This Wicked Gift (13 page)

The viscount was curt, rude and demanding.
But he was not a tyrant like his grandfather. And he was fundamentally fair in
a way that the marquess had not been. William shrugged. “And here I thought you
didn’t like roundaboutation.”

“Well,” Lord Wyndleton said, “are you in
need of a position?”

“As it happens, yes.
Although
I regret to inform you, my previous employer is not likely to speak highly of
my character, as I helped his grandson uncover the secret of his financial
independence. It was a shocking lapse of judgment on my part.”

Lord Wyndleton pursed his lips and nodded.
“A shocking lapse.
Can I trust you, Mr. White?”

“Of course you can,” William said, holding
his breath. “You’re going to pay me seventy-five pounds a year.”

The viscount leaned back in his chair.
“I am?”

William had chosen the salary to be
deliberately, obscenely high. He’d had no doubts his lordship would argue him
down to a reasonable thirty—perhaps forty—pounds.
Forty
pounds.
On forty pounds, a man
 
might
rent decent quarters for himself and a wife. He might have children without
worrying about whether he could provide for them. Forty pounds a year meant
Lavinia. He was about to open his mouth to lower his demand when the young lord
spoke again.

“Seventy-five pounds a year.” Lord
Wyndleton sounded distinctly amused. “Is that supposed to be a lot of money?”

“You’re joking.
God,
yes.”

His lordship waved a hand negligently. “My
mother and sister live in Aldershot. If you are good enough to get me out of
London before my grandfather notices,” he said quietly, “I’ll treble that.”

He stood as William stared after him in
shock.

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

B
Y 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.

L
AVINIA 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 for 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, yearning 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.”

“That is a good start. I should like to be
loved more, however.”

He leaned in and kissed her again, a sweet
touch of his lips, when she wanted heat.

“But you asked for my intentions. You must
know I intend to ask your father’s permission to call the banns.”

Close to him as she was, his hands still
on her waist, she felt a subtle tension fill his body, as if he were wary of
her response. As if
 
she
 
had
not asked him to marry her already.

Lavinia clucked and shook her head. That
wariness grew, and he pulled away from her ever so subtly. She reached up to
touch his cheek. His skin was rough with evening stubble. “Do not tell me you
barred the door just so that you could steal a mere kiss.
Really,
William.
Is that all?”

A slow smile spread across his face. His
hands pressed against her waist and then slid lower, the heat of his palms
burning into her hips.

“Is that all?” he echoed. “No, damn it.”
His hands inched down to her thighs. “There’s more. There’s
 
much
 
more.”

And then his lips fell on hers again. This
time, he exercised no restraint. His body pressed hers. His hands pulled her
against him. He kissed down her neck; she threw back her head and let his
tongue trail fire along her skin. She felt his warm lips trace her collarbone.
He breathed heat against the neckline of her dress. And then he was rearranging
her bodice, tugging, persuading, until he caught her breast in his mouth.

A sharp swirl of excitement filled her.
But his touch didn’t satisfy her. Instead, it only whetted her hunger. His
other hand was on her ankle now, lifting her legs to one side, pushing her
skirts up.
His fingers
fluttered against her damp sex.

Pleasure twined with want.

She desired—she needed—she
 
required.
 
And what she needed she couldn’t have
said, except more, damn it, more. But he knew. His body was hard against hers.
 
He fumbled with his breeches—and then
he filled her, hard and thick and long.