This Wicked Gift (Carhart 0.5)(15)

Mr. William Q. White was as tall and taciturn as ever. This time, though, he caught her glance and ducked his head, coloring.

Oh, how the tables had turned. Two days ago she’d been the one to blush and turn away. Two days ago she had wondered, in her own giddy and foolish way, what he thought of her.

But then yesterday they’d come together, skin against skin. He’d had her; she’d had him.

Today the question on her mind was: What did she think of him?

It was not a query with an easy answer. He dawdled until the others trickled out, one by one. Even then he did not approach her. Instead, he studied a shelf of Greco-Roman histories so intently, she wondered if their spines contained the secrets of the universe. When she walked toward him, he turned his back to her. He bent, ever so slightly, as if he carried a great weight in his jacket.

Lavinia supposed he did.

“I am sorry,” he said, still faced away from her. “I ought not to have come. If my presence distresses you, say so and I shall leave at once.”

“I am not easily distressed.” She kept her voice calm and even.

He turned toward her and looked in her face, as if to ascertain for himself whether she was telling the truth. “Are you well?” His voice was low, lilting in that accent that he had. “I could not sleep, thinking of what I had done to you.”

She had not slept, either, reliving what he had done, touching herself where he had touched. But the expression on his face suggested that his evening had not been spent nearly so pleasurably.

“I am very well,” she said. And then, because he looked away, his eyes tightening in obvious distress, she added, “Thank you for asking.”

Politeness didn’t seem enough after what had passed between them, but she was unsure of the etiquette for this occasion.

“Miss Spencer, I know I can never hope for forgiveness. I dishonored you—”

“Strange,” Lavinia interjected, “that I do not feel dishonored.”

He frowned as if puzzled, and then started again. “I ruined you—”

“Ruined me for what? I am still capable of working in this shop, as you see. I do not believe I shall turn toward prostitution as a result of one afternoon’s pleasure. And as for marriage—William, do you truly think that any man worth having would put me aside for one indiscretion?”

“Put you aside?” His gaze skittered down her br**sts to her waist, and then traveled slowly up. “No. He would take you any way he could have you.”

She was not one bit sorry that she’d given herself to this man, however foolish and impulsive the gift had been.

“As I see it,” Lavinia said carefully, “you are feeling guilty because you attempted to coerce me into your bed. Then, believing I was forced, you took me anyway.”

He flinched, looking away again. “Yes. And for that, I ought to be—”

“I was not forced, and so you did not dishonor me.”

“But—”

“But,” Lavinia said, holding up one finger, “you believed I was, and thus you dishonored yourself.”

His expression froze. His eyes shut and he put his hand over his face. A shaky breath whispered through his fingers. “Ah.” It was not a sound of understanding or agreement, but one of despair. “You are very astute.”

There was nothing to say beyond that, but he looked so unbearably alone that she reached out and placed her hand atop his.

He shut his eyes. “Don’t.” His hand bunched into a fist underneath hers, but he did not pull away. Apparently, “don’t” was William Q. White for “keep touching me.” Lavinia pressed her hand against the heat of his knuckles.

“Tell me,” he said presently, “the other evening when you told the young Mr. Spencer that you had a plan, why did you not tell him immediately he could not be held accountable?”

It took Lavinia a few seconds to remember what he was talking about—the moment when James had first presented her with his idiocy.

“Why would I have told him? I would have taken care of it. He didn’t need to know any details. It was simply a matter of deciding upon an approach.”

“You would have done everything yourself? Without assistance?”

Since her mother had died this year past, Lavinia had assisted everyone else. She had assisted in the library, until her father’s illness destroyed all pretense that she was a mere assistant. She had assisted with housekeeping; she had assisted her younger brother in his lessons, and bailed him out of the sort of scrapes that younger brothers occasionally got into. She had never begrudged them the time she spent; she did it because she loved her family.

She wasn’t sure she knew how to let someone help her instead.

She tightened her hand about his, letting his warmth seep into her. “Of course I’d have done it alone.”

“Tell me.” His voice dropped even lower, and she leaned in to listen. “If I had offered that evening—would you have let me assist you?”

She looked up into his eyes. He watched her with that expression in his eyes—desire, she realized, and dark despair that ran so deeply, it was almost outside detection. He wasn’t asking out of an idle desire to know.

“But you didn’t. You didn’t offer.”

He shut his eyes.

And then the door burst open, and William snatched his fingers from hers. She pulled her hands away and tucked them behind her back with alacrity and jumped away.