Slightly Sinful (7 page)

"What about the man downstairs?" Sergeant Strickland asked. "I were right about him, were I? He is a nob?"

"He is indeed a gentleman," Rachel told him.

"Who is he, missy?" he asked.

"He does not remember," she said.

He chuckled. "Knocked his memory clean out of his head, did he?" he said. "Poor devil. But if he is a nob, there will be plenty looking for him to claim him, mark my words. He may even have family right here in Brussels if they did not all run away before the fighting started as most of them did. They will be very willing to pay you all a sizable reward for saving him and caring for him, I daresay."

"But what if he never remembers who he is?" Phyllis asked.

"We could put an advertisement with his description in all the Belgian and London papers," Bridget suggested. "But that would take time and money and even then his people may not pay up."

"What we could do," Geraldine said, "is conceal his whereabouts when we do advertise, and hold him for ransom. We could demand more that way than if we merely asked for a reward. Keeping him won't be a problem, after all, will it? He does not possess a stitch of clothing apart from the nightshirt Bridge found for him. He can't run away unless he wants to be seen dashing naked down the street. And he won't be able to dash anywhere for a long time-not with that leg wound of his. Where would he go anyway? He does not even know his own name."

"I could make sure he don't run nowhere," the sergeant said.

"How much could we demand?" Bridget asked. "A hundred guineas?"

"Three," Phyllis suggested.

"Five," Geraldine said, sawing the air with one hand and slopping some of her tea into her saucer.

"I would not take a penny less than a thousand," Flossie said. "Plus expenses."

They all burst out into hearty laughter then, Rachel included. She knew, of course, that none of them was serious about the kidnapping scheme. Tough as they appeared to be, these ladies were soft at heart. Their inability to rob the dead out on the battlefield proved that.

"In the meantime," Phyllis said, "we will have to take his nightshirt away from him so that he can't escape so easily."

"And tie him to the bedposts," Flossie added. "All four of them."

"Ah, be still, my palpitating heart," Geraldine said, fanning her face briskly with the hand that had been waving in the air. "We won't be able to allow him any bedsheets either, will we? He might knot them together and escape out the window with them and then wear them like a Roman toga. I'll volunteer for double guard duty every day-and night."

"I'll stay after all," the sergeant said. "You will need my hefty muscles to carry in all the heavy bags of ransom money."

"We will be rich, William," Flossie said, tossing her head and setting all her curls to bouncing.

They all dissolved into laughter again.

"Seriously, though," Rachel said when their mirth had subsided, "his loss of memory could prove to be a serious problem, especially since it is going to be some time before he can walk again. He will have nowhere to go. But I know you are all eager to return to England soon, and so am I."

"We'll toss him out on the street when we are ready to leave, Rache," Geraldine said.

She was not serious, of course. They all knew that none of them would have the heart simply to abandon him.

If she could only gain access to her fortune, Rachel thought, she would be able to do far more than finance the search for Nigel Crawley, which she was not sure was such a practical idea anyway. She would be able to repay her friends all they had lost and restore their dream. She would be able to make it possible for them to retire and live the respectable lives they longed for. She would be able to salve her conscience for having caused their loss in the first place. And, of course, she would gain a welcome independence for herself.

But there was no real point in dreaming, she thought with a sigh.

"I am going down to check on the patient," she said, getting to her feet and setting her cup and saucer on the tray. "He may be awake and needing something."

W HEN ALLEYNE AWOKE AGAIN LATE IN THE afternoon, he was alone. He felt considerably better, though he dared not move either his head or his left leg. He guessed that his fever had subsided. He tried to be cheerfully nonchalant and practiced what he would say when one of the women came into his room.

"Ah, good afternoon," he would say. "Allow me to introduce myself, if I may. I am . . ." But although his mind remained alert and he smiled at the empty room and made a slow circling motion with one hand, the elusive name would not come.

How ridiculous to have forgotten his own name! What was the point of having survived by the skin of his teeth if he was to live the rest of his life as an anonymous nobody? Though it was foolish to start thinking that way yet, he decided, touching the bandage that was still about his head, trying gingerly to find the lump and feel how large it still was.

The door to his room opened and the golden angel-she was Rachel, though he could not call her that-came inside.

"Ah, you are awake," she said. "You were sleeping when I looked in earlier."

He smiled back at her and found that the expression no longer caused him agony. He spoke before he could think about it and lose his nerve.

"I just awoke," he said. "Good afternoon. Allow me to present myself, if I may. I am . . ."

But of course he ended up gaping foolishly at her, like a fish that had been removed from its pond and dangled in the air. His right hand, resting on the outside of the bedcovers, formed a tight fist.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Smith," she said with a light laugh, coming toward him with her right hand extended. "Mr. Jonathan Smith, did you say?"

"Perhaps," he said, forcing himself to chuckle with her, "it is Lord Smith. Or Jonathan Smith, the Earl of Wherever, or Jonathan Smith, the Duke of Somewhere."

"I should call you your grace, then, should I?" she asked him, her eyes twinkling at him as he took her hand in his and felt its slim smoothness at the same time as he became aware of the sweet, clean smell of her.

He appreciated the fact that she was encouraging him to laugh at himself. And why not? What was the alternative, after all? He closed his hand more firmly about hers and raised it to his lips. Her eyes slid from his for a moment, and he watched as her teeth sank into her lower lip. Ah, yes, she played the part of innocence consummately well. And no woman had any right to be this beautiful.

"Perhaps you had better not," he said. "It would be humbling to discover later that I am no duke after all, but a mere mister. I do not believe I am a Jonathan or a Smith, either."

"Shall I address you merely as mister, then?" she asked him, smiling again as she repossessed her hand and leaned over him to unwind the bandage from his head. She examined the damage he had done to himself without touching him. "The cut is no longer bleeding at all, mister. I believe it will be safe to leave off the bandage. If that suits you, of course, mister."

There was laughter in her eyes as she straightened up.

It felt good to feel the air against his head. He lifted one hand to run his fingers through his hair and realized ruefully that it was matted and badly in need of a wash.

"I must be Mr. Someone, though, must I not?" he said. "It would be eccentric not to be. What mother would christen her son Mister? But I really cannot be anyone as exalted as a duke or an earl. I would not have been fighting in that battle if I were. I must be a younger son."

"But the Duke of Wellington was fighting," she said.

Her eyes looked more green than hazel today, perhaps reflecting the color of her dress. She was looking down very directly into his eyes, humor twinkling in her own, though it seemed to him that he could see the warmth of sympathy there too. It was absurd to be feeling slightly breathless at her closeness, he thought, and wondered if he was normally such a mooncalf in his attitude to beautiful strangers. It was very stupid too. He still felt as if his body had been abandoned in the wake of a herd of stampeding elephants.

"Ah, yes, of course," he said, snapping the fingers of one hand. "Perhaps that is who I am. Mystery solved. I certainly have the nose for it."

"Except," she said, and he noticed for the first time the ultimate perfection of her face-a small dimple to the left side of her mouth, "that he would surely have been reported missing before now. You remember the Battle of Waterloo, then? That is what the battle is being called, I understand."

She had rolled up the bandage and set it down beside the bowl of water. She sat down, though she leaned a little forward in her chair so that he could still feel her nearness. It struck him that perhaps she was very expert indeed at her profession and was deliberately trying to enslave him. If so, she was succeeding.

"I do." He frowned and tried to concentrate upon some memory-any memory. But it was no good. "At least, I know that the battle was fought. I can remember the guns. They were deafening. No-actually they were worse than that."

"Yes, I know," she said. "We heard them from here. How do you know you have a nose like the Duke of Wellington's?"

He stared at her, arrested.

"Do I?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Geraldine called it an aristocratic nose."

She got to her feet and crossed the room to a chest of drawers while he watched her. Her very feminine figure had alluring curves and was far lovelier than that of many overslender girls who were considered fashionably beautiful-though she was not much more than a girl herself, at a guess. She opened one of the drawers and then turned back toward him, a small looking glass in one hand. He glanced warily at it and licked his lips nervously.

"You do not have to look," she said, nevertheless holding it out toward him.

"Yes, I do." He reached out a hand and took it warily from her. What if he did not recognize the face he saw? It would somehow be more terrifying than not remembering his name. But he had known that he had a big nose, and she had confirmed that he was right.

He raised the mirror and looked. His face was pasty pale. It was surely longer and narrower than the one he was accustomed to seeing. His nose seemed correspondingly more prominent. His dark hair was disheveled and oily. The dark stubble on his cheeks and chin would almost qualify as a beard. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. There were dark smudges beneath them. He looked unwell and he looked rough, but he knew the face. It was his own. He could have wept with relief. But as he gazed into his eyes, searching for answers in their depths, he could see nothing but blankness and an impenetrable barrier of anonymity.

It was like looking at himself and a complete stranger at the same time.

"I wonder you do not dash screaming from the room," he said as she seated herself again-he noticed that she sat like a lady, her spine not quite touching the back of her chair. "I look like a ruffian and a cutthroat-of the unwashed variety."

"You would need a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other to be really convincing, though," she said, tipping her head to one side and regarding him with smiling eyes again. "Thank heaven we have no guns in the house and Phyllis guards the kitchen knives with her life. Is it the face you expected to see?"

"More or less," he said, handing back the looking glass, "though I believe I usually look somewhat less disreputable. It is a face without a name, though, and so I had better take whatever is available. Jonathan Smith at your service, ma'am. That is Mister Jonathan Smith, by the way."

"Mr. Smith." She laughed lightly. "I am Rachel York."

"Miss York." He inclined his head in her direction and then wished he had not moved it. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance."

They stared at each other for a time, and then she got to her feet again and surprised him by seating herself on the side of his bed and reaching up a hand to touch his wound. He was very aware of the bare, creamy flesh above the low, square neckline of her dress and the beginnings of cleavage, most of which was hidden from sight below a lacy frill. He was aware of the faint fragrance of soap, and of her hair like a golden halo against the late afternoon sunshine beyond the window. He held his breath until he realized he could not do so indefinitely.

She was not just impersonally beautiful. She had him thinking of tumbled sheets and tangled limbs and sweat-soaked bodies. Trust his luck to land himself in a brothel without a penny to bless himself with.

"The cut is healing nicely," she said, her fingers cool against it and causing no unnecessary pain, "even though the surgeon did not stitch you up. The lump is going down, but it is still there." He could feel her touch it, her fingers feather-light.

And then she was looking, not at his wounds, but directly into his eyes from only a few inches away. The laughter was gone from her own, and he could see in them only warm sympathy.

"Give yourself time to heal," she said. "Everything will come back to you. I promise."

It was an absurd promise, since it concerned something quite outside her power to grant. But it comforted him, nevertheless. She gazed down at him and moistened her upper lip, corner to corner, with her tongue. Then she blushed rosily and got to her feet.