This Wicked Gift (Carhart 0.5)

Or he will be, soon.

IT SEEMED INCONCEIVABLE to William that life should continue on as usual the morning after he’d damned himself. The night passed nonetheless. The London streets a few blocks over awoke and rumbled as a hundred sellers prepared for market. Not only did the clock continue on schedule, but—as if fate itself were laughing up its sleeve at him—they marched inexorably on to Monday morning.

Monday. After he’d betrayed all finer points of civilization, nothing so trivial as a Monday morning should have been allowed to exist. And yet Monday persisted.

When William stepped on the streets, he shrank into the shoulders of his coat and pulled his hat over his eyes. But as he walked down Peter Street, nobody raised the hue and cry. No cries of “Stop! Despoiler of women!” followed his steps. Yesterday he’d snared an innocent woman in his bed by the foulest of means. Today nobody even gave him a second glance.

Up until the moment when William arrived at the gray Portland stone building where he worked, just opposite Chancery Lane, the day seemed a Monday much like every other Monday that had come before: gray, dreary and unfortunately necessary. But as soon as William opened the door to the office, he knew that this was not going to be an ordinary Monday.

It was going to be worse. Everyone, from Mr. Dunning, the manager, to Jimmy, the courier boy, sat stiffly. There were no jokes, no exchanged conversations. David Holder, one of William’s fellow clerks, inclined his head ever so slightly to the left.

There stood his employer. The elderly Marquess of Blakely was solid and ever so slightly stooped with age. If one were boasting in a tavern, the man might have seemed the most respectable master, the sort that any employee would feel proud to serve. When William had first arrived, he’d spun a fantasy in which his keen mind and meticulous work made him indispensable to the marquess. In his dreamworld, he’d been granted promotions, advances in wages. He’d won the respect of everyone around him.

That dream had been exceedingly short in duration. It had lasted a week from the day he was hired—until he’d met the man.

The old marquess was a tyrant. In his mind, he didn’t employ servants; he grudgingly shelled out money for minions. The marquess didn’t merely demand the obeisance and courtesy due his station, he required groveling. And, every so often, instead of raising a man up for skill and dedication, he chose an employee and delved into his work until he found an error—and no worker, however conscientious, was ever perfect—and then let the man loose. William and his fellow servants went to work every day swallowing fear for breakfast.

Fear did not sit well on a belly and heart as empty as William’s was today. He stood frozen in the old marquess’s gray-browed sights.

“Ah.” Old as he was, the marquess’s gaze did not waver, not in the slightest. It was William who dropped his eyes, of course, bobbing his head in hated obeisance. He fumbled hastily with his hat, pulling it from his head. For a long while the elderly lord simply stared at him. William wasn’t sure if he should offer the insult of turning his back so he could hang up his hat, or if he must stand icebound in place, headgear uncomfortably clutched in his hands.

The marquess turned his head, looking at William side on. With that shock of graying hair, the pose reminded William of some dirty-white bird of prey. The image wouldn’t have bothered him quite so much if William hadn’t felt like so much worm to the other man’s raptor.

His lordship glanced away, and William gulped air in relief. But instead of moving his attention to another man, the marquess simply pulled a watch from his pocket.

“Whoever you are,” he announced, “you’re a minute late to your seat.”

I wouldn’t have been had you not glowered at me. But William held his tongue. He couldn’t afford to lose his position. “I apologize, my lord. It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t.” The marquess gave the words a rather more sinister complexion. “Blight, is it?”

“Actually, it’s White, my lord. William White.”

He should not have offered correction. Lord Blakely’s eyes narrowed.

“Ah, yes. Bill Blight.”

He spoke as if William had not worked for him these three years. As if instead of names, his employees were possessed of empty pages, and the marquess could fill those bleak tablets with any syllables he found convenient.

“Come into the back office,” the marquess said calmly. “And do bring the books you’ve worked on for the last two years.”

An invitation to the back office was as good as a death sentence. It felt like an eternity that William stood, fixed in space. But what good would it to do to scream or shout? If he went quietly, Mr. Dunning might help him find another position when he was sacked.