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“You can’t run The Queen Anne with its door closed to customers.”
Paul seemed, for a moment, perplexed by what he meant; Alastair smiled at him.
Then his eyes widened, and he looked a bit less guarded within his bashfulness. It was endearing, although Alastair tried to be stern with himself. He didn’t live in Cromer even if he had been spending time here of late. He might be able to sleep the night once or twice with Paul, but anything more would be tricky. Especially with Sykes swooping about.
He needed to help Muriel as expeditiously as possible, and so he would. But he gave himself a moment of contemplation. Paul was younger than him: his face bore fewer lines and his umber hair didn’t have any traces of gray. Age could be hard to guess in one with such a calm bearing and so many responsibilities, but he judged Paul to be somewhere in his early twenties.
And even though he wasn’t against casual arrangements, he couldn’t muster the same cavalier approach he usually had to other men who’d caught his eye. Instead, he felt protectiveness, something he’d not felt for anyone but dear friends or his wife.
And you never felt for Evie the way you could for a man, anyway. By the time they married, Alastair already knew he couldn’t. Evie became a wonderful friend, but she couldn’t ease his restlessness.
Fortunately, she never fell in love with him. She was far too sensible. She’d elected to keep the same lover, a wonderfully jovial baker named Arthur, for almost the entirety of their marriage and until her death. It hadn’t been so long ago that Alastair left behind Arthur and Evie’s recently sixteen-year-old son, whom he’d raised as his own, feeling too young and inexperienced himself as he did so.
Evie and Arthur chose to withhold the truth from James, but Alastair still wasn’t convinced it had been for the best. Loving another man’s son posed no issue for him. But subterfuge did in this context, even if he could understand why they clung to it. Their truths never came into the open. It helped that he was rather intimidating, Arthur was rather endearing, and James took entirely after his mother.
Nobody of their acquaintance, even if there were suspicions about James’ true parentage, dared ask questions. Everyone knew Alastair wasn’t exactly the most upstanding man, even if nobody could say exactly what he did — engaged in what the polite called free trading — and he tended to charm whoever met him. The intimidation was chiefly visual, found in his stature or tattoos if they were visible, so he leaned on making a certain first impression. Relied on his way with words after that.
No one wished to cause trouble for James or Evie or even Arthur, known to be a friend of the family, because no one wished to cause trouble for Alastair. But the time came when he could no longer stand to be entrenched in a place where he was a widower, where even if nobody spoke about his wife sleeping with another man, they all knew.
Once James was working for Arthur, he felt rather better making plans to go. The lad wasn’t a child, and he would have a way to support himself.
Although he felt immense guilt upon leaving, the freedom was equally immense. That bred more guilt, which he tried to assuage by writing and sending James money. There weren’t any replies. But the money left his account, so he assumed James was making use of it. He was a pragmatic and staid boy, but they were different as could be: Alastair needed romance and action. He supposed that was how he’d ended up running from Sykes and into this pub.
“I can’t?” said Paul. “Why… can’t I keep the door shut? Neither of the lads I’ve hired is down there. They’re not due until half-five. That’s when things pick up. And Bess won’t return until six. She’s the cook.”
Alastair tried to school the conflict from his face. Had he not tried to be an upright man before simply returning to the demimonde, his life would be considerably simpler. He said, clarifying, “But what if someone wants a drink? Or a room? And you’ve locked the door?”
“It’s… not as busy as it used to be, here,” said Paul. He shook his head like he was clearing it. “When my father died, there was little loss of trade. Almost none. Those who stopped coming just thought a woman couldn’t manage as well as he did, and I say good riddance to them.”
“Your mother.” Alastair wondered which of the two he favored.
“Yes. And yet… when she died, it did slow more noticeably. Not at first, because I think those who knew us felt sorry for me. Father passed unexpectedly, and Mother didn’t hang on much longer. But more recently it’s been so…”
Waiting, Alastair just listened.
Paul shrugged his svelte shoulders and tried for a smile. “I’ll make it. Things aren’t horrible and I think they’ll pick up. I just never knew how much my mother and father meant to regulars.” Then he added, “And my younger brother is more amicable than me. People came to see him. But he’s in Norwich now. He got married before I did.” He laughed softly. “Not that I’ll ever…” Paul blinked and stopped his thought, but it wasn’t a difficult one for Alastair to finish. “That’s where his wife’s family are.”
Distracted from protesting that he thought Paul was amicable, Alastair said, thinking this indicated good things about the younger Apollyon and the way both of them were brought up, “He went there to be with her… and not the other way around? He didn’t make her come here to live with him when you’ve a business. Huh.”
“Well, he never wanted this place. He was happy at the thought of letting me take responsibility for it, which was always our parents’ plan. He liked Norwich better anyway… and when he met Emma, it turned out that her people kept a pub. He didn’t propose to her for that, though. It’s a love match.”
“Fit right into things, then, from the sound of it.” Watching Paul’s face as he spoke, Alastair tried not to fixate on the yearning he managed to convey when he said love match.
“Edward could fit anywhere,” said Paul, without bitterness, but with a little wistfulness. “Happy lad, happy man, excellent with people.”
Wishing to reassure Paul that he was just as likable, despite knowing it was a bit ludicrous when he only knew one of them, Alastair listed toward him. “Eh, but that’s a bit boring, isn’t it? I know I tend to prefer a little more complexity.”
He was extremely gratified when Paul’s breath caught, just a little. “That’s not Edward. He’s quite straightforward. Not that that’s a bad thing at all. I envy him, sometimes, if you want the truth. Just… it’s easier when you want what you’re supposed to want. A wife, a child.” Paul lowered his voice. “I didn’t think it would ever bother me, seeing him married. But it’s prompted me to wonder if my mother and father were secretly disappointed in me and just… never said.”
It was cryptic, but it was clear. A cultivated way of owning to certain personal qualities.
Then the question came that Alastair dreaded. Given the subject of their conversation, it was unavoidable.
“Sorry. All of that is nothing to do with you. Do you have a family?”
It was innocently asked, kindly meant, and still, he resisted. “No.” How he wanted to tell the truth of things. But he was afraid of being reviled for his slew of either impulsive or unusual choices.
“I expect it’s easier in your line of work not to have one,” was Paul’s diplomatic reply. Nonetheless, he stared at him. Alastair knew he knew something was being withheld. Part of it was his overall air, which was decisive and furtive as a fox. The rest was in Paul’s eyes: Alastair wagered they saw more than he ever said.
