This Wicked Gift Read Free

her head in her hands. She rocked back and forth, the seat
tipping precariously. Finally she spoke through her fingers. “You didn’t   read   it when you signed it?”
    “He looked honest.”
    Wood scraped against the slate floor as
Miss Spencer pushed her stool back and stood. William pulled his head behind
the shelves before she could spot him.
    “Oh, my Lord,” she swore, downright
unrighteous in her wrath. “A man offered you a partnership predicated upon
attempted bribery, and you didn’t question his integrity?”
    “Um. No?”
    William did not dare breathe into the
silence that followed. Then James spoke again. “Vinny, if I must appear before
a magistrate, could we claim—”
    “Be quiet,” she snapped furiously. “I’m thinking.”
    So was William. Frauds and cheats, if they
were any good, made excessively good barristers for themselves in court. The
common person could not risk a loss at law. William would not want to stand in
young James’s shoes before a magistrate. He gave it even odds the boy would prevail.
    “No,” Miss Spencer said, almost as if
she’d heard William’s thoughts, and decided to correct him. “We’d win, but we’d
have to pay a barrister. No magistrate.”
    “Vinny, do we have ten pounds? Can’t we
make him just go away?”
    “Not if we want to pay the apothecary.”
    There was a bleak silence. Likely, Miss
Spencer had forgotten William was in the room. If he were a gentleman, he’d
have apologized minutes ago and taken his leave.
    “We are not without options,” Miss Spencer
said.
    Options. William had a fair idea just how many
options Miss Spencer had. He suspected the number was equal to the population
of single men who frequented the library—and perhaps included the married men.
As the reading men of London were, by definition, neither blind nor completely idiotic, he knew there were many others who entertained
charged fantasies about Miss Spencer. In fact, he rather suspected that old   Mr. Bellows, the wealthy butcher,
would offer her marriage if she gave him the slightest encouragement. Ten
pounds would be nothing to him—and the butcher was hardly alone in his lust.
    William could not countenance the thought.
He could not envision her beneath that fat, toothless man. And besides, the
upright Miss Spencer chided her brother about bribery and petty theft. She
would never stray from a husband, no matter how many teeth the man lost. If she
married, William would never be able to pretend—not even on the darkest,
loneliest nights—that he would one day have her.
    He’d had enough dreams shattered today.
    “I have a plan.” There was steel in Miss
Spencer’s voice. “I’ll take care of it.”
    “What must I do?” James asked instantly.
    Miss Spencer was silent. “I think,” she said quietly, “you’ve done enough for now. I’ll take
care of it for you. Just give me his direction.”
    Silence stretched, ungracious in its
length. Finally her brother heaved a sigh. “Very well. Thank you, Vinny.”
    Like the foolish coward that he was, her
brother complied. William could hear the scratch of pen against paper. James
hadn’t even asked her what her plan entailed, or insisted that he take care of
the matter himself. He didn’t care what she might have to sacrifice for him.
    William’s fists clenched around the bank
note in his   pocket. If he
were a gentleman, he’d hand Miss Spencer his ten pounds and solve all her
problems.
    Then again, William hadn’t been a
gentleman since he was fourteen.
    No. His ten pounds—his last, minuscule
legacy from childhood—would buy him the one fantasy he had left. If she had to sacrifice
herself, it might as well be in his honor. She’d wished him a merry Christmas.
    Well, she was going to give him one.
    T HE ADDRESS HER BROTHER   had inked was
still damp on the page when Lavinia’s reverie was interrupted.
    “He calls you Vinny?”
    She looked up and felt her cheeks flush.
It was Mr. William Q. White,