The Heart of Christmas

by Nicola Cornick; Courtney Milan Mary Balogh

  How could he have her at all, if he did not accept this desperate possibility?

  What he finally said was, “Tomorrow. I’ll decide tomorrow.”

  THE LIBRARY BUSTLED with customers that Monday evening—six of them, to be precise—and they kept Lavinia very busy indeed, as none were willing to browse on his own. She was reaching up, up for the newest set of Byron’s poetry when she heard the shop door open behind her.

  A blast of cold air greeted this newest arrival. Yet it was not the temperature that had Lavinia’s skin breaking out in gooseflesh. Without looking, she knew it was him. She froze, hand above her head. Her heart raced. But she could not react, not in this room, not with all these people here. And so she retrieved the leather-bound volume and handed it to Mr. Adrian Bellows before she allowed herself to turn.

  Mr. William Q. White was as tall and taciturn as ever. This time, though, he caught her glance and ducked his head, coloring.

  Oh, how the tables had turned. Two days ago she’d been the one to blush and turn away. Two days ago she had wondered, in her own giddy and foolish way, what he thought of her.

  But then yesterday they’d come together, skin against skin. He’d had her; she’d had him.

  Today the question on her mind was: What did she think of him?

  It was not a query with an easy answer. He dawdled until the others trickled out, one by one. Even then he did not approach her. Instead, he studied a shelf of Greco-Roman histories so intently, she wondered if their spines contained the secrets of the universe. When she walked toward him, he turned his back to her. He bent, ever so slightly, as if he carried a great weight in his jacket.

  Lavinia supposed he did.

  “I am sorry,” he said, still faced away from her. “I ought not to have come. If my presence distresses you, say so and I shall leave at once.”

  “I am not easily distressed.” She kept her voice calm and even.

  He turned toward her and looked in her face, as if to ascertain for himself whether she was telling the truth. “Are you well?” His voice was low, lilting in that accent that he had. “I could not sleep, thinking of what I had done to you.”

  She had not slept, either, reliving what he had done, touching herself where he had touched. But the expression on his face suggested that his evening had not been spent nearly so pleasurably.

  “I am very well,” she said. And then, because he looked away, his eyes tightening in obvious distress, she added, “Thank you for asking.”

  Politeness didn’t seem enough after what had passed between them, but she was unsure of the etiquette for this occasion.

  “Miss Spencer, I know I can never hope for forgiveness. I dishonored you—”

  “Strange,” Lavinia interjected, “that I do not feel dishonored.”

  He frowned as if puzzled, and then started again. “I ruined you—”

  “Ruined me for what? I am still capable of working in this shop, as you see. I do not believe I shall turn toward prostitution as a result of one afternoon’s pleasure. And as for marriage—William, do you truly think that any man worth having would put me aside for one indiscretion?”

  “Put you aside?” His gaze skittered down her breasts to her waist, and then traveled slowly up. “No. He would take you any way he could have you.”

  She was not one bit sorry that she’d given herself to this man, however foolish and impulsive the gift had been.

  “As I see it,” Lavinia said carefully, “you are feeling guilty because you attempted to coerce me into your bed. Then, believing I was forced, you took me anyway.”

  He flinched, looking away again. “Yes. And for that, I ought to be—”

  “I was not forced, and so you did not dishonor me.”

  “But—”

  “But,” Lavinia said, holding up one finger, “you believed I was, and thus you dishonored yourself.”

  His expression froze. His eyes shut and he put his hand over his face. A shaky breath whispered through his fingers. “Ah.” It was not a sound of understanding or agreement, but one of despair. “You are very astute.”

  There was nothing to say beyond that, but he looked so unbearably alone that she reached out and placed her hand atop his.

  He shut his eyes. “Don’t.” His hand bunched into a fist underneath hers, but he did not pull away. Apparently, “don’t” was William Q. White for “keep touching me.” Lavinia pressed her hand against the heat of his knuckles.

  “Tell me,” he said presently, “the other evening when you told the young Mr. Spencer that you had a plan, why did you not tell him immediately he could not be held accountable?”

  It took Lavinia a few seconds to remember what he was talking about—the moment when James had first presented her with his idiocy.

  “Why would I have told him? I would have taken care of it. He didn’t need to know any details. It was simply a matter of deciding upon an approach.”

  “You would have done everything yourself? Without assistance?”

  Since her mother had died this year past, Lavinia had assisted everyone else. She had assisted in the library, until her father’s illness destroyed all pretense that she was a mere assistant. She had assisted with housekeeping; she had assisted her younger brother in his lessons, and bailed him out of the sort of scrapes that younger brothers occasionally got into. She had never begrudged them the time she spent; she did it because she loved her family.

  She wasn’t sure she knew how to let someone help her instead.

  She tightened her hand about his, letting his warmth seep into her. “Of course I’d have done it alone.”

  “Tell me.” His voice dropped even lower, and she leaned in to listen. “If I had offered that evening—would you have let me assist you?”

  She looked up into his eyes. He watched her with that expression in his eyes—desire, she realized, and dark despair that ran so deeply, it was almost outside detection. He wasn’t asking out of an idle desire to know.

  “But you didn’t. You didn’t offer.”

  He shut his eyes.

  And then the door burst open, and William snatched his fingers from hers. She pulled her hands away and tucked them behind her back with alacrity and jumped away.

  James darted through the entry, his face a picture of excitement. But even he was sufficiently observant to see she’d sprung from William like a guilty child. It was easy to think of him as her younger brother, as a child. But when he looked from Lavinia to William, his lips thinning, she realized he was not as young as he’d once been.

  “We’re closed,” he said, in a chilly tone of voice. “And you—whoever you are—you’re leaving.”

  Before Lavinia could protest, William had pulled away and was walking out the door.

  James looked her over, his gaze resting first on her flushed cheeks and then on the telltale way she put her hands behind her back. Then he cast a glance of pure scorn at William’s back. “I’m leaving, too,” he announced, and he followed William out the door, into the cold.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LAVINIA’S BROTHER, William thought wryly, was a thin spike of a boy. Attach a sufficient quantity of straw to his head, and he’d have made a passable broom. In polite society, he might have served as a chaperone, a place-holder designed to do little more than observe. But James Spencer, this pale wraith of a child, apparently believed he could protect his sister from someone who threatened her virtue. He had been alarmingly misled. Standing outside Spencer’s on the freezing pavement, James folded his arms—a posture that only emphasized the sharp skin-and-bone of his shoulders.

  There was a saying, William supposed, about guarding the cows after the wolves had already come a-ravening. The adage seemed rather inappropriate as cows could only be eaten once. He’d promised himself he’d not importune her again, but one touch of her hand and he’d been ready to go a-ravening all over again.

  James tapped his toe, frowning. “Did you kiss her?”

  Oh, the barren and virtuo
us imagination of callow youth.

  “Yes,” William said. It was easier than resorting to explanation.

  James peered dubiously at William, as if trying to ascertain whether there truly was a patch on his 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.”

  LAVINIA HEARD her brother’s footsteps fall heavily on the stairs that led to their living quarters. James had seen her embracing a strange man. Half an hour ago he’d followed William outside. Now he was coming back, and she didn’t have answers for any of the questions he might put to her. She didn’t want to defend her virtue tonight. Instead she stared at the account books in front of her. Industriousness would ward off any hard questions.

  She forced herself to concentrate on the numbers in front of her. Five plus six plus thirteen made four-and-twenty….

  The door squeaked behind James, and then closed.

  Four-and-twenty plus twelve plus seventeen was fifty-three.

  He crossed the room and stood behind her. She could hear the quiet rush of a resigned exhalation. Still, Lavinia pretended she couldn’t hear him. Yes, that was it. She was so engrossed in the books that she didn’t even notice he was breathing down her neck.

  Fifty-three and fifteen made sixty-eight.

  “Vinny,” James said quietly. “I don’t think you should always be the one to slave away over these books. Isn’t it about time I began to take over?”

  No accusations. It would have been easier if she’d been able to lie to him. Lavinia carefully laid her pen down and turned to her brother. His eyes were large, not with accusation, but with the weight of responsibility. She’d wanted to save him from that.

  “Oh, James.” Lavinia arranged the lapels of his damp coat into some semblance of order. “That’s very sweet of you.”

  “I’m not being sweet. It’s necessary. I need to be able to manage without you.”

  Why? I can do it better.

  She caught the words before they came out of her mouth. How many times had James offered to help, in his awkward way? How many times had she refused him? She couldn’t even count.

  “After all,” he continued, his voice slow, “you might marry.”

  “I’m not getting married.” Her denial came too fast; her light tone sounded too forced. He’d seen her with William. And even though he hadn’t actually caught them kissing, they’d been clasping hands in easy intimacy. How was she supposed to explain to her younger brother she had engaged in such conduct with a man she was not marrying? Best to talk of something else.

  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.