Slightly Sinful

by Mary Balogh

  She turned her head to look at him.

  “No,” she said. “I have got myself into this mess and I will get myself out. I did not have to agree to your suggestion. I am not a mindless puppet.”

  “Then tell him yourself in person,” he said. “Do it tomorrow, Rachel, and trust his love for you. He has loved you all your life.”

  “It is too late,” she said, “I do not deserve anyone’s trust. Or anyone’s love. I have forfeited both. The music is ending. We must go in to supper, and we must look bright and happy. He is looking happy tonight, is he not? And better than he looked when we first came? We must give him the rest of tonight at least. Or rather I must.”

  If someone would only be obliging enough to put a gun to his head, Alleyne thought, he would gladly pull the trigger himself.

  He offered her his arm.

  ONE THING RACHEL HAD NOT EXPECTED, THOUGH she knew that the ball was partly in honor of her marriage, was that there would be speeches and toasts during supper, and a large cake, which she and Jonathan cut and then took from table to table to serve to the guests.

  She smiled and smiled and felt sick inside.

  She really had used no imagination at all when she had thought this an excellent way of getting her hands on money so that her friends would be free to travel about England in pursuit of revenge.

  But there was worse to come. When Rachel and Jonathan finally sat down and there was a stir among the guests in preparation for a return to the ballroom and the final few sets of the evening, Uncle Richard got to his feet again and held up his hands for silence. It fell almost instantly.

  “I think it appropriate,” he said, “to make this announcement publicly, though I did originally intend to inform my niece and nephew-in-law privately of it tomorrow. It does in a sense concern the whole neighborhood after all. It is probably general knowledge that I am the last male of my line and that my title will die with me when the time comes. But fortunately my estate and fortune are mine to leave where I will, since they are unentailed. There is a distant cousin on my mother’s side whom I have long considered, though he lives in Ireland and I have not met him above two or three times in my life. I always did intend to leave a sizable portion of my fortune to my niece, Rachel, Lady Jonathan Smith, of course, since she is my closest relative. But I have got to know her and have grown to love her dearly during the past few weeks, and I have got to know Sir Jonathan as a steady, dependable young man with an obvious and intelligent interest in the land. I have made arrangements to rewrite my will tomorrow. My niece will inherit everything after my days are done.”

  Rachel did not hear the swell of interest and the applause that followed the announcement. She could hear only a buzzing in her ears as her head turned icy cold. She was about to faint, she realized. She bowed her head forward and covered her face with both hands while she felt Jonathan’s hand against the back of her neck. She drew a few steadying breaths.

  Her uncle was standing beside her when she lifted her head again. She got to her feet and hugged him wordlessly while there was a murmur of approval from the guests and another smattering of applause.

  “It is what will make me happy, Rachel,” he said, beaming at her as he set her at arm’s length. “Happier than anything in the world.”

  “I don’t want you to d-d-die,” she said before wrapping her arms about his neck and burying her face on his shoulder.

  But she wanted to, she thought suddenly. She just wanted to die.

  Rachel never afterward knew how she got through the rest of the evening. But she did, smiling and laughing with strangers, assiduously avoiding everyone she knew. She concentrated upon being the radiant bride, and—heaven help her—she succeeded.

  She also succeeded in hurrying up to her room in the flurry of activity that followed the departure of all the guests. But she had reckoned without her friends’ total lack of consideration for closed doors—and there were not even any of those between her bedchamber and Jonathan’s. Within a few minutes of her arrival they were all there—Bridget, Flossie, Geraldine, and Phyllis crowded into her dressing room, Sergeant Strickland in the archway, his arms crossed over his great chest.

  “Well, Rache,” Geraldine said, “now you are in a pickle.”

  “We did not even hear about it at the time on account of we were outside,” the sergeant said with what in a lesser man might have been construed as a blush. “Geraldine and me, I mean. We was looking at the horses.”

  “We were dancing, Will,” she said. “And then we were kissing. And then we came inside and Phyll told us.”

  “My love,” Bridget said, “we had better go away from here.”

  “Away?” Phyllis looked blank. “Away, Bridge? Who is going to cook for the baron?”

  “I came here to ask for my inheritance,” Rachel said. “It seemed so logical at the time to pretend I was married and to bring my supposed husband with me so that Uncle Richard would be persuaded that I could be trusted with my jewels. I wanted desperately to be able to help you all find Mr. Crawley and to repay you what he stole from you. Now I cannot do it—any of it. We are going—”

  “Just a moment, Rachel.” Flossie held up a hand. “What is this about repaying us? You were going to give back what he took? When he used you so ill and took everything you had too? Are you daft?”

  “Without me,” Rachel said, “you would not even have met him.”

  “Rachel, my love,” Bridget said, “we would not even think of taking a penny from you beyond what we planned to borrow for our journeys until we could pay it back.”

  “I would think not,” Geraldine said, hands on hips. “Do you have windmills in your head, Rache? You did not steal the money from us.”

  Phyllis hurried across the small room and caught Rachel up in a tight hug.

  “But the thought was beautiful, Rachel,” she said. “Do you know how long it is since anyone had a beautiful thought about us girls? And this has been beautiful—this stay at Chesbury Park. I have been happier here than I have been anywhere else my whole life. I think we all have. And we have you to thank for such a splendid holiday. So don’t you go adding guilt about us to your other woes.”

  “But what woes they are, Rache,” Geraldine said.

  “What you need to do, missy,” Sergeant Strickland said, “not that you have asked me and not that it is my business to say anything anyway on account of I am only a one-eyed gentleman’s gentleman and not a very good one yet into the bargain—but what you need to do, missy, and you too, sir, though you have gone into your bedchamber instead of coming to face the music out here. What you need to do is get married for real, and then everything will be solved.”

  “It would be wonderfully romantic,” Phyllis said. “You are quite right, Will.”

  “No,” Rachel said firmly. “That is not an option. I intend to put everything right in the next little while and then I am going to sort out my life. The last thing I need is a forced marriage. And it is the very last thing Jonathan needs. I will work things out.”

  Though heaven knew how. Uncle Richard had looked so happy. She had not even known that his property and fortune were unentailed. She had not even given the matter a thought.

  The ladies had plenty more to say, but Rachel did not listen. Sergeant Strickland retreated into the other dressing room, and finally the four ladies went on their way, all talking at once after hugging Rachel. And then Geraldine remembered that she was Rachel’s maid and came back to undress her and brush out her hair.

  It seemed like forever before Rachel was alone and able to crawl off to bed and pull the bedcovers up over her head.

  CHAPTER XIX

  AN HOUR OR SO AFTER SERGEANT STRICKLAND had finally left for the night, his silence loud with disapproval and unspoken advice, Alleyne was still standing at the window of his bedchamber, staring out into the moonlit park. He doubted Rachel was sleeping either.

  He wondered if he should go to Weston in the morning without her knowledge. But he doub
ted he would. He had done enough to harm her without taking away her freedom to deal with this matter herself, as she clearly wished to do.

  He felt rather than heard or saw movement and turned his head to see her standing in the doorway to his dressing room. There were no candles burning, but his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. She was wearing the same white nightgown she had worn the night he had walked into her bedchamber. Her hair was loose.

  “I thought perhaps you would be sleeping,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “You had better come here,” he said when she stood there mutely, apparently with nothing else to say.

  She came, hurrying toward him before stopping abruptly two feet away.

  “I want you to leave,” she told him. “In the morning.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I am going to tell my uncle everything. I have to. I cannot have him changing his will in my favor, can I? But he will blame you as much as he blames me. He will accuse you of having compromised me and insist that you marry me. At least, that is what he may do if he does not just simply order us both off his property. But I have to think of all the possibilities and be prepared for them. I will not have you coerced into marrying me, Jonathan.”

  “I cannot be,” he said. “We have discussed this before, remember? Until I know my identity and until I know whether I am already married or not, I cannot marry you or anyone else—or even promise to marry you.”

  “But you will find out who you are,” she said. “And you may discover that you are single. I will not have anyone try to force you into marrying me. It would be grossly unfair to you. You did this for me, and I freely agreed to it. Besides, I do not want to marry you. It is altogether possible that I will never marry, but if I do, it will be because I have found the love of my life and the certainty of a lifetime of happiness—as much as one can be certain of any such thing. I am not insulting you, Jonathan. I know that you are as reluctant as I to be forced into any marriage, and therefore I can speak plainly so that you will not feel obliged to offer if the time should ever come. But I do not intend it to happen anyway. You are to go away—early, before Uncle Richard is up.”

  “This is good-bye, then?” he asked her.

  “Y-yes.”

  He took one of her hands in his. It was like a block of ice. He chafed it between both his own.

  “I will not do it,” he said. “We will face him together tomorrow.”

  Honor as much as concern for Rachel dictated that he face Weston with her, if that was her intention. Weston had come to trust him. He must look the man in the eye as he admitted that that trust had been misplaced.

  She shivered.

  “We had better get to bed,” he said.

  “Together?”

  That had not been what he meant. But he could sense that she needed company and perhaps more than that. She needed to be held. And he, God help him, wanted to hold her.

  “Is it what you wish?” He raised her hand to his lips.

  She nodded. “If it is what you wish.”

  He laughed softly and drew her to him. She lifted her face to his and their mouths met—hungry with longing and need and the desire to give and to draw comfort.

  What had Geraldine just called it? A pickle. They were in a pickle. Tomorrow, for better or worse, they would extricate themselves from it. In the meantime there was tonight.

  He stooped down and lifted her into his arms for no other reason than that he could now that his leg was healed and strong again. He carried her to the bed and set her down in the middle of it before stripping off his clothes and joining her there.

  They made love only once. They did it slowly, thoroughly, almost languorously. It was not just sex, Alleyne realized in the middle of it—at least, it was not sex in its rawest sense. Neither was it really love, since it appeared she did not love him, as she dreamed of one day loving a man. But it was something precious nevertheless. It was a warm sharing of human comfort. And there was comfort.

  She was asleep almost before he had disengaged his body from hers and settled beside her, though she burrowed in against him first. He rested one cheek against the top of her head and followed her into oblivion.

  RACHEL PUSHED HER BREAKFAST PLATE AWAY FROM her, her food almost untouched. She found it difficult even to look at Jonathan. She had gone to him in the middle of the night in order to persuade him to leave Chesbury early this morning, and she had stayed to sleep in his bed. Not just sleep there . . .

  It was very mortifying.

  But it was not Jonathan who had taken her appetite away. Uncle Richard was up, though he was breakfasting as usual in his own rooms. He had sent his valet down to ask her and Jonathan to wait upon him there at their earliest convenience.

  Geraldine was upstairs, packing Rachel’s trunk. They would all be gone by noon at the latest. Rachel tried to concentrate upon that thought. But there was this morning to live through first. And how would she be able to feel any relief even when they were finally on the road when she had thrown so much away and would be leaving her uncle behind, angry, upset, and betrayed? And then the final parting from Jonathan would be imminent.

  Sometimes life seemed so bleak that the only consolation was that it could not possibly get worse.

  She got to her feet and pushed away her chair with the backs of her knees. Jonathan got up at the same time. Uncharacteristically, neither Bridget nor Flossie said a word as they left the room.

  Uncle Richard was seated in his usual chair, though it had been turned to face into the room this morning. He was looking ill again, Rachel noticed. Last night had been too much for him. And now this morning . . .

  “Sit down,” he said, his manner grave.

  “Uncle Richard,” she said, “there is something I must say. There is no point in delaying it. I will just—”

  “Please, Rachel.” He held up a hand. “There is something I must say first. I have been too cowardly to say it before now, but the time has come. Sit down, please. And you too, Smith.”

  Rachel perched unhappily on the edge of a chair while Jonathan sat back in another.

  “I believe I would have made the decision I announced last night even without any other incentive,” her uncle said. “I have always longed for you to be here, Rachel, and for you to discover that this is where you belong. And now I have seen it as well as the happy fact that you have a husband who loves and understands the land and who will always look after it even if the two of you will make your principal residence far away in the north of England.”

  “Uncle Richard—”

  “No.” He held up his hand again. “Let me finish. I believe I would have made the decision anyway, though it may seem to you in a moment that I have simply bought you off in order to salve my conscience. I planned to tell you today that I would withhold your jewels until you are twenty-five, since that was basically your mother’s wish. I reasoned that I would probably be dead by then.”

  “Don’t say that.” She leaned forward in her chair. “I do not even want the jewels.”

  He sighed and set his head back against the cushions. His complexion was gray-tinged again, she could see.

  “They are gone, Rachel,” he said.

  “Gone?”

  “Stolen,” he said.

  Jonathan got to his feet, poured a glass of water from a jug on the tray beside her uncle, and set it down close to his hand. Then he went to stand at the window, looking down on the parterre gardens.

  “Stolen?” Rachel whispered the word.

  “I am not even sure exactly when or how or by whom,” her uncle said. “They just were not there when I went into the safe for something else a week or so before you arrived here. I found it impossible to suspect anyone who was employed here, even if their service had become slipshod over the past couple of years. And yet the only stranger who was in my library and could have seen where I keep my valuables was a clergyman—and a man of conscience
and charity at that. It would make no sense to suspect him.”

  Jonathan turned his head back over his shoulder, and his eyes met Rachel’s.

  “A clergyman,” she said. “Nigel Crawley?”

  “Nathan Crawford,” her uncle said.

  “Tall, blond, and handsome?” she asked, her eyes widening. “Very charming? Between thirty and forty years of age? Perhaps with a sister accompanying him?”

  He stared at her. “You know him?” he asked.

  “I believe I sent him here.” She laughed rather shakily. “I met him in Brussels when I worked for Lady Flatley. I was even betrothed to him. We were returning to England to marry and then come here to see you and persuade you to give me my jewels. But I overheard him talking with his sister, and they were laughing about what they would do with all the money they had been given for their charities. They also had with them a large sum of money from my friends who are with me here—all their life savings, in fact.”

  Uncle Richard had closed his eyes. He looked deathly pale.

  “A number of people here gave to his charities,” he said. “I did too. I gave him the money when we were in the library together and did not even try to hide the safe from his eyes. He seemed eminently trustworthy. I suppose he came back for the jewels. Chesbury is not hard to break into, and my servants have not been vigilant of late. But however it is, Rachel, they are gone and I have done nothing to recover them. I have not known what to do or whom to suspect.”

  Strangely, given the lengths to which she had been prepared to go to get her hands on the jewels, Rachel was far more concerned about her uncle at that moment than about them. They had caused her nothing but grief. Let them go and good riddance. She got to her feet, hurried over to his chair, knelt on the floor before him, and set one cheek on his knees.