This Wicked Gift (4 page)

But no.
He was far too ill at ease. A practiced
seducer would have plied her with brandy. He would have made her laugh.
Certainly he would not have made her sit in this hard and uncomfortable chair.
And he would not have said so little.

“Why do you suppose,” he said, “I’ve asked
to talk with you rather than your brother?”

“Because I’m more reasonable than him?”

“Because,” he said uneasily, not quite
meeting her eyes, “
you
—or rather, your body—is
the only currency that can persuade me to part with that note.”

It took her a second to unravel his
meaning. He wasn’t hoping for a kiss given out of gratitude. He wasn’t even
going to attempt a somewhat awkward seduction. Instead, he was trying to
 
coerce
her.
There had been something magical about the looks he’d given her, occluded as
they’d been with his two-word greetings. She’d felt as if they were uncovering
a mutual secret—a world where Lavinia could forget the strain of trying to hold
her family together. She could pretend for just one instant that nothing
mattered but that she was a young woman, desired by an attractive young man.

But
her own
wishes were of no importance to him. If he was trying to force her in this
ridiculous fashion, he saw nothing mutual at all about their desire. She had
the sudden feeling of vertigo, as if the room were spinning about her, the
floor very far away. As if she’d added all the lines in the ledger between
them, and found that her tally did not match his coins.

Lavinia folded her arms about her for
warmth.

“Mr. William Q. White,” she said calmly.
“You are a despicable blackguard.”

W
ILLIAM KNEW HE WAS
 
a despicable
blackguard. Only the worst of fellows would have tried to claim a woman he
could not marry. But he wanted her enough that he almost didn’t care.

“I suppose you think I should forgive your
brother’s debt,” William heard himself say.

“I do.”

“And what would I stand to gain by that?”

She dropped her eyes. “He is not yet
twenty-one, you see.”

As if such a fact would have swayed him.
Her
brother was older than fourteen, and at that age William had first become
responsible for his own care. Since then, he’d labored for every scrap of
comfort. He’d had nothing handed to him—not a penny, not a kind word and
certainly not a sister who shielded him from every discomfort.

“You will soon learn,” he said, more
harshly than he’d intended, “that everything has a cost.” Coal and blankets in
grim lodging houses cost pennies. The eye-straining labor of his apprenticeship
had cost him his youth. For years, he’d spent his late nights reading business
and agriculture by the dim red glow of the fire, not for pleasure or enjoyment,
but to keep alive the futile dream that one day he would be asked to take his
place managing funds that might have belonged to him. Mr. Sherrod’s will had
just stolen that dream from him, too. Oh, yes, William knew everything about
cost.

Her color heightened. If he were the sort
to engage in self-delusion, he’d imagine that the pink flush on her cheeks was
desire. But the breaths that lifted her bosom had to be fear. Fear at his
proximity. Fear that a man, intent and closeted alone with her, was looking
down at her with such intensity.

But she did not shrink back, not even when
he stood
 
and walked toward her.
She didn’t falter when he stopped inches from her. She did not quail when he
towered over her and peered into the pure blue of her eyes.

Instead, she huffed. “You have not taken
my meaning. It is surely in your best interests to collect on the debt owed
over time. After all…”

Her voice was husky. Her breath whispered
against his lips. He inhaled. Her scent coiled in his veins and joined the
throbbing pulse of blood through his body.

“My interest?”
His voice
was quiet. “I assure you, my only interest is in your body.”

Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. And
that long, smooth column of throat contracted in a swallow.

And then, inexplicable woman that she was,
Lavinia smiled. “You’re not very good at this, are you? It works better if you
give your villainy at least a thin veneer of pleasantry.”

He might have been a blackguard, but he
had no intention of being a liar. “Nothing really worth having is free. If the
cost of having you is your hatred, I’ll pay it.”

She didn’t shrink from him. Instead, she
tilted her head, as if seeing him at an angle would change his requirements.
The pulse in her throat beat rapidly—one, two,
three,
he counted, all the way up to twenty-two, before she raised her chin.

“Am I worth having, then?
At this cost to yourself?”

“You’re worth ten pounds.” It was heresy
to say those words, heresy to place so low a value on her. It
 
was heresy even to think of someone as
low as him touching a woman as incomparable as her. But he was going to be in
hell all his life. He wanted one memory, one dream to keep with him in the
years of drudgery that would surely follow. He’d have traded his soul to the
devil to have her. A little heresy would hardly signify.

She stood. On her feet, she was mere
inches from him. “You believe,” she said, her voice unsteady, “that you must
 
purchase
 
the best things in life.
With bank notes.”

“I have no other currency to barter with.”

She met his eyes. “Is there anything you
want in addition to my body? That is—will once be enough, or will this turn
into a…a regular occurrence?”

A regular occurrence.
His body
tensed at the thought. He wanted everything about her.
Her
smile, when she saw him; her sudden laughter, breaking like a sunrise in the
night of his life.
He wanted her, over and over, body and soul and
spirit. But that was all well out of his price range. And so he asked for the
one thing he thought he might get.

“I want one other thing,” he said. “When I
touch you, I want you not to flinch.”

She frowned in puzzlement at this
proclamation. As she bit her lip, she reached for the catch of her cloak. She
fumbled with the ties, and then removed the wool from her shoulders, folding
the cloth into a careful square. The dress underneath was a faded rose, the
 
fabric old enough that it had shaped
itself to the curves of her hips. He’d seen her in the gown before, but never
while he stood close enough to touch.

She tugged on her left glove, loosening
each finger before rolling the material down her arm. He noted, with some
distraction, that there was a tiny hole in the index finger. Her fingers seemed
impossibly slender.

“Very well,” she said. “I agree.”

He hadn’t really believed it would happen.
He had passed last night, after he’d retrieved her brother’s note of promise,
in a delirium of dazzled lust. But up until this moment, he’d expected her to
walk away, snatched from him like all his other dreams. She removed her second
glove, as slowly as she’d taken off the first, and aligned the two precisely
before setting them atop her cloak. He swallowed. When she slid the pins from
her hair, letting that coiled mass of cinnamon spill down her back, he realized
he was really going to have her. Somehow, this impossible plan had worked.

If he were a gentleman, he’d stop now and
send her on her way.

She turned her back to him—not, he
realized, to hide her face. No, Lavinia didn’t shrink from him. Instead, she
lifted the mass of her hair so that he could unlace her dress.

The gesture gave him a perfect view of the
back of her neck. It was slim and long. He could make out the delicate swells
of her spine. Up until this point, nothing truly untoward had happened, except
in William’s
 
mind. But once he
touched her—once he unlaced that gown—it would be too late for them both. If he
had any strength of character at all, he’d leave her untouched. But all his
strength had turned into pounding blood, thundering through his veins. And if
he had any will at all, it was directed toward this—this moment of heaven,
stolen from the angel who had haunted his dreams for a year.

He would never find forgiveness if he took
her, but then he’d been damned for a decade. All he would ever know of paradise
was Lavinia. And so he laid his hands on her waist and claimed his damnation.

She was warm against his palms, and oh, it
had been so long since he touched another human being. He leaned in and kissed
the back of her neck. She tasted of lemon soap. His arms wrapped around her,
drawing her against his body. She nestled against his erection, and by God, she
did what he’d asked. She didn’t flinch. Instead, she sighed and leaned back
into his arms, as if she enjoyed the feel of his touch.

“Miss Spencer,” he murmured in her ear.

“You’d better call me Lavinia.”

His fingers found the ties of her dress
and unraveled them carefully. Then he slid the dress off her shoulders. Long
muslin sleeves fell away to reveal creamy shoulders, milk-white arms. When the
gown hit the floor, she turned in his arms. She was wearing nothing but stays
and a chemise. Her skin was warm against his hands and she arched up toward
him. Her lips parted. Her eyes
 
shone
at him, as if he were her lover instead of the man who’d forced her into this.
She’d looked at him that way, just last night in the library. Surely, then, she
hadn’t meant to invite a kiss.

He was not such a fool as to turn down
that invitation twice. He kissed her, hard, savoring the feel of her lips
against his. She tasted as sweet as a glass of water after a hard day’s labor,
felt as welcome as sunshine in the darkness of winter. He pulled her into his
embrace roughly. She twitched in surprise when his tongue touched her lips, but
she opened her mouth with an eagerness that made up for any apparent
inexperience.

He had to remind himself that she’d not
chosen this, that he’d ordered her not to flinch from his advances. It was not
real, the way she nestled in his arms. It was not real, the way her hands
pressed against his back, pulling his thighs against hers. It was not real, the
way she opened up to him. It was all a fraud, obtained through coercion.

He was impoverished enough that he’d take
her caresses anyway.

She pulled away from him, but only to
unlace her stays. As she lifted her arms above her head, a stray shaft of light
came through the window and illuminated the outline of her legs through her
chemise. She let her stays drop to the ground. She didn’t look up—no doubt
suddenly ashamed, aware that William could make out the dusky purple of her
areolae through her chemise. A shaft of heat rippled through William, and he
could wait no longer.

Without thinking, he walked forward. His
hands slid
 
up her waist. She was
separated from him by the thinnest layer of cloth. She shivered as he drew her
toward him. And then he leaned forward and closed his mouth around the dusky
tip of her nipple. Even through her chemise, he could feel it contract,
pebbling under his tongue.

“Oh!” Her hand clutched his arm
spontaneously.

He licked that hard tip, as if somehow,
her response would count as real acquiescence. Maybe, if he was good enough to
her, if he brought her to the most trembling peak of pleasure, she would
forgive him. Maybe he could give a hint of truth to this lie. He set his leg
between hers as he tasted her body, and she ground her hips against him. She
was either an incredible actress, determined not to flinch, or she truly wanted
him.

He let one hand skim down her body to the
edge of her chemise. He pulled it up, up, until his fingers slipped between her
thighs.

She was not acting. She was silky wet.
There was no space in his mind to encompass the wonder of her desire. He was
lost, sliding his fingers through her curls until he found the spot that made
her arch her back even more. He pinned her against the wall, pressing, tasting,
touching, until she trembled, her breathing ragged. And then he sent her
spinning over the edge.

She made a high, keening noise as she
came.

A small sense of intelligence returned as
she looked up at him. She was breathing heavily. Her skin glowed. Her chemise
was rucked up to her waist. Her body
 
pressed
into his. He could feel her heart beat against his chest, feel her ribs expand
with her every breath.

He was still dressed. His member was hard;
his body screamed to sheathe himself deep inside her.

“William?”

No. He couldn’t fool himself any longer.
This was not some delicate virgin, submitting to his coarse lusts out of an
excess of familial feeling. This was Lavinia. She was robust, and unbreakable.
And for some unknown reason, she was not acting. She wanted him.

And he shouldn’t take her. Not like this.