This Wicked Gift (10 page)

Even then she stopped by his arm and
looked up at him. Her blue eyes seemed to see right through to the contents of
his soul. So what if she took the measure of that sorry item? After all, he’d
set it out for her to see, a tattered standard past the point of all repair.

He walked outside, into the chill of early
morning. She followed, her eyes liquid, her skin seeming to light with an
incandescent glow against that mass of white fog. He wasn’t sure he could bear
another fifteen minutes in her presence—but whatever depths he’d plumbed, he
 
had not sunk so far as to send a woman
alone into the maw of that dampening mist.
Least of all
Lavinia.

Outside, Norwich Court was a silent sea of
mist. Tendrils of white curled around the gaslight on the corner and combed
long, thin fingers through the tangled branches of the trees. Lavinia came up
behind him. He could feel the warmth of her body radiating through the fog. She
was mere inches away from his embrace. She’d never felt so distant.

“I rather think,”
she
said, “that
 
I
 
should be the one to decide if you’re
deserving.”

He hunched his shoulders deeper and drew
his coat about him. “I don’t wish to speak about this at present.”

“Not at present?
Very
well.”

He was surprised—and perhaps a touch
disappointed—at the grace with which she accepted his pronouncement. Silence
enfolded them. They walked in darkness. William counted to thirty slowly, one
number for every two steps, and then she spoke again.

“How about now,
then?”

He was staring straight ahead as they
walked,
the better to ignore her. But there wasn’t much to
see on an early, foggy morning. A bakery had just come to life, the light from
its windows diffusing gold through the mist. As they passed, the smell of the
first baking of cinnamon-and-spice bread wafted out.

But the scent of those warm ovens was soon
left behind, and there was nothing else he could focus on in the swirling fog.
He felt a muscle twitch in his jaw.

“Very well,” Lavinia said. “You don’t need
to say anything.”

That muscle twitched, harder.

“I shall supply both halves of the
conversation. I’m rather good at that, you know.”

He had to admit, her proclamation came as
no great surprise.

“Besides,” she said slyly, “you’re very
handsome when you’re taciturn.”

Oh, he was not going to feel pleased. He
was not going to look toward her. But damn it, he was delighted. And his head
twisted toward her—until he caught himself and converted the motion into a
shake of his head.

“That
 
gesture,” Lavinia
said, “must be William Q. White for ‘Dear Lord, she’s given me a rabid
compliment! Run away before it bites me!’”

He ruthlessly suppressed a traitorous
grin.

“I shall imagine,” she said, “that what
you really meant to say was, ‘Thank you, Lavinia.’”

William lifted his chin. He set his jaw
and looked ahead.

“And that impassive, stony look,” Lavinia
continued, “is William Q. White for ‘I must not smile, or she’ll figure out
precisely what I am not saying.’ Really, William, is this silence the best you
have to offer me on the way home? You’ve said all there is to say, and you have
not one question to put to me?”

They were almost to her home now. William
stopped walking and turned to her. He looked into her eyes—a
 
dire mistake, as she smiled at him,
and then his blood refused to do anything
so
sensible
as flow demurely through his veins. It thundered instead, insistent and
demanding. He wanted to learn the curve of her jaw, every lash on her lids. He
wanted to run his hand down her cheek until he’d committed the feel of her skin
to memory.

“I do have one question, Miss Spencer.”

He should not have spoken. Her eyes lit
with such hope. If he’d remained silent, perhaps she’d have realized he had
nothing to give her—nothing but his eighteen pounds a year. And even that was
subject to the arbitrary and rather capricious whims of Lord Blakely.

But instead, her lips curled upward in
anticipation. “Ask. Oh, do ask.”

He ought not. He should not dare. But he
did.

“Why do you call me William Q. White?”

Her eyes widened. Her mouth opened in
discomfited surprise. Clearly, she’d not been imagining anything along those
lines. “Oh,” she said on an inrush of breath. “I know it’s too familiar. You’ve
never actually given me permission. I ought to call you Mr. White. But I
thought, perhaps, after—you know—the formality seemed somehow wrong, after
we—after we—after we—” She paused, took a deep breath as if for courage, and then
said the words aloud.
“After we shared a bed.”

Good God. She thought he was objecting to
the use of his Christian name? “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Oh,” she said. “I know I sound mad.
Completely
 
mad.
 
I
can’t help but be a little mad when you’re looking down at me. You make me feel
foolish, right to the bottom of my toes.”

William ruthlessly suppressed the thrill
that ran through him at her words.

“It is not the familiarity I object to,”
he said slowly. “I am rather more curious as to why you persist in placing a
 
Q
 
in the middle.”

“Because I don’t know what the
 
Q
 
stands for. Quincy?”

He must have looked as baffled as he felt,
because she forged bravely onward.

“Quackenbush?
Quintus?
Come, you must tell me.”

Finally he managed to put words to his befuddlement.
“What
 
Q?”

“Your middle
initial.
What other
 
Q
 
would
possibly come between William and White?”

He blinked at her in continued
bewilderment. “But I don’t have
a middle
initial.”

“Yes, you do. When you first applied for a
subscription, I asked your name, and you told me, William Q. White. I may be a
little giddy, and perhaps I might lose my head when you look at me, but I could
not have manufactured such a thing out of whole cloth.”

A memory asserted itself. He’d saved two
years to make the initial fee for the subscription. When he’d walked into
Spencer’s library on High Holborn, he’d thought of nothing but books and
self-improvement.
 
And then he’d
seen her, lush and lovely and briskly competent. He had suddenly known—he would
be reading a great deal more than he had imagined. He’d been quite stupid that
day.

Well. He’d never really stopped.

“Ah. I had forgotten.
 
That
 
Q.”
He smiled, faintly, and
looked away.

“No, no. You cannot keep silent. You must
tell me about the
 
Q.
 
I
am all ears.”

He glanced back at her. “All ears? No.
You’re a good proportion mouth.” The grin he gave her slid so easily onto his
face. “When I first applied for a subscription you asked my name. And I said,
‘William White.’”

“No, you—”

He held up a hand. “Yes, I did. And
 
you
 
didn’t even look up at me. You sat
there, nib to paper, and you said, ‘William White. Is that all?’” He folded his
arms and gave her a firm nod.

Now it was her turn to frown in
perplexity, as if his explanation were somehow insufficient.

“So you made up a middle initial rather
than simply saying yes.” Lavinia frowned. “The only thing I gather is that I am
not mad. You are.”

“Absolutely.”
His
voice was low. “Have you any idea what a declaration of war those words are?
You’re a lovely woman. You can’t just look at a man and ask, ‘Is that all?’ Any
man worth his salt can give only one answer. ‘Is that all?’ ‘No, damn it.
There’s more. There’s
 
much
 
more.’”

She laughed with delight. “Mr. William Q.
White,” she said, wagging a finger, “you sly devil. I’ve
been
wanting
to know the more ever since.”

They were almost to her home, and William
could not help but wish he could tease that laughter out of her every day. He
held up his hands as if he could ward off their shared happiness.

“But, Lavinia,” he said, “
there
will be no more. I can never make it up to you, this
debt that lies between us. You have already given me more than I can repay.”

The smile on her face faded into
nothingness. “Is that how you see matters between us, then?
As
some sort of grim commerce, where the transactions are ones of personal worth
and desert?”

“I took your virginity,” he said baldly.
“I took it, believing you had no choice—”

“Oh!” She reared back and kicked him in
the leg.

He barely felt it—she’d not been aiming to
hurt him—but she hopped briefly on one foot as if her own toes stung with the
blow.

“No choice? Even if the promissory note
had been real and enforceable, I had a choice. I could have pawned my mother’s
wedding ring for the funds. I could have let James take his chances with the
magistrate and debtor’s prison. I could have married another man—I’ve had
offers, you know, from well-to-do gentlemen who wouldn’t blink at paying ten
pounds in pin money. Do not think me such a poor creature as to be
 
confined so easily without choice. I chose
you, and I would choose you again and again and again.”

It was sheer torture to hear those words,
to look into those blazing eyes and not take her in his arms.

“And, as we are speaking of debts,” she
said grimly, “what of
 
my
 
debt
to
 
you?”

“What debt?

“Ten pounds.
You
paid
 
ten
pounds
 
to save me from
having to choose between those unpalatable options. And do not tell me you did
it to force me into your bed—because you and I both know that if I had said no,
you would never have enforced the note. I am deeply in your debt.”

“You’re talking nonsense. It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?
Bread with no butter?
Tea, persuaded to give up its flavor
seven or eight times? Don’t tell me ten pounds means nothing to you, William. I
know you better than that. Tell me—with all the uses to which you could have
put that windfall, did you even hesitate to dedicate it to my service?”

“It certainly doesn’t signify,” he
continued. “Mere money, in comparison with what you’ve given me.”

“So it’s nonsense, what I owe you. But
what you owe me is a tremendous burden, one that can never be repaid? Love is
not about accounting. It’s not lines on a ledger. You cannot store up credit
and redeem yourself at some later date, not with gifts or deeds or any number
of coins, no matter how carefully you bestow them. You repay love with love,
William.”

She watched him expectantly. All he had to
do was move forward, into the space she claimed. His hands would find hers; her
lips would naturally lift to his. And she would be his. His partner—but in this
game of better or worse, and sickness or health, all he could offer her was
poorer and poorer and yet poorer again.

If she’d built an unstable house around
the two of them out of romantic notions, it was best to kick it to twigs
quickly.

“It’s nonsense,” he said. “It’s nonsense
because I don’t love you.” He forced himself to look in her eyes, to take in
the hurt spread across her face. Her pain, her rejection of him, would be his
just reward. But better to hurt her once than to drag her into joint misery with
him.

But she did not flinch away. Her eyes did
not cloud with tears. Instead, she shook her head, very slowly. A shiver ran
down William’s spine. She stretched up on tiptoes and set her hands on his
forearms. Her warm mouth pursed a finger’s breadth from his. It would take her
only an instant to place those soft lips against his. And if she did—if she
kissed him now—she’d recognize his words for the obvious lies they were.

“William,” she said softly. Her breath was
the sweetest cinnamon against his lips. “Do you think me such a goose as to
believe your idiotic assertions, after all this?”

“Oh?” The word was all he could manage—one
syllable, trying to breathe a world of distance between them.

“Oh,” she said with great finality. “You
are hopelessly in love with me.”