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

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….
    E VERY TIME   L AVINIA
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.
    Lavinia lifted her chin, put on her boots
and walked. In the few nights before Christmas, a musicians’ company sent men
on the streets to play through the darkness of night. There were no players
anywhere near her house, of course, but in these quiet hours before dawn, the
haunting sound of twin recorders came to her in tiny snatches. The sound wafted
through the fog like fairy music. She’d catch a bar, but before   the melody resolved itself into a
recognizable tune, it slipped away, melting into the fog like the shadow of a
Christmas that had not yet come.
    As she walked through the engulfing mist,
those enchanted notes grew fainter and fainter. By the time she reached Norwich
Court, they had disappeared altogether.
    When she arrived at his home, she realized
she had no key to unlock his door. Surely, his chamber was too distant for him
to hear her knock.
    A little thing like impossibility had
never stopped Lavinia.
    She was systematically testing the windows
when the creak of a door opening sounded behind her.
    “Lavinia?” His voice.
    She turned, her stomach churning in
anticipation at the sound of her