A Gentleman Never Keeps Score

by Cat Sebastian

  He absently fingered the top button of his waistcoat, feeling the cool smooth ivory beneath his bare skin. His dress, his manners, his reserve—they were his only defenses, cultivated to put as much distance as possible between the world and his true self. He knew other people might think him an affected snob, but the alternative was walking around in a terrifying state of exposure. Some of those defenses he had cast aside to be with Sam; he had a grim suspicion that he’d have to cast aside yet more if they were to go on. That would mean rendering himself vulnerable in a way that he doubted he could tolerate. He didn’t even know who he would be without the fortress of his house and the outward signs of wealth and status, and he doubted he’d give them up, not even for Sam.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hartley dressed with his typical fastidiousness, but with a different goal than usual.

  “Leave off the cravat,” Alf said, coming up behind him. Hartley spun away from the looking glass to face the lad. The bruise under one eye had darkened to a painful-looking wine-colored blotch, ringed with pale green. Hartley winced whenever he saw it.

  “Why in heaven’s name would I go out without a cravat?”

  “Because it’s past ten and you have on your oldest breeches and a pair of boots I haven’t gotten to polishing yet. And I don’t know where you got that coat but I’m selling it at the stalls tomorrow and keeping the money myself. You don’t look like a man who’s up to any good, and men who are interested in late-night crimes against nature don’t need to wear cravats. Also, you might spare me the trouble of pressing and starching them.”

  “I wasn’t aware that I’m ever up to any good.” Hartley brushed some lint off the sleeve of the coat he had borrowed from Will. At least he hoped it was merely lint. “And I’m not engaging in crimes against nature this evening.” He had in mind an entirely different kind of criminal venture.

  “Now I really am worried,” Alf said.

  Hartley nearly told him, but he didn’t want to risk the boy deciding to come along. Sadie was nearing the point where Hartley didn’t like to leave her alone, even though Kate had assured him that babies didn’t arrive on the scene without ample warning. He unwound the neckcloth and rolled it neatly before putting it back in the drawer. “Nothing to worry about,” he said. “I need to run an errand to retrieve something that’s mine.”

  “Sounds like breaking and entering.”

  Hartley waved a dismissive hand. He had given Philpott a week and still had not heard a word from the solicitor. Hartley decided he had been more than generous, and would now search the solicitor’s chambers. He hadn’t quite worked through the details of how this might work, but he was willing to learn as he went.

  “Do you have a pistol?” Alf asked. “A knife?” Hartley shook his head. “A stocking filled with rocks? Anything?”

  “I’m breaking into an empty building, not holding up carriages on the Ratcliffe Highway,” Hartley said quellingly. “I don’t need to be armed.”

  “Right, because people take kindly to their homes being broken into. They’ll step aside and let you have your way. Robbing people is famously easy.”

  “I said empty. And it’s not a home. Rather a place of business. And I’m not robbing it, so much as restoring objects to my possession.” He needed his painting in the same way he had needed to give Sadie that silver cup. It was a matter of justice. Not revenge, not petty spite. It was his, and he meant to have it. When he thought of that painting, even the fact of its existence, he thought of himself as a vulnerable idiot of a boy. “Look, I mean to do this, so leave off.”

  Alf was silent for a moment. “I think this may not be an area of your expertise, mate.”

  “Be that as it may, it’s none of your concern.”

  “Leave me some money so I can bring you supper at Newgate.”

  “Piss off.”

  Alf did piss off, leaving Hartley to fuss over his cuffs and find a hat that covered his hair as thoroughly as possible. Having yellow hair was a powerful detriment to a life of crime, he was realizing.

  He pulled his hat low on his forehead and went out into the mews behind his house.

  Sam cleared his throat and knew a small satisfaction when Hartley startled and then spun to face him. He had been waiting in the shadows since Alf fetched him, hoping the boy had been wrong about Hartley’s intentions.

  It had been a long day of dealing with shiftless chimney sweeps, that sodding bastard of a constable, an entire delivery of porter that had gone sour, and a surprise visit from the landlord, who had cheerfully mentioned that with all the work Sam had done, he could probably let the premises to a new tenant for a tidy sum. By the time Sam closed the Bell for the night, he felt the weight of every burden he had taken on. But when he heard pounding on the door, he opened it anyway. There he found Alf sweating and out of breath, saying that Hartley was about to do something foolish. Sam hadn’t even paused to deliberate; he simply turned the key in the lock and followed Alf to Mayfair.

  “What are you doing here?” Hartley asked.

  “Alf told me you were up to no good.”

  “And you came to stop me?”

  Any hope Sam had that Alf might have been wrong vanished with Hartley’s words. “Depends on what you’re planning to do.”

  “I’m going to Easterbrook’s solicitor’s office to search for those paintings.” His chin was tilted up, as if he really thought his plan was above reproach.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought we were in this together.”

  “No, I told you I’d send word if I found Kate’s painting, not that I’d bring you along on every felony I commit.” He pulled the cap off his head and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m not putting you in harm’s way again, and that’s final.”

  The brisk certainty in his voice touched Sam—he suspected Hartley cared about him, but he hadn’t ever said so. Hearing the man say he didn’t want to expose Sam to danger was the closest they had gotten to overt declarations. It struck Sam that this wasn’t enough, and that he was selling himself short to settle for something so paltry. “But you’ll put yourself in harm’s way, will you? With no regard at all for the feelings of people who don’t want to see you arrested or clubbed on the head as a trespasser?” he demanded. “Why?”

  “Why?” Hartley repeated, incredulous. “Is that really something you need to ask? I thought you understood. You were the one who came to me looking for Kate’s portrait in the first place.”

  The faint moonlight slanted across Hartley’s face. He looked young and vulnerable. Sam could have gone to him, gathered him close, and confessed that he understood futile anger as well as anyone on earth. But that wouldn’t do either of them any good, so he shoved his hands in his pockets and stayed where he was. “You could get those paintings. Hell, you could burn the solicitor’s building to the ground, and it still wouldn’t undo what happened to you. The old man is dead, and you can’t—”

  “I know that,” Hartley spat. “I’m not stupid. I know I can’t have a proper revenge, I know I can’t undo what was done, but this is all I can have, so it’s what I’m going after.”

  Sam felt a desperate helplessness pooling in his gut. He didn’t know if he had the words to explain himself to Hartley, and doubted that it would do any good anyway, but he had to try. “I care about your safety. I care about you. Doesn’t that count for anything? I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I’m imagining you shot dead or in a prison cell.”

  “People face dangerous situations every day,” Hartley had the nerve to say.

  “Some people have no choice, Hartley.” He thought of how he had encouraged Davey to take part in a game he knew could be his death. He couldn’t let someone else walk right into danger. “But you’re choosing this. Life is hard enough, and here you are borrowing trouble.”

  Hartley fell silent. “The fact that you don’t see my reason is . . . disappointing.” His voice was small, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Sam stepped closer. “
I understand why, Hart. I just wish you cared for yourself as much as I do. I wish you cared for anything as much as I care for you.”

  Hartley looked up at him and for a moment Sam thought he’d close the gap, fall into Sam’s arms. Anything. Instead he shook his head and went back inside, closing the door behind him. At least that meant he wasn’t going off to get himself arrested tonight. Sam waited in the cold and the dark until his feet went numb in his boots, then turned homeward.

  Hartley was aware that he wasn’t being entirely rational. Some vital knack for self-preservation had gotten knocked loose from his brain now that he couldn’t hide, now that the option of secrecy and safety had been taken away from him. He heard Sam’s words, knew Sam was correct, and at the same time knew he was going to break into Philpott’s office to search for those paintings. Not tonight, but soon. And this time he’d make sure Sam didn’t find out.

  The sensible thing would be to put on his dressing gown, have something warm to eat, go to bed at a reasonable hour, and maybe see if when he woke the next morning he felt better. But he didn’t think he could stand his own company tonight. Alf was out and Sadie had gone to bed early. So he changed his clothes and went back outside, this time heading north and east, avoiding both the Bell and Philpott’s offices, and went to a part of the city he usually had no reason to visit. As he walked, the streets narrowed and the symmetrical facades of Mayfair gave way to a ramshackle hodgepodge of houses that seemed at risk of falling into one another. Lean dogs and hungry children peered out from the shadows. He climbed a rickety wooden staircase that seemed to be stuck to the outside of a narrow building with nothing more than years of grime.

  “If you won’t come stay with me,” he said when Will answered the door, “at least tell me why you won’t let me give you enough money to hire a better set of rooms.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my lodgings.” Will opened the door wider, letting Hartley in.

  It wasn’t horrible. In fact, it wasn’t that much shabbier than the house where they had grown up. Chipped plaster, bits of damp on the ceiling and walls, the pervasive smell of vague unwholesomeness. “Certainly. If you’re a mouse, that is. I daresay all manner of vermin are quite comfortable here.”

  Will didn’t answer. He had a lot of practice ignoring Hartley’s minor tantrums. “I’ll put on my coat and we’ll go get a pint.”

  “It just doesn’t seem fair that you’re living like this while I’m living in comparative luxury.”

  A rare smile spread across Will’s face. “We’ll make a radical of you yet, Hart.”

  “Ha. I mean because you’re my brother I don’t feel right about your living like this. I have more than I need, and I want to share it.” Strictly speaking, this wasn’t true: when he had sold off the silver epergnes and jewel-encrusted snuff boxes that littered the Brook Street house, he had been left with enough capital to invest in projects that interested him—first a pottery in Staffordshire, then a series of canals. But lately he had been toying with the idea of cashing out those investments and doing something else. He hadn’t only been bluffing when he told Philpott that he had a good deal of money and nothing to do with it. Perhaps he could use it to help Will.

  “I don’t want your money.” Will proceeded to shake some dust off a coat.

  Hartley’s spine stiffened. “I see.”

  Will looked at him for a long moment, one sleeve in his coat and one out of it. “Because I don’t believe in having more than I need, not because of how you got your money, you gudgeon. You shagged some fellow to help your family. Nothing wrong with that as far as I care. For some reason he left you his house. Those aren’t connected.”

  Hartley goggled at him. “Of course they’re connected. Everybody knows that. Why else would he have left it to me?”

  “Maybe to punish the person who would have gotten it otherwise? Maybe to embarrass you both?” Hartley must have looked as shocked as he felt. “You hadn’t thought of that, had you?” Will asked. “Easterbrook rarely bothered to pay his bills. Do you really think he’d leave you an entire house to you as compensation?”

  “Why would he have wanted to punish Martin?” Hartley knew why Easterbrook would have wanted to embarrass Hartley himself. But Martin was his son and heir.

  “Because he didn’t care much for Martin.” Will was now fully, if unsatisfactorily, dressed, and he took the single step required to cross the cramped room and open the door. “You do remember that, don’t you?” When Hartley didn’t answer, he raised an eyebrow. “You don’t, do you?”

  “I don’t remember him being a fond parent,” Hartley said slowly.

  Will snorted. “You and Ben were so busy thinking about money and schooling and leaks in the roof, you missed everything else.”

  Hartley decided not to point out that Ben had kept them warm and fed when nobody else could be bothered, and that money, education, and functional roofs were matters well worth considering. “I see,” he said gravely. It was oddly thrilling to think that maybe the house wasn’t something he had acquired through greed but rather had foisted on him due to an old man’s ill will. The house had always seemed to have meaning set into its mortar, but now that significance had shifted. Will’s words had shaken the cobwebs loose from a certain corner of his mind, something to do with the paintings, and assets, and blackmail, but he couldn’t quite put it all together now. “Have you seen Martin?” he asked when they had descended the stairs and reached the street.

  Will shoved his hands into his pockets. “Not since the summer. Ben wrote that Martin planned to go to the Continent, and I haven’t heard anything since.” They turned into a lane. “I feel certain he’s dead.”

  Hartley startled, not from the news—he would not be shedding any tears over Martin Easterbrook, dead or alive—but from the grief in his brother’s voice. “Why do you think he’s dead?”

  “Because if he were alive he wouldn’t have left me without a word. He’d know I’d worry myself half mad. Every day that passes I become more convinced that he must have died.”

  Hartley tentatively squeezed his brother’s arm. When they got to the public house, Hartley ordered two pints and paid for them before Will could put any money on the bar.

  It had been dark in Will’s rooms, and it was only marginally brighter at the table they sat at, but now Hartley could see the shadows under his brother’s eyes, the weariness in his face. He was habitually disheveled, but tonight he was more unkempt than usual. He hadn’t shaved in the last fortnight and the less said about his hair the better. Will periodically went into what Hartley thought of as a decline and Ben called an episode. He didn’t sleep, barely ate, forgot to write whatever he was meant to for those horrid publications, and was forced to seek even more dismal lodgings than before. During one terrifying period the year before, he had turned to opium to calm whatever trouble roiled inside him.

  Hartley tamped down a surge of panic. “Have you been eating?” he asked, noticing that Will’s coat was now ill fitting in a new and troubling way. Hartley knew his brother had his reasons for these episodes; Will had served in the navy under an infamously cruel captain, and while he hadn’t volunteered any information, Hartley read the report of a fellow officer’s court martial, and gathered that the conditions on board ship had been grim in the extreme.

  “Yes,” Will said, looking thoughtful, as if trying to recollect his last meal, or what meals even were. “I do eat. From time to time.”

  “Right. Do they have supper here?”

  Will gave a ghost of a smile. “If they did, you wouldn’t want to eat it, and neither would I.”

  Glancing around, Hartley had to agree. This place stank of stale beer and had more damp than Will’s lodgings. “You really ought to go to the Bell. They have excellent pork pie.” For a moment, he considered taking Will there presently, but it was too late for them to have any supper left. “I’m sorry about Martin.” Hartley had already reconciled himself to the probability that Martin was merely a prig,
not a villain. Hartley could accept his brother’s friendship with a prig. “I do hope he isn’t dead.” That ought to have been a ludicrously inadequate sentiment, but Will nodded solemnly, so Hartley thought that perhaps he hadn’t missed the mark.

  “Hart, I’m grieving him, but I don’t have a body to bury.” His voice cracked on the last words.

  “He may be well,” Hartley offered weakly.

  “And if he’s alive, then what I’m grieving is a friendship that isn’t what I thought it was.”

  Hartley drew in a sharp breath at this acknowledgment. “If you see him . . .” Hartley paused in disbelief that he was going to say this. “If you see him and he needs anything, can you pretend to have saved up—really anybody who looks at you will believe that you don’t spend much—and then quietly take some of my money to give him? I mean, don’t tell him it’s from me. You can say you stole it from the prime minister or some Tory lord.”

  “I don’t lie to Martin, but if he’s alive I might take you up on your offer. Uh, thanks, Hart. Decent of you.”

  Hartley waved this away. “I know you don’t like coming to my house, but I have a very good cook who is bored of cooking only for me. I happen to know she has a massive gourd and a brace of partridges, and probably some other things besides that she’s planning to cook for tomorrow’s supper. It’s a lot for one person, but if I don’t sit down for supper, she and Alf won’t eat anything themselves.”

  Will stared at him for a moment. “Very well,” he said finally. “I’ll oblige your cook by eating her supper.”

  “Oh, also we have to eat in the kitchen because almost all my servants quit and I don’t like to make too much work.”

  Will opened his mouth and then shut it again. “I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me to the next meeting of the Hampden Club, but perhaps you’d like to be the speaker.”