CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Rosy! Rosina, what ails you?” Her head turned at the sound of his voice, and Raith dropped to one knee beside her, reaching to cradle her. She was ice cold. His voice gentled.
“Rosy — sweetheart!”
His voice seemed to penetrate. One hand left off from holding her abdomen and came waveringly up to touch his face that hovered so close to her own.
“You came,” she whispered. “Help me, Anton!”
“You may be sure I will.” He became aware again of her frozen limbs, and glanced swiftly about at the shock-ridden faces of the servants. “Someone run to the village for the doctor! Prepare the bed — a hot brick. Something to drink. Anything to keep her warm. Go!”
They scattered as Raith stripped off his riding frock, and wrapped it about her.
“Come, Rosy. We must get you into the house.” Rosina looked to have drifted off into a half-swoon. “Rosina!”
The sharp tone jerked her back into consciousness. She glanced wildly round, and her eyes found his face. “My lord! Pray don’t scold me.”
He drew her close again. “No, sweetheart, no. Only tell me what has happened to you?”
Rosina groped and he closed his hand about hers. “I scarce know. I came out — I know not why. F-flowers, Anton.”
“Flowers?” he echoed blankly, rendered stupid from fright. Then, with memory of the blood, the meaning of the slang term sank in. “You mean the monthly flux?”
She clutched his hand. “I was not expecting … it took me unawares.”
“It is that only?” The frantic tenor of his heart was steadying. “Thank God!”
“I could not … find my way. And there was … too much pain.” As she spoke, she cried out, her hand shifting out of his to press at her abdomen again. “Like this. I cannot move…”
“Hell and damnation!” Raith swore, and without more ado, set his arms under her and lifted her from the ground.
She groaned as he did so, but his heart warmed as she huddled into his chest, throwing her arms up and clinging with desperately clutching hands about his shoulders. She murmured his name, and he was brought near to weeping by the hint of a knowledge of deliverance that it contained.
“Anton…”
“I will have you safe in no time,” he promised, and set off for the mansion as speedily as his burden would allow.
Rosina lay with eyes closed, but she was not asleep. The pain had dulled, due to a judicious dose of laudanum administered by Dr Barcliffe.
This worthy had arrived in haste, having been summoned from his little house in Radey Grange village, somewhat flustered at being requested to attend her ladyship of Raith Manor.
He was of too humble a station to be used to giving his services to any but the lesser gentry and the poorer folk hereabouts, most landowners in the area preferring to call upon his more affluent colleague in Kington.
Through the fogging effects of pain, Rosina had vaguely heard him speaking, in a nervous undertone, to Mrs Fawley, who had taken charge of her sickroom.
“I am unacquainted with his present lordship, ma’am. I know him only by sight. Do you think he will wish to speak with me?”
“Undoubtedly,” had returned the housekeeper quietly. “But for this present, I pray you be good enough to attend to her ladyship.”
“Of course, of course.”
Next moment, Rosina had felt a cool hand on her brow, and thrust her eyes open to find a bewigged and bespectacled face bent over her. It was of indeterminate years, but pleasant enough, if a trifle plump.
“It is not her head, doctor,” protested Mrs Fawley with impatience.
In a daze, Rosina heard the housekeeper explaining her predicament, and thought how grateful she was this once for her new status.
She had suffered from a girl, and had been caught out more than once, although never in thus compromising a situation.
But not since Mama died had she had the luxury of giving herself over to the ministrations of others.
Mrs Fawley and Joan took care of her needs with sympathetic efficiency, and the stained clothing, which she would have had to deal with herself in the past, was mysteriously removed.
A hot brick wrapped in flannel afforded considerable relief, and the application of two additional down coverlets upon her bed at, it transpired, Raith’s orders, rapidly re-warmed her frozen blood.
She was a trifle put out when Dr Barcliffe plagued her with a series of searching questions which she answered with an increasing feeling of impatience.
How long had it been since her last experience?
Why, the usual length of time. Had she always this degree of pain?
Invariably. Was the blood loss any greater than usual?
She could not say. Had there been no warning?
No, none. Had there been any sickness before this?
Not sickness, no. Had she been moody at all? Yes, she must say that she had.
And on, in much the same vein, until Rosina was ready to scream.
Then he probed, with admitted gentleness, upon the swollen mound below her belly.
Rosina endured this with difficulty, for the area was extraordinarily tender.
Finally, she was unable to help a flow of tears at his intended words of comfort at the conclusion of his examination.
“I cannot see any reason for your ladyship’s immediate concern,” he said cheerfully.
“I think you will find these trials will end after you have successfully carried his lordship’s child, and been brought to bed.
” He coughed, apparently in embarrassment, as Rosina began to weep.
“Pray do not upset yourself, Lady Raith. I venture to prophesy that it will not be long before these discomforts are a thing of the past.”
But the notion of bearing Anton’s infant pierced so fiercely into the agony of mind that had been pushed aside by the ills of her body, that Rosina had been unable to stop crying for some little time.
He might have secured her safety, and used so tender a name for her that she wondered if it had been a product of her fevered imagination, but that did not mean she was assured of a future that could include what must be done in order to get her with child.
“Dear, oh, dear!” had fussed the doctor over her head. Rosina had heard him whisper to Mrs Fawley, “I think perhaps I had better give her ladyship something to induce calm, as well as help the pain.”
Rosina had swallowed the laudanum without protest, and been glad to find herself alone at length, but for Joan’s faithful attendance even to this moment.
She knew, by the whispers exchanged between her maid and Mrs Fawley, that they thought her to have dropped asleep.
It was more comfortable to be allowed to lie quiet, for the passing of the greater agonies in her womb had left her thoroughly exhausted.
She was past thinking, and wished merely to lie here, forever if need be.
As long as she was not expected to take up again the complicated threads of her life.
A change in the quality of the atmosphere penetrated her consciousness. She became aware of added warmth at her cheek, and the near presence of a held-in charge of raw emotion. Her eyelids fluttered open. She looked straight up into Raith’s face.
She gasped, and found the grey eyes upon her. There was a strength of feeling in their depths that repelled her. She stared up at him, mute, and became aware that the back of his hand was laid against her face.
“I did not mean to wake you,” he said, and she heard effort in his voice.
“I was not asleep.”
He removed his hand, and Rosina discovered he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked away from her, and the source of the disquieting feel in the room traced down to his other hand, clenched on his knee.
“Oh, what is it?” Rosina asked, an instant flittering at her heart.
“What should there be?”
Raith turned his head, and produced a smile. It looked mechanical. Then she remembered. He had been to see Forteviot. Her heart shrivelled, and she shrank into her pillows. She was not well enough to deal with this. Not at this moment. She spoke in a faint tone.
“Pray leave me be now.”
He rose from the bed at once, and moved across to one of the wide windows. He ought to leave her be. It was shameful of him to be here at all, with these thoughts in his head. She was not fit for it.
But the distress of what had been suggested to him would not permit of his walking out of the bedchamber.
His heart was so heavy, he wanted to lay his head upon her breast and weep out the hideous torments of doubt that had taken hold of his mind.
But Rosina was ill with the cause of it, and he was no monster to lay his own burden upon her in this weakened state.
He heard Rosina groan and turned. She had paled, biting her lip. “Have you a resurgence of pain? Do you wish for more laudanum?”
She shook her head feebly, and brought one hand from under the covers to lay across her eyes. She looked distressed. Was she going to weep? He recalled the doctor saying how much she had wept. His statement of the probable cause had rent him in two.
She spoke, a throb in her voice. “Raith, say what you have to and get it over, or else go away entirely. You are radiating ill humour, and I am in no condition to deal with it.”
He came quickly across to the bed, and dropped down beside her, taking the hand from her eyes and holding it fast. “Rosy, don’t upset yourself.
I don’t want to say anything to you now.
I will go, if you wish it. I am riven! I can’t bear to leave you, and yet I cannot…
” His voice died as he saw the wetness on her cheeks.
The fingers in his were trembling, and he held them to his lips and pressed a kiss upon them.
“Forteviot!” There was rawness in her tone. “? knew he would do this.”
“No! He tried, but I would not believe him. I promise you, Rosy, I kept faith with you.”
“Then, why? What has occurred?”