Slightly Sinful

by Mary Balogh

  “But how are you going to get back onto the horse?” she asked him.

  “I have been wondering that myself.” He laughed softly. “I will think of a way when the time comes. This is a pretty spot and a secluded one too. It is perfect for dalliance if one were so inclined.”

  “But one is not,” she said hastily.

  “No,” he said, “one is certainly not.”

  Contrarily, she felt insulted. Did he have to make it so obvious that her gaucherie that night had rendered her totally unattractive in his eyes? He had found her disappointing. How horribly humiliating!

  She rested her chin on her knees and gazed about her. A scene like this, she thought, could restore one’s soul. She did not believe she had ever been so affected by natural beauty. She had always imagined that she would not even like the country.

  “One misses a great deal,” she said, “by living all of one’s life in a city.”

  “It is beautiful,” he agreed.

  “Did you grow up in the country?” she asked.

  “A trick question, Rachel?” he said after a short pause. “But I believe I can answer it. I must have, or at the very least I must have spent a great deal of my life on a country estate. None of this looks familiar. I do not believe I have ever been here before, and your uncle showed no recognition of me, did he? But I feel comfortable here. I feel that I belong here, in this type of setting even if not in this specific place.”

  She turned her head to look at him, her cheek against her knee.

  “You are developing a stronger sense of yourself, then?” she asked him. “Are there any specific memories, no matter how small?”

  He shook his head. He was squinting into the cascading water, upon which the light from the morning sun was sparkling.

  “Not really,” he said. “Only the persistent dreams, which I am not even sure are anything more than dreams. If I focus too much attention upon them, perhaps they will lead me astray. Perhaps they will lead me to create a reality that in no way resembles the truth. There is the letter, about which I always feel a sense of urgency whenever I dream of it. And the woman waiting for me at the Namur Gates. Was there a woman there when you and Strickland brought me into the city?”

  “Dozens,” she said, “and hundreds, even thousands of men. It was utter chaos, though there were people who were trying to keep some semblance of order. No one came to claim you, though there were several women frantically looking into every face in the hope of seeing a familiar one, I suppose.”

  “Then perhaps she is a dream woman,” he said. “But if she is not, who was she? Who is she?”

  She could think of no answer with which to console him. She hugged her knees more tightly.

  “And last night there was a new dream,” he said. “It was of a fountain, its water shooting high into the sky, its basin set in the middle of a large circular flower garden. Nothing else. None of its surroundings. I believe when I heard the water from this river I thought I might discover the source of my dream. But that was man-made and very carefully cultivated. The light was shining on its waters as it is on these, but it was creating a rainbow of color. Some people deny that we dream in color. But I saw that rainbow in all its glory. Is that proof, I wonder, that the fountain really exists somewhere? But of what significance is it to me?”

  “Perhaps it is at the home where you grew up,” she said. “Your country home.”

  He did not speak for a while, and Rachel became aware again of the sounds of water and birds, of the peace one could find in such a place. She wondered if her mother had come here to just this spot—to play as a child, to think and dream as a girl. Had she come here to consider her fateful decision of whether to give up Papa or defy Uncle Richard and elope with him anyway?

  There was a time—a distant time, perhaps even before her mother’s death—when Papa had been far more dashing and charming and full of laughter than he had been in later years, when his addictions to gaming and, to a lesser degree, to drinking had soured him and made his moods far more volatile and unpredictable. It was easy to understand why Mama had thrown away everything for his sake. Though, of course, had she lived another year she would have had access to the very jewels that were now still out of Rachel’s reach. They would have been far more affluent—until Papa gambled it all away, as he surely would have done.

  “I think I must always have loved the land,” Jonathan said. “I wonder if that ever saddened me, given the fact that I must have been a younger son and therefore was fated to be shipped off to the army. Or perhaps I denied my love because I knew I could never inherit and live close to the land after I grew up.”

  “You talk about the danger of putting too much trust in your dreams,” she said. “Have you considered the fact that even your assumptions about yourself are not real memories? Can you be sure that you were a military officer?”

  He turned his head to look directly at her, his eyebrows raised. He stared for many moments, during which she found it impossible to look away.

  “No,” he said at last. He laughed, though he did not sound amused. “I cannot even be sure about that, can I? But why had I been at the battlefront if I was not with the armies? Getting shot at for the sheer fun of it? I do seem to be a rather reckless man, don’t I? My being a civilian would explain why I was alone and why I had ridden away from the battlefield, though.”

  “It is only a suggestion,” she said. “I do not know any more than you do. I have just thought of something else, though. If you are twenty-five or thereabouts, you would probably have had your commission for five or six or seven years. But apart from the wounds you sustained no more than a day before I found you, there were no others anywhere on your body. No old wounds from old battles, I mean. Would that not be unlikely, even unbelievable?”

  “Perhaps I was always extraordinarily fortunate,” he said. “Or perhaps I always ducked behind some burly sergeant or private soldier when trouble came along carrying a musket or a sword along with it. Or perhaps until Waterloo I was always stationed at home.”

  Rachel sighed and returned her chin to her knees. If only she could do something to help him remember, she thought, she would be able to feel that she had done more than merely save his life. She would be able to see him restored to his former self and the people who loved him. She would be able to have good memories of him after he had gone, confident that he had been restored to himself.

  Was there anything she could do? she wondered. Could she make some inquiries of her own? She had a few friends in London. Could she write to them and ask if they knew of any gentleman of high social rank who had been missing since the Battle of Waterloo? It would surely be absurd even to ask. There must be hundreds of men missing. Most officers would have been accounted for, though, would they not? None of her friends moved in the highest circles. But should she at least try?

  He had come here to try to help her.

  “I suppose,” he said, cutting into her thoughts after several more minutes had passed in silence, “I have kept you out long enough to convince your uncle that I am willing to spend time on your education and am passionate enough about you to steal some private time for ourselves.”

  She looked into his face again. He was smiling lazily, his seriousness apparently forgotten or pushed beneath the surface again.

  He leaned closer to her suddenly, and before she could realize his intent, he set his lips against hers.

  It would have been the easiest thing in the world to pull away from him, to get to her feet, brush out her dress, and make her way back through the trees to the horse. He was not touching her anywhere else but on the lips.

  But she did not think of that at the time. She sat, riveted by surprise and some other emotion far more seductive.

  It was a soft, lingering kiss in which their tongues moistened each other’s lips and briefly touched. It was not really lascivious and not at all in danger of leading into a deeper embrace. But it was not the kiss of brother and sister or of casual fr
iends either. There was something definitely sexual about it.

  It got all mixed up in Rachel’s mind and emotions with the beauty of their natural surroundings, with the rushing of the water and the rustling of the trees and the trilling of the birds. It was all what her heart must have yearned for all her life, she thought—though in truth she was not really thinking at all, and it would have seemed a strange thought if she had been.

  When he drew back she looked at him with dreamy eyes and parted lips and utterly defenseless sensibilities.

  “There,” he said. “Now you look rosy and just kissed, Rache, as you ought to look when we return from here.” He grinned.

  She felt utterly foolish. It was all part of the charade, nothing else. She got hastily to her feet and brushed her hands over her skirt.

  “I do not recall that I have ever given you permission to call me Rache,” she said foolishly.

  He laughed. “Now you have waved the proverbial red flag before the proverbial bull,” he said. “Rache it is from now on. You may retaliate if you wish and call me Jon.”

  She made her way back through the trees without waiting for him, though prudence kept her some distance away from the horse. Then she noticed, of course, that Jonathan was limping quite heavily. Sitting on the rock after riding had no doubt stiffened his leg considerably.

  “I had better walk back to the stables,” she said, “and see if there is a gig or a wagon that can be sent here for you.”

  “If you take even one step in that direction, Rache,” he said, “I will forget that I have ever even heard the word jewel, and I will walk off into the proverbial sunset—or rather I will hobble off into it on my trusty cane—and leave you to explain to Weston why he should give you your inheritance even as much as one minute before you turn twenty-five, when you have just been abandoned by your new husband.”

  “You might simply have said no,” she said.

  He had moved around to the right side of the horse and thus looked very awkward as he mounted. But mount he did, and entirely for her benefit, she believed, he did no more than grit his teeth against the obvious pain and then pretend that it was a smile as he looked down at her.

  “You had better come around to this side too, Rache,” he said, “though you will end up facing the wrong way.”

  “I’ll walk back,” she said.

  “It is a pity we cannot be sure your uncle will be gazing out a back window,” he said. “I would wield my whip at your back if I could be certain and thus assure him that you have acquired a husband who knows how to keep his wife in her place. Set your foot on my right boot or I will come down there and sling you across the horse facedown.”

  Despite the fact that she felt indignant and wished to be on her dignity, she found his final words funny and laughed as she complied with his demands. It was not a performance that either of them would have liked to enact before an audience, but with an inelegant amount of scrambling and hauling and panting and laughter—on both sides—she was finally up before him again, though facing to the right rather than the left.

  “But I will have exactly the same view going back as I had coming,” she said.

  “Are you complaining?” he asked her. “I could get the horse to walk backward to the stables if you wish, though I doubt he will like it. Or you could swing your legs over his neck and face the way you ought to be facing after all.”

  They were still both laughing—like a couple of foolish children, she thought afterward. And why she should take his ridiculous—and not seriously intended—suggestion as a dare, she did not know. She still felt as if she were miles above the safety of the ground. There was, though, a branch conveniently close to give her both the illusion of safety and a measure of bravado as she steadied a hand against it.

  She swung her legs over one at a time, exposing first her left ankle and then her left leg up to the knee and then the same parts of her right leg. They were both somehow still on the horse’s back by the time she wriggled into position with her legs dangling over its left side and he bracketed her with his arms as he had done on the outer ride. They were also both almost wheezing with laughter.

  It was about the most undignified scene of which Rachel had ever been a part.

  “And if I were to suggest that you stand on the horse’s back—on one leg—twirling hoops about your waist and neck and arms and raised leg?” Jonathan asked.

  Rachel shrieked.

  “You could earn your fortune at Astley’s Amphitheatre,” he said, maneuvering the horse out of the trees and taking it to a walk and then a canter back across the lawn in the direction of the house and stables.

  “And then I could enjoy it after I had broken every bone in my body,” she said. “I would not even need my jewels.”

  She had watched the lake and the land surrounding it on the way out. This time she looked across the wide expanse of grass to hilly land beyond, partially covered with trees. It still amazed her to realize that this was Chesbury Park, her mother’s childhood home, which she had always imagined as far smaller and more modest.

  “And to think,” Jonathan said, “that there are only thirty days to go. There are thirty-one in the month, I believe, whether one considers this month of July or next month’s August. Thirty-one days apiece.”

  “It will take you every one of those days,” she said, turning her head to look into his face, “to coax me up into that sidesaddle and back out onto this lawn.”

  “Ah!” he exclaimed. “I have made a convert, then, have I?”

  Actually he had. She did not want this ride to end. She could scarcely wait for the next. Of course, the next time was going to have to be on her own, and she did not doubt she would be terrified. But she had missed so much in her life, she realized, caught up in Papa’s hand-to-mouth existence in London. Perhaps it was not too late to do some catching up.

  “Not really,” she said. “But I do not intend to sit around for thirty-one days, twiddling my thumbs.”

  “Just as I thought,” he said. “I have made a convert.”

  And he threw back his head and laughed.

  CHAPTER XIII

  ALLEYNE BREAKFASTED ALONE—ON SLIMY, cold bacon, sausages that were pink in the center, toast that was burned, and coffee that was weak and lukewarm. He passed over the eggs, which were congealed in the warming dish on the sideboard.

  Rachel had gone straight up to her room from the stables—to write a letter, she had explained.

  He found two of the other ladies out in the parterre gardens when he stepped outside later to look around. They were sitting on a long seat there, on either side of the baron. Flossie was dressed in black even to her lacy parasol, while Phyllis was all in pink. They made a pretty, eminently respectable picture. Alleyne suppressed a wave of amusement as he went to join them, making a conscious effort to put as little weight as possible on his cane. His leg was holding up well after the ride.

  “Ah, here comes Sir Jonathan,” Flossie said, giving her parasol a twirl.

  “Good morning.” Weston inclined his head as Alleyne bowed to all three of them.

  “We saw you earlier through the window, Sir Jonathan,” Phyllis cried, “did we not, Flora? And we persuaded dear Lord Weston to come and take a look too. You were keeping Rachel as safe as can be up on your horse. You made a very handsome and romantic-looking couple, I must say.”

  Alleyne acknowledged her words with a grin. “We found the cascades among the trees, sir,” he said, “and sat there for a while. It is a lovely part of the park.”

  Weston nodded. He did not look much better for a night’s sleep.

  “I have had a complaint from my head groom,” he said, “that your valet of all people, Smith, has been interfering in the running of the stables.”

  When Alleyne and Rachel had left there earlier, Strickland had been stripped to the waist, mucking out stalls. And a few grooms had been busy right alongside him. Alleyne had declined his offer to return to the house to help him change out of his
riding clothes.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “My valet was an infantry sergeant until he lost an eye at the Battle of Waterloo. He is accustomed to working hard and ordering other men to do likewise when there is work to be done.”

  “And there was work to be done in the stables?” the baron asked with a frown.

  Alleyne hesitated. Allowing his valet to give orders to the Chesbury grooms in order to set the stables to rights was a breach of etiquette that was not likely to endear him to Baron Weston’s heart.

  “It was early morning, sir,” he explained, “and Strickland came out to the stables with me to help me mount, as this was my first time in the saddle since I injured my leg. There was only one groom there and much to be done to care for the horses and clean their stalls. I daresay it would all have been done or at least underway if we had arrived there an hour or so later. I will instruct my man to confine his services to my person in future.”

  Weston was still frowning.

  “I have not been out there since my last heart seizure several months ago,” he said. “Perhaps standards have slipped. I will look into the matter.”

  Alleyne was amused to see Flossie lay a solicitous hand on his arm.

  “But you must not overexert yourself, my lord,” she said. “Not in any way at all—not even to entertain us. We are quite capable of amusing ourselves. And we will even do our best to see to your greater comfort, will we not, Phyll?”

  “You are kind, ma’am,” the baron said. But he was still frowning and looked distracted. “The flower beds are full of weeds.”

  There was also grass pushing up through the graveled paths in places.

  “But even weeds can be lovely,” Flossie said. “Indeed, I never understand why some plants are approvingly called flowers while others, equally pretty, are disparagingly called weeds.”

  “You are attempting to make me feel better, Mrs. Streat,” Lord Weston said with a smile, “and succeeding. Even so, I must have a word with the head gardener.”

  “The person I would like to have a word with,” Phyllis said, dipping her opened parasol so that the long tip rested on the path, “is your cook, my lord. I do not mean to be offensive, but she would appear to be in need of some advice.”