This Wicked Gift (Carhart 0.5)(19)

It was not her fog-dampened cloak that left her chilled. He spoke of putting his hands on her as if she were one more bitter sip from a cup that was already starkly devoid of happiness.

“It would be worth it,” she said quietly. “The gloves. The bread. It would be worth it to me for the touch of your hands alone.”

“Is that why you came here this morning?” He spoke in tones equally low to hers. “Did you come here so that I would touch you?”

Yes. Or she’d come to touch him—to see if she could salvage the moment when he’d thought himself dishonored. He’d said once he had no notion of love. She’d wanted to show him.

“Did you come thinking I would kiss your lips? That I would undo the ties of your cloak and let my hands slide down your skin?”

Her body heard, and it answered. The heat of the fire flickered against her neck; she imagined its warm touch was his hands. She imagined his hands tracing down her cheek; his hands cupping the curve of her bodice and warming her br**sts; his hands coaxing her ni**les into hard points. She ached in tune with his every word. Her breath grew fast.

He knelt on the floor in front of her, one knee on the ground. With that frozen, almost supercilious expression on his face, his posture seemed a gross parody of a proposal of marriage.

“In the year since I first saw you,” he said, “I have imagined your giving yourself to me a thousand times. If these were my wildest dreams, I’d have you now. On that chair. I would spread your legs and nibble my way from your thigh to your sex. I’d slip inside you. And when I’d had my way with you, I would thank the Lord for the bruises on my knees.”

As he spoke, her legs parted. Her sex tingled. His breath quickened to match hers. Do it. Yes, do it.

He reached out one hand and laid it on her knee. It was the first time he’d touched her all morning, and her whole body thrilled in wicked recognition of his. She leaned forward. For one eternal second, she could taste his breath, hot and masculine, on the tip of her tongue. She stretched to meet him. But before her lips found his, he stood.

“Lavinia.” His words sounded like a reproach. “I can’t have you in dishonor. I can’t have you in poverty. And so I will not be marrying you.”

She stared up into his eyes. Those dark mahogany orbs seemed so far away, so implacable. She had to fix this. But before she could speak, a hissing, sputtering noise intruded from her left, and he turned away from her.

It was the kettle, boiling with inappropriate merriment over the fire. He found a cloth. For a few minutes, he busied himself with the kettle and teapot, his back to her.

When he finally turned back, he held a cup in his hands.

“Here,” he said. “The very nectar of poverty. Five washings of the leaves. I believe the liquid still has some flavor.” He handed it to her. “There’s no sugar. There’s never any sugar.”

She took the cup. He pulled his hand away quickly, before she could clasp it against the clay. In her hands, the warm mug radiated heat. Tiny black dots, the dust of broken tea leaves, swirled in the beverage.

“You don’t speak like a poor man.” She darted a gaze up at him. “You don’t read like a poor man, either. Malthus. Smith. Craig. The Annals of Agriculture.”

He turned away from her to pour his own cup of tea. He did not drink it. “When I was fourteen, my father, a tradesman who aspired to be more, engaged in some rather risky speculation. A friend of his had lured him in. He promised to see me through my schooling, and to settle some significant amount on me should the investment fail.”

William lifted the mug to his mouth. But he barely wet his lips with the liquid. “The investment did fail—quite spectacularly. My father shot himself. And his friend—” he drew that last word out, a curl to his lip “—thought that a promise made to a man who killed himself was no promise at all. What little property remained was forfeit when he was adjudged a suicide. And so down I went to London, to try and make shift for myself.”

“Where did all this take place?”

“Leicester. I still have the edge of their speech on my tongue. I’ve tried to eradicate it, but…”

He looked down, moving his cup in gentle circles. Perhaps he was trying to read his own tea leaves. More likely, Lavinia thought, he was avoiding her gaze.

“So you see, I am in fact the lowest of the low. I am the son of a suicide. I make a bare eighteen pounds a year. I was once a member of that unfortunate class that your lovely books label the deserving poor. After I had you—after I took to my bed a woman I could not afford to marry—I don’t qualify as deserving any longer. Even if I had the coin to take you as my wife, I don’t think I’d have the temerity.”

Lavinia stood, the better to knock sense into his head.

But already he was setting down his tea, stepping away from her.

“It’s getting on toward morning,” he said. “I’d best get you home.” And then he turned toward the hall and left her.

CHAPTER FIVE

WILLIAM WALKED DOWN the hall. He had made the matter as plain as he dared to her. She’d wanted to argue—he’d seen it in her eyes. Her words could have tied him in knots. And having to watch her deliver those arguments—having to hold his distance from her when every fiber in his being yearned toward her—had been almost impossible. But she had no way to debate straightforward gestures. He hid behind those unarguable motions now. He got his coat. He walked to the door. He opened it, and stood there in silence until she came from the kitchen.