Page 58 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
“No,” Sadie said, looking up from her work only long enough to smile at Hartley and coo at the baby.
“Smells like nutmeg,” Hartley said to the child he was cradling in his arms.
“It’s mace,” Alf said. “With nutmeg she uses that thing that looks like what a carpenter uses to smooth the wood. And why are you making such a nuisance of yourself? Go upstairs and comb your hair or something.”
Hartley instinctively patted his hair and saw Sadie stifle a smile. “Oh, sod off,” he told Alf.
“The boot boy next door is collecting bets on which of us is the baby’s father,” Alf said. “Seven to one odds it’s you.”
Hartley nearly choked on the piece of bread he had stolen from the chopping board. “I beg your pardon?”
“Settle down,” Alf said. “The butler already told him it was bad form to gossip. But he also said that having a yellow-haired upstart—that’s you—living with his mistress and the child he got on his mistress—that’s Sadie and the baby—is bringing down the tone of the neighborhood. We’re gentry here, Mr. Sedgwick, and we won’t tolerate none of that.” These last words were delivered in a tone that was clearly meant to ape the neighbor’s slanderous servant.
“Unbelievable. Which neighbors? Immediately to the left? I’m going over now to give that fellow a piece of my mind.”
“Does that mean punching? Because you can’t go around socking other people’s butlers.”
“Don’t care. How dare he—howdarehe—speak of Sadie like that.” He put his gloves on and adjusted his collar. “If he were a gentleman and had spoken that way about a lady—which Sadie is, of course—I could have called him out.”
Sadie looked up from her nutmeg or whatever it was in order to exchange a look with Alf.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hartley demanded. “Do we have secret glances now? Seems unfair.”
“If you went around making a fuss, everyone would know for sure you had gotten that baby on Sadie,” Alf pointed out.
“True,” Hartley conceded. “I do wish everyone could make up their mind about which direction my dissipations take me.”
“Whatever Sadie told the constable must have done wonders for your reputation. At any rate, you do remember you hollered at me for hitting someone who said ugly things about Sadie not a month ago.”
“I’ve grown older and wiser, and I seem to recall that it was Sadie who did most of the yelling in that situation. Sadie, do you really not mind? That people think the baby is mine?”
She frowned. “It doesn’t matter to me in the least. The question is whether you mind.”
“Are you kidding?” Alf asked. “This is the best thing that could have happened to him.”
“Be nice to Hartley,” Sadie admonished.
Hartley was taken aback and more than a little gratified to hear Sadie use his first name, even though not long ago he would have considered it the height of impropriety. Probably Sadie would have, too, come to think.
“Oh, I nearly forgot,” Alf said, his mouth full of a roast potato he grabbed from a pan warming by the stove. “You have a visitor waiting for you in the library.”
“A visitor?” Hartley repeated, and for a mad moment thought it might be Sam.
“It’s not him,” Alf said quietly.
Hartley tamped down his disappointment. When Sam had left, they had agreed to take a few days to themselves. Sam needed time to sort out the Bell, he had said, but they both knew that they were at an impasse regarding what to do next. Hartley knew he couldn’t go on living essentially below stairs in his own house; Sam couldn’t continue sleeping in the wreckage of his old pub. It was all very fine to say that they meant to go on together, but they were at a loss as to what their first step ought to be.
Hartley opened the door to the library, where he found his older brother sitting in the chair by the fire, a newspaper open on his lap, a valise on the floor beside him. “Ben,” Hartley said, shutting the door behind him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to pay a visit,” Ben said, lowering the newspaper and attempting to fold it. “Didn’t you get my letters?”
Hartley thought of the stack of unopened letters on the table in the hall. “No,” he lied.
“I hadn’t heard from you in weeks. And while you don’t owe me letters—you don’t owe me anything, Hart—I did want to check that you were alive.”
Hartley shrugged. “I’m alive,” he said, holding his arms out to his sides as if to sayBehold.
Ben frowned. “You left before we could talk about what happened.”
