Page 55 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
“Calves and lambs are much sturdier.” Hartley cast a skeptical eye at the bundle in his arms. “Better looking, too, if I’m honest.”
“How’s Sadie?”
“Asleep.” A cloud passed over Hartley’s face. “Kate says she’s well, but we all know things can go wrong.” Sam nodded. He wasn’t going to insult him by attempting easy comfort. “How are you, Sam?” Hartley asked, a furrow between his brows. Concern set oddly on him, like new boots that hadn’t yet been broken in. “I’ve thought about you and the Bell every minute.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam said, his voice gruff and abrupt. He had been putting one foot in front of the other for the past two days without much thought to how he felt about it. Hell, he had been plodding on that way for years, putting himself last, working himself to the bone, because that was what he wanted. Only now that he didn’t have the Bell to pour himself into did he feel those years of weariness in every mote of his being.
“Sam.” Hartley tipped his head in worry. “Oh Sam. Let me do something to help.”
“No, no, it’s not like that. I’ve got things under control,” he said, afraid that sympathy from Hartley would reduce him to a puddle of emotion. Besides, here was Hartley, a new life in his arms, his hair rumpled and his coat wrinkled as if he hadn’t bothered glancing in the looking glass, and altogether looking more peaceful than he had in the months since Sam first set eyes on him. Sam didn’t want to disturb him with tales of his own hardship, didn’t want to tell Hartley that the Bell was gone, and all his hopes along with it. “You look good,” he said instead.
“Well, I guess fatherhood suits me.” Sam must have looked as befuddled as he felt, because Hartley let out a peal of laughter. “It’s your doing. Your constable came here to make trouble, and Sadie put him well in his place. He thinks she’s my mistress and also quite possibly a royal princess.” The baby started to stir, and Hartley tentatively patted her, probably not so differently to how he might have inspected yesterday’s gourd. “I doubt he’ll cause you much trouble, but maybe next time he comes into the Bell buy him a pint for me?”
For a moment he forgot there would never be a future in which that could happen. No more pints, no more Bell. “How’s your head?” he asked. There was a faint purplish bruise over Hartley’s left eyebrow, but the cut had already healed to a fine line.
“Not bad. Thank you again. I owe you—”
“Nothing. I would have done it for anyone.” And that was true—he wouldn’t have left Merton himself to be crushed by a falling chimney. “But you’re not anyone,” he added gruffly. “And you know it.”
The next words Hartley spoke were a whisper. “When did I get so out of my depth?” Hartley held the baby against his chest, as if she were a shield that would stop Sam from seeing him or knowing what he was thinking.
“Out of your depth?” Sam repeated in confusion.
“With you, Sam Fox.” He gave a sad little smile. “I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly where I went wrong, when I could have walked away from you without either of us getting hurt.”
For Sam, it had been earlier than he wanted to admit, maybe even before that first time Hartley went to his knees. “Do you wish you had walked away?”
Hartley let out a frustrated huff. “No, and that’s the worst part. I’m glad we had this time together.”
That sounded terribly final. Sam’s chest tightened. “Sounds like you’re about to walk away now,” he said, trying and failing to keep his tone conversational.
Hartley sighed, as if his patience were running out. “We didn’t get to finish our conversation the other night, so I’ll ask you again, Sam. What will you do when people come to the obvious conclusion about our friendship? What will you do when your brother suspects?” He shifted the baby into the crook of one arm.
Sam wanted to deny Hartley’s concerns, to once again say that there was nothing to worry about. But regardless of whether Hartley’s concerns were well founded, the fact was he believed them to be true. “Why don’t you let me deal with that if it happens?”
“Because I don’t want you to stop being able to hide.” On the last word he raised his voice, startling a faint whimper from the baby. “I can’t hide anymore, and it caused me a good deal of trouble. I couldn’t face that happening to you.” By now the baby was fussing in earnest. “Oh hush, you. Uncle Hartley is off his head, nothing to worry yourself about.”
Seeing Hartley kiss the baby’s head gave Sam the sensation of his heart being filled with the most improbable butterflies. “I care about you more than I care about the rest of it.”
“You don’t mean—”
“Don’t tell me what I mean,” Sam said gently. “I know the risks, but I also know that the way I feel when I’m with you is worth it. It’s one of the best things—you’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. I feel like I’ve been waiting for you, and I didn’t even know it.” He heard Hartley suck in a breath of air, and when those pale eyes looked up at him, their expression was thunderstruck. Sam brought his hand to Hartley’s face, rubbing his thumb along the other man’s unshaved jaw. “Can you trust me to keep loving you? No matter what?” Sam kept his voice soft and low, belying the urgency he felt.
Hartley pressed his cheek into Sam’s palm. “But how would it work?”
Sam smiled at the shift fromwhethertohow. “Can we leave that for later? I have so much to figure out.” There was the Bell, his lease, and about a dozen other moving parts that he was tired of thinking about. Hartley nodded and turned his head to press a lingering kiss into Sam’s hand, and the contact of lips on skin sent shivers of want and need through Sam’s body. “Any chance you might put that baby down for a minute or two and, ah...” He jerked his chin in the direction of the stairs.
“Only a minute or two?” Hartley asked, but he was already knocking on Sadie’s door.
Hartley needed this time with Sam to seal whatever unspoken promises they were making their tentative way toward. From the beginning, Hartley had been able to trust Sam with his body. Now that Sam was asking for Hartley to trust him with his heart, Hartley needed the comfort of their physical connection. Since the only words that could do justice to his feelings were buried under layers of stone and shell, he needed his body to say what his voice could not.
They climbed the stairs in record time, Hartley tugging Sam’s hand and not stopping until they had the bedroom door shut behind them. Sam had never been upstairs, Hartley realized. “This is my bedroom,” he said, most unnecessarily, as he gently pushed Sam toward the bed.
When Sam sat on the edge of the bed, Hartley straddled his lap. He unwound Sam’s neckcloth, kissing the skin as he exposed it, his lips soft and hungry on Sam’s warm skin. At first those kisses were nothing but whispers of lips across flesh, but when he sucked lightly on the underside of his Sam’s jaw, the larger man finally let out a groan. “Hartley,” he rasped, his fingers entwined in Hartley’s hair.
“Mmm?” Hartley hummed into Sam’s skin.
“Can I unbutton your waistcoat?” Sam whispered almost solemnly.
