This Wicked Gift (Carhart 0.5)

But before she could offer up even the most ham-handed change of subject, James let out a slow breath. “Still. Should I not help?”


What had William said about them? Oh God. Had he told James the embarrassing details? Lavinia’s hand shook, ever so slightly, where it rested on her brother’s coat. “You’re right. Maybe I can assign you some task—something small.”

He frowned and folded his arms. “I should have thought you would be happy to step down.”

Step down? Step down! That would ruin everything. Her brother had no notion how to argue with creditors for a favorable repayment schedule; he’d not learned how to account precisely for the location of every volume in the library. If she left the shop to him, he’d lose a ha’penny here, a ha’penny there, until the flow of cash dried up. The library would falter and then fail. Everything she’d worked for would fall to pieces.

James didn’t seem aware he’d just proposed complete disaster. He continued on, as if he were a reasonable person. “I think I should be able to handle the work very well. I am almost sixteen years of age.”

“James.” In her ears, her voice sounded flat and emotionless. “I can’t step down. There are too many things to remember.”

“So you can tell me what to do at first.”

“I can’t tell you everything! Would you think to save pennies each day, so we might have a Christmas celebration? Would you think to bargain with the apothecary, giving him priority on the new volumes in exchange for a discount on medicines?”

She could see his fine plans crumbling, his desire to do more faltering. He drew his brows down. “Would it be so awful, then, if I made a mistake or two? I just want to do my part.”

Lavinia shut the account book in front of her. “If it weren’t for your mistakes,” she said, her voice shaking, “we’d be having a real celebration on Christmas, just like Mother gave us. It would be as if she were not gone. Now we’re having nothing. Why do you suppose I’m staring at the accounts, if not to conjure up the coins you lost?”

His face flushed with embarrassment and anger. “I said I was sorry already. What more do you want from me? You’re not my mother. Stop acting as if you are.”

“That’s not fair. I’m just trying to make you happy.” She wasn’t sure when her voice had started to rise, when she had begun to clench her hands.

Her brother shook his head. “You’re doing a bang-up job of that, then. So far, all you’ve managed to do is make me miserable.” He stomped away. He couldn’t get far; the flat was simply too small. He paused on the edge of his chamber, and then turned. “I despise you,” he said. A second later the door to his chamber slammed. The walls rattled.

Lavinia curled her arms around herself. He didn’t hate her. He wasn’t miserable. He was just…momentarily upset?

“One day,” she said softly, “you will understand how idyllic your childhood has been. You have nothing to worry about. That’s what I’ve saved you from.”

She clenched her hands around the account book, the leather binding biting into her palms. Then she opened the book carefully and found the spot where she’d left off adding columns.

Fifty-three and fifteen made sixty-six….

EVERY TIME LAVINIA AWOKE that night, tossing and turning in her narrow bed, she remembered her words to William. You thought you had forced me, and thus you dishonored yourself. She could call to mind the precise curl of his mouth as he’d realized what he’d done, the exact shape of his hands as he grasped the dimensions of his dishonor.

She had wanted to lessen his hurt, but she’d made it worse.

All you have managed to do is make me miserable. Not William’s words, but they seemed to apply all the same.

No, no, no. Lavinia stood and walked to her window. Thick, choking fog filled her vision. It was past midnight, and thus it was now Christmas Eve. But it was not yet near morning. The night fog was so thick it would swallow an entire troupe of players juggling torches. It could easily hide one nineteen-year-old woman who didn’t want to be seen. She would make William feel better. She had to.

Silently she opened her bedroom door. She crept out into the main room and removed her cloak from its peg. She found her boots with her toe, and then bent to pick them up. Slowly she crept down the not-quite-creaking stairs, and across the lending library. And then she was outside, the fog enshrouding her in its cold embrace.