Read Online This Wicked Gift by Courtney Milan - Free Book Online

coat. “And what are
your prospects?”
    “Too dismal to
take a wife. Even if I chose to do so, which—at
present—I do not.”
    Lavinia’s brother gasped. If the boy
thought kissing a woman without wanting to marry her constituted open devilry,
God forbid he ever learn what had really transpired.
    “If you’re not going to marry her,” he
said, shocked, “then why’d you kiss her?”
    William had long suspected it, but now he
was certain. Lavinia’s younger brother was an idiot.
    “Mr. Spencer.” William spoke slowly,
searching for small words that were nonetheless sharp enough to penetrate her
brother’s dim cogitation. “Kissing is a pleasant activity. It is considerably
more pleasant when the woman one is kissing is more than passably pretty. Your
sister happens to be the loveliest lady in all of London. Why do you suppose I
kissed her?”
    “My sister?”
    “You needn’t pull such a face. It’s not
something to admit in polite company, but we’re both men here.” At least, James
would be one day. “You know it’s the truth.”
    “No,” James said incredulously, screwing
up his eyes. “You want to kiss my   sister?   I
never thought—”
    “Well, you’d better start thinking about
it, you little fool.   Everyone   wants
to kiss your sister. And what are you doing to protect her? Nothing.”
    “I’m protecting her now!”
    “You leave her in that shop with nobody to
call for if she needs help except your father, who is too ill to respond. You
send her out to capture your vowels from known ruffians who live near docks
where sailors cavort. Don’t tell me you protect your sister. How many times
have I found her alone in the library? Do you have any idea what I could have
done to her?”
    He was angry, William realized. Furious
that he’d been allowed to take from her the most precious thing she could give,
and angrier still that nobody—least of all Lavinia—was willing to castigate him
for it.
    “I could have taken a great deal more than
a kiss,” he said. “Easily.”
    James’s face paled. “You wouldn’t. You
couldn’t.”
    He had. He   would.   He wanted to do it again.
    It felt good to admit what a blackguard he
was, even if he was hiding his confession behind safely conditional statements.
“Lock the door and anything becomes possible,” William said. “I could have
had—”
    James punched him in the stomach. For a
skinny fellow, he struck hard. The blow knocked the wind out of William’s lungs
and he doubled over. That punch was the first real punishment he’d suffered
since he’d had Lavinia. Thank God. He deserved worse.
    When he regained his breath and his
balance, he   looked up. “Don’t
tell me you protect your sister. You put everything on her—the burden of caring
for your entire family—and give her nothing in exchange. I’ve seen her. I know
what you do.”
    James stood over him. “If you’re such a
blackguard, why are you telling me this?”
    “Because I’ll go to the devil before
Lavinia kisses a scoundrel worse than me.”
    James stopped and cocked his head. In that
instant William saw in the boy’s posture something of Lavinia—a chance
similarity, perhaps, in the way his eyes seemed to penetrate through William’s
skin. William felt suddenly translucent, as if all of his foolish wants, his
wistful longing for Lavinia, were laid out in neat rows for this boy’s
examination. He didn’t want to see those feelings himself. He surely didn’t
want this child sitting in judgment over affections that could never be.
    William shook his head. “No.”
    Her brother had not said a word, but still
William felt he must deny what had gone unspoken. “Don’t look at me like that.
I can’t care for her, you idiot, so you’d better start.”
    James could not have accrued any substance
to his frame in these few minutes. Still, when he lifted his chin, he looked
taller. “Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “I will.”
    L AVINIA HEARD   her