Slightly Sinful

by Mary Balogh

  “I will be disappointed,” he said, “if you do not make yourself at home while you are at Chesbury, ma’am.”

  “Do you keep a large stable, sir?” Jonathan asked. “Perhaps I may make use of one of the horses?”

  “Is it wise, Sir Jonathan?” Bridget asked him. “Your leg has not fully healed yet.”

  They had explained to Rachel’s uncle earlier that Jonathan had been wounded while bringing a runaway horse under control in the streets of Brussels.

  “I need the exercise,” he explained.

  “I do not keep quite the stable I used to keep,” Uncle Richard said, “but you are welcome to ride any of the horses that are there.”

  Rachel smiled at Jonathan and reached out to touch his hand. She was finding it more difficult to play her part than the others. But she must get used to showing some public signs of affection for the man who was supposed to be her new husband.

  “Do be careful, then, Jonathan,” she said.

  “And you must ride with me, my love,” he said, smiling back into her eyes with such warmth that she had to stop herself from leaning back to put more distance between them.

  “I do not ride,” she told him. “Remember?”

  There was a flicker of surprise in his eyes.

  “Neither do I, Rachel,” Bridget said. “Don’t feel bad about it.”

  “I did nothing but ride when I was in the Peninsula with Colonel Streat,” Flossie announced. “I grew rather fond of the beasts.”

  Jonathan covered Rachel’s hand on the table between them.

  “Of course I remember, my love,” he said. “But we must rectify the situation without delay if we are to spend most of our days together. You will learn to ride. I will teach you.” She could see the familiar gleam of mischief in his eyes.

  “But I have no wish to learn,” she assured him, trying to slide her hand free. He curled his fingers about it and his smile spread to his lips.

  “You are not a coward by any chance, are you, my love?” he asked her. He raised their clasped hands to his lips as he had done earlier in the drawing room. “If you are to be my wife and live in the country with me, you must be able to ride with me. I will give you your first lesson in the morning.”

  “Jonathan,” she said, wishing that this subject had arisen when they were alone together so that she could say an emphatic no and mean it, “I would really rather not.”

  “But you will.” He was still smiling that smile filled with warmth and admiration and affection—and roguery.

  She sighed out loud.

  So did Phyllis. “Ah,” she said, “I do love to see a good romance develop before my very eyes. It comforts me somehow for my separation from my dear Colonel Leavey, who was obliged to march to Paris with his company.”

  Rachel winced. A colonel with no more than a company of men under his command?

  But her uncle appeared not to have noticed.

  “You have ridden on horseback, Rachel,” he said. “You rode up with me when I went to London for your mother’s funeral.”

  She had forgotten that particular detail of his visit, but she remembered as soon as he reminded her. Her six-year-old self must have understood that her mother was dead. She could even remember crying inconsolably at the graveside and clinging to her father’s hand and hiding her face against his breeches. But conversely, or perhaps in the nature of children, she had been wildly happy during the following days when Uncle Richard had taken her about with him from morning until bedtime, showing her places she had never seen before—or since in some cases. He had taken her to see the animals at the Tower of London and the horse show at Astley’s Amphitheatre. He had bought her ices at Gunter’s. He had bought her a porcelain doll, which one of her father’s cronies had lurched against not long after while in his cups and smashed beyond repair. Best and most exhilarating of all, he had let her ride before him on his horse.

  But she did not want to remember. He had abandoned her after that. She had not heard from him again until after she had written to him when she was eighteen because for months Papa had been deep in debt and even the meager food on their table had been bought on credit and she had desperately needed her jewels.

  “That was a long time ago,” she said stiffly.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “A long time.”

  He looked gray and gaunt and infinitely weary. She resented his bringing up the past. She resented his frailty. And she wanted to wrap her arms about his neck and sob out her grief for she knew not what.

  “I have not entertained or accepted any invitations for quite a while past,” he said. “But I must make amends. I will invite my neighbors to come and meet my niece and her new husband and my other guests. I will arrange some sort of celebration for your marriage, Rachel, since it is too late to hold the nuptials here. I will give a ball perhaps.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened in dismay. It had not occurred to her that they need play out their masquerade before anyone else but her uncle. But then, she had not expected to be here for longer than a few days. He was going to invite guests? He was going to celebrate their wedding?

  She looked at Jonathan, but he was no help. He was smiling back at her, his eyes filled with . . . adoration.

  “This will be splendid, my love,” he said. “We will not even have to wait until we return to Northumberland in order to dance together.”

  Dancing. Uncle Richard had spoken of a ball. Rachel had never been to a ball even though she had learned to dance. Attending one had been one of the enduring dreams of her girlhood and early adulthood. For a moment a great welling of longing replaced the dismay. There might be a ball here at Chesbury. She would be the guest of honor. She would dance.

  With Jonathan.

  “Uncle Richard, no!” she said, coming back to reality. “You really must not make any fuss. We did not expect any such thing. And Jonathan cannot dance. He still has to use a cane merely to walk.”

  “But my leg improves daily,” he protested.

  “A ball?” Flossie said in transports of joy. “I will help you organize it, my lord.”

  “And I too,” Phyllis offered. “Oh, how I wish my dear Colonel Leavey were here to dance with me.” She sighed soulfully.

  “Indeed, Rachel,” Uncle Richard said, “I believe I really ought to make a fuss. I have no children of my own—my wife died without issue eight years ago. And my only sister had but the one daughter—you. Yes, yes, I will make a fuss.” He looked positively cheerful.

  But Rachel’s attention had been distracted. Uncle Richard had been married? She had had an aunt? She felt bereft, mourning for someone of whose very existence she had not known until now. And she felt angry that she had never known, that no one had ever told her. Yet Uncle Richard now talked of making a fuss of her because she was the only daughter of his only sister?

  Rachel got abruptly to her feet, drawing her hand from beneath Jonathan’s and pushing her chair away with the backs of her knees.

  “Flora, Phyllis, Bridget,” she said, “we will leave my uncle and Jonathan together and retire to the drawing room.”

  But when she looked at her uncle, not even trying to hide her anger, she could see again that he was looking drawn and gray-complexioned.

  “Uncle Richard,” she said, “I fear we have overtaxed your strength. You look weary. Please do not feel you must come and entertain us afterward.”

  He had stood up when she had, as had Jonathan.

  “Perhaps I will retire early,” he said. “Now, in fact. Smith, perhaps you would escort the ladies to the drawing room. Tea will be brought to you there. I will bid you all a good night and see you in the morning.”

  She just had not expected anything like this, Rachel thought as she led the way to the drawing room a minute or two later. She had not expected this emotional pull to a man she had resented for years or to the ancestral home she had never before set foot in. When she had agreed to Jonathan’s mad suggestion that they come here to acquire her jewels through decepti
on, she had not even considered the possibility that she might have feelings about a past she had not even been a part of.

  She had not realized how deep were the wounds of her own childhood.

  “There are going to be social calls,” Flossie said when they reached the drawing room, plopping herself down on a chair and looking both pleased and gratified. “And some grand wedding celebration—probably a ball. Now we can expect to hear Gerry complain!”

  “That man is ill,” Bridget said.

  “That cook should be paid her wages and sent packing,” Phyllis said. “She should not be allowed to set one toe inside a kitchen for the rest of her life.”

  “That is part of his problem, I daresay, Phyll,” Bridget said. “He needs to be fattened up with wholesome, appetizing foods, properly prepared.”

  “This is absolutely intolerable,” Rachel said, standing in the middle of the room and curling her hands into impotent fists at her sides. “We cannot have neighbors coming here to be presented to Jonathan and me as if we really were husband and wife. We cannot allow a ball to be held in our honor. We have to do something. What can we do? Jonathan, do remove that odious grin from your face. You got us into this. Get us out of it.”

  He went suddenly and suspiciously poker-faced as he possessed himself of both her hands.

  “Rachel, my love,” he said, “this is exactly what we planned, is it not? Your uncle has accepted you as his niece and he has acknowledged our marriage, even if he is not too pleased at the haste with which it was solemnized. He is offering us the perfect opportunity to shine, to show ourselves to both him and this rural world as the perfect couple. What more could we ask for?”

  “He is right, Rachel,” Bridget said. “I am more delighted with Baron Weston than I ever expected to be. He seems perfectly willing to acknowledge you and make much of you as his closest relative.”

  “But can’t you see that that is the whole trouble?” Rachel tried to withdraw her hands from Jonathan’s, but he tightened his hold on them. “His affection, if indeed he feels any, is the very last thing I want or need. I am here to deceive him, to trick him into giving me my jewels.”

  “You could tell him the truth,” Bridget suggested. “Indeed, it would probably be best, my love. You need your uncle as much as he needs you.”

  “Tell the truth now?” Rachel asked, aghast. “It is impossible.”

  “And Baron Weston would probably cancel the ball if she did, Bridge,” Flossie pointed out. “That would be a terrible pity, wouldn’t it? Though I daresay Gerry would be glad.”

  Jonathan raised Rachel’s hands and set them flat against his chest, covering them with his own.

  “Rachel,” he said, “we are here at my suggestion and it is altogether possible that I miscalculated—both your feelings and Weston’s. Do you wish me to go to him now and confess all? I will if you wish.”

  She gazed into his eyes, horribly aware that they were serious—that he was serious. The decision was hers. She could end the charade now, this evening, if she wished. They could be on their way to somewhere else tonight or early in the morning if she just said the word.

  She was very aware of dark eyes gazing questioningly into her own—and of her three friends sitting watching her, as if with bated breath.

  If the truth was told tonight, if she left here tomorrow, she would never see her uncle again. There was no doubt in her mind of that.

  “It is too late,” she said. She lifted her chin. “And it is clear that all his plans have nothing to do with any affection for me. He still feels that he has the right to withhold what is mine. He plans to keep us waiting for a whole month just because he is annoyed that we did not consult him before marrying. Why should we have? He is not my guardian. And he means nothing else to me either.”

  Jonathan was smiling at her, but just when she needed to see a spark of mischief in his eyes there was not the slightest sign of it.

  “The tea tray has still not arrived,” Phyllis said. “I would be willing to wager that it never does. I do not have friendly feelings toward the cook and her minions.”

  “This has been a busy day,” Jonathan said, not releasing either Rachel’s hands or her eyes. “Perhaps we should all follow Weston’s example and have an early night.”

  “A good idea,” Bridget said, getting to her feet.

  “Besides,” Jonathan added, grinning at Rachel and looking more reassuringly normal again, “you will need to be up early in the morning, my love. It is the best time for riding.”

  She pulled her hands firmly away from his.

  “I have no intention whatsoever of learning to ride,” she told him. “I have lived quite happily through twenty-two years with my feet firmly on the ground and feel no ambition to become a famous whip—or an infamous one, for that matter.”

  “You are a coward,” he said, his eyes twinkling merrily at her.

  “Riding is something all ladies ought to be able to do, Rachel,” Bridget said. “and now you have a chance to learn at last.”

  “Just think what a favorable impression you will both make upon Lord Weston if he can see you engaged in a riding lesson when he gets up in the morning,” Flossie added. “If you will not let Sir Jonathan teach you, Rachel, he is quite welcome to teach me instead.”

  “But you are an accomplished horsewoman already, Flossie,” Jonathan reminded her with a grin. “You have ridden all over the Peninsula with Colonel Streat.”

  “Well, you cannot blame a girl for trying,” she said, batting her eyelids at him.

  “You and Sir Jonathan will look wonderfully romantic riding side by side in the early morning sunshine, Rachel,” Phyllis said.

  “Don’t make me call you a coward in earnest, my love,” Jonathan said.

  “She will be up early, never fear,” Flossie promised him as she rose from her chair. “I’ll send Gerry up to throw a pitcher of cold water over her if she refuses to come out from under the bedcovers of her own accord.”

  “And if Geraldine fails to do it,” Jonathan said, “I will.”

  “You may all force me out to the stables if you choose,” Rachel said, looking indignantly from one merry face to the other, “but you will not get me onto a horse’s back. That I can promise.”

  They all ignored her protests as they bade one another a cheerful good night and proceeded on their way to their various rooms.

  Rachel would have given a good deal to be back in her small attic room on the Rue d’Aremberg in Brussels. But instead she was at Chesbury Park, her mother’s home, her own ancestral home.

  CHAPTER XII

  ALLEYNE WAS UP AT FIRST LIGHT. HE HAD had a disturbed night, at first due to the fact that though there were all of two small rooms separating his bedchamber from Rachel’s, there was not one single door. And she had looked particularly lovely during the evening in her pale green gown and with her hair styled by Geraldine. It annoyed him somewhat that he found her so powerfully attractive when he was quite determined to avoid any emotional entanglement with her. But it was hardly surprising, he supposed, especially given the fact that he had once possessed her—an event he would prefer to forget if it were only possible to do so. But there were not many other memories to help him block it from his mind.

  When he did finally fall asleep, his rest was disturbed by confused dreams that seemed vivid until he tried to recall them upon awakening. There were the familiar ones about the letter and the woman waiting for him at the Namur Gates. But now there was another one too. All he could remember of it during his waking spells, though, was a fountain shooting water thirty feet or more into the air from its marble basin in the midst of a circular flower garden. The water caught the sunlight, which turned the droplets into a sparkling rainbow. Try as he would, he could not place the fountain and garden into any wider setting. At first he thought that perhaps it was the front of Chesbury that he was remembering, but then he recalled that there was only a long parterre garden there.

  But if it was a remembered
scene, he supposed that coming into the country might have provoked it.

  What a stupid and pointless dream it had been, he thought as he made his way out to the stables, using his cane though he tried not to lean too heavily on it. But then so were the other dreams, or fragments of memory or whatever the devil they were.

  He was early, but he wanted to look over the horses before Rachel came and pick out suitable mounts for them both. More important, he wanted to discover if it was going to be possible to get himself onto a horse’s back. His left leg was still not fully back to normal. Reluctantly he had asked Sergeant Strickland to come out here to join him.

  There was only one groom up, and he was doing nothing more energetic than standing in the doorway of one of the stalls, staring vacantly off into the distance and scratching himself when Alleyne and the sergeant stepped into the cobbled stable yard. He looked at them and yawned before ducking out of sight within the stall.

  “There is the same sort of look about the stables as there is about the kitchen,” the sergeant said. “It is like there is no one to crack the whip, sir.”

  It certainly seemed that no one had been cracking any whip in the vicinity of the stables for some time, Alleyne agreed. It looked to him as he explored that the horses had been kept fed and watered, though none of them was looking particularly well groomed except for one sleek black stallion that he discovered later belonged to Chesbury’s steward, Mr. Drummond. And the stalls looked and smelled as if they had not been properly cleaned out for several days at the least.

  “Have these two horses saddled and brought out into the yard,” he instructed the groom, who had ambled into sight as soon as it became obvious to him that they were not about to leave him alone to his reveries and his scratching. “This one with a sidesaddle.”

  “And have the stalls properly mucked out and covered with fresh straw by the time they come back,” Strickland added.

  “I takes my orders from Mr. Renny,” the boy said cheekily.