CHAPTER FOUR #2
“She could not, for she had a weak chest, and Papa would not permit her to endure the rigours of campaigning.” Lost in her own tale, Rosina almost forgot to whom she spoke.
“Mama knew her own frailty, and with the dangers attendant upon my father’s profession, she saw to it that my guardianship was assured. ”
“Who was your guardian?”
Rosina started, looking round abruptly. She might have known she would make a slip.
Her breath caught, and she wished fervently she had not so foolishly begun on this course.
Why could she not have left him to his close-tongued reserve?
But she was giving herself away every second that she refrained from answering.
“My — my mother’s cousin. At least — not her, but her husband.
” She did not dare look at him, for fear her disgust and hatred would show in her face.
“When I went to him, Gatty bought a little cottage. I took refuge —” She stopped with a gasp, and hastily corrected herself.
“I mean, I went to her there … after his death.”
She fell silent, and Raith eyed her profile with a good deal of misgiving.
Had he not suspected all along the apparent commonplace of her story?
What in thunder had occurred? The guardian must be the key.
That he was dead, Raith highly doubted. Refuge, she had said.
One did not take refuge from a dead man.
The suspicion filtered into his mind that he had taken to wife a runaway.
Rosina could have cursed herself for inadvertently letting out so much. That was what came of making conversation. She resolved not to do so in future. But it appeared she had aroused the curiosity of her husband.
“Why did you not go to your father’s family?”
A shadow crossed her face. “The Charltons did not approve the marriage, for they considered Mama to be beneath them.”
“Surely they would not visit his mistake upon you?”
“My mother’s cousin did not think so either. I did write, at her instigation, when I was eighteen. I received no reply.”
“It would seem you have been unfortunate in your relatives. Was your guardian at least good to you?”
Rosina’s pulses jangled. Heavens, how could she answer him? To say anything at all would be to invite further question, yet more probing. How could she extract herself? One thing she decided: if Lord Raith chose to be inaccessible in future, she would not attempt to lure him out.
She avoided the question. “His wife was a friend to me.” Then she yawned ostentatiously. “I beg your pardon, my lord, but I am still a trifle tired. You will not mind if I sleep?”
“Not at all.”
As little as he believed in his own pretence did Raith believe in this. She had betrayed too much, and now she was withdrawing. If he had hoped to catch her out, he had been cleverly deflected. She was determined to be secretive. He foresaw a string of stilted interchanges between them.
When they stopped at Itchington Bishops a short while later — Raith as little fooled by Rosina’s artless awakening as he had been by her pretence of sleep — he was disheartened to discover that he had been right.
The consciousness of distance gnawed at him all through the simple luncheon at the Hart and Hounds.
His wife made play with a selection of patties and fruit, which conveniently prevented her from engaging in anything but the most desultory remarks.
The weather was inclement enough to provide food for some of them, the state of the roads and the distance still to be covered offered the rest. Raith found himself irritated beyond words, although he initiated no subject himself.
On the whole, he was glad his lady chose to pretend sleep for much of the remainder of the journey. Had they attempted to talk, he knew he must have been provoked into ill-temper. He could see nothing for it but to keep well out of her way.
Rosina had reached much the same conclusion.
It had not been easy to remain aloof. Were it not for her dread of revealing anything more, she might have burst out a number of times.
It seemed to her that, under the calm exterior, Lord Raith smouldered.
She could feel it emanating from him, like a black fog.
It was almost as if the bitterness exposed in him last night was now directed at her.
She was nettled the most by the deliberate manner of his choosing always to place himself to her right, that she might see as little as possible of his rent face.
He did so when he escorted her into the inn, and again when he took a seat at the table.
Had he not gone to elaborate lengths to hide the thing from her, Rosina was convinced she would not have given it a thought.
The initial shock over, she was growing as readily used to it as one did to any new countenance.
Several times she was obliged to bite her tongue on a protest. It would be better, she decided, if they were not too often together.
She could only hope her new abode would prove large enough to allow her to avoid him.
It was dusk by the time her husband told her that they were turning into the gates of his home. But there was still light enough for Rosina to see that her hope was not misplaced.
Raith Manor was a huge grey mansion, standing foursquare to the long, open approach.
It had an air of total isolation. Shuttered windows, bare grainy walls, discoloured in places.
A huge arched frontage stood out from the central section that was slightly inset to the square bays at either side.
Black wooden double doors opened directly on to a stone-flagged porch almost level with the ground.
To either side was a mass of lumped trees, like a hungry forest, bushy even in their sparse winter garments, stretching away into distant acres.
Bleakest of all, where green lawns should have been, lay a sodden sea of black that gave off an acrid stench. Gazing in growing dismay from the chaise window, Rosina perceived that the whole area was covered in ash.
“I must apologise for the state of the place,” said Raith, as the chaise came to a stop before the entrance doors. “I hope soon to remedy some, at least, of its ills, now that you have enabled me to obtain control of my fortune.”
Rosina could find nothing to say in answer to this. The chaise door was opened and the steps let down. An elderly male servant was waiting to hand her out.
“My lady,” he said, bowing.
The oddity of being thus addressed upon her arrival was swallowed up by the realisation that the servants had gathered on the porch. She climbed down from the chaise, staring in perturbation at the little knot of persons in uniform. What was she supposed to say to them all?
“I am Kirkham, the butler, my lady.”
“How do you do?” she murmured, glancing back almost instinctively to Lord Raith, as if seeking guidance. He had jumped down, and came forward to offer his arm.
“This will not take long,” he said quietly, and to the butler, “Good evening, Kirkham. Be so good as to make the introductions, if you please.”
Rosina felt like a fraud as she was drawn to the porch and presented to a gaunt, harassed-looking woman in black, who turned out to be the housekeeper.
There were two footmen, three maids and a cook, besides a few others of evidently too menial a station to be given more than a wave of the hand, together with the cryptic addendum that they were from “below stairs”.
Rosina’s mind became fully taken up with the impossible idea that this gallant little band comprised the entire domestic staff.
How could so few possibly manage to care for a house this size?
She knew enough of housekeeping to be appalled at the amount of work they must each accomplish.
Within minutes, she had entered a draughty hall, and the domestics had dispersed, with the exception of Mrs Fawley, who was detailed to show her to her personal quarters, while Lord Raith went off with the butler.
Rosina did not know whether to be glad or sorry to have been deprived of his support.
But as she followed the housekeeper through the hall into a central lobby, and began to mount the stairs there to the upper floors, she could only be thankful her husband was not there.
She doubted whether she could have disguised the crushing despair that gripped her.
The place was so empty! It was clean enough, but austere. She caught glimpses through doors of draped huddles — of furniture? The walls were painted rather than papered, in muted tones. From the few framed pictures hanging from them stared disapproving ancients from classical myth.
In the bedchamber to which she was led, however, an effort had been made to create a homely atmosphere.
There was a fire in the grate; a vase of greenery dotted with a tiny collection of flowers had been placed upon a wide bulky table set in the window embrasure which fronted the dead lawns; and a painting depicting a lady on horseback in a charming landscape had been placed upon one of the walls.
“The master chose this one to be put in here, my lady,” offered Mrs Fawley, coming to stand behind her as she examined the painting. “It’s his lordship’s mother on the horse.”
Rosina looked at the woman with new interest. But the features were too indistinct in the gathering darkness for her to be able to make out any resemblance. She was intrigued by the thought of Lord Raith having made this choice, however, and resolved to look at it more closely in daylight.
She turned back into the room, and felt her spirits drop.
No amount of prettifying could serve to alter its depressing solidity.
The walls were drab, the bed hefty and old-fashioned with a high ornate tester and thick turned posts, its blue velvet curtains heavy and dark, matching the drapes at the windows.
The housekeeper moved to an inner door by the outer wall. “Your ladyship’s dressing room is through here.”