Slightly Sinful (34 page)

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.

R ACHEL 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.

"It does not matter, Uncle Richard," she said. "It does not. He did not hurt you, and that is all that matters. I have never even seen the jewels. I will not miss what I have never had. I am almost glad they are gone."

"Perhaps you do not realize what a vast fortune was there," he said, his hand resting on her head. "How can I forgive myself for the deception I have perpetrated against you ever since you arrived here? I ought to have told you immediately. I ought to have sent in search of you as soon as I missed them."

"Uncle Richard," she said, "you know nothing about deception."

His hand smoothed over her hair. Jonathan at the window cleared his throat. Rachel's heart hammered against her ribs.

"If you were betrothed to Crawford or Crawley or whatever his name is," her uncle said into the silence, "then how-"

"Sir," Jonathan said, "it was Rachel who introduced Crawley to her friends. He took their life savings, with their blessing and hers, supposedly to invest the money safely for them at a London bank. Rachel blamed herself for their considerable loss and vowed to herself-without their knowledge-that she would pay them back every penny. To do that she needed her inheritance. She needed to sell a few pieces of the jewelry."

Rachel had closed her eyes.

"And what is your part in this, Smith?" Uncle Richard asked.

"I owe Rachel my life," Jonathan said. "She found me abandoned and close to death after the Battle of Waterloo and nursed me back to health. She needed a husband if she was to persuade you to allow her to have her inheritance early."

"And you are not her real husband?" Uncle Richard asked.

"No, sir."

It was unfair to allow him to do all the explaining after all, Rachel thought. She really had not intended for it to happen. But she kept her eyes closed. This whole ghastly morning seemed to have moved out of her control.

"Why not?" Her uncle's voice was low and stern.

"I regained consciousness to find myself without memory," Jonathan explained. "I know nothing about my past. I do not even know if I am married to someone else."

"You are not Sir Jonathan Smith, then?" Uncle Richard asked.

"No, sir," Jonathan said. "I do not know my real name."

"And you do not have an estate and fortune in Northumberland."

"No, sir."

"It was all my fault," Rachel said. "Jonathan felt he owed me his life, and he knew that I wanted to get my hands on my jewels more than anything else in life. And so he offered to help me. It is all my fault. Absolutely all of it. He is in no way to blame. But I could not keep up the deception, especially after last night. I never ever knew about the birthday gifts and the offer to send me to school and the offer to give me a Season. I thought you had completely forgotten about me. I thought you hated me. And I could not bear it when you gave me my aunt's necklace and earrings and then told everyone that you had decided to leave everything to me because you loved me. I came here this morning to confess everything to you. Jonathan insisted upon coming with me."

"Well, bless my soul," her uncle said after a short silence.

Then he did something so unexpected that Rachel jumped in alarm.

He started to laugh. At first it was a mere tremor that might have been fury, then it was a low rumble of sound that might have been a death rattle, and then it was a hearty bellow that was unmistakably laughter.

She sat back on her heels and looked up warily at him. But she had always found laughter infectious even when she did not know its cause. She certainly did not know the cause of this. But her lips twitched, she felt a giggle bubble up inside, and then she covered her face with her hands as she dissolved into laughter.