CHAPTER SIX #2
“I have false pride?” Raith sat up, dropping his hand, and shifting to face her, hardly aware as he did so that he effectively removed the maimed side from her immediate view. “I will be glad if you will tell me how you know so much, when we have been married a bare day or two.”
An impatient sigh came. “What has time to do with it? Today you came to me with a mouthful of gentle sentiment. Yet when I ask you for this one thing, you will not oblige me.”
Was she still at that? Had she not seen enough? “You did not ask. You took it. To my cost.”
“Yes, and for that I am deeply regretful.” She was pulling at the ends of those unquiet fingers of hers where they lay in her lap and his gaze riveted upon them. “But I am asking you now, Raith. It can only be pride that will not let you give in to me.”
Raith groaned. This was so unfair. How she played upon his feelings. “Rosina, I beg of you, change your seat tomorrow to the other side.”
The coal-black eyes registered acute disappointment, and her lip quivered. “If you so command me, my lord, I must obey.”
Raith reached out and grasped her restless fingers, holding them still. He spoke softly withal, the menace almost a caress. “How dare you put me at so vile a disadvantage, you unprincipled wretch?”
A tiny smile curved her lips. “Well, but you are there sir, and by your own effort.”
He had to smile. “You are in the gravest danger, my lady. You should learn to mistrust my temper.”
Rosina’s eyes softened, and his heart lurched. “My lord, it is my pleasure to obey you in all things, before you order me. I have already learned it.”
A spontaneous laugh was surprised out of Raith and he released her. She got up, and he followed suit.
“I will go to bed, sir. My sleep these last nights has given me little of rest, and I am sorely in need of it.”
Her smile was all too alluring. He saw it with a rise of expectation, though her words belied it. Was it an invitation? He spoke at random, the most obvious thing. “You must be tired.”
“Somewhat. I am unused to be in so vast a chamber quite alone.”
What in thunder did that mean? Nothing, in all probability — bar what his fervid desire wished to make it. He offered his arm. “Allow me to escort you to the stairs.”
She took it, but with a laugh. “I dare say I could find my way. Or is that another of the formalities obtaining in my new status?”
Raith led her to the door. “Do you find it so formal?”
“Excessively.”
“Enlighten me. What is the difficulty?”
“For one thing, the business of having a maid. My previous situation has made me apt to consider more the convenience of the servants than my own. Then, too,” she added, as they entered the lobby, “there is the elaborate arrangement of a bedchamber, a dressing room and that antechamber that must be crossed before —”
She broke off abruptly, as if she was suddenly conscious of her words.
Even in the gloom of the hall he saw colour creep into her face.
She took her hand from his arm and made a dash to the stairs where she turned, regarding him with an expression he could not read.
A smile, a quick “Goodnight,” and, picking up her skirts, she was gone.
Raith watched her flee up the stairs with an increased tempo in his pulse.
Was it possible? Could she truly have been indicating a wish for his attentions?
It might have been a slip. He had noticed Rosina was apt to let her tongue run away with her, and stop in haste when she realised she was giving away what she had rather not.
But his own yearning was so strong that his instinct of caution wavered.
Prudence dictated he hold aloof a while longer.
For all her protestations of willingness to endure his grotesque countenance, it must take a high degree of courage to undergo the intimacies of the marriage bed.
A difficult enough experience for any young wife.
In their situation, it must be an ordeal Rosina dreaded.
Hell and damnation! Swinging away from the stairs, he went quickly towards the one habitable saloon, with the intention of ringing for Kirkham to bring him brandy. On arrival, he found the butler already there, placing a tray upon the table by one of the chairs near the fire.
“Your port, my lord. I thought perhaps you would be more comfortable in here.”
Raith thanked him, deciding that port was quite as effective, and less obnoxious. It would hardly ease the difficulty if he were to go to Rosina reeking of brandy. He cursed himself, and seized the bottle and a glass.
“I will serve myself, Kirkham. Go to bed.”
The butler bowed and withdrew, leaving Raith to pace the length and breadth of the saloon, absently sipping at the glass which he was nursing between his hands.
In the heat of his imagination, he had taken infinite enjoyment in the image of Rosina’s face, watching her responses, which must undoubtedly be as unlike reality as one could well imagine.
He might forgo that pleasure. Do the thing in the dark?
It would spare her blushes. He need not see the efforts she would make to conceal her aversion.
Also, she would have the advantage of not seeing him.
A ripple of distaste went through him. She would not see, but she would feel.
If he kissed her, she could not avoid the abrasion of his ridged cheek.
The thought of kissing her threw spasms of want into his loins.
Raith crossed to the tray and refilled his glass, tossing off the wine.
Enough! He could not do it, and there was an end.
But the argument persisted in his head, and he remained downstairs for a further half-hour, with a vague thought at the back of his mind that if he left it late enough, Rosina would be asleep. Only a monster would then disturb her.
When his valet had completed preparing him for bed, however, he dismissed the man before climbing between the sheets. “That will do, Paulersbury. Goodnight.”
The valet bowed. “Very good, my lord. May I suggest a bed-gown, if your lordship intends to remain out of bed? The night is chill.”
When the man produced a silken morning gown with a handsome blue print, Raith felt his cheeks darken.
Paulersbury had guessed his intent. Of course he must present himself before his bride decently clad.
It took all his resolution not to snatch it from his valet and throw it aside.
He allowed the fellow to assist him to don the thing, and then paced impatiently about his bedchamber as he waited for the valet to finish dealing with his clothing in the dressing room.
At last he heard Paulersbury’s discreet cough, and the click of the outer dressing-room door that let on to the corridor.
Yet now the way was free to Rosina’s bedchamber, Raith still hesitated.
She would be asleep by this time. What was he doing, pursuing this course tonight?
Only if he did not, perhaps he might disappoint her expectation, if she had indeed meant to issue a guarded invitation.
Bracing himself, Raith took up the single candle from the bedside table, and went through to the antechamber.
Stealthily he opened the door to Rosina’s dressing room.
He listened within, but could hear no sound.
The door opposite was shut, but a gleam under it indicated there was light within the bedchamber. She was expecting him!
Touching a hand to his cheek in a conscious gesture, he softly opened the door. To his dismay, its hinges protested with a mild shriek, and he quickly entered the room, shutting the door again with unprecedented haste.
He turned. The bed-curtains were drawn back, and by the candlelight that came from one side, he could see Rosina sitting up in bed, an open book in her hands, staring across at him.
She was without a nightcap, her dark hair falling about her shoulders.
Her bosom rose and fell rapidly, and Raith broke quickly into speech.
“Am I disturbing you?” No, that was stupid. Of course he was disturbing her. And with intent. “Don’t be alarmed!”
Rosina was more than alarmed. She was frozen with terror. He had come! In an instant, she forgot how she had worried that he might, after her incautious words. Forgot, too, how she had persuaded herself into believing he would not.
An image sprang into her mind. The dread image that had haunted her these many weeks. Her guardian, stumbling through her bedchamber door, the candelabrum in his hand lighting up the coarse, drink-sodden features.
For a hideous moment, she did not see Raith. She was back in her drab little room, in the house where she ought to have been inviolate, with Herbert Cambois — come, he said, sputtering the words, to teach her what awaited her in the future he planned for her with that hateful man.
Her breath pumped as she stared at him, and a measure of sense returned. This was not her guardian. This was Raith. He would not fall sobbing on to her bed, and crawl his loathsome way towards her. That was past. This was her legitimate husband. He had a right.
Raith had not moved from the door. She looked away from him, snapped shut the book, and laid it quickly aside, sitting up. But her jangling nerves would not settle, and her fingers travelled without fully realising it, over her bosom to the back of her neck.
“F-forgive me. You s-startled me,” she managed to say, aware her voice quivered.
Raith’s expression changed and he came quickly to the bed, laying his candle down. Next moment, he was seated beside her, taking her trembling hand into his warm clasp.
“Don’t, Rosina! Don’t be afraid. I will do nothing to frighten you, I promise. You have only to say the word, and I will retire again this instant.”
“It — it is not you, Raith. Pray — pray don’t leave me.”