This Wicked Gift by Courtney Milan Read Free Book Online

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.
    How ironic, that he’d divested himself so
unthinkingly of those ten pounds, when he might find them of such immediate
use. No—not ironic. It was the opposite of ironic.
    Perhaps it was appropriate that he’d been
singled out. He wasn’t fit for polite society, after all. Not after what he’d
done to Lavinia. How could he ever make it up to her? Maybe this, finally, was
the censure he’d been expecting all morning. He’d accept whatever came his way
as his just due.
    Once inside the back office, the marquess
picked one of the books at random. He thumbed through it slowly, his fat
fingers pausing every so often, before moving onward. William stared past him.
The room’s furnishings could well have been as old as the marquess. The
wallpaper had long gone brown, and dry curls of paper at the edge of the
baseboard were working their way off the wall.
    Finally the lord lifted his head. “You
seem to do good work,” the old Lord Blakely said. Said by anyone else, it would
be a compliment. But William’s employer twisted the sentence in his mouth,
giving a slight emphasis to the word   seem.   By
the ugly glint in his eye, William knew he was adding his own caveat:   I am not fooled
by your apparent competence.
    “Tell me,” the marquess continued. “On
September 16, 1821, you entered three transactions related to the home-farm in
Kent. I’d like a few specifics.”
    Fifteen months ago. The man focused on
transactions made fifteen bloody months ago? How could   William possibly recall the details of
a transaction more than a year in age? One did not keep books so that one could
browbeat the person who entered a transaction.
    One didn’t unless one happened to be the
Marquess of Blakely.
    “It is the first transaction, for two
pounds six, that I—”
    The door opened quietly behind them,
interrupting his speech.
    The old marquess looked up. His fists
clenched the account book, and his eyes widened. He drew himself up,
undoubtedly to castigate the fool who had the temerity to interrupt this ritual
sacrifice. William drew his breath in, thinking he’d won a reprieve. If he had,
the intruder would undoubtedly take on William’s punishment. Whoever it was
walked forward, steady, heavy footsteps crossing the room. A mixture of shame
and relief flooded William. Perhaps he might keep his position—but it was a
sorry man who hoped his carcass would be saved because a shark choked on
another fish first. It was an even sorrier man who hoped so, knowing that of
all the fellows in the office, he was most deserving
of punishment.
    But instead of one of William’s fellow
clerks or the estate manager, the young man who came abreast of William’s chair
was the one person the old marquess could not sack.
    It was his eldest grandson. William had
seen the man only once, and at a distance. But he’d been accounting for the
details of the man’s funds for three years. Gareth Carhart. Viscount Wyndleton, for now. The man was a few years
younger than William. He had attended Harrow, then Cambridge. He had a
substantial fortune, received a comfortable allowance from his grandfather, and
he would inherit the marquessate. William almost felt as if he knew the fellow.
He was certain he held the young, privileged lord in dislike.
    The young viscount might have had a
hundred servants available to do his bidding. But incongruously, the man was
carrying his own valise. He set this luggage on the ground and placed his hands
gently on his grandfather’s desk.
    No thumping, no shouting, no untoward
drama of any sort. Had William not been a mere foot away, he would not even
have detected the rigid tension in the muscles on the backs of his hands.
    “Thank you very much.” The viscount’s
words were