Slightly Sinful

by Mary Balogh

  “Deuce take it, Rachel,” he said, exasperated anew, “do you think I care about gaucherie and inexperience? It is the fact that you did not warn me that I resented. But that is all in the past. It is time we put it behind us.”

  “It is impossible to forget it,” she said. “It is foolish even to suggest that we try.”

  “Good Lord, Rachel,” he said, “it is just a bedding we are talking about. It was not an earth-shattering experience, perhaps, for a few different reasons, but it was not all bad either. It was just sex.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  Women, of course, were very different from men in their attitudes to such matters. He knew that, though he did not know how he knew. It had been a foolish thing to say. The fact that it had been sex was the worst thing about it as far as she was concerned. For her, he knew, it had been earth-shattering, though not in a pleasant way.

  Deuce take it, he could be hobbling about the streets of Brussels or London now, uncovering relatives and friends beneath every stone. What on earth had put this madcap idea into his head? But he knew what. Rachel had wanted to help her friends, and he had wanted to help Rachel because he owed her his life and perhaps because he had still been just a little besotted with her.

  “Well,” he said, “you are going to have to try to do a better acting job tomorrow, Rache. You are going to have to pretend you are in love with me and let it show through every pore in your body. Otherwise we will have come here in vain and will be leaving here in one month’s time no better off than we are now.”

  She turned to look at him.

  “My uncle has a bad heart,” she said. “He could die at any moment. He says he is glad I have come, and he wants us to stay so that he can get to know both of us—even though he observed our quarrel through his window this morning. He says that there has been an emptiness in his life since my mother eloped with my father. He is determined to give a ball in our honor. But he might have done all this years ago. He might have had me here visiting frequently for the past sixteen years. He might have forgiven Mama before that and had her visit here with me. And now he is dying.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand, but he could see that behind it she was biting her upper lip to control her emotions.

  “Perhaps, Rachel,” he said, “it is time you simply forgave him.”

  “How can I?” she asked him. “How can I? My life has been empty too. Sometimes I used to think that I was more like a mother than a daughter to my father. Taking care of him was too great a burden.”

  He stared broodingly at her. What heavy baggage people carried with them from their past. Was it one advantage of losing one’s memory completely? What sort of unfinished business had he been hauling about with him before he fell and hit his head?

  “I hate this,” she said suddenly, walking abruptly to the bed and folding back the bedcovers. “I hate this self-pity and this doom and gloom. This is not what I am like. This is not me. I never used to go about proclaiming that my life was burdensome and empty. I just lived it. Why should it appear to me now that it was both?”

  “Perhaps because you have come here and opened the book of your past,” he said. “And perhaps the strength of your negative emotions is a result of coming here in the wrong way—for which I am entirely to blame.”

  “Don’t start offering again to confess the truth to Uncle Richard.” She sat on the bed, her hands grasping the mattress beside her, apparently quite oblivious to the message she might be thought to be sending. “It is too late for that.”

  “I wonder if you realize,” he said, “that even if you do gain possession of your fortune, these four ladies will refuse to take a penny of it in compensation for what they lost to Crawley.”

  “Of course they won’t.” Her eyes widened. “It was my fault. And their dream is all they have to sustain them.”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “They are tough women, Rachel. They have survived some of life’s hardest buffetings, and they will continue to survive in their own way. They are not your responsibility—or mine. They would not wish to be.”

  “I will find a way of persuading them,” she said. “I must. But first I have to persuade Uncle Richard. He said this morning that he will be in no hurry to give me the jewels. You are able to support me, he said, and so I do not really need them. It is so unfair. I ought not to have to beg and plead. If he cares for me, he ought to give me freely what is mine.”

  What she needed more than anything in her life, he thought suddenly, was some laughter. There seemed to have been precious little of it through her life. And yet she had been completely transformed by it this morning when she had scrambled about on the horse’s back, getting her legs hopelessly tangled in her skirts and revealing shocking lengths of leg.

  He had got her into this mess, and it was now up to him to get her out again. But at the same time perhaps he could think of ways to make her laugh again—and again.

  It was something he could do for her.

  “Tomorrow, Rachel,” he said, “we are going to have to act as if we had spent all night on that bed making love. We are going to have to commit ourselves—both of us—to this charade, since you will not permit me to end it. Smile at me.”

  “What?” She stared blankly at him.

  “Smile at me,” he said again. “It is not so difficult to do, surely. You have done it before. Smile.”

  “What nonsense!”

  “Smile.”

  She did. She stretched her lips and looked defiant and embarrassed.

  He grinned at her.

  “Try again,” he told her. “Imagine that you love me more than life. Imagine that I have just tumbled you and am on my way back for more. Smile at me.”

  He was glad then that he had remained where he was, his shoulder still against the doorpost, his legs crossed at the ankles. When she smiled, the whole of his insides seemed to jostle to take up a new position. He felt a stirring in his groin but fought it, well aware that he was still wearing his very revealing evening knee breeches.

  He smiled slowly back at her and was aware of her knuckles whitening as she tightened her grip on the mattress.

  “I’ll see you in the stables at the same time tomorrow morning,” he said softly. “Good night, my love.”

  She did not answer him. Silence followed him back to his bedchamber, where he paid the penalty for his little experiment in a full hour or more of restless heat.

  CHAPTER XV

  THE MORNING’S RIDING LESSON HAD TO BE canceled because last night’s clouds had brought rain with them, and it continued to drizzle down halfheartedly until almost the middle of the morning.

  As soon as it cleared Alleyne went in search of Paul Drummond, Chesbury’s steward, who had agreed to show him the home farm. He was soon even more sure than he had been yesterday that he belonged on a country estate. The sights and sounds and smells of the park and the stables were all as familiar to him as the air he breathed.

  He found the whole tour fascinating—the waving green sea of the crops as the breeze rippled through them, the soil of the fallow fields rich and dark brown after the rain, the cows and sheep grazing in their meadows, the pigs in their pen, the chickens and ducks roaming free in the large farmyard, the huge plot of the vegetable gardens, the orchards, the hay- and manure-smelling barn with its inevitable cow and sickly calf, the hay wagons, the plows, the rakes.

  “It is a prosperous-looking estate,” Alleyne said when they were on their way back to the stables.

  “It is that, sir,” Drummond agreed. “It could be even more prosperous with a few developments and improvements, of course, but his lordship has lost some of his interest in the land since his illness. He lets me run things, but he does not want to hear about change.”

  Alleyne did not probe. It was not his business. But he could sympathize with the frustration of the steward. Having energy and enthusiasm but no real outlet for either could sap a man’s love of life.

  Was that what had happe
ned to him at some time in the past? Had he been a man without purpose? Without direction?

  He remembered suddenly something Sergeant Strickland had said to him in Brussels.

  When you finally do remember who you are, p’raps you will find that you have become a better man than he ever was. P’raps he was a man who never ever grew anymore once he reached manhood. P’raps he needed to do something drastic like losing his memory so that he could get his life unstuck.

  One thing he knew with certainty. He belonged in the countryside. He belonged on the land. If he discovered after this month was over that he was indeed a military officer, he was going to sell out. If he was indeed a younger son with no fortune and no independent income, he was going to seek employment as a steward even if his family—whoever they were—considered such a step demeaning to their pride.

  He could not know for certain what sort of man he had been. But this man was very ready to take up the reins of his own life and do exactly what he wanted to do with it.

  His reveries were interrupted when Drummond asked him some questions about his own estate in Northumberland. The ease with which he invented a property convinced Alleyne anew that at least he had the knowledge with which to make the lies convincing.

  By the time he had returned his horse to the stables and walked back to the house early in the afternoon he was feeling invigorated and more cheerful than he had felt since early the morning before.

  Bridget was digging out weeds at one end of the parterres. Two gardeners were doing the same thing, one in the middle, and one at the other end. Four others were strung out in a line across the lawn beyond the parterres, cutting the grass with scythes, while two lads were raking it up into heaps. The smell of freshly cut, slightly damp grass was heavy on the air.

  Rachel was standing on the graveled path, watching, but she turned at the sound of his approach and smiled dazzlingly. Alleyne wondered what he had done to ingratiate himself with her until he remembered her mentioning last night that her uncle’s sitting room looked down over the parterres. He smiled back at her, slid an arm about her waist, and kissed her on the lips. He made the embrace neither too long—it would have been vulgar since they were within sight of both Bridget and several servants—nor too short. But when he lifted his head, he smiled again and kept his arm about her waist.

  “I have been gone for two hours,” he said, “and it has seemed like an eternity away from you, my love.”

  “All morning,” she said, “I have been regretting that I did not go with you. The hours have seemed interminable.”

  Alleyne wondered if actors onstage ever found themselves in a state of continuous semiarousal. He grinned and hugged her closer to his side for a moment before looking away from her.

  “This, I suppose,” he said, nodding in the direction of the busy industry proceeding before their eyes, “is Bridget’s doing?”

  “Flossie called a meeting of all the servants,” Rachel explained, “and Bridget attended too. From the account I had from Geraldine, it sounds as if Flossie had them all ankle-deep in their own sentimental tears as she aroused their loyalty to a master who has always treated them with kindness and generosity but who is now too ill to understand that they have been slacking off. This was the response of the gardeners. Bridget, of course, could not resist joining them.”

  Alleyne laughed, and Rachel, looking up at him, laughed too.

  She was wearing pale lemon this morning, he noticed, and yet again Geraldine had done pretty things with her hair, making of it a golden halo of curls and ringlets. Of course, one did not need to notice the details of Rachel’s appearance. She was always beauty personified—even when clad in a plain cotton nightgown with her hair down her back.

  Purely for the benefit of her possibly watching uncle, he kissed the tip of her nose.

  “Do you see the difference, Rachel?” Bridget called, straightening up and passing the back of one gloved hand over her glistening brow.

  “I do,” Rachel admitted, looking along the part of the flower bed that had already been weeded. “How brilliantly colorful the flowers look now. And how glorious the grass smells.”

  She closed her eyes and inhaled, looking endearingly happy while Alleyne gazed down at her.

  “We will make a countrywoman of her yet, Bridget,” he said.

  Bridget looked from one to the other of them and smiled.

  “I hope so,” she said. “For both your sakes I do hope so, Sir Jonathan.”

  RACHEL HAD LAIN AWAKE THROUGH MUCH OF that night when Jonathan had come to her room, a thousand thoughts crowding through her mind, none of them pleasant. But she had come to the conclusion that all she could do for the next month was continue what she had started and play her part to the best of her ability. She would even, she had decided, put aside her prejudices as much as she was able and give herself a chance to get to know her uncle. After all, she might never have another chance. He might not recover from another heart seizure. Anyway, she was not here to rob him exactly.

  She would throw off her gloom, she had decided, and her guilt too. She was mortally sick of both. One thing was sure—she could never go back to change the past. All she could do was live the present and shape the future to the best of her ability.

  And so for the next week she learned to ride—slowly, painstakingly, diligently—and was rewarded by a sense of accomplishment and an exhilaration she had rarely known before. She spent time with her uncle, often deliberately seeking him out instead of just not avoiding him when she had little choice. She participated in the numerous visits of neighbors and returned several of the calls with Jonathan and Bridget and sometimes Flossie too—though Flossie spent much of her time poring over the household books and trying to bring them from chaos to order or else bending over the estate books with Mr. Drummond while he patiently interpreted the columns and figures for her. Rachel attended church. She helped Flossie and Bridget write invitations to the ball from a list her uncle had provided.

  And she let love of Jonathan flow out of every pore of her body, as he had put it, smiling at him, laughing with him, riding and walking with him, visiting the home farm with him and listening to his explanations, holding his hand, lacing her fingers with his, allowing him to kiss her hand and even her lips at every flimsy excuse, sitting beside him, talking with him, gazing at him with admiration and devotion, and generally behaving like a bride in the early days of a love match. Sometimes she almost forgot that it was all an act—on both their parts.

  Her glass told her that her eyes were brighter and there was more color in her cheeks than there had been since she was a girl. Much as she longed to have the ordeal of this month over with, and much as she remembered that her friends must be eager to be on their way with sufficient funds to begin their long-postponed search for Nigel Crawley, a part of her dreaded having to leave Chesbury and return to London to seek employment again if her uncle proved obstinate about her jewels.

  One day they were all eating a delicious and wholesome luncheon of vegetable soup, freshly baked bread, and cheese followed by apple pudding and custard, all prepared by Phyllis, when Rachel noticed how much her uncle’s appearance had changed for the better during the past week. He had surely put on some weight. His face looked fuller and had lost its gray tinge. Sometimes he still looked gaunt and brooding, particularly when he was looking at her, but he had found the energy to do some entertaining, and he seemed altogether more cheerful. He appeared to be fond of Flossie and Bridget and Phyllis.

  Rachel smiled at him.

  “The rector and his wife are calling again this afternoon,” he said. “But the rector needs to discuss some matter with me, and Mrs. Crowell will wish to discuss gardening with Miss Clover, I daresay. Drummond is taking Mrs. Streat to see the smithy, and Mrs. Leavey as usual insists upon preparing our tea and dinner. Why do not you and Sir Jonathan slip away together for the afternoon, Rachel? The last few days have been cloudy and cool, but today is sunny and warm. It would be a pity to wa
ste such a day by remaining indoors.”

  But apart from the morning riding lessons, almost all of the time Rachel had spent with Jonathan had been in company with others. She was not at all sure she wished to be alone with him when there were no horses on which to fix her attention.

  She turned toward Jonathan, her face bright with inquiry, and willed him to make some excuse. And she was not the only one whose looks had changed as a result of the country air, she thought. He was sun-bronzed despite the cloudy nature of the last few days, and more incredibly handsome than ever.

  He smiled back at her, his eyes fairly worshiping her, and set a hand over hers on the table.

  “A brilliant idea,” he said. “Where would you suggest we go, sir?”

  “The lake, perhaps,” Uncle Richard said. “You have not been out on it yet, have you? Take one of the boats out to the island. I daresay it may be somewhat overgrown this year, but it has always been a quiet retreat. There is a folly there and a pleasing prospect over the park.”

  “Oh, do take Rachel over to the island, Sir Jonathan,” Flossie said. “I daresay it is a wondrously picturesque setting. And you will be all alone there.”

  There was sheer mischief in her eyes when she glanced at Rachel.

  “Take a parasol to shield your complexion, Rachel,” Bridget advised.

  “I am afraid of water,” Rachel said.

  “Nonsense, my love!” Jonathan grinned at her and squeezed her hand. “You stood at the ship’s rail every moment when we were coming from Ostend and enjoyed yourself immensely.”

  “But that was a large ship,” she protested. “This would be a small boat right down on the water.”

  “Do you not trust me to keep you safe?” He moved his head closer to hers.

  Rachel sighed. “Oh, you know I would trust you with my life, Jonathan,” she said.

  “Well, then.” He raised her hand to his lips. “The matter is settled. Thank you, sir, for excusing us from this afternoon’s visit. I must confess that the prospect of a whole afternoon alone with my bride is enticing.”