Slightly Sinful (10 page)

"We are going to have to do something about them soon, though, Gerry," Flossie said. "We cannot stay here forever. I am so homesick for England I could scream."

"Any suggestions about what we ought to do with Mr. Smith?" Bridget asked.

"We could all go out," Phyllis suggested, "and knock on every door up and down every street to see if anyone has mislaid a handsome gentleman with roguish eyes and an aristocratic nose."

They all laughed.

"Some of us don't speak French, though, Phyll," Flossie said.

"We could offer him a job with us in London," Geraldine suggested, "and he could work while we go off in pursuit of Crawley."

"The ladies would be queued up down the street and around the corner," Bridget said. "Our gentlemen clients would not be able to get near the door when we got back to London."

"We could charge him a percentage of his income for rent," Flossie said. "We would soon be rich enough to buy two boarding houses."

It was a good thing they had a keen sense of humor, Rachel thought as they all laughed again. Their prospects were really rather bleak. The chances that they would ever find Nigel Crawley were slim, and even if they did, it was unlikely that they would recover any of their money. Yet she knew that indignation and pride would send them on the chase anyway. They would be doubly poor by the time they admitted defeat and returned to work. It was a very good thing that they could at least laugh at themselves.

If only she could think of some way to help them. But wealthy as she would be in three years' time, at present she was as poor as the proverbial church mouse.

"I think what we sometimes forget," she said, "is that Mr. Smith has lost his memory, not his intelligence. He is recovering from his wounds, and I do not believe he will be content to remain in bed or dependent upon us for much longer. Perhaps it is not up to us to decide what to do with him. Perhaps he has some ideas of his own."

"The poor dear," Phyllis said. "Perhaps he will wander up one side of each street and down the other, knocking on doors."

"He will be snatched up by the first woman to open a door," Geraldine said with a sigh. "I suppose we should ask him, though."

"I will," Rachel offered. "I will sit with him for a while this evening while you are all entertaining. If he has no ideas, then we will all put our heads together again. If we can just solve the problem of Mr. Smith, then we can turn our attention to acquiring enough money to go after Mr. Crawley."

She hated thinking of him as a problem. She also hated the thought of the day-surely soon now-when he would not need them any longer and would leave.

"My favorite idea is still the one about climbing the ivy on a dark night to get your jewels, Rache," Geraldine said, provoking laughter.

Rachel got to her feet and carried their empty cups and saucers and plates to the bowl to wash.

P HYLLIS TOLD ALLEYNE WHEN SHE BROUGHT HIM his evening meal that he was going to have crutches by the following morning. He could have kissed her and told her so.

She came toward the bed with saucily swaying hips and leaned over him, lips puckered, so that he could do just that. He laughed at her as he drew her head down with one hand against the back of it and pecked her lightly on the lips.

"And where are they coming from?" he asked her as she straightened up and fanned her face vigorously with one hand while batting her eyelids at him.

"Never you mind," she told him. "I know someone."

It was almost exactly what Geraldine said later when she came to collect the tray and informed him that he would have some clothes soon-perhaps even by tomorrow.

"We know people," she said, striking her usual hands-on-hips, bosom-thrust-forward pose and winking at him.

Later in the evening he could hear the outside door opening and closing downstairs and the rumble of male voices mingled with feminine laughter. There were card games at the house every evening, Strickland had told him, with the ladies holding the bank and acting as hostesses. But there was a strict curfew at one o'clock, when the ladies turned to the other part of their profession.

Since there was no point in dwelling constantly upon his plight, Alleyne chose to be amused yet again over the fact that he had taken refuge in a brothel and was in the nature of being a kept man. It was perfectly clear to him from whom his crutches and clothes were going to come. The ladies were certainly not going out to buy them. In a sense that was a relief, but even so it was an uncomfortable realization if he let his mind dwell upon it. He chose to laugh instead. One day in the future, after his memory had returned and he had resumed his normal life, he was going to look back on this episode in his life and be enormously tickled by it.

At least by this time tomorrow he ought to be able to move around the room. If some clothes had arrived also, he might even be able to move beyond the room. Perhaps within a few days he would be able to go out at last in search of his identity. It was going to be a daunting task when he was in a foreign city and apparently most of the British visitors had left, either to follow the armies to Paris or to return to England. But at least he would finally be able to do something.

Perhaps then he would have more success at keeping the terror at bay.

He was bored and picked up Joseph Andrews, which Rachel York had left on the table beside the bed. But he found after a few minutes that he was staring at the same page, his brow furrowed in thought. He had woken again from an afternoon nap with that panicked concern for the letter. What letter?

Deuce take it, what letter?

He had the feeling that if only he could remember the answer to that question everything else would come flooding back. But nothing would come at the moment except the familiar throbbing of a headache. He closed the book, set it back on the table, and stared at the canopy over his head.

He was still staring upward when the door to his room opened.

It was Rachel York-and his breath caught in his throat.

She was wearing a simply designed evening dress of pale blue satin. But on her, of course, nothing elaborate was necessary. Its low neck and high waistline showed her fine bosom to best advantage. Soft, silken folds clung to her alluring curves and shapely legs. She had done something prettier than usual with her hair. There were narrow, looped braids and curls with a few wavy tendrils teasing her neck and temples. He was not sure whether the blush of color in her cheeks was natural or the result of carefully applied cosmetics. Either way she looked more alluring than ever.

He was seeing her for the first time in her working clothes, he thought. He really would rather not have done so. It had struck him just today that he called the other ladies by their given names whereas he always called her Miss York. He did not like to think of her as a whore.

"Good evening," she said. "Are you feeling neglected?"

"More like a beached whale actually," he said. "But I understand that I am to expect crutches and even clothes tomorrow. You cannot know how grateful I am to all of you."

"We are happy to be of assistance." She smiled at him.

"Are you not working?" he asked, and then wished he had not.

"Not tonight," she said. "I came to sit with you for a while. May I?"

He indicated the chair with one hand and she sat down in her usual graceful, ladylike way. Listening to a burst of laughter from downstairs, he was glad she was not there.

"You will be happy to be able to move about again," she said, "and to get your strength back."

"More than you can possibly know," he told her. "I will not be a burden to you for much longer, I promise. As soon as I am able to get about at a reasonable speed and as soon as I am decently clothed, I will be leaving here and finding out who I am and where I belong."

"Will you?" she said. "We were discussing just this afternoon how we might help you, but then it occurred to us that perhaps you would have some ideas of your own. What will you do? How will you go about discovering who you are?"

"There must be some military personnel still here," he said, "and some members of the British upper classes. Someone may recognize me or have a record of the fact that I am missing. Failing any answers here, I will find my way somehow to the Hague. There is a British embassy there. They will help. If nothing else they will probably get me back to England."

"Ah, so you do have plans." She gazed at him with her lovely hazel eyes. "But there is no hurry. You must not feel that you have to rush away from here. This is your home for as long as you need it."

He felt a sharp jolt of desire for her.

"On the contrary," he said. "I have been here for almost two weeks, with no sense of identity or belonging, while all sorts of people have probably been searching for me and thinking the worst. Perhaps even more important, you must all be eager to return to England. I have kept you here too long already."

"It has not been one moment too long," she said. "We have all been happy to have you here. I will miss you when you are gone."

We have been happy, but I will miss you. He did not fail to notice the change in pronoun.

And he would miss her too.

Without thinking he stretched out a hand toward her. She looked at it for a few moments, and he would have withdrawn it if he could without making an issue of it. She leaned forward and set her hand in his. It was warm and smooth-skinned and slender. He closed his fingers about it.

"I will find you again one day," he said, "and find some way to repay at least a part of the debt I owe you. There is no way to repay you for my life, of course."

"You owe me nothing," she said, and he was aware suddenly that the brightness of her eyes was caused by unshed tears.

He ought to have released her hand then and turned the subject. There must be any number of topics on which they might safely converse. He might have asked her to read more of Joseph Andrews. Instead he squeezed her hand more tightly.

"Come here," he said softly.

She looked rather startled for a moment, and he thought she would refuse-which would be just as well considering the level of tension in the room. But she got to her feet and came to sit on the side of the bed, all without relinquishing his hand.

She was far too close for comfort. There seemed to be less air in the room than there had been a short while ago. His nostrils were being teased by a fragrance that he realized he associated with her.

"Roses?" he asked.

"Gardenia." She was gazing down into his eyes, her own wide. "It is the only perfume I ever wear. My father used to give some to me every birthday."

He inhaled slowly.

"Do you like it?" she asked him, and it occurred to him suddenly that she was flirting with him in her own very subtle manner. Had she orchestrated the whole of this scene?

"I do," he told her.

He watched her lick her upper lip, her tongue moving deliberately from one corner to the other. He fixed his eyes on the movement. She had the softest, most kissable lips he had ever seen-at least, he thought she did, since it was something he could not be sure of.

"Miss York," he said, "I ought not to have invited you so close. I am about to take advantage of your kindness in coming to sit with me, I am afraid. I am about to kiss you. You had better scuttle back to your chair or even out through the door if you consider me impertinent or presumptuous."

If it was possible, her lovely eyes grew wider. Her cheeks grew pinker. Her lips, which she had just moistened, parted. But she did not move.

I do innocence very well, would you not agree?

She had spoken those words to him some time ago and he had agreed with them even then. Now he agreed a hundred times more.

"I do not consider you presumptuous." She spoke so softly that her words were a mere whisper of sound.

He released her hand and took her by the upper arms. They were covered with goose bumps, he could see. He rubbed his hands up and down them a few times and then drew her down. Her hands splayed across his chest as his lips touched hers.

He kissed her lightly, his lips moving over hers, at first closed and then parted. He licked her lips with his tongue and pushed it through to caress the warm, moist flesh behind. But it was not, of course, enough, and she made no move to cut the embrace short, as he half expected she would, to smile teasingly at him, and whisk herself off back downstairs to the paying customers-perish the thought.

He allowed a little more of his control to slip and deepened the embrace, wrapping his arms about her, drawing her bosom down against his chest, and kissing her more hungrily, his tongue pressing deep into her mouth. He could feel one of her narrow braids sway and tap against the side of his face. She was every bit as gorgeous as he had ever thought her. Even in such a relatively chaste encounter she was all soft, shapely, enticing woman.

And yet she kissed like an innocent at first, he noticed, her lips closed and slightly pouted and opening only at the prodding of his tongue. She was very alluring. The illusion of innocence mingled with the reality of her hot sexuality made for an explosive mix. He was far more aroused than it was comfortable to be under the circumstances. But for a while he was past caring.