Slightly Sinful

by Mary Balogh

  He chuckled softly at the mental image of such a scene but then felt a return of the nausea. And the panic.

  What if his memory never returned?

  CHAPTER IV

  THE KITCHEN WAS FILLED WITH DELICIOUS SMELLS when Rachel went down there after her sleep to see if there was anything she could do to help. Phyllis was stirring a large pot of soup. One counter was covered with freshly baked bread and currant cakes. The lid was off the big teapot and the kettle was boiling on the hearth.

  “Did you have a good sleep?” Phyllis asked. “Everyone is up in William’s room. Make the tea if you would be so good, Rachel, and we will take it up there. Is the other poor man still sleeping?”

  Rachel had not looked in on him on her way down. She still felt somewhat embarrassed at what she had led him to believe—that she belonged here, that she worked with Bridget and Phyllis and the other two. At the same time, she felt annoyed by her own embarrassment—and by his questions. These ladies had taken her in when she had nowhere else to go. They had taken him in too. What did it matter that they were whores? They were also good people.

  Sergeant Strickland had become a general favorite. Although he had lost an eye as well as his livelihood, he had refused from the start to wallow in self-pity. It had taken the combined willpower of them all to persuade him that he must remain in bed for at least a few days in order to give his wounds a chance to heal properly. Rachel was especially fond of him. He had come to the rescue of a stranger who was more severely wounded than himself.

  “You won’t look so bad once the eye socket has healed up and you have a patch to wear over it,” Bridget was saying as Rachel came into the small attic room carrying the tea tray while Phyllis came behind her with a plate of thickly sliced bread generously buttered. Bridget had been cleansing the wound and was winding a clean bandage about the sergeant’s head.

  “I just lost my appetite,” Phyllis said.

  “You will look like a pirate, Will,” Geraldine told him, “though I don’t suppose you ever were a beauty anyway, were you?”

  “That I were not, lass,” he agreed with a hearty laugh. “But at least I had two eyes to go a-soldiering with. It is what I have done since I were a nipper. I don’t know ought else. But I’ll find something to earn my daily victuals with, I daresay. I’ll survive.”

  “Of course you will,” she said, leaning forward to pat his big hand. “But you are to stay in that bed for at least another day or two. That is an order. I’ll put you back there with my own two hands if you try to move.”

  “I don’t think you would have much success at that, lass,” he said, “though I daresay you would give it a good try. I feel silly lying here when all I done is got an eye knocked out. But when I got up a while ago to go see that feller we brought here, I found I was swaying like a leaf in a breeze on the stairs and had to turn back. It’s all this lying around that’s doing it.”

  “Ah, fresh bread,” Flossie said. “There is no better cook in this world than our Phyll. She is wasting her talents being a whore.”

  “I should be carrying that heavy tray, missy,” the sergeant said to Rachel. “Except that I would probably walk into the table with it and shower everyone with boiling tea. But I will be better by tomorrow, I daresay. Would you ladies by any chance have need of the services of a hefty feller who looked ferocious even before he had to wear a black patch over his eye socket and would now make even the devil himself turn and run? To watch the door while you are busy at your work, perhaps, and to toss out any impertinent gent who forgets his manners?”

  “You wish to be promoted from army sergeant to doorman at a brothel, William?” Bridget asked, biting into a slice of bread and butter.

  “I wouldn’t mind it until I get my feet under me, so to speak, ma’am,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect no more than my victuals and this bed here in return.”

  “The point is, though, Will,” Geraldine said, “that we don’t intend to stay here longer than we have to. Now that the armies have gone as well as most of the people who came to keep them company, business is not brisk. We need to go home, and the sooner the better. We have a villain to catch and take apart piece by piece, and we mean to pursue him until we find him.”

  “He took all the money we worked hard for four years to save,” Bridget explained. “And we want it back.”

  “More important than that, though,” Geraldine said, “we want him, the lying, smiling toad.”

  “Someone took off with your money?” The sergeant frowned ferociously as he took a plate with two hefty slices of bread and butter from Phyllis’s hand. “And you are going after him? I’ll come with you. One look at me will wipe any smile from his face, you mark my words. And I’ll give him more than a look to remember me by. Where did he go?”

  “That is the trouble,” Bridget said with a sigh. “We are almost sure he has gone to England, William, but apart from that we do not know. England is rather a large place.”

  “Bridget and Flossie have written to all our sisterhood who can read,” Geraldine said. “One of them will spot him, and even if they don’t, we’ll find him somehow—even if it takes a year. Or longer. What we need is a plan.”

  “What we need, Gerry,” Flossie said dryly as Rachel handed about the tea, “is money. If we are to go jaunting about England, we are going to need plenty of it. And if we are jaunting about, we won’t be able to work at the same time.”

  “Perhaps,” Phyllis said, “we will go running after him and never find him and never recover our money. And in the meantime we will have spent a great deal more money and earned almost nothing. Perhaps it would be more sensible just to give up and go home and start to build our savings again.”

  “But there is the principle of the thing, Phyll,” Geraldine said. “I for one am not willing to let him get away with it. He thinks he can simply because we are whores. He was not nearly as contemptuous about his thieving with everyone else. He took money from Lady Flatley and other ladies, according to Rache, but he told them it was for his charities. They may never even realize that their money went into his pockets instead and stayed there. But he never so much as mentioned charities to us. He just took everything, including our thanks. That is the point that has my blood boiling over. He made fools of us.”

  “Yes,” Phyllis agreed. “We do need to teach him a lesson even if we end up making beggars of ourselves.”

  “What we need is money,” Flossie said again, tapping her fingernails against the edge of her plate, “and plenty of it. How are we going to get our hands on it, though—apart from the obvious way, of course.”

  “I wish,” Rachel said fervently, “I had access to some of my fortune.”

  The finger-tapping stopped and everyone looked at her with interest.

  “You have a fortune, Rache?” Geraldine asked.

  “She is Baron Weston’s niece on her mother’s side,” Bridget reminded them.

  “My mother left me her jewels,” Rachel said. “But they will not come into my possession for another three years, until I am twenty-five. I am sorry I even mentioned them, since they can be of no earthly use to us now. For the next three years I am going to be the poorest of any of us.”

  “Where are they kept?” Flossie asked. “Are they somewhere where we can go and get them? It would not be theft, would it? They are yours.”

  “With black cloaks and masks and daggers shoved behind our ears as we climb ivy-covered walls in the dead of a moonless night?” Geraldine said. “I fancy it. Do tell, Rache.”

  But Rachel shook her head, laughing. “I do not even know,” she said. “My uncle has charge of them, but I have no idea where he keeps them.”

  There was, of course, a way in which she could acquire her jewels before she was twenty-five, but that was not relevant to the current situation.

  “What about the man downstairs?” Sergeant Strickland asked. “I were right about him, were I? He is a nob?”

  “He is indeed a gentleman,” Rachel told
him.

  “Who is he, missy?” he asked.

  “He does not remember,” she said.

  He chuckled. “Knocked his memory clean out of his head, did he?” he said. “Poor devil. But if he is a nob, there will be plenty looking for him to claim him, mark my words. He may even have family right here in Brussels if they did not all run away before the fighting started as most of them did. They will be very willing to pay you all a sizable reward for saving him and caring for him, I daresay.”

  “But what if he never remembers who he is?” Phyllis asked.

  “We could put an advertisement with his description in all the Belgian and London papers,” Bridget suggested. “But that would take time and money and even then his people may not pay up.”

  “What we could do,” Geraldine said, “is conceal his whereabouts when we do advertise, and hold him for ransom. We could demand more that way than if we merely asked for a reward. Keeping him won’t be a problem, after all, will it? He does not possess a stitch of clothing apart from the nightshirt Bridge found for him. He can’t run away unless he wants to be seen dashing naked down the street. And he won’t be able to dash anywhere for a long time—not with that leg wound of his. Where would he go anyway? He does not even know his own name.”

  “I could make sure he don’t run nowhere,” the sergeant said.

  “How much could we demand?” Bridget asked. “A hundred guineas?”

  “Three,” Phyllis suggested.

  “Five,” Geraldine said, sawing the air with one hand and slopping some of her tea into her saucer.

  “I would not take a penny less than a thousand,” Flossie said. “Plus expenses.”

  They all burst out into hearty laughter then, Rachel included. She knew, of course, that none of them was serious about the kidnapping scheme. Tough as they appeared to be, these ladies were soft at heart. Their inability to rob the dead out on the battlefield proved that.

  “In the meantime,” Phyllis said, “we will have to take his nightshirt away from him so that he can’t escape so easily.”

  “And tie him to the bedposts,” Flossie added. “All four of them.”

  “Ah, be still, my palpitating heart,” Geraldine said, fanning her face briskly with the hand that had been waving in the air. “We won’t be able to allow him any bedsheets either, will we? He might knot them together and escape out the window with them and then wear them like a Roman toga. I’ll volunteer for double guard duty every day—and night.”

  “I’ll stay after all,” the sergeant said. “You will need my hefty muscles to carry in all the heavy bags of ransom money.”

  “We will be rich, William,” Flossie said, tossing her head and setting all her curls to bouncing.

  They all dissolved into laughter again.

  “Seriously, though,” Rachel said when their mirth had subsided, “his loss of memory could prove to be a serious problem, especially since it is going to be some time before he can walk again. He will have nowhere to go. But I know you are all eager to return to England soon, and so am I.”

  “We’ll toss him out on the street when we are ready to leave, Rache,” Geraldine said.

  She was not serious, of course. They all knew that none of them would have the heart simply to abandon him.

  If she could only gain access to her fortune, Rachel thought, she would be able to do far more than finance the search for Nigel Crawley, which she was not sure was such a practical idea anyway. She would be able to repay her friends all they had lost and restore their dream. She would be able to make it possible for them to retire and live the respectable lives they longed for. She would be able to salve her conscience for having caused their loss in the first place. And, of course, she would gain a welcome independence for herself.

  But there was no real point in dreaming, she thought with a sigh.

  “I am going down to check on the patient,” she said, getting to her feet and setting her cup and saucer on the tray. “He may be awake and needing something.”

  WHEN ALLEYNE AWOKE AGAIN LATE IN THE afternoon, he was alone. He felt considerably better, though he dared not move either his head or his left leg. He guessed that his fever had subsided. He tried to be cheerfully nonchalant and practiced what he would say when one of the women came into his room.

  “Ah, good afternoon,” he would say. “Allow me to introduce myself, if I may. I am . . .” But although his mind remained alert and he smiled at the empty room and made a slow circling motion with one hand, the elusive name would not come.

  How ridiculous to have forgotten his own name! What was the point of having survived by the skin of his teeth if he was to live the rest of his life as an anonymous nobody? Though it was foolish to start thinking that way yet, he decided, touching the bandage that was still about his head, trying gingerly to find the lump and feel how large it still was.

  The door to his room opened and the golden angel—she was Rachel, though he could not call her that—came inside.

  “Ah, you are awake,” she said. “You were sleeping when I looked in earlier.”

  He smiled back at her and found that the expression no longer caused him agony. He spoke before he could think about it and lose his nerve.

  “I just awoke,” he said. “Good afternoon. Allow me to present myself, if I may. I am . . .”

  But of course he ended up gaping foolishly at her, like a fish that had been removed from its pond and dangled in the air. His right hand, resting on the outside of the bedcovers, formed a tight fist.

  “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Smith,” she said with a light laugh, coming toward him with her right hand extended. “Mr. Jonathan Smith, did you say?”

  “Perhaps,” he said, forcing himself to chuckle with her, “it is Lord Smith. Or Jonathan Smith, the Earl of Wherever, or Jonathan Smith, the Duke of Somewhere.”

  “I should call you your grace, then, should I?” she asked him, her eyes twinkling at him as he took her hand in his and felt its slim smoothness at the same time as he became aware of the sweet, clean smell of her.

  He appreciated the fact that she was encouraging him to laugh at himself. And why not? What was the alternative, after all? He closed his hand more firmly about hers and raised it to his lips. Her eyes slid from his for a moment, and he watched as her teeth sank into her lower lip. Ah, yes, she played the part of innocence consummately well. And no woman had any right to be this beautiful.

  “Perhaps you had better not,” he said. “It would be humbling to discover later that I am no duke after all, but a mere mister. I do not believe I am a Jonathan or a Smith, either.”

  “Shall I address you merely as mister, then?” she asked him, smiling again as she repossessed her hand and leaned over him to unwind the bandage from his head. She examined the damage he had done to himself without touching him. “The cut is no longer bleeding at all, mister. I believe it will be safe to leave off the bandage. If that suits you, of course, mister.”

  There was laughter in her eyes as she straightened up.

  It felt good to feel the air against his head. He lifted one hand to run his fingers through his hair and realized ruefully that it was matted and badly in need of a wash.

  “I must be Mr. Someone, though, must I not?” he said. “It would be eccentric not to be. What mother would christen her son Mister? But I really cannot be anyone as exalted as a duke or an earl. I would not have been fighting in that battle if I were. I must be a younger son.”

  “But the Duke of Wellington was fighting,” she said.

  Her eyes looked more green than hazel today, perhaps reflecting the color of her dress. She was looking down very directly into his eyes, humor twinkling in her own, though it seemed to him that he could see the warmth of sympathy there too. It was absurd to be feeling slightly breathless at her closeness, he thought, and wondered if he was normally such a mooncalf in his attitude to beautiful strangers. It was very stupid too. He still felt as if his body had been abandoned in the wake of
a herd of stampeding elephants.

  “Ah, yes, of course,” he said, snapping the fingers of one hand. “Perhaps that is who I am. Mystery solved. I certainly have the nose for it.”

  “Except,” she said, and he noticed for the first time the ultimate perfection of her face—a small dimple to the left side of her mouth, “that he would surely have been reported missing before now. You remember the Battle of Waterloo, then? That is what the battle is being called, I understand.”

  She had rolled up the bandage and set it down beside the bowl of water. She sat down, though she leaned a little forward in her chair so that he could still feel her nearness. It struck him that perhaps she was very expert indeed at her profession and was deliberately trying to enslave him. If so, she was succeeding.

  “I do.” He frowned and tried to concentrate upon some memory—any memory. But it was no good. “At least, I know that the battle was fought. I can remember the guns. They were deafening. No—actually they were worse than that.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “We heard them from here. How do you know you have a nose like the Duke of Wellington’s?”

  He stared at her, arrested.

  “Do I?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “Geraldine called it an aristocratic nose.”

  She got to her feet and crossed the room to a chest of drawers while he watched her. Her very feminine figure had alluring curves and was far lovelier than that of many overslender girls who were considered fashionably beautiful—though she was not much more than a girl herself, at a guess. She opened one of the drawers and then turned back toward him, a small looking glass in one hand. He glanced warily at it and licked his lips nervously.

  “You do not have to look,” she said, nevertheless holding it out toward him.

  “Yes, I do.” He reached out a hand and took it warily from her. What if he did not recognize the face he saw? It would somehow be more terrifying than not remembering his name. But he had known that he had a big nose, and she had confirmed that he was right.