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.You are.”“Absolutely.” His voice was low.“Have you any idea what a declaration of war those words are? You’re a lovely woman.You can’t just look at a man and ask, ‘Is that all?’ Any man worth his salt can give only one answer.‘Is that all?’ ‘No, damn it.There’s more.There’s much more.’”She laughed with delight.“Mr.William Q.White,” she said, wagging a finger, “you sly devil.I’ve been wanting to know the more ever since.”They were almost to her home, and William could not help but wish he could tease that laughter out of her every day.He held up his hands as if he could ward off their shared happiness.“But, Lavinia,” he said, “there will be no more.I can never make it up to you, this debt that lies between us.You have already given me more than I can repay.”The smile on her face faded into nothingness.“Is that how you see matters between us, then? As some sort of grim commerce, where the transactions are ones of personal worth and desert?”“I took your virginity,” he said baldly.“I took it, believing you had no choice—”“Oh!” She reared back and kicked him in the leg.He barely felt it—she’d not been aiming to hurt him—but she hopped briefly on one foot as if her own toes stung with the blow.“No choice? Even if the promissory note had been real and enforceable, I had a choice.I could have pawned my mother’s wedding ring for the funds.I could have let James take his chances with the magistrate and debtor’s prison.I could have married another man—I’ve had offers, you know, from well-to-do gentlemen who wouldn’t blink at paying ten pounds in pin money.Do not think me such a poor creature as to be confined so easily without choice.I chose you, and I would choose you again and again and again.”It was sheer torture to hear those words, to look into those blazing eyes and not take her in his arms.“And, as we are speaking of debts,” she said grimly, “what of my debt to you?”“What debt?“Ten pounds.You paid ten pounds to save me from having to choose between those unpalatable options.And do not tell me you did it to force me into your bed—because you and I both know that if I had said no, you would never have enforced the note.I am deeply in your debt.”“You’re talking nonsense.It’s nothing.”“Nothing? Bread with no butter? Tea, persuaded to give up its flavor seven or eight times? Don’t tell me ten pounds means nothing to you, William.I know you better than that.Tell me—with all the uses to which you could have put that windfall, did you even hesitate to dedicate it to my service?”“It certainly doesn’t signify,” he continued.“Mere money, in comparison with what you’ve given me.”“So it’s nonsense, what I owe you.But what you owe me is a tremendous burden, one that can never be repaid? Love is not about accounting.It’s not lines on a ledger.You cannot store up credit and redeem yourself at some later date, not with gifts or deeds or any number of coins, no matter how carefully you bestow them.You repay love with love, William.”She watched him expectantly.All he had to do was move forward into the space she claimed.His hands would find hers; her lips would naturally lift to his.And she would be his.His partner—but in this game of better or worse, and sickness or health, all he could offer her was poorer and poorer and yet poorer again.If she’d built an unstable house around the two of them out of romantic notions, it was best to kick it to twigs quickly.“It’s nonsense,” he said.“It’s nonsense because I don’t love you.” He forced himself to look in her eyes, to take in the hurt spread across her face.Her pain, her rejection of him, would be his just reward.But better to hurt her once than to drag her into joint misery with him.But she did not flinch away.Her eyes did not cloud with tears.Instead, she shook her head, very slowly.A shiver ran down William’s spine.She stretched up on tiptoes and set her hands on his forearms.Her warm mouth pursed a finger’s breadth from his.It would take her only an instant to place those soft lips against his.And if she did—if she kissed him now—she’d recognize his words for the obvious lies they were.“William,” she said softly.Her breath was the sweetest cinnamon against his lips.“Do you think me such a goose as to believe your idiotic assertions, after all this?”“Oh?” The word was all he could manage—one syllable, trying to breathe a world of distance between them.“Oh,” she said with great finality.“You are hopelessly in love with me.”He’d tried to run.He’d tried to keep himself from that realization.But she pronounced sentence upon him as a matter of fact, as if she were reading the price of cotton from the morning paper.And she was right.He could not admit it, not aloud.Instead, he leaned down and rested his forehead against hers in tacit acknowledgment.Yes.I am hopelessly in love with you.It didn’t change anything.She stepped back and let go of his arms.He felt her departure like a palpable blow to his gut.“As it turns out,” she said quietly, “I haven’t any use for hopelessness.”He couldn’t have her.Still, her rejection felt as if she’d kicked him not on the leg, but rather higher.“Lavinia, I dare not—”“Dare,” she said, her voice shaking.“That’s a command, William.Dare.Hope.If you won’t accept my gift, I won’t accept yours.And you really, really, do not want to know what I shall have to do to come up with ten pounds.”And with that, she turned and walked into her family’s circulating library.EVEN THOUGH IT FELT as if three days had passed, it was still early morning when Lavinia came quietly up the stairs.She came as she’d left, her quilted half boots in her hand.But when she reached the top landing, she discovered she was not alone.James sat, awake and dressed, at the kitchen table.He watched her come into the room, watched as she hung her cloak on a peg and set her footgear on the floor.He didn’t ask where she’d been.He did not accuse her of anything.He didn’t need to; she accused herself.She felt adrift.Her gaze skittered across the room and fell on the books where she’d kept the family accounts.How many times had she stared at those figures? How many times had she wanted to make them right, hoped that if they were correct, that everything would come out?She’d imagined herself saving enough pennies so she could pick out a scarf for James—something soft and warm.She’d wanted to swaddle him up and keep him safe
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