CHAPTER ELEVEN #3
Within ten minutes he was astride his mount, cantering cross-country, making for the bridle path that led over some three miles to Kington. He had taken a snap decision, but as he rode, he had leisure to find justification for it.
If he had felt murderous towards Rosina last night, he was now doubly so, but towards Forteviot.
He might have broken the seal and read the letter.
As her husband, he had the right. What man would not choose to read a letter penned by his wife to another man?
And one of whom he entertained the gravest suspicions?
He might have confronted her, but that would make her even less inclined to part with her secrets.
No, this was the best solution. It would afford him infinite pleasure to be able to take Forteviot at fault. It would serve him out for at least some of the foul wit he had exercised at Raith’s expense.
He had himself played a loathsome part last night.
He had acted in much the manner of Piers, and Forteviot had begun, he thought, to believe in it.
Why should he not? It was seven years since they had met, for Forteviot had formed one of the party on the fiendish night when he had suffered that final humiliation at his brother’s hands.
That he had fought back had earned him Forteviot’s jeering remark about heroics.
Raith set his teeth, turning the horse on to the bridle path, and letting him have his head. He was no longer a raw youth. Let Forteviot beware him this time.
He covered the ground in some fifteen minutes, cantering easily into Kington, and rode into the yard at the Cross Keys, bidding the ostlers good day. He was already known at this inn, and the landlord greeted him with offers of refreshment.
“I want nothing, I thank you, Tarbert.” He divested himself of hat, gloves and whip. “I came only to see Lord Forteviot. I trust he is still with you?”
“Oh, yes, my lord. He has just rung for his breakfast. Would you wish me to show you up to his private parlour?”
Forteviot was lounging in a cherry-striped morning gown, a nightcap covering his unwigged head. He was reading a newspaper, but he glanced up as Raith entered the room. A startled look came into his face, but he summoned a smile, and spoke with all his usual urbanity, rising from the chair.
“My dear Anton, what an unexpected pleasure.”
Raith made no attempt to disguise his acute dislike. He stared at the man, and watched with satisfaction as the smile faded. Was that wariness in those slitted eyes? Raith withdrew the letter from his pocket and held it up. He allowed the disgust he felt to sound in his voice.
“This is from my wife. It is addressed to you, Forteviot. Perhaps you would read it, and then be good enough to tell me why my wife is writing to you.”
The other’s eyebrows went up. “Is she indeed?” He resumed his seat, crossing his legs in an attitude of nonchalance. “Why don’t you read it for yourself, my dear Anton? I feel sure it can contain nothing that cannot be seen by a husband’s jealous eye.”
Raith looked him over with contempt. “Don’t attempt to trifle with me, Forteviot. The game is up. I know that you have had dealings with my wife.”
“If you know, my dear Anton —”
Raith lost patience. “If you once more address me in that supercilious fashion, you lying cur, I shall knock your teeth down your throat!”
The other smiled in an infuriating way. “Yes, I rather thought your manner of last night was assumed. This is much more like you. My dear — but I must not call you that. Really, how difficult it is to know quite what to —”
“Will you cease this prevarication?” Raith crossed the room, and threw the letter down on the table. “Read it!”
Forteviot picked up the letter and turned it over, examining the seal. “You amaze me, Anton. You really have refrained from opening the thing.” He laughed gently, and Raith set his teeth at the sound. “You know, your chivalry is quite misplaced. Perhaps I would even say, wasted.”
A chill swept through Raith. His eyes narrowed. “Do you care to explain that remark?”
“Do you know, Anton, I don’t care to,” Forteviot said apologetically, breaking the seal on the note. He ran his eyes down the single sheet, and his smile broadened. “Well, it is what I expected.” He held it out. “Will you read it now? Or are you still bent upon being noble?”
Raith did not take it. “I will rather have you tell me the substance.”
“Very foolish, sir. Would you expect me to betray a lady?”
“Spare me your affectations!” Raith twitched it out of his hand, and pocketed it. “Write a reply, and I will take it to Rosina myself.”
A pitying look was cast upon him. “Thus forcing her to recognise the unparalleled nature of your forbearance, in the hopes this will induce her to confide in you. My poor Raith, you must be gravely mistaken in her character.”
Raith felt his temper rising, and reminded himself the man was bent upon provoking it.
That he had doubts himself was one thing.
To hear Forteviot impugn Rosina was quite another.
He was hard put to it to refrain from striking the villain where he sat.
If he did so, he must prepare to be challenged.
He had the intention of calling Forteviot to account in due time, but on his own terms.
“You do yourself no good by these hints, sir,” he said instead in a cold tone. “Unless you can substantiate them, be assured I will believe no ill of my wife.”
The eyebrows rose again. “Yet you come here in a righteous fury, demanding to know why she is writing to me. Permit me to tell you that I find you a trifle inconsistent.”
“Call for pen and ink. I have no mind to listen to your smooth-tongued insinuations.”
“As you wish.” Forteviot rose, and moved across to a small table set in the window embrasure.
Upon it rested an inkstand and several leaves of paper.
He took up a pen, and dipped it in the ink.
“I did wonder how you had become inveigled — I hesitate to say entrapped — into marriage,” he said, throwing the remarks over his shoulder.
“But I realised how unwitting had been your involvement when I found out about your advertisement.”
Raith heard his words with alarm and puzzlement. He knew about the advertisement? “How did you find out?”
Forteviot turned slightly to survey him, holding the pen poised. “I have my sources. An apothecary’s boy was extremely helpful.”
Concern for Rosina’s nurse attacked Raith.
She had half expected, when he and Ottery called upon her, that her visitors might have been this man or the guardian, he recalled.
He did not wish to ask whether Forteviot had seen Mrs Hoswick, for fear of alerting him to her whereabouts if he did not know them.
Yet what of the boy Toly, whom he had certainly seen?
Had Forteviot bribed him, or used some other method?
“Where did you find this apothecary’s boy?”
“At Hopsford. By the same method you did, I fancy. Those fellows at Brinklow receiving office appeared unsurprised at my enquiries. I suspect, my dear Anton, from the boy’s guarded remarks, that my visit followed hard upon your own. What he had to tell me was most interesting.”
“Indeed?” Raith eyed him with growing suspicion. What need had he to make such enquiries, if he had seen the announcement of Rosina’s marriage in the Gazette? Why give her husband this information? What mischief was he brewing? Like a fool, Raith had fallen straight into his trap.
Forteviot was folding his letter. “I have not a seal with me. No doubt you will carry your nobility so far as to contain your curiosity until you reach home.”
Rosina paced the saloon, in much the same state of tension as she had paced her bedchamber on the previous evening. Had Forteviot yet had her letter? Would he respond instantly? She had known he meant to make trouble. But she was not prepared for the dreadful nature of it.
With her chocolate this morning, Joan had brought the fell tidings, contained in a note from Forteviot that had been brought over from the Cross Keys. She had passed over his sarcastic felicitations upon her marriage, and read quickly to discover what he intended. It had been an unhappy moment.
Since she had deprived him of his prize, he said boldly, it behoved her to repay him what she had been worth to him.
Now that she was so advantageously placed, he had no doubt of her being able to do it.
She had better find a way, or he would be obliged instead to request it from her husband, and she must know what that would mean.