young.
“Alf can wash up when he gets back,” Hartley suggested.
“Or you can do it now,” Kate chirped, then put an arm around Sadie’s waist and led her to her bedchamber.
Before Hartley had finished the dishes, Alf returned, rolling a cask of ale before him. He looked half sick with nerves. Hartley wasn’t sure what Kate intended the ale for, but looking at Alf, he reasoned some of it could be spared toward putting the lad’s mind at ease. “It doesn’t have a tap on it,” Hartley said, walking around the cask.
“They don’t come with taps, mate,” Alf said patiently. “You have to put them in.”
“I know they don’t come that way,” Hartley said, slightly indignant. “I just assumed that in London ale was sold with taps already on the barrel.” As he said the words, he realized why he had made that error. So did Alf, evidently.
“That’s because you’ve had a servant since you came here.”
“I’m aware of that,” he bit out.
“A whole house full of servants, even. You know your floors don’t sweep themselves, either, right?”
Hartley, who at the moment was elbow deep in dishwater, knew that Alf was taking the piss rather than accusing him of being too fine for work. “I’m also aware that there isn’t another employer in London who would put up with this kind of insubordination,” he managed.
“Nah, you like it. You were always on edge when the house was filled with proper servants. You like this better.”
With all the force of an epiphany, Hartley realized that Alf was right. He did like this better. He was happier doing the marketing and helping Sadie in the kitchen than he was sitting in state upstairs and being waited on. He enjoyed the company of Alf and Sadie more than that of anyone he had met before his disgrace. This was likely some perversity of his own nature. But he also knew that he was beginning to view his few years of life as a gentleman as an aberration from the norm, a strange holiday in the land of the rich and idle. Doing the washing up felt like coming home.
A sound came from Sadie’s bedroom. Hartley and Alf locked alarmed gazes. “At the moment I don’t care if I have to pry that cask open with my hands, but we’re each having a pint. Now,” he commanded.
Alf nodded, his eyes wide, then rummaged around in the still room before emerging with a tap.
“Ought we to go upstairs?” Hartley asked dubiously. “To give them some privacy?”
“If you’re asking me, you must really be lost.”
“Well, obviously I’m lost, Alfred,” Hartley said tartly. “I hardly know what the protocol is when one’s housekeeper is experiencing a blessed event and one is drinking copiously in the kitchen with one’s valet.”
“Who are you calling a valet?” Alf’s speech was slightly slurred.
“Frankly I don’t know what to call you.”
“I told your friend Sam that I’d like work at the Bell.”
Hartley stilled. “Is that what you want?”
“No offense but I’m bored off my arse here. And you’re going to need to decide whether you’re running a proper establishment—” those were Sadie’s words, Hartley guessed “—or if you want the likes of me sewing on your buttons.”
Hartley had already started to suspect he couldn’t go on indefinitely with this odd living arrangement. It was one thing for a man to live in lodgings and have a very bad servant, but to live in a grand house that was half shut up and almost entirely unstaffed was peculiar indeed. It would ultimately draw more attention than he wished. But Hartley doubted Alf was concerned with keeping up appearances, and wondered what had gotten the boy thinking about this. “Why do I need to decide?” he asked.
“It might make life easier for certain people who are used to life being a bit more settled.”
“Are you one of those people?” Hartley asked skeptically.
Alf shot him a weary smile that made him look far older than his years. “No, mate.”
“And I don’t suppose we’re talking about Sadie, either.”
Alf shook his head.
“What does Sam care what kind of house I keep?”
“It’s not about your house. But for a regular person like him to take up with a rich man looks a certain way.”
