Slightly Sinful (36 page)

B ARON WESTON WAS RECOGNIZED AND GREETED BY A number of his acquaintances when he made an appearance in the Pump Room early the next morning. But it was his companions who aroused most interest since all of them, with the possible exception of Bridget, were young, and even she was a good twenty or thirty years younger than most of those who had come there to stroll and gossip and-in a few cases-drink the waters.

Flossie and Phyllis were soon borne off by a retired general, one on each of his arms, to walk about the room as he asked about their experiences with the armies and shared his own. Geraldine and Bridget were taken under the wing of a haughty dowager distinguished by a tall bonnet with a formidable array of plumes towering above it and a lorgnette that she used expansively as she talked, rather like a particularly flamboyant conductor of an orchestra with his baton. Rachel stood at the water table with her uncle and was made much of by a steady parade of fellow drinkers. Alleyne found himself in conversation with an elderly couple who claimed to know Smiths from Northumberland and persisted in trying to ascertain if they might be of the same family to which Sir Jonathan belonged.

Nigel Crawley did not put in an appearance. Not that Alleyne had ever met him to recognize him again. But he knew the man's description. A tall, blond, handsome youngish gentleman would not be difficult to spot amid the somewhat sparse crowd gathered in the Pump Room.

It was something of a disappointment given the feverish excitement of all the ladies as they had set out from the York House Hotel earlier. Once he had seen them back there for breakfast, Alleyne thought, he would walk over to Sydney Place to discover for himself if the man and his sister were still in residence there.

It was a lovely day and warm even so early in the morning. Those who had strolled in the Pump Room were in no hurry to return home. As if they had not conversed and gossiped enough indoors, many of them continued their conversations outside in the abbey yard. General Sugden was unwilling to relinquish the company of his two charming companions and regaled them with one more story of a battle in which he had figured as the conquering hero. The dowager trusted she would see Miss Ness and Miss Clover at the Upper Rooms one evening and invited them to take tea with her there. She hoped too that they would bring Baron Weston and his niece and Sir Jonathan Smith with them. Three ladies and two gentlemen detained the baron and Rachel, and the elderly couple who knew the Smiths from Northumberland suddenly recalled that they were actually Joneses-an understandable error on their part since for some reason Smith and Jones were names easily confused. They wanted to know if Sir Jonathan was acquainted with any of the Joneses from that county.

There must have been a morning service at the abbey. A small congregation of the faithful was spilling out into the yard and proceeding to do what the Pump Room crowd was doing-stand about in conversational groups. There was even some intermingling among the groups.

Included among the worshipers were a tall, blond, handsome gentleman and a fair-haired lady, whose hand was tucked beneath his elbow. With them was a group of four ladies of indeterminate age, all of whom were listening to what the blond gentleman was saying with identical looks of pious adoration.

Alleyne darted a quick glance at Rachel. But if he had felt any doubt at all, it disappeared when he saw the look on her face. Her eyes were riveted upon the man who had just stepped out of the church, and her face had paled. Alleyne looked quickly back at the man-at the very instant when his eyes alit on Rachel and perhaps on Weston too.

His smile vanished and he dipped his head forward and clutched the brim of his hat with his free hand, muttered something that must have been an excuse to the ladies, and turned sharply about, intent, no doubt, upon hurrying away.

"Leave me to handle this," Baron Weston said as Alleyne closed the distance between himself and Rachel and drew her arm firmly through his own.

But it was too late for any discreet handling of the situation. Phyllis had spotted her prey, and with a shriek she dashed away from the general's side when he was still midsentence and launched herself upon Crawley's back, her arms about his neck, her legs about his waist.

"Got you at last!" she cried. "You villain, you."

Flossie was not far behind.

"Well, if it isn't the Reverend Creepy Crawley," she said, and kicked him in the shin.

Geraldine had brought a parasol with her. She advanced upon him like an Amazonian warrior with a spear poised for action. She poked him in the ribs with the point of the parasol.

"Where is our money?" she demanded. "You black-hearted cur, you-what have you done with it? Speak out, man. I can't hear you."

"Oh, dear," Bridget said, hurrying along to join the fray, "you have dropped your hat, Mr. Crawley, and someone has stepped on it and ruined it." She knocked it from his head and jumped up and down on the fashionable, clearly expensive hat until its tall crown crumpled flat and was gray with dust.

For a few moments the numerous spectators to this spectacularly vulgar display formed a silent, motionless tableau about it. And then everyone moved and spoke at once.

The general advanced with his stout cane to the rescue of his ladies; the dowager with the lorgnette blessed her soul and looked about for acquaintances with whom to share the delicious scandal of the moment; strangers materialized, seemingly out of nowhere, to fill the yard; the fair-haired lady screeched for help; the four besotted churchgoers wailed and screamed and beseeched his four attackers to release their dear Mr. Croyden; the attackers paid them no attention; Alleyne and Rachel and the baron approached closer; and the victim of the attack went on the offensive.

"Far be it from me to condemn anyone, being a man of the cloth who loves all humanity as our Lord did," he managed to say while trying to deflect the parasol point and dislodge Phyllis from his back-and while every member of the audience tried to shush every other member, "but these four women ought not to come within a mile of so genteel a place. It is not seemly. They are all whores."

The general's cane was obviously more effective than Geraldine's parasol. Crawley winced when it connected with his middle, and let out an inelegant grunt of pain.

"Such remarks as that, young man," the general said sternly, "invite pistols at dawn."

The crowd had fallen silent, unwilling, no doubt, to miss a single word that passed lest they be unable to spread an accurate account of the incident among fellow citizens who were unfortunate enough to be absent.

"They are," Crawley insisted. "I am almost sorry now that I befriended them in Brussels, where they ran a brothel. But such is the nature of love of all mankind that our Lord taught us-and womankind too."

"Where is our money, you rascal?"

"You lying, thieving toad, you."

"You stole our money, and you are jolly well going to account for every penny of it."

"And you stole Rachel's jewels. I'll scratch your eyes out!"

All four of the ladies spoke at once.

There was a swell of sound in the abbey yard, its nature shocked and indignant, its sympathy tending toward the handsome clergyman and against the ladies who were certainly not behaving like ladies.

And then Crawley's eyes alit upon Rachel again, and they filled with malice. He drew himself up, shedding Phyllis from his back as he did so, and stretched out one accusing arm, finger pointed.

"And her," he said while half the crowd made shushing noises and the other half fell silent and all turned their eyes upon Rachel. "She is one of them too. She is nothing but a whore."

Although Rachel was neither the wife nor the widow of an army colonel, the general out of sheer gallantry might have subjected Crawley to another poke with his cane for the insult. But Alleyne elbowed him aside. He did not consider the fact that Crawley was only an inch shorter than himself and probably weighed as much as he did. He gripped the lapels of the man's coat and hauled him upward and inward.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked through his teeth.

Crawley grappled with his hands and tried to return his heels to the ground, but to no avail.

"I did not hear your answer," Alleyne told him. "Speak up. To whom were you referring a moment ago?"

"I fail to see what business it is of-"

Alleyne shook him like the rat he was.

"To whom were you referring?" he asked again.

A pin might almost have been heard to drop in the abbey yard.

"To Rachel," Crawley said.

"To whom?" Alleyne hauled him a little higher and a little closer.

"To Miss York," Crawley said.

"And what did you say of her?"

"Nothing," Crawley said, his voice higher pitched.

There was another murmur of sound, quickly hushed.

"What did you say?"

"I said she was one of them," Crawley said.

"And that is?" Alleyne moved his head a little closer so that they were virtually eyeball to eyeball.

"A whore," Crawley said.

Alleyne punched him squarely in the nose and had the satisfaction of seeing blood ooze from the man's nostrils.

The fair-haired lady screamed. So did the entourage of ladies who had exited the church with her and her brother.

"Perhaps," Alleyne said, hauling Crawley closer again, "you would care to amend your statement. What is Miss York?"

Crawley mumbled something nasally as he tried in vain to get his hands close to his nose.

"I cannot hear you," Alleyne barked at him.

"A lady," Crawley muttered. "She is a lady."

"Ah," Alleyne said. "You lied, then. And Mrs. Streat, Mrs. Leavey, Miss Ness, and Miss Clover?"

"Ladies too." Blood was dripping from Crawley's chin onto his snowy white cravat. "They are all ladies."

"Then they have a champion four times over," Alleyne said, and hit him four more times, twice with each fist, two to his jaw, one more to his nose, and the final one to his chin.

Crawley went down without throwing a single punch in his own defense. He lay on the ground, propped on one elbow, cradling his nose with one hand and weeping noisily from the pain.

Most of the spectators were inclined to applaud, even to cheer. A few, most notably the ladies who had been with Crawley, were shocked and indignant on his behalf and called upon everyone else to bring a constable. No one took any notice, perhaps because no one wanted to miss a single moment of the show.

The audience had turned to him for the next move, Alleyne realized as his cold fury subsided somewhat and he became aware of his surroundings. He turned his head to look at Rachel. She was standing a short distance away, Weston's arm about her shoulders, pale and wide-eyed and gazing at him.

"Well done, Sir Jonathan," Weston said. "If I were twenty years younger, by God, I would have milled him down myself."

"I believe this man is known in Bath as Nicholas Croyden," Alleyne said, addressing the crowd and raising his voice so that everyone could hear him. "He was known as Nigel Crawley in Brussels before the Battle of Waterloo and as Nathan Crawford when he visited Chesbury Park and its neighborhood in Wiltshire shortly after. But wherever he goes, he pretends to be a clergyman devoted to humanity and works of charity. He solicits donations for his nonexistent charities and, when opportunity presents itself, he robs his victims outright."

"No!" the fair-haired lady cried. "That is not true. My brother is the kindest, most loving man in the world."

"Shame!" the lady next to her said, addressing Alleyne. "I would trust my whole fortune and my very life with dear Mr. Croyden."

"These ladies," Alleyne said, indicating the four friends, who looked as if they were enjoying themselves enormously, "were robbed of their life savings when Crawley promised to deposit the money at a London bank for them."

"And I did it too," Crawley protested, fumbling in a pocket for a handkerchief. "I deposited every penny."

"And he robbed Miss York of all her money," Alleyne continued.

"She gave it to me for safekeeping," Crawley said, "and then she ran away back to those wh-, back to those ladies to spread her lies. I have it safely set aside to return to her."

"These are serious accusations, Sir Jonathan," the general said. "Perhaps you ought to send to the bank in London where Croyden says he deposited the money."

"Miss York trusted him enough at that time," Alleyne continued, "to inform him that she possessed a fortune in jewels, which were in her uncle's keeping until her twenty-fifth birthday. Crawley's first destination after landing in England was Chesbury Park, where he ingratiated himself with Baron Weston, accepted a donation from him for one of his charities, and then came back during the night to steal the jewels."

There was a loud swell of outrage.

"If any of those jewels are discovered at Crawley's lodgings," Alleyne said, "then I believe it will be safe for everyone here to assume that he is the thief I say he is. I intend to accompany him to those rooms without further delay."

Weston cleared his throat.

"Miss Crawford-or Crawley or Croyden-is wearing a brooch from the collection," he said.