This Wicked Gift (Carhart 0.5)

He stood as William stared after him in shock.

“Come along,” he said. “I believe you have your resignation to tender.”

BY TWO IN THE AFTERNOON, William and his new employer had barred the old marquess from his grandson’s personal finances. The viscount’s first purchase had been a coach and four. They’d obtained money for changes, and his new employer had been on his way. William went to Spencer’s circulating library.

He made it there by three. The building was lit with a dim glow; the door, when he tried it, was unlocked. Good. She hadn’t yet closed the shop for Christmas Eve.

He opened the door. She was sitting at her stool again, winding a strand of hair through her fingers. Up. Down. Soon those would be his fingers there, stroking her hair. Rubbing her cheek. There was a thread of melancholy to her movements.

She glanced up and saw him, but her face did not light. Instead, it shuttered in on itself. Lavinia, the woman who smiled at everyone who entered her shop, pressed her lips together and looked away. It was not the best of beginnings.

William advanced on her.

She spoke first. “I have a Christmas gift for you.” Still she kept her eyes on the desk in front of her. Her hands lay on the table—pressed flat against that solid surface, not relaxed and curved. Her fingertips were white.

“I don’t want a gift, Lavinia.”

Still she didn’t look at him. Instead she pulled open a drawer—the quiet protest of wood against wood sounded—and she rummaged inside. When she found whatever it was she was looking for, she lobbed it in his direction. As she still hadn’t looked at him, her aim was poor. He stretched to catch what she’d thrown. It was a pouch barely the size of his hand. The container was light. It might well have been empty.

“I told you,” she said quietly, her eyes still on her hands. “I told you, you wouldn’t want to know what I would have to do to pay back your ten pounds.” Her voice was small.

His heart stopped. “I don’t want ten pounds from you.”

Finally she lifted her chin to look in his eyes. “I know,” she whispered. “But I want you to have it.”

There was the faintest tinge of red at the corner of her eyes. His hand contracted around the fabric. She’d had options. But William’s original ten pounds had disappeared. That left…No. She couldn’t have agreed to marry another man. She wouldn’t have.

Would she? She sat, pale and stricken. She looked miserable.

“Don’t do it, Lavinia,” he warned. “Choose me. I came here to tell you—you wanted me to find hope. I’ve found another position, a better one. I can afford you now.”

She jerked back as if she’d been slapped. “You can afford me, William? You coerce me to your bed. You lie to me and say you don’t love me. And you think I was waiting for you to gather the coin to purchase me?”

William bit his lip. If he’d been a better man—if he’d been worthy of her from the start—if he hadn’t coerced her into intercourse, and then hurt her to drive her away from him not once, but twice—perhaps he might have had her. He’d as good as told her to give up hope this morning. Now she had.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply.

She raised her chin. “I never wanted your apology.”

“I know,” William said. “It’s all I have.”

She didn’t say anything. Instead, she bit her lip and looked away. Once, he’d tried to steal her choice back from her. He’d not do it a second time. He let out a deep breath.

“Merry Christmas, Lavinia,” he whispered.

Somehow he managed to find the door. Somehow he managed to wrest it open and walk through it with some semblance of grace. He even managed to stumble down the street. Halfway to the crossroads he realized he was still holding that damned bag she’d thrown at him, with its ten bloody pounds. He balled it up in his hand and squeezed in frustration—and stood still.

If he had bothered to think about such a thing, he would have supposed that the sack felt light and deflated because it contained a single bank note, folded into quarters. But instead of the crisp, malleable shape of a paper rectangle he felt a single circle press against his palm.

A circle? There was no such thing as a ten-pound coin. Besides, he realized as he ran his hands over the cloth, coins were not hollow in the middle. And this one was barely the diameter of a sixpence, but three times as thick.

Breath held, he opened the pouch and pulled out the object inside. It was a plain, round circle of gold—a ring too dainty to ever be intended for a man’s finger. He stared at it in frozen wonder. She’d had other choices besides marrying another man. I could have pawned my mother’s wedding ring.

But she hadn’t pawned it. She’d given it to him.

LAVINIA HAD WATCHED THE DOOR where William had left.

Her choices were few. Should she humiliate herself and run after him? Should she at least wait a decent amount of time before hunting him down and making him pay in kisses? Or should she kick the desk in frustration and give up on Mr. William Q. White ever figuring out how to express the concept of love without reference to funds?

Lavinia sat down at her desk and put her head in her hands. She didn’t dare cry—not now, not when she needed to head upstairs to see her father. It was Christmas Eve and tonight the family needed to laugh. She needed to pretend Christmas had come without mulling wine or roasting goose. What she didn’t need to do was cry over the man’s sheer perversity.

The bell rang.

The door opened.

Lavinia lifted her head from her hands. Her heart turned over. William stood, framed by the doorway against the dark of the night. Little wisps of snow covered his collar and kissed the brim of his hat. He took off his coat, folding it and setting it on the low table to his right. Then he turned and shut the door. She heard the snick of a key turning in the lock, and she swallowed. He did not say anything, but he drank her in, top to bottom, his eyes running languidly down her form.

“Does that door behind you lock, as well?”

She shook her head.

“Pity.” He lifted a chair off the floor and strode past her.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m rearranging your furniture.” He tilted the chair at an angle and wedged it under the door handle.

“There. This time we shan’t be bothered by intruding little brothers.” He turned to her. She was still seated on her stool. Her toes curled in her slippers as he walked forward. He towered before her. Then he bent and picked her up. His arms around her were warm and strong.

The doors were barred, so nobody could save her. For that matter, with the books piled in front of the one tiny window, nobody could see her. Thank God. She melted into his arms.

He straightened. But she had only a few bare seconds of his warm embrace before he set her on the desk. He did not move away from her. Her thighs parted, and he stepped between her legs. She was still looking into his eyes. He rested his forehead against hers, and she shut her eyes.

“I collect,” William said, his hand reaching up to cup her cheek, “that you want me to give your ring back.”

She opened her mouth to answer, but all that came from her vocal cords was a pointless squeak. Instead she nodded.

“You can’t have it.” His eyes bored into her. His fingers whispered down the line of her jaw, to rest against her chin. He tipped her head back.

“You can’t have it,” he repeated, “unless you wear it for me.”

She nodded again.

“I also collect,” he said, “that when I came in, I should have said something rather more like—”

He leaned forward.

“Like?” she prodded.

His lips touched hers.

He tasted like cinnamon and cloves, like the Christmas she no longer dreaded facing. His lips roamed over hers, tasting, testing. His hands slid from her jaw down to her waist. And she was touching him, his shoulders pulling the hard length of his body against hers. She was catching fire, yearnin

g to consume him. Her hands ran through his silky hair, pulling his head toward hers. But however intimate the touch of his tongue against hers, however insistent the press of his hard erection through the layers of her skirts, his hands remained virtuously clasped on her waist.

He pulled away from her. She’d rearranged his hair into a tangled and adorable mess.

“Well,” he murmured, smiling at her.

“Mr. William Q. White,” Lavinia said, “I should like to know your intentions.”

“I intend to love you as you deserve.”