This Wicked Gift (Carhart 0.5)(2)

Trepidation settled in an indigestible mass in Lavinia’s belly. There, written in black and white in the daily ledger, was the final sum. Ten shillings, four and one-half pence.

She wasn’t half a penny short. She was missing three full shillings.

Lavinia recounted the coins, but there was no error. Of course not; Lavinia did not make errors in accounting. Nobody would take her to task for the missing coins. Her father was too ill to examine the books, and her brother would never question Lavinia’s jurisdiction over the shop.

Still, she did not like to question herself. How had she made such a stupendous error? She felt a touch of vertigo, as if the room were spinning in circles around the ledger.

She knew what she had to do. It hurt—oh, how it stung. Those three shillings could be the difference between a small goose and no goose at all. But with her father’s creditors clamoring, and the cost of his medicines growing almost monthly, the family could not spare more than a handful of pennies’ loss each day. Lavinia slid open the drawer to make up the difference from her precious Christmas hoard.

She always placed the bag in the same spot—precisely halfway back and flush against the left side. But her fingers met no velvet mass lumpy with coin. She groped wildly and found nothing but the smooth wood of the drawer from corner to corner. Lavinia held her breath and peered inside. There was nothing in the drawer but a cracked inkwell, and that—she checked—contained nothing but bluish smears.

“Hell.” It was the worst curse word she could imagine. She whispered it; it was either that, or shriek.

She wasn’t missing a few shillings. She was missing the full two pounds. All of Christmas had just disappeared—everything from the decorative holly down through her carefully planned menu.

“Vinny?” The words were a tremulous query behind her.

With those words, the rising tide of Lavinia’s panic broke against an absolute certainty. She knew where her precious two pounds had gone.

Lavinia placed her hands on her hips. She forced herself to turn around slowly, rather than whirling as she wished. Her brother, still wrapped for the blustery weather outside, smiled weakly, holding out his hands in supplication. Water dripped from his coat and puddled on the floor.

James was four years younger than her, but Mama had always said to subtract ten years from a man’s age when calculating his sense. James had never seen fit to prove Mama’s formula wrong.

“Oh.” He peered beyond her to the coins, stacked in grim military ranks along the edge of the counter and the ransacked drawer. His lip quirked. “I see you’ve, um, already tallied the cash.”

“James Allen Spencer.” Lavinia reached out and grabbed his ear.

He winced, but didn’t dodge or protest—a sure sign of guilt.

“What,” she demanded, “have you done with my two pounds?”

IT WAS WARM INSIDE the lending library, but William White still felt cold inside. His hand clenched around the solitary bank note in his pocket. The paper crumpled in his fist, cutting into his palm. It had been ten years since anyone had wished him a merry Christmas. Fitting, that it would happen on this day—and that Lavinia Spencer would be the one to do so.

Christmas was a luxury for the wealthy—or, perhaps, an illusion for the young and innocent. William had not been any of those since the winter evening a decade ago when he’d been cut off from the comfortable life he’d been living.

He stared past the books shelved in front of him, their titles blurring with the smooth leather of their bindings. The scene clouded into an indistinct, foggy mass.

Tonight, a solicitor had finally tracked him down. William had been leaving his master’s counting house, having just finished another pitiful day of pitiful work, performed for the pitiful salary of four pounds ten a quarter. As soon as he’d set foot outside, he’d been set upon by an unctuous man.

For one second, when the lawyer had introduced himself, a flush of uncharacteristic optimism had swept through William. Mr. Sherrod had seen fit to remember the promise he’d made. William could come home. He could forget the menial work he did as a clerk. He could abandon the grim day-to-day existence of labor followed by sleep and bone-chilling want.

But no. It turned out Adam Sherrod was not generous. He was dead.

He’d remembered William in his will—to the tune of ten pounds. Ten pounds, when he’d been responsible for the loss of William’s comfort, his childhood and, ultimately, William’s father. Ten pounds, when he had promised most sincerely to take care of William, should it be necessary. It had become necessary ten Christmases ago, and Mr. Sherrod had not lifted a finger to help.

William had no real claim on Mr. Sherrod’s money. He had, in fact, nothing but the memory of a promise that the man had kicked to one side. But still, he’d remembered.

Thus dissipated one of the elaborate dreams he’d fashioned to motivate himself on the hardest days. He would never return to Leicester. He would never be able to rise above his father’s errors; hell, he would never even rise above his fellow clerks. This evening, he’d been damned to live in the hell of poverty for the rest of his life. There would be no salvation.

That last legacy should have been no surprise. After all, it was only in fairy tales that Dick Whittington came to London as an impoverished lad and ended up Lord Mayor. In reality, a man counted himself lucky to earn eighteen pounds a year.