CHAPTER TWELVE
Raith released her and stood aside. She spared him a glance before moving to take a chair. Was it relief in his face? She could no longer look at him, not while she told this tale. She forced her voice to calm, but she could not control the restless agitation of her fingers.
“You believe it was Forteviot who — who violated my honour. But it was not he, though he is guilty of the intention. It was my guardian who made that attempt.”
“Attempt? He did not succeed?”
Rosina threw up a hand. “Pray, let me tell the tale in my own way. You will know all, by and by.”
She saw him grip the mantel with one hand and set his jaw. She found she was kneading at the muslin folds of her petticoats and gripped her fingers together to stop them wandering.
“You are eager to know if he took me. He did not —” closing her eyes tight shut —“penetrate.”
The word stabbed in Raith’s gut. He gripped his underlip between his teeth, his eyes fierce upon her delicate elfin face.
What rude invasions had been attempted? How far had been taken this despoiling of her virgin innocence?
He saw the black eyes open, and their luminous sheen threw him into acute disorder — and murderous intent. Her guardian was a dead man!
“Of what p-purity I may still be p-possessed, I must l-leave you to be the judge.”
He flung over to the window, unable to trust himself.
Much more, and he would seize her in his arms, and tell her that she need give him no more of this.
He had wanted to hear it. But even this little telling was a species of torture.
He had wanted to know her to be pure, and she was, it seemed.
But at what cost? Behind him, Rosina spoke again.
“I must tell you how it came about. And — and the part played in this by Forteviot.”
Raith set his teeth. This was not helping her. With deliberation, he turned again, and went to sit in the opposite chair. “I will hear you with patience.”
She cast a look at him, and a tiny smile wavered for an instant on her lips. Then she withdrew her gaze, and clasping her hands tightly together, began her tale, explaining how her pity of her guardian’s grief had made him see her as an asset. She twisted her fingers.
“? believed at first that he intended me to marry. He instructed me to be present at his gambling sessions, intimating that I would meet suitable gentlemen. He would not hear of my refusal, though I did refuse. At length he threatened to throw me out if I did not do it. I had nowhere to go. It seemed to me then a lesser evil to comply.”
Raith listened in a steadily increasing state of tension.
Guessing what was coming, he ached for the rude shock of awakening Rosina must have experienced.
Too well did he know how unmannerly a thing was the sight of men at play, their behaviour indecorous, their drinking excessive, and using language unfit for feminine ears.
“There were some five or six each night. I was required to refill their glasses, or bring fresh cards. Only Forteviot paid me much heed.” She shifted, one hand going up to touch her neck as if she sought to brush away the memory of his lascivious eyes.
“He looked me over in a way that made me feel — unclothed.”
One night, she had gone to the parlour to discover only Forteviot and Herbert Cambois. The mask had been stripped off.
“My guardian told me a bargain had been struck.”
Raith held his breath. The image of Forteviot’s mocking features hovered at the forefront of his mind. He wanted to smash his fist between those slitted eyes.
“I was to be the p-payment for his debts to Forteviot.”
Rosina’s voice failed, and she put a hand to her mouth. Raith rose quickly, and took a step towards her. But she threw out the hand, shrinking back.
“I can only say this once, my lord. Pray let me finish!”
He could hear the tears in her voice. Raith cursed.
He stepped swiftly across to a baize table in one corner of the room, where a decanter and glasses had been forgotten from his game of piquet with Forteviot.
Pouring a measure of Madeira, he brought it back to Rosina, bidding her drink it. “It will calm you.”
She put out a trembling hand, and took the glass, throwing a brief glance up at him as she sipped at the liquid. She seemed to relax a little as she drank. Raith took the glass from her as she held it out and placed it on the mantel, where he remained, watching her face.
“I cannot describe to you my feelings upon the event. Forteviot was very frank. I was to be his mistress. When I failed to — please him, he would cast me off. He thought I should have no difficulty finding myself another protector.”
Raith watched her writhing fingers with mounting distress, black fury in his heart as he learned how, when Forteviot had gone, Rosina had cast aside all pride, and pleaded with her guardian to free her from this intolerable future.
“He was adamant. Nothing would serve him but this. I did not know what to do. If I’d had a way of finding a post, I would have taken it.
But without references, my situation was impossible.
And there was no time.” Her voice sank. “I tried to school myself to accept it. But when I saw how Forteviot eyed my person, I knew I had rather die by my own hand.”
Raith’s fist was clenched so hard his knuckles ached. He forced himself to straighten his hand, and clamped his mouth tight shut on the hot protesting words that rose to his tongue.
“I resolved to be gone from my guardian’s house before the plan could be put into execution. I had in secret received my nurse’s direction, and I knew she would give me refuge.”
She had made her plans and enlisted the aid of those two of the servants who were her particular friends. But that night her guardian had stumbled drunk into her bedchamber.
“He looked just as you did, standing in the doorway with a candelabrum.”
“That is what threw you into the memory, and made you so afraid?”
Rosina drew a sobbing breath. “He meant, he said, to teach me submission. He — he laid down his candle, and — fell upon me. I managed to throw him off, but he pulled at the covers. He caught me, and he is a big man. I thought I was done for.”
She spoke of her struggle, the loathsome wetness of his slobbering kiss as she had tried to evade his mouth. He had torn at her nightgown, and she had flailed half-naked in the cold night air. She had felt him thrusting at her thighs, while his hot hands seized at her flesh.
She had been saved in that moment when he raised himself up in order to effect an entry, for the wine had gone to his head and he had paused, swaying.
She had pushed into his chest, driving him off.
As he had fallen among the disarranged covers, Rosina struggled out of the bed, and run as for her life, slamming the door upon his infuriated grunting.
She fled to the attic room of one of the maids, where she had remained for the rest of the night.
“In the early dawn,” she finished, “we crept out when the other servants had ascertained that he was abed in his own room. He had stumbled about looking for me, we thought, for the place was a wreck. Aggie helped me to pack as much of my belongings as I could carry in a portmanteau, and she promised to send the rest secretly by carrier to Brinklow.”
There was silence for some moments in the saloon.
Raith was too harrowed by the tale to speak.
The near-rape so appalled him he wished fervently that he had never asked her for this history.
Was his not the cruel demand that had thrown her time and again back into this memory?
How hurtful must it have been for Rosina, to be reminded of it each time that he had harried her to tell him.
But Rosina, he saw, was quiescent now. In the telling of it, had she exorcised something of the ghost? Or was it merely that exhaustion now prevented her from feeling anything? It was a sensation he could appreciate.
“How did you get to your nurse?”
Rosina heaved a sigh. “In disguise. A groom stole for me a great-coat, a slouch hat and a pair of boots from the stables. I looked less like a country wench than a farm boy. I had no money, so I had to make my way by asking lifts from carriers.”
She fell silent again. She felt both exposed and empty.
How might Raith be less disgusted than she was herself?
She was not impure, nor was it her fault, but she was nevertheless tainted.
Had their marriage remained a convenience, he might have been expected to tolerate it.
But they were long past that. How could he possibly bear it?
If she could only know his present intentions towards her.
“What will you do now?”
Raith straightened abruptly. “I am going back to Kington.”
“To see Forteviot? To what purpose?”
His jaw was set, danger in his eyes. “To challenge him with this story and dare him to answer me!”
Alarmed, Rosina rose from her seat. “You will not call him out?”
“Have no fear. I mean to settle this affair. Do not forget that he has come here with the intention of extorting money.”
He went purposefully to the door, and turned the key in the lock. Rosina followed him, laying one hand upon his arm. “Anton, wait!”
“I must go, Rosina. It is useless to try to stop me.”
“One moment only, I pray you!”
Raith hesitated, his fingers about the handle of the door. “What is it?”
Her fingers left his arm, travelling to her bosom as she searched his face. “Anton, do you believe what I have told you?”
“Of course I believe it. Why should I not?”
“And when Forteviot gives you some twisted version of it, to make you think ill of me, will you believe it then?”
His face softened. He let go the door handle, and caught her hand. “How can you suppose otherwise? Do you imagine I would take that fiend’s word before yours?”
“Why should you not? You know me little better than you know him. How long have we been married?”
“I don’t know. Two weeks or three? What does it matter? It feels like a lifetime.”