CHAPTER NINE #2
“You t-took a wife from ad-advertisement. You c-cared only for the advantage of your f-fortune. Now, because you choose to — to set store by some incautious w-words that I let fall, I am made the — the scapegoat of your jealous fury!”
Raith followed her a step or two, his face ravaged by some emotion she could not recognise. Yet his tone was defensive. “Do you think I want to believe it? Rosina, can you not see how I am tortured by these doubts?”
“Doubts!” she echoed, husky now, the words coming thick and fast as the dam of anguish burst the barriers of her characteristic diffidence.
“Do you not see how your doubting tortures me? If there were any truth in that tenderness with which from time to time you move me, with which you touch my heart, there would be no room in you for doubting. But it is false — and I hate you for it, Anton!”
His face paled, its pallor visible even in the candlelight as he moved towards her. “Rosina —”
“Do not come near me!” She dashed the welling tears from her eyes, backing away. “I do not w-want to hear your cozening words, your soft approaches. They can mean nothing, or you would have faith.”
Raith stopped short. “Blind faith? Is that what you expect?”
“I expect nothing. I have been given nothing.”
“How can you say so? Is my regard nothing?”
“What regard? You have no regard for me, but only for yourself. And for your arrogant pride.”
“Is it arrogance that a man should wish to assure himself that his wife is chaste?”
“It is arrogance to assume otherwise.”
“I do not assume it!”
“But you suspect it, and that is enough!”
She saw his fingers reach up to writhe in his hair, as if exasperation tormented him. “Devil take you, woman! That you persist in this refusal to enlighten me can only increase my doubts. Why cannot you see that, Rosina?”
She gave a mewl of equal frustration, throwing her hands to her face. “Heavens, but you are blind! Raith, if you doubt me, you will do so whatever I tell you, unless you have certain proof. Can you deny it?”
Her wrist was taken and he tugged her close, a blaze in his eyes. “I deny it utterly, though I well might have fallen to so base a level. I have been too many times betrayed by the perfidy of women. You play the innocent all too convincingly, but so may the lowest strumpet!”
The breath was stopped in Rosina’s throat.
A white heat of rage drove the blood coursing through her veins.
There was no thought in her action. One hand was imprisoned, but she pulled back a little.
Driving with the whole force of her other arm, she dealt her husband a ringing slap, full on his scarred right cheek.
Raith reeled with the blow, releasing her, his hand flying to his cheek. He turned astounded eyes upon his wife. “Why, you vicious little vixen!”
Rosina threw up both hands as he advanced. “Strike me at your peril! You have deserved that of me.”
Turning, she whisked herself through the door into her dressing room. With shaking fingers, she turned the key in the lock, and then leaned against the door, panting and spent.
Rosina watched the departing coach from the window of the saloon.
The local pastor was the third caller she had received in the last few days.
She was relieved to have rubbed through the ordeal of explaining her non-appearance at church, and could not help reflecting that the absence of her spouse had provided an adequate excuse.
Besides, had he been here, she would have been so wrought up she could not have thought of anything intelligent to say.
She dreaded his return, each day expecting the evil hour could not be any longer delayed.
How was she to find the courage to face him?
It seemed incredible that here she was in November, almost two weeks a wife, with no idea where her husband was, or how much longer he meant to be away.
She knew only that the last she had seen of him had been his face of thunderous astonishment after she had struck at it.
How had she dared? Her heart misgave her whenever she thought of it.
Her moment of triumph had been short-lived.
Within a very few minutes of that fatal impulse, every ounce of courage had dissipated with the realisation of what she had done.
She remembered the sag of her knees, the sudden horrific thought of the pregnable outer doors.
Terror had gripped her at the fierce inevitability of Raith’s revenge.
She had flown to the door that gave on to the corridor from her dressing room, and locked it with frantic fingers. It had not been enough. Her bedchamber.
Her feet had grown wings as she sped through, fleet as the wind, in her mind a startled question.
Was there even a key? Her relief, on discovering it in the lock, was stupendous.
She had fallen upon it, and had such extreme difficulty in making it turn, that she cried aloud in her frustration and haste.
Once secured within her own apartments, Rosina backed from the door to sink down upon the bed, her pulse fluttering wildly in her throat, listening intently for the sound of her husband’s approach.
But no footsteps disturbed the eerie quiet of the night.
There was no rattling at any of the door handles.
She sat for a long while, mumchance, while the teeth chattered in her head, and her whole frame quivered and shook as she cursed and lamented that hideous loss of temper, and wondered at her own foolhardy audacity.
Actually to hit Anton! Had she run mad? What brazen defiance had driven her to so insane a proceeding? Oh, but he would make her suffer for it!
But when it appeared that there was to be no immediate reprisal, Rosina collapsed in a heap on the coverlet, the inevitable tears coursing down her cheeks. Dismayed guilt warred with dread, buoying her defences.
How could she have done it to him? She had not meant it.
No, that was a lie. She had. He should not have driven her so hard.
But what had induced her? Never in her life had she lost herself to such an extreme.
Only, how could she bear it? Recalling his words, she broke into a fresh storm of weeping.
Oh, but it was shameful of him! To equate her so cruelly with a woman of that sort.
But here the deep voice of conscience prodded her.
Raith had the right to expect purity of his wife.
What he could not know was that if she had not been, if that evil pair had succeeded in their base design, Rosina would never have given herself in marriage.
Not to any man, let alone one whose bruised spirit commanded the tenderest promptings of her heart.
A fresh deluge of tears accompanied this thought.
He ought to have trusted her. Cruel of him to withstand every impulse that bade him overcome his doubts.
She could not but recognise the portent.
He could not possibly care enough. Let him not therefore speak of his regard.
How could he use her so? She was glad she had assaulted him!
But this fierce resurgence of spirit could not long endure.
She knew she had been wrong to do it, bitterly wrong.
She could not wonder at her spouse’s furious intent of retaliation.
She had balked him for the moment. But for how long?
Unless she were to run away — which was not an option that recommended itself, for where could she go?
— she foresaw that she was doomed to run the gauntlet of his vengeance.
The best she could pray for was for the night to cool him, and mitigate the manner of it.
It was long before she was able to rouse herself to get between sheets.
Even longer before she slept. For whatever hopes she might secretly have cherished for the resolution of the difficulties of her marriage were at an end.
Whether or not Raith chose to punish her, he would never forgive her.
If he could allow the blow, how could he forget the place where it had struck?
She had dealt it to him at his most vulnerable point, and he was bound to suppose she had done so on purpose.
Her dreams had been unhappy, full of ill-omened fragments where Anton and she were ever at outs.
Except once, when she had dreamed that he kissed her, and been awakened by a heavy-handed knocking at her door.
She started up in alarm, the remnants of the dream fading, to be replaced by the cruel memory of last night.
For a dreadful moment, she imagined her husband was come at last, to take his revenge. The vision in her head was armed with a vengeful stick. Her voice cracked.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, my lady. Joan.”
Relief flooded her, and she struggled out of bed, and staggered across to unlock the door.
“Why, my lady, are you ill?” the girl asked, bobbing.
Rosina seized at the straw. “Yes. At least, I am faint and I have the headache. I will remain in my bed.”
She accepted with gratitude her maid’s assistance to clamber back between her sheets, for she did indeed feel dreadfully weak.
She had lain there all day, afraid to get up for fear of encountering her lord.
No message or demand had come from him, and she had not dared to ask concerning his whereabouts.
She could only hope he had gone out about the business of the estate, as usual.
By the following morning, however, she’d had time enough to screw up her courage. How she was to face him, she knew not, but the thing must be done. Better to do it sooner rather than later.
Nevertheless, she got up late, and dallied over her toilette, dreading the moment of meeting. Then, when she came down to breakfast, her pulse jumping with fright, she did not know whether to be glad or sorry at the news with which Kirkham greeted her enquiry.
“His lordship, my lady? Why, he has been gone since yesterday.”
A hollow opened up inside her, and her blood seemed to stop. ”Gone? Gone where?”