Slightly Sinful Read Free Page B

the fighting was, there will be nothing left for us."
    "I for one am going, Floss, even if I have to go alone," Geraldine said. "There will be rich pickings out there, I don't doubt, and I mean to have some of them. I mean to have money to go after that blackest of black-hearted villains with."
    No one seemed to consider the fact that if they could acquire a great deal of money in such a way they might simply use it to replace their loss and restore their dream and forget about the Reverend Nigel Crawley, who might be anywhere on the globe at that moment or within the next few days or weeks. But sometimes outrage and the need for revenge could take precedence even over dreams.
    "I have a client coming tomorrow afternoon-or this afternoon, I suppose I mean," Bridget said, crossing her arms beneath her bosom and hunching her shoulders. "Young Hawkins. I couldn't go out for more than a little while, and so it would not be worth my going at all, would it?"
    Her voice was shaking slightly, Rachel noticed.
    "And I won't go even though I don't have Bridget's excuse," Phyllis said, looking apologetic as she set down her cup and saucer. "I'm sorry, but I would fall into a dead faint at the first sight of blood, and then I would be useless. And I would have nightmares for the rest of my life and wake you all up every night with my screams. I probably will anyway at the very thought of it. I'll stay and answer the door to any callers while Bridget's working."
    "Working!" Flossie said with a groan. "Unless we do something about our situation, we are going to be working until we are old and decrepit, Phyll."
    "I already am that," Bridget said.
    "No, you aren't, Bridge," Flossie told her firmly. "You are in your prime. Lots of the young bucks still come to you from choice rather than to any of the rest of us, especially the virgins."
    "Because I remind them of their mothers," Bridget said.
    "With those tresses, Bridge?" Geraldine said with an inelegant snort. "I think not."
    "I don't make them nervous or afraid of being failures," Bridget explained. "I make it all right for them to be less than perfect their first few times. What man ever is perfect for a good long while, after all? And most never are."
    Despite herself, Rachel could feel herself blushing.
    "You and I will go, then, Gerry," Flossie said, getting to her feet. "I am not in the least afraid of a few dead bodies. Nor am I afraid of nightmares. Let's go and make our fortune and then let's make that Crawley fellow sorry his father ever looked at his mother with lust in his eye."
    "I would go too," Bridget said. "But young Hawkins insisted upon coming today. He wants me to teach him how to impress his bride when he marries in the autumn."
    Bridget was in her thirties. She had once been hired as Rachel's nurse by the child's widowed father, and the two had quickly grown as fond of each other as if they were mother and daughter. But Rachel's father had lost everything at the card tables-something that had happened with disturbing regularity throughout his adult life-and had been forced to let Bridget go. It was only a month or so ago that the two women had met again, quite by chance, on a street in Brussels, and Rachel learned what had become of her beloved nurse. She had insisted upon renewing their acquaintance despite Bridget's misgivings.
    Rachel suddenly surged to her feet without at all realizing that she was about to do so-or that she was about to say what she did.
    "I am going too," she announced. "I am going with Geraldine and Flossie."
    There was a chorus of comment as all attention turned her way. But she held up both hands, palms out.
    "I am the one mainly responsible for losing your hard-earned money," she said. "No matter what you all say to the contrary to try to make me feel better, that is the plain truth. Besides, I have a grievance of my own against Mr. Crawley. He gulled me into admiring and respecting him and even agreeing to be his bride. He stole from my