This Wicked Gift by Courtney Milan

one negligently
and thumbed through the pages. “Sometime between the months of January and—” a
pause, and a last glance at the end of the third book “—April, Bill Blight here
made a mistake.”
    William did not mind being stripped of his
position and his wages. He no longer fancied losing his dignity alongside. “My
lord, my name is William White.”
    Naturally, Lord Blakely took no notice of
the interjection. “Bill Blight made an error. Find it and then sack him. When
you can lay the mistake before me, I shall allow you to leave.”
    Lord Wyndleton sighed heavily, but reached
for a book. He opened it and stared intently at the first page. His grandfather
watched, silent, for a few minutes as the young lord scanned the entries.
Finally he shook his head and walked out, leaving the two younger men together.
William heard the front door to the building rattle shut; shortly after, the
jingle of his carriage sounded.
    As soon as they were alone, the young lord
looked up. “Did you make a mistake between the months of January and April?”
    William rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
    “Well, tell me what it was. I haven’t got
all day.”
    “I don’t know. Between the months of
January and April, I must have accounted for upward of four thousand
transactions. Of course there was a mistake somewhere in the lot—it’s
impossible not to make one. If your grandfather were even halfway rational, he
wouldn’t sack his employees for minor imperfections.”
    William had thought the insult to the
marquess would be enough to have him sent on his way.
    “Hmm,” Lord Wyndleton said. “Four thousand transactions.” He glanced up at William, and
then shook his head as if it were somehow William’s fault he’d been so
efficient. “What a bloody nuisance.”
    With that, the man turned his head down to
the   books. Minutes passed. His
eyes moved slowly down column after column. He turned one page, then another.
At the turn of the tenth page, William sighed and sat down without permission.
    The old marquess might have turned him off
for that offense in an instant, too; his grandson didn’t even appear to notice.
    At the twentieth page, William began to
wish he hadn’t been so meticulous in his accounting. If he’d missed a shilling
on the first page, at least he would have been able to leave.
    At the twenty-sixth page, Lord Wyndleton
sighed loudly. “I bloody hate this,” he muttered.
    How sweet. They had something in common.
It was time to escalate his plan to get sacked.
    William was already bored. And he had
nothing to lose. “I hear you are interested in scientific pursuit.”
    Lord Wyndleton’s eyes moved only to glance
down the page of numbers in front of him. He turned his hand over. It might
have been an unconscious gesture. It might have been the barest acknowledgment
of William’s uttered words.
    William decided to take it as
acknowledgment. “Well, then. I should think you’d enjoy numbers.”
    Lord Wyndleton shrugged but still did not
look up. He flipped to the front of the book, then back to page twenty-six. For
a long while William thought the man was going to ignore him.
    But the viscount finally spoke without
lifting his   eyes from the page.
“I do like numbers. I like numbers when they are attached to little   t   and double-dot- x . Maybe a calculation of probability.” He spoke in
swift, clipped tones, his voice unemotional and unvarying. “I dislike
arithmetic. Finance bores me. It has no rules to discover. Just
opportunity for error.”
    “Ah,” William said. “You prefer calculus?”
    Lord Wyndleton sighed and turned to page twenty-seven.
Then he looked up—although he didn’t look directly at William. Instead, he
leaned his head back and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. “Let me tell you what I   dislike .
I dislike servants who make obscure mistakes, forcing me to spend Christmas Eve
morn studying dusty accounting tomes. My dislike accelerates when said servant
attempts to distract