I enjoyed this book so much! A Gentleman Never Keeps Score is a Regency m/m about a disgraced gentleman and a Black pub keeper. The book has a lovely romance as well as a theme of found family and recovery from trauma.

TW/CW for discussion of sexual abuse.

Hartley, who is White, grew up poor with two brothers, Will and Ben. In an effort to provide for them he began a relationship with Sir Humphrey Easterbrook (who will henceforth be known as Sir Shithead), his godfather. Initially Hartley portrays this as a consensual relationship between equals, but the story eventually reveals that Hartley was a young teenager at the time and since then he can’t stand to be touched. We never learn much about what happened, but it’s clear that Hartley was deeply traumatized by the experience.

Sir Shithead left his house to the now-adult Hartley instead of leaving it to his son, Martin. Hartley believes that Martin outed him as a gay man (in the parlance of the time, a sodomist) and while Hartley has been able to avoid criminal charges, he lives a life of complete isolation. He exists in a state of numb shock, certain that he has lost his money, his family, his place in society, and the respect of anyone he has ever met or may meet in the future.

Meanwhile, Sam, who is Black, owns a pub and is part of a community of family and friends. While anyone is welcome there, he especially wants it to be a safe, comfortable gathering place for the Black residents of London. His brother, Nick, is in love with Kate, a midwife, and wants to marry her. Many years ago Kate posed for a nude portrait and now she keeps worrying that the portrait will resurface and embarrass Nick (although he says he doesn’t care about it). Guess who had the painting last? That’s right, Sir Shithead.

Sam thinks Hartley might have the painting because Hartley is in Sir Shithead’s old house, and once Hartley finds out about this, he decides that helping Sam locate and destroy the paintings (there’s only one of Kate, but many of other people) will be a nice way to get a symbolic revenge against the Shithead family. As the search continues, what begins as a casual sexual encounter between the two men becomes increasingly serious. As it becomes more serious, Hartley’s social circle grows to include Sam, Kate, and two servants whom he gets literally off the streets – Alf and the very pregnant Sadie.

Sam’s character arc is important, but it’s not as angsty as Hartley’s. Sam has to learn to accept help and he has to release the guilt he feels over training a young boxer who died in the ring (Sam was a boxer himself for a while). Sam also faces massive material challenges in terms of keeping the pub open and profitable while also being generous to the community. While Hartley grows as a character during the time that his romance with Sam develops, Sam isn’t in the stereotypical “Magical” role. Sam has his own life and his own arc, and many of the things that Hartley does to advance his own character development have nothing to do with Sam at all.

However, I did feel that Sam was at times sidelined by Hartley’s more overwhelming emotional journey. I welcomed Sam’s emotional stability which balances the turbulent Hartley, but I also wanted more of Sam in the story. I was much more interested in the lives of Sam and the patrons of the pub than I was in the life of Hartley, who has a major self-pity problem, and yet Hartley’s strong personality kept me more focused on his story than on Sam’s.

Hartley is deeply traumatized by his treatment at the hands of Sir Shithead and the isolation that followed. He’s also an interesting character because he stubbornly twists every expectation. He’s full of self-pity yet attuned to the needs of others. He’s constantly helping others, yet describes himself as motivated by anger rather than compassion:

That had always been his downfall. Someone helpless needed aid, and he went out of his blasted way to assist them. Urchins needed a home, and Hartley opened his doors. Will [Hartley’s brother] needed a commission, and Hartley went to bed with the only rich man he knew. It wasn’t self-sacrifice- that was for noble-minded decent sorts. Hartley didn’t even like people, much less want to sacrifice his comfort for them. He didn’t give money to worthy causes, he didn’t go to church, and he was utterly confident that if Martin Easterbrook were on fire, he wouldn’t so much as piss on him to put it out. He was motivated entirely by something like anger at injustice, although he hated to admit that to himself; anger was terribly gauche and injustice seemed a topic best confined to badly printed broadsides read by men who dressed like Will.

Hartley’s self pity is undercut with this sort of dry humor that I enjoyed, and he grumps his way through mourning the life he thought he’d have and then accepting the life he’s ended up with, with Sam and his found family of Alf, Sadie, his concerned brothers, and eventually Sadie’s baby, who he ends up holding a lot:

Seeing Hartley holding a baby was like watching a pigeon play a fiddle. Nothing wrong with pigeons, or with fiddles, for that matter; indeed they were commonplace enough sights. But seeing them in the same place made Sam’s head spin in a way her couldn’t properly name. He nearly walked right out of the house to see if when he reopened the door the occupants might have arranged themselves in a less bizarre tableau.

Some readers might find Hartley to be too whiny for their taste although I found him to be realistically traumatized and grieving. Other might find the story unbalanced: Sam gets a lot of page time, but most of his issues are practical rather than emotional. Moreover, I did feel that Hartley tended to run away with the novel. For these reasons, I’m giving the book a B- even though I enjoyed it so much (found family is a catnip rope of mine). I enjoyed the fact that it’s a huge challenge for Hartley and Sam to find a long term way to be together, and the creative solution that Sam comes up with. This book is not perfect but it was lovely.