Page 54 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
“He’s fine. I left him sitting by the fire, holding Sadie’s baby, of all things.”
Hartley was safe. That, at least, was something.
Alf dug into his pocket and produced a purse. “He told me to give this to you. He wants to help with repairs.”
“Repairs, my arse.” He gestured toward the ruined taproom. “It’s all gone.” Saying it aloud was like ripping an organ out of his chest. “And I don’t want his money.” The Bell had been his. It was the shape and size of his character, not the charity project of a man in a fancy coat nor a favor to bestow on a lover. Hartley’s money—mixed up as it was with his pain and shame—was all this situation needed to get worse. If Sam took this money from Hartley, it would bring all of that confusion into their friendship. It would change everything between them, change what had already been a precariously unbalanced partnership and make it completely unstable.
At the sound of a knock on the front door, Hartley assumed somebody had the wrong address, so he ignored it. When, five minutes later, there was a knock on the back door, he swore. The baby was with Sadie, at least, so he didn’t have to worry about dropping her while making his unsteady way to the door.
In the doorway was an older man, portly in a rather Henry VIII sort of way. Hartley vaguely recognized the man, but couldn’t quite place him.
“Ah,” the man said. “I see I do have the right address. Mr. Sedgwick?”
“Yes,” Hartley said, confused. “I’m Hartley Sedgwick. I’m afraid you have the advantage of me.”
“Jerome Merton, constable. I’ve come to ask you about the events of this past Tuesday.” His accent was pure cockney, but without Sam’s soft edges.
“Oh, I see.” If this had been the constable from the night of the chimney collapse, Hartley must have been entirely off his head to mistake him for his godfather. “I’m quite well, as you can see,” Hartley said, gesturing to the bandage.
“I understand there’s been a blessed event,” Merton said, his beady eyes darting around the kitchen. “I daresay your household has been in a bit of an uproar. No, the reason I’m here, not to put too fine a point on it, is that the circumstances of your injury were a bit unusual.” He paused, as if waiting for Hartley to supply details. When Hartley remained silent, he went on. “You were carried out of a public house, quite unconscious, by a black man of a very low sort. Very dirty and rough. And at a most unusual hour. I thought you might have been attacked.”
Hartley realized that this constable was the same one who habitually made trouble for Sam. He kept his voice steady. “I wasn’t attacked. The chimney collapsed at the Bell and I was injured by a falling brick.” Surely the constable already knew this.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what were you doing roaming about town in such low company in the middle of the night?”
“I believe Mr. Fox explained that,” Hartley said, hoping Sam had come up with something plausible to tell the man.
“Sam Fox said you visited his public house at that late hour for a cask of strong ale the midwife required for your wife.”
Hartley let out a crack of laughter. Of all the lies, Sam had come up with the least plausible one. He was about to set the man straight—really, what else could he do, when two minutes of inquiry would inform the man that Hartley most definitely had no wife—when he heard Sadie’s door open.
“That’s right,” she said. “The midwife specially directed him to get the strongest ale. Something about it helping the babe nurse.” Hartley got to his feet and offered Sadie his chair.
“I asked around,” Merton said. “I had to ask quite a few questions to find the right Mr. Sedgwick, you understand. And part of my confusion is that when I asked for a Mr. Sedgwick of your description, everyone agreed that there was no Mrs. Sedgwick.”
Hartley saw Sadie go rigid. With Sadie sitting right there, he couldn’t very well insist that the baby wasn’t his, because that would seem to be repudiating Sadie. He remembered how Sam had reacted when he had failed to consider him a proper visitor; this would be even worse.
“Gossip is so often wrong,” Sadie said in her most refined tones. “That’s why I never pay any attention to it. Merton, you said your name was? I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of being introduced to any Mertons.”
Hartley was quite in awe. So, evidently, was the constable, who twisted the brim of the hat he clutched in his meaty fingers. “I beg your pardon,” Merton stammered.
“Truly,” Sadie went on, “we owe Mr. Fox a debt of gratitude, don’t we darling?” She cast an appealing look up at Hartley. “He saved my baby’s father.” She blinked quickly, as if fighting back tears. “Mr. Fox will always have us for allies, will he not, dearest?” She gazed up at him with the most appalling sheep eyes.
“Of course,” Hartley said, scrambling to think of a suitable endearment. “Of course, my, ah, pet.” He placed his hand on her shoulder in a proprietary manner and kept it there until Merton stammered an apology and hurried out the door.
Chapter Twenty-two
When Sam knocked on the kitchen door it was opened by Hartley himself, holding a bundle of cloth that Sam, after a moment of confusion, identified as an infant.
Seeing Hartley holding a baby was like watching a pigeon play a fiddle. Nothing wrong with pigeons, or with fiddles, for that matter; indeed they were commonplace enough sights. But seeing them in the same place made Sam’s head spin in a way he couldn’t properly name. He nearly walked right out of the house to see if when he reopened the door, the occupants might have arranged themselves in a less bizarre tableau.
“They’re supposed to look like this,” Hartley said, misunderstanding Sam’s confusion. “Kate assures me this is a fine specimen.” He dubiously pulled back the shawl that wrapped the infant and peered at its wizened little face. “There isn’t much of her,” Hartley added. “The other day I bought a gourd bigger than this.”
Sam didn’t ask what Hartley was doing buying gourds. “Half a stone, I’d say.”
“It doesn’t seem right that a person starts out so small and fragile,” Hartley said, wrapping the child more tightly in the shawl and stepping closer to the fire. “I’m afraid a mistake was made somewhere along the line.”
“Yeah, somebody ought to do something about it,” Sam said, smiling. This was the first time he had smiled in two days.
