Slightly Sinful (41 page)

She gazed at him in horror then, her cheeks aflame, just as if the sun were beating down on their heads.

He laughed again, sat up, took her face in his hands, and kissed her.

"No," he said, "but it is not a bad idea, is it?"

She shrieked and pushed at his chest.

He cupped her chin in one hand and kissed her again.

"In fact," he said, "it is downright brilliant, Rache. Will you marry me, my love? You are my love, you know. You are my new life, and though I could live it without you, I would really rather not. Will you marry me?"

She pressed her mouth against his.

"Is that a yes, Rache?"

"Yes," she said.

He drew back his head and smiled at her, but totally without mischief this time. What she saw in the depths of his eyes took her breath away. She set a hand that was curiously trembling against the side of his face.

"I love you," she said. "I could live a contented and productive life here at Chesbury alone except for my uncle and my friends if I had to. But I would really rather you lived here with me, my love."

They gazed at each other with wonder and the beginnings of laughter.

"I spoke to your uncle before I came out looking for you," he said. "We will have the first banns called next Sunday, Rache, and think of some tale to tell the locals. We will set Strickland and the ladies to dreaming up something suitably hair-raising and convoluted. But it will be a month before we can celebrate our nuptials and I can carry you off to a respectable bridal bed. Can you wait that long?"

She shook her head and bit her lower lip.

"Good girl," he said, one hand against the back of her head. "Neither can I."

He kissed her again and brought her over on top of him as he lay back on the warm stone. It probably was not the most comfortable bed in the world-in fact, it undoubtedly was not-but they scarcely noticed any discomfort as they lost themselves in the sensual pleasure of making love.

And yet it was not quite a mindless encounter either. Rachel was very aware that just a few hours ago she had been telling herself that she could learn to be content without him, that perhaps in a couple of years she would be able to see him again without feeling too much pain. And she was very aware too of the heat of the day, of the rushing sound of the cascades, of birds singing.

They made hot, hungry, swift, lusty love. And afterward they lay side by side, warm and panting and relaxed, his arm beneath her head as they gazed up at the treetops and occasionally turned to smile at each other.

"How did you know I was alive?" he asked her.

"I touched you," she said. "I touched the side of your face and felt a slight warmth. And then I touched your neck and felt a pulse."

"You gave me life," he said. "New life. I said from the start, did I not, that I had died and gone to heaven and found a golden angel waiting for me there."

"But that was the second version," she reminded him. "In the first one you had died and gone to heaven and found it was a brothel."

He laughed and rolled over on top of her and kissed her breathless again.

CHAPTER XXIII

A LLEYNE HAD DECIDED UPON MORNING AS the best time of day to return to Lindsey Hall. Bewcastle was most likely to be at home then-if he was at home at all, that was. But it was late August, and he was unlikely to be in London.

They had stayed the night at an inn several miles away, since Alleyne did not want to be recognized, and so they had to leave soon after breakfast, he and Rachel. Bridget remained behind at the inn.

It was late in the morning of a lovely sunny day when their carriage approached the house. He felt a stab of recognition as soon as they entered the straight driveway with its elm trees lined up like soldiers on parade on either side. Setting his head close to the window, he could see the great house up ahead, and before it the circular flower garden with the fountain at its center.

He wished then that he had not eaten any breakfast. It sat uneasily in his stomach. It would not take much, he thought, to make him turn around and flee, never to return. It was really quite absurd, this reluctance to come home, to show himself to Bewcastle. It was as if he felt that because they had held a memorial service for him he ought to remain dead.

What he ought to have done was write to Bewcastle first, as Rachel had wanted him to do back in Bath.

And then he felt her hand warm in his own and turned his head to smile at her. Bless her heart, she did not say a word. She merely looked back at him with eyes so filled with love that he felt suddenly calmed. His old life was beginning to close about him again-the carriage had turned to circle around the fountain-but here was his new life beside him, and nothing could ever be the same again. Nothing and nobody could mean more to him than Rachel.

He vaulted out of the carriage as soon as it had drawn to a halt and the coachman had opened the door. He turned and handed Rachel down and tucked her hand beneath his arm. But he did not have to knock on the great double doors. They opened back, and Bewcastle's butler stepped out and to one side with great dignity and a deep, reverential bow and a look on his face that was almost, but not quite, a smile. And then he looked up and directly at Alleyne.

The half-smile vanished, his face turned sallow, and his jaw dropped.

"Good morning, Fleming," Alleyne said. "Is Bewcastle at home?"

Fleming had not been Bewcastle's butler for the past fifteen years for nothing. One could almost have counted the seconds-there would not have been more than ten of them-while he recovered from his silent shock. In the meantime, Alleyne was leading Rachel up the steps and into the great hall.

"Not at present, my lord," Fleming said.

But Alleyne had come up short just inside the doors. The great medieval hall, which had been one of his first returned memories, was being set for a banquet. Servants were bustling about, setting out dishes, arranging flowers, straightening chairs. More than one stopped to gawk at him until a silent signal from Fleming sent them scurrying back to work.

"His grace is-" the butler began.

But Alleyne held up a staying hand.

"Thank you, Fleming," he said. "He will be home soon?"

"Yes, my lord," the butler told him.

Something was about to be celebrated in grand style. There was a state dining room at Lindsey Hall. The great hall was used only for the rarest of festal events. The last time it had been used was for Freyja's wedding.

A wedding?

Bewcastle's?

But he would not take the simplest course of asking Fleming. He stood where he was, looking about him, more than ever thankful for the quiet comfort of Rachel at his side, her arm still through his.

They thought he was dead. They had held some sort of funeral for him. And then life had carried on for them. Today, only two and a half months after Waterloo, there was some event grand enough to be celebrated in this sort of style.

He asked himself if he felt hurt. How could life have continued on for them just as if he had never existed? But how could life have stood still for longer than two months? It had not for him. His life had moved on, and it seemed to him as if he had done more living, more growing, since Waterloo than he had done in all of the almost twenty-six years before it.

He had found Rachel during those months. He had found contentment and happiness and roots. He had found love.

He looked down at her.

"It is all very magnificent," she said. "I am quite awestruck."

He opened his mouth to say something in reply. But they both heard it together, over and above the bustle in the hall-the sound of horses' hooves clopping up the driveway and the rumble of carriage wheels. He closed his eyes briefly.

"I'll stay in here," she said. "Go out there alone, Alleyne. This is something you need to do alone. It will be something you will look back upon as one of the happiest days of your life."

It seemed unlikely to him when even now, several hours after he had eaten breakfast, he felt as if he were in danger of losing it. But he knew she was right. This was something he had to do alone.

He stepped out onto the terrace.

It was an open barouche, and there were two people sitting inside it, a man and a woman. At the same moment as they wrapped their arms about each other and kissed, heedless of anyone watching from the house, Alleyne saw the colored ribbons fluttering behind and the old boots dragging along the ground. It was a wedding carriage.

Bewcastle?

But as the conveyance turned onto the terrace and the couple drew apart, he saw that the man was not Bewcastle. He was-good Lord, he was the Earl of Rosthorn, the man who had hosted that picnic in the Forest of Soignés that Rachel had mentioned, the man who had been dangling after Morgan none too discreetly.

But that realization and that suddenly returned memory came and went in a flashing moment. For his eyes had alit on the woman, on the bride, and she was Morgan, all decked out in white with lavender trim.

He could no longer think at all. He could scarcely breathe.

She looked at him with bright, laughing eyes as the barouche drew to a halt-and then the smile froze on her face, her complexion turned deathly pale, and she scrambled to her feet.

"Alleyne," she whispered.

He had had a couple of weeks to prepare for the shock of this moment. But it was doubtful he felt it any less than she did. He opened his arms, and she somehow launched herself out of the barouche without first opening the door. His arms closed about her and held her to him for long moments. Her feet were not even on the ground.

"Alleyne, Alleyne." She kept whispering his name over and over as if she did not trust the evidence of her senses sufficiently to speak out loud.

"Morg," he said, setting her on her feet at last. "I could not miss your wedding, could I? Or the wedding breakfast at least. So you have married Rosthorn?"

The earl was descending from the carriage the more conventional way. But Morgan was still holding Alleyne and gazing into his face as if she could never look her fill.

"Alleyne," she said aloud. "Alleyne."

Perhaps in a few moments more she would have recovered sufficiently to say something more than his name. But the bride and groom had not been given much of a head start from the church. A whole cavalcade of carriages was proceeding up the driveway. The first of them was already circling the fountain and taking the place of the barouche, which the coachman had drawn away from the doors.

Everything was going to be all right after all, Alleyne thought. All the unfamiliarity, all the sense of disconnection, all the impersonality of his memories, had fallen away the moment Morgan had landed in his arms. He was back in his boyhood home, and by some strange chance he had arrived at a festive moment in his family's life, at a time when they would surely all be here.

He peered almost eagerly into the leading carriage and saw his grandmother with Ralf and Judith inside, and Freyja and Hallmere crowded in with them. Strangely, though, despite the fact that both Freyja and his grandmother looked fondly out at Morgan, neither of them looked at him. Ralf vaulted out and turned to hand down their grandmother, and Morgan called his name. He looked over his shoulder with a cheerful grin-and froze just the way she had done a minute or two ago.

"My God," he said. "My God. Alleyne!"

And he left their grandmother to fend for herself, closed the distance between himself and Alleyne, and caught him up with a whoop and a great bear hug.

There was a great deal of noise and confusion then as Rannulf's strange behavior drew everyone's attention to the man he was hugging with such enthusiasm. There were hugs and exclamations and questions and a few tears. Alleyne hugged his grandmother gently. She looked frailer and more birdlike than ever as she patted his cheek with one gnarled hand and gazed at him in wonder.

"My dear boy," she said, "you are alive."

Only Freyja had not been a part of that first flurry. But the others stood aside to let her through. She was looking at Alleyne with pale cheeks and haughty gaze. She strode toward him, and he opened his arms. But instead of coming right into them, she drew back her right arm and struck him hard on the jaw with her fist.

"Where have you been?" she demanded. "Where have you been?" And she launched herself at him, headfirst, and hugged him hard enough to squeeze the breath out of him. "I'll kill you with my bare hands. I swear I will."

"Free," he said, flexing his jaw, "you don't mean it. And if you do, I won't let you. I'll get Hallmere to protect me."

But suddenly Aidan and Eve and the children were there too, alighting from the second carriage, and both children launched themselves upon Alleyne with shrieks of delight while Eve stood with both hands over her mouth and her eyes huge. Aidan was not far behind the children.

"By God, Alleyne, you are alive," he said, stating the obvious as he drew his brother into his arms.

Alleyne did not believe he had ever been hugged more in his whole life.

He laughed and held up both hands as if to stave off the myriad questions that were being directed at him.