Sam’s face was fixed into something almost severe. “How old did you say you were?”
Hartley didn’t need to ask what Sam meant. “Sixteen.”
“Right. Just seems like it’s hell to be paying for something that happened when you were a kid. This fucker took advantage of you.”
Hartley shook his head, ready to object that he hadn’t been a child, but when he thought of how stupidly trusting and naive he had been, he knew he hadn’t been an adult either. “I know that he took advantage of me,” he snapped. “That doesn’t make me feel better. I already feel like a fool. But the fact is that I’d do it again if it was what I needed to help—” He stopped short. He didn’t want to talk about his brothers. He didn’t want to sound like he was blaming his brothers or even his father for the predicament he was in. “I was compensated very well and I can’t complain,” he said instead, and watched Sam almost flinch at the sharpness in his voice. He took a long drink of ale and continued more calmly. “I came here today to let you know that I’m planning on going to Friars’ Gate next week.” He had delayed this trip long enough, and now he realized it was because he didn’t want his association with Sam to end. But it had to end.
Sam frowned and swirled the ale in his mug. “I still don’t like the idea of your breaking into houses. But if you insist, then I’m going with you. I’m afraid that otherwise you’ll get yourself arrested or killed and nobody will—” He stopped abruptly.
“You’re afraid nobody would know I was in trouble. Quite right. I don’t get about much these days.” He glanced wistfully around the Bell, at the groups of people who seemed to know one another, to belong to one another. “No. We’ve already been through this. It’s too risky for you.”
“Not your call, mate. I can worry about whoever I please and take whatever steps I like to keep them safe.” Sam’s voice was a near growl, far from his usual mellow tones. “I am not standing by while you get hurt.”
Bewildered by the raw feeling behind Sam’s words, Hartley decided on a different tack. “Traveling with me won’t do your name any favors.”
“I’ll meet you there, then,” Sam said.
Hartley threw his hands up. It would be easier to go along with Sam than to spend another moment in the presence of this fierce protectiveness. “Very well, then. Shall we say Thursday next at the Red Boar in East Grinstead?”
Neither of them mentioned this coming Sunday, which was for the best, Hartley told himself. Those Sundays had been rash for both of them, and it was best to stop before he got in over his head.
Chapter Eleven
“It’s a bad idea. No, it’s several bad ideas wrapped together into a terrible idea.” Nick leaned in the doorway to Sam’s room, his arms folded across his chest as he watched Sam stuff clean linen and a razor into a satchel.
Sam couldn’t argue there. It was a bad idea for reasons Nick didn’t even know. As the reason for his absence, Sam explained that he was visiting a brewery in Sussex to sample their light ale and decide whether he wanted it for the Bell. He had no talent for fabrication, and this excuse was just this side of preposterous. Kate had responded with narrowed eyes, but if she suspected he was up to anything, she didn’t say so. Since they had first talked about the painting a month ago, neither of them had brought up the topic, so he doubted whether she’d think his trip had any connection with her portrait.
“The brewery that supplies us now is perfectly good,” Nick said for perhaps the tenth time. “There’s no need to go jackassing around England. It’s not safe. The farther you get from London, the less likely you are to see anyone darker than a pail of old milk.”
“I know that, Nick. I fought all over the country, and I know what it’s like.” Leaving London meant people staring at Sam as if he were on exhibition, and that was the least of it. “Anyway, it’s not that far. Three hours by the stage, I think.”
Nick folded his arms across his chest and for a moment he looked so much like their father that Sam had to look away. “Do you even have someplace to stay?”
“I’ll stay at the inn.”
“And they’ll give you a room? I doubt it.”
“They’ll give me somewhere to sleep.”
“Out by the bogs, maybe.”
Wincing, Sam hoisted his satchel onto his shoulder. The day before, he had pulled something when lifting a cask of porter. He had injured that shoulder in the ring and from time to time it acted up as a reminder of bad times.
“Christ,” Nick muttered. “You’re more stubborn than Kate. At least take the liniment.” Nick rummaged around in Sam’s chest of drawers until he produced the jar of comfrey salve that he got from the apothecary the last time he strained that muscle.
Six hours later as the stagecoach pulled into the Red Boar in East Grinstead, Sam was biting his lip to keep from swearing with pain. The last stretch of road had been a misery, pitted with holes and strewn with stones. On the top of the coach, Sam had felt every bump, and by the time he climbed off, he was afraid he had injured himself in some new and interesting way.
The innkeeper did the usual bit of staring but took Sam’s money and promised him a bed in a shared room. Sam ordered a pint and scanned the taproom. When he found Hartley sitting at the bar, reading a newspaper in such a way as to occupy two seats, Sam knew a surge of relief at the sight of a familiar face. A voice within him whispered that what he felt was more than relief, and Hartley’s face was more than familiar, but he was paying no attention to that voice. He was here to keep Hartley safe, and that was all.
Hartley looked up when Sam approached. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” he said, moving the paper aside and twisting on his stool to make room. “Do sit.” His voice was sniffy and formal, and Sam guessed that they were going to pretend to be strangers.
“Thank you, kindly,” Sam said with equal courtesy. He didn’t know where to go from there. He wasn’t used to being on this side of the bar, he wasn’t interested in playacting, and he wasn’t in the habit of striking up conversations with strangers anyway. But he had an inkling that all he had to do was wait, and Hartley would carry on with whatever scheme he was cooking up. Sam was almost eager to see what happened next.
What happened was that Hartley turned the page of his newspaper, took a sip of his beer, and proceeded to ignore Sam for the next quarter of an hour. Then, moving to turn the page, he knocked over Sam’s still-full pint. It landed in Sam’s lap, dripping down his legs, into his boots. Sam sprang to his feet, trying to mitigate the damage.
“Oh, I beg your pardon. A thousand pardons. I’m so terribly clumsy. Innkeeper, please get this man a towel. Oh, the state of your clothing, whatever shall we do?” Bemused, Sam watched him go on in that manner until the innkeeper’s wife appeared and Hartley had begged her to launder the unfortunate man’s clothes. Coins changed hands, then the innkeeper arrived and more coins were produced, until Sam and his satchel were being escorted up the stairs to a room.
“I don’t know what the devil you’re about,” Sam said when the door had shut on them.
“Yes, well, now we have an excuse to be together in private, and we’ve effected an introduction. This enterprise requires privacy and discretion.” His pale eyes were bright and Sam realized he had been enjoying this farce.
“How long were you waiting for me?”
“Hours. Your coach was appallingly late.” He glared at Sam as if it had been Sam’s doing. “You have no idea how rude people think Mr. Sullivan from Tunbridge Wells. I sat at the bar for three hours, drinking a single pint, and taking up two seats.”
“I didn’t realize were using false names. I signed the book as Sam Fox.”
“Naturally. Now, get out of those trousers.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure lounging around in my drawers is going to be discreet.”
“Don’t be absurd. You’ll wear my dressing gown, Mrs. Wilson will launder and press your clothes, and I’ll order supper while we wait.”
Sam wondered how m
uch Hartley had paid to buy everyone’s willing cooperation. The innkeeper’s wife appeared with an ewer and basin and left with Sam’s clothes. While Sam washed, Hartley lay back on the bed and filled Sam in on what he had learned so far. Sam could feel Hartley’s eyes on him, intent and appreciative. Sure enough, when he glanced over at the bed, he saw Hartley regarding him from beneath heavy lids. Sam felt his skin heat under the other man’s gaze.
“The house hasn’t been let,” Hartley said. “I walked through the property and there wasn’t even any sign of a caretaker. It’s ideal for a first burglary, I’d say.”
He sounded so cheerful about the prospect that Sam laughed. And then he winced, because every sinew in his body felt knotted with pain.
“What’s the matter?” Hartley asked.
“I hurt my shoulder,” Sam said. “It’s an old injury, but the journey made it worse.”
“Anything I can do?”
Sam turned to look at him. As far as he knew, there wasn’t any way to help a sore muscle that didn’t involve touching; surely Hartley knew that, and wouldn’t have offered if it were off the table. “Bet I could think of something.”
Hartley flushed but he didn’t look away. They were interrupted by a knock at the door and the arrival of supper. It was a shoulder of mutton, some stewed cabbage, and a loaf of bread. None of it was out of the ordinary in itself, but it was a rare treat to have a meal on dishes he wouldn’t have to wash himself, and in the company of a man whose gaze kept darting down to the triangle of bare skin at the neck of the dressing gown. Sam did his share of looking too. Hartley was at his most buttoned up (fourteen tiny waistcoat buttons, a personal record), but Sam knew by now that the starch and the buttons were armor that Hartley needed. To call Hartley handsome was to miss the point; he would have been delicately pretty if not for the set of his chin or shrewdness of his pale eyes. If Sam had to conjure up the ideal looks for a bed partner, he wouldn’t have come up with Hartley in a million years—too fine, too fragile, too sharply dangerous. But with Hartley sitting before him, he couldn’t imagine wanting anyone else.
Hartley had badly miscalculated. His little drama in the taproom had come off without a hitch, but now that he had Sam in his bedchamber, he wanted to crawl all over him and make terrible choices.
The innkeeper’s wife brought Sam’s clothes so promptly that they were still hot from the iron. “My compliments on supper, Mrs. Wilson,” Hartley said, pressing another coin into her hand. “And many thanks for having attended to this good gentleman after my clumsiness. I’ll ring when we’ve finished this superb meal.” All smiles and excessive gallantry, he showed her from the room and shut the door.
“You do that well,” Sam said.
“What? Order servants around?”
“No, the thing where you confuse everyone but pay them enough that they don’t worry too much about what’s going on.”
Hartley snorted and handed Sam his clothes. “We can meet tomorrow in the taproom at about nine and go for a walk, now that we’re acquainted. It’s about a mile to Friars’ Gate.”
“Nine o’clock,” Sam repeated, moving toward the door. Indeed, it was high time for Sam to leave, because with every passing minute the chances increased of Hartley attempting to climb his body like some kind of wild cat. The problem was that Hartley was blocking the closed door, and his feet weren’t doing a damned thing to move him away.
“Nine o’clock,” Hartley said again, because he was a brilliant conversationalist. This time he got his feet to move away from the door but instead of stepping to the side like a sane human being, he moved closer, so he found himself face-to-face with Sam. Well, more like face-to-shoulder, thanks to the height difference.
“Hartley,” Sam said. “I’m still wearing your dressing gown.”
“Oh. Right.” To be utterly accurate, it wasn’t Hartley’s dressing gown. His own would have been too small for Sam, and while lilac suited Hartley, it was perhaps not Sam’s favorite color. He bought this one when he thought of his beer-spilling scheme. It was made of a soft wine-colored wool that looked just as good on Sam as Hartley had thought it would. He would have offered it as a present, but feared Sam was too proud to accept costly presents, especially from a lover. “Are you going to get dressed?”
“That depends,” Sam said. He wasn’t smiling, thank God, because Hartley didn’t think he could live with Sam laughing at whatever rapid mental decline he was suffering. But he did look kind, as if he knew Hartley’s head wasn’t on straight and didn’t mind.
“What does it depend on?”
“On whether you want me to leave.”
“Right.” Of course. Sam was waiting for Hartley’s invitation. He was reliably considerate in that regard, as well as all other regards, which was why Hartley really ought to steer clear of him.
“I don’t think you want me to leave.”
“Was my blocking the door a subtle hint?”
“Something like that.” Sam rubbed a hand along his jaw. “We don’t have to do anything, you know. Whatever you choose is fine.”
Sam had made that clear from the beginning, that whatever Hartley wanted would suit Sam. Hartley was unspeakably grateful, but at the same time wished he didn’t have anything to be grateful for. He wished these decisions were straightforward for him.
“I’m going to sit by the fire and put some salve on my shoulder before I get dressed,” Sam said. He was making it easy, Hartley knew. He watched Sam take a jar out of the canvas satchel he had arrived with, and he knew that he could offer to help. Easier still, he didn’t have to offer. He could just take the jar, which, after filling his lungs with a shaky breath, was what he did.
Sam held his gaze for a moment, then took the hint and climbed onto the bed.
“Probably most people you go to bed with aren’t this much trouble,” Hartley said.
“Maybe I like trouble,” Sam said, lying on his stomach, his voice muffled by the pillow. “I like when you take what you want. What you need. That’s not what men usually expect from me.” And then, after a moment of quiet, “I didn’t know it could be like this.”
Hartley went utterly still as he contemplated how thoroughly ruinous this was going to be for both of them. This, he supposed, was the moment he could turn back. He could step away, send Sam to his own bed, keep his heart protected and Sam’s life intact. Instead he uncorked the jar of salve and slid the dressing gown off Sam’s shoulders. “Neither did I,” he whispered.
The salve smelled lightly of herbs, but nothing flowery or overtly medicinal. He scooped out a bit and rubbed it gingerly onto the dark, smooth skin of Sam’s shoulder blade. He hadn’t ever been this close to so much bare muscle and it took his breath away. Clothed, Sam was impressive. Unclothed, he was beautiful.
“It’s the right shoulder,” Sam said. “Put your weight into it.”
Hartley complied, first rubbing circles with the liniment and then using both hands to work the stuff into Sam’s flesh. When Sam wriggled his arms out of the sleeves of the dressing gown and folded them under his head, Hartley began touching and rubbing down the length of his back. The only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire and the pounding of Hartley’s own heart.
“Do you still box?” Hartley asked, wondering how Sam had acquired this degree of musculature.
“No. I was glad to give it up.” His shoulder tensed beneath Hartley’s touch. “I broke men’s noses and knocked out their teeth. It’s hard to tell yourself that you’re a decent person when the floor is wet with blood you’ve spilled.”
“You’re more than a decent person.” Hartley realized he had stopped rubbing Sam’s shoulder, his strokes having devolved into mere pets. He resumed pressing slow, firm circles.
“Have you ever been to a boxing match?”
“No,” Hartley admitted. Large groups of rough, rowdy men were not his idea of a good time.
“The crowd is usually more than a bit drunk by the time the boxing starts. And one of the thi
ngs they do, I suppose it’s a tradition, or a way of getting the men to put up a good fight, is to harass the boxers. They really let their tongues loose. It was bad watching it happen to my da, but I always thought he was invincible. When it was me, I knew I wasn’t.”
Hartley’s stomach turned at the thought of what revolting epithets a crowd of half-drunk men might shout at a black man. “I’m glad you don’t do that anymore.”
“Easy now,” Sam said. “You don’t need to strangle me.”
Hartley loosened his hands from where they were perhaps a bit too firmly massaging Sam’s shoulder muscles. He scooped up more salve and rubbed it into the top of Sam’s back until he felt the muscles relax.
“I stopped boxing when I nearly killed a man,” Sam said, in a voice so quiet and low Hartley could almost pretend not to have heard it. Sam hadn’t ever confided in him before. All the confessions and embarrassments had been on Hartley’s side. Hartley suspected that he was being offered this truth as compensation for the secrets he had shared and those he had hinted at. But he was being offered it all the same, and he didn’t want to brush it aside.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Hartley said, rolling his eyes at his own obviousness.
“I think the crowd would have torn me apart if I had killed that fellow.”
Hartley sucked in a breath. He had read about another black boxer who had been injured when an angry crowd, annoyed by his victory against a white fighter, stormed the ring.
“If I had been smart,” Sam went on, “I would have gotten out of boxing altogether after that. Instead, I trained a friend. David. Davey. He was younger than me, strong, angry as hell. He was killed with a single punch.”
Sam’s entire upper body was taut with tension, the sinews in his neck standing out. Hartley futilely smoothed his fingers along Sam’s shoulders. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“Somebody paid Davey to throw the fight, and he did. I knew matches were fixed all the time. Backers had offered me money to pull punches or take hits. Knowing that, I shouldn’t have let Davey anywhere near the game.”
A Gentleman Never Keeps Score Page 11
