She lets him believe she is a lovely, innocent- looking prostitute. They nurse them both back to health, and Rachel begins to develop a special relationship with Alleyne. Instead of coming back with ill-gotten gains, they return with a one-eyed sergeant and the nearly dead Alleyne. They soon discover that they are far too tender-hearted for the gruesome task.

After Waterloo, they decide to go out and loot the dead. He robbed Rachel’s friends of their life savings, and she’d do nearly anything to help them get their money back. Instead, he traveled around stealing money. Rachel had been engaged to a minister who claimed to be collecting for charities. Rachel York was recently employed as a ladies’ companion in Brussels, but is now living with four friends who happen to be prostitutes. Looters strip his nearly lifeless body and leave him to die. After delivering the letter and receiving a reply, he is shot and then injured as he falls off his horse in the forest. Lord Alleyne Bedwyn is a diplomat sent to deliver a letter to Wellington during the Battle of Waterloo.

Fortunately, this particular hooker plot worked for me, though I did have some hang-ups about Balogh’s other themes – dishonesty and amnesia. Slightly Sinful, the latest entry in the Bedwyn saga, features a heroine who lives with four prostitutes and is originally assumed to be one of them. And Mary Balogh never met a prostitute plot she didn’t like. Brockmann likes vulnerable tough guys who just can’t get involved with their fellow team members. With Lisa Kleypas, it’s cross-class romance. Certain writers seem to have beloved premises that they revisit again and again.

Slightly Sinful by Mary Balogh