CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rosina sought for the bottle. She had seen this often enough at Nun Eaton, and could judge of the level of Raith’s inebriation.
She found a bottle tucked on the floor by one leg of the chair.
It was a quarter full. Rosina sniffed the contents.
Not brandy, thank heaven. Then he was probably not more than semi-drunk.
She would likely be able to get him to bed.
Any thought of discovering his intentions had gone out of her head. All was forgotten but for his present plight. Her maid’s words came back to her. If this was how he had been spending each night, small wonder Kirkham was worried.
She placed her candlestick alongside his own on the mantel, and leaned down, taking hold of his shoulder, and shaking him. “Raith! Anton, wake up!”
She was obliged to call him several more times before any response was forthcoming. But at length he stirred, opening bleary eyes and gazing up at her in apparent recognition.
“Rosy? What are you…?”
He blinked, and Rosina shook him again. “Raith, you must get up! Come, I will help you to bed.”
The wickedest gleam came into his eyes, and he grinned up at her. “That, wife, is decidedly inviting.”
A tinge of colour crept into Rosina’s cheek. His speech was only slightly slurred, but she was quite aware it was the wine speaking. He would not otherwise have greeted her in this fashion. Doubtless he thought her a figment of his overheated imagination.
“Come, Anton.” She pulled at his arm.
“Give me a moment. I will certainly come.”
He sat up with an air of determination, but it was only with Rosina’s help that he was able to get to his feet. She snuffed his candle, and then slipped her shoulder under his. “Lean on me.”
“Too close for comfort,” he muttered. Before she knew what he would be at, he had turned her head to him and planted a quick kiss on her lips.
Rosina’s balance gave slightly, and they both staggered. Raith was laughing, and she was obliged to speak sharply to pull him into awareness. “For goodness’ sake, take care!”
“Don’t s-s-scold, wife. I am doing my best.”
“No, you are not, Raith. Stand still a moment.”
He obediently halted, swaying a trifle. Rosina shifted her position in order to take a little more of his weight, and then reached to the mantel for her candle.
“A very juggling act, Rosy.” Amusement was in his voice.
“Do you think you can remain on your feet?”
A chuckle emanated from him. “I won’t fall down.”
“Are you sure? Shall I wake Paulersbury?”
His hand came up to cover the one Rosina had placed at his waist. “I had much rather have you. Paulersbury is not nearly s-s-so pretty.”
Rosina was betrayed into a giggle. “Anton, will you have done?”
“I am yours to command. Lead on.”
It was with difficulty that the two of them negotiated the passage, and at the stairs Rosina had to withdraw her support. “I cannot manage with the candle as well. Take the banisters, Anton.”
He grasped them, and she slipped out from under his shoulder.
She urged him onward, but Raith did not speak as he dragged himself up the stairs.
He was beginning to sober, and the delight of this adventure was slipping away from him.
He was not yet capable of working out why Rosina had come to find him.
Nor why she should be thus amicable. A hazy idea of the depression of spirit that had driven him to seek solace in wine floated at the back of his mind, but its portent escaped him.
He knew only that Rosina’s presence was heart-warming. He did not wish to lose that.
She was keeping close behind him as he climbed the stairs.
Afraid he might lose balance and fall? His heart warmed to this solicitude.
At the top, she slipped quickly back into her previous position.
He slipped his arm about her, holding her to him, rather than taking her support.
Raith felt her tremble and his thoughts became chaotic as they entered his bedchamber in silence.
He dropped to the bed, mesmerised by her face as he stared up at her. He watched her set the candle down and pull the covers open. Then she came back to him, and her hands reached to push the bed-gown over his shoulders.
Raith caught at her fingers. She stilled, and her gaze returned to his face, an expression in her eyes that he could not read. He was past caution.
“Stay with me, Rosy.”
Her fingers quivered, and he saw her eyes grow moist. “In your bed?”
“I am a trifle foxed.”
A smile glimmered on her lips. “I see that.”
“But I know what I want.” He released her hands, and slipped his arms about her, pulling her to him. “Stay! This once. Let the devil take tomorrow. I need you tonight.” He laid his scarred cheek against her bosom.
Rosina awoke to find herself tucked into her spouse’s body, which followed behind her the contours of her own.
One arm was thrown across her and his hand lay slackly over hers.
A world of rapture cascaded into her memory.
His gentleness, so unexpected, so different from the terrible threat in her past.
Rosina was almost sure Raith had said, at a murmured whisper of the night, that he loved her.
She did not know whether she had reciprocated with telling him the strength of her own feelings.
If she had not, it could only be because she could not speak under the violence of passion he had aroused in her to match his own.
How ardent had been his lovemaking. If it could but remain so!
She slid carefully from him, and out of the bed, hunting about for her discarded garments.
The grey light filtering through the closed drapes at the window showed her the scattered clothing, fallen to the floor.
She found her nightgown, which was cold to the touch, and put it on.
She shivered a little as she shrugged into the wrapper, for it was early and no fires had yet been lit.
But she did not wish to be discovered here, especially by Anton himself.
He had been drunk last night. Rosina knew how drink had a way of wreathing men’s brains with a sort of madness, rendering them no longer master of their actions.
She could not bear it if, upon waking and finding that he had broken his own resolve, Raith’s volatile temper would flare.
In one of his moods, he was capable of saying the most wounding things.
After last night’s tender mouthings, it would be altogether agonising.
She returned to the bed, and watched him sleeping for a moment.
His ruined cheek was exposed, his hair falling away from his face.
Stealthily, Rosina drew near and reached out.
But she dared not touch it, for fear of waking him.
Her fingers hovered over it as she traced the line, as if she might imprint the shape of it in her mind’s eye, that it would stay with her in memory.
It was so much a part of him that she found it endearing.
“I love you, Anton,” she whispered. Then she quietly crept away to her own apartments.
In her bedchamber, she found the fire already burning.
Perhaps it was not so early, after all. A dreadful thought struck her.
Had the kitchen wench, whose duty it was to light the fires, come in and found them together in Raith’s bed?
Fearing to wake them, she must have sneaked away.
The news of their coupling would be all over the house.
On a sudden thought, she went into her dressing room and felt the jug that stood in the basin. It was warm. Oh, she was undone indeed. Joan had already been into her room and found her missing.
For a moment, Rosina was embarrassed. Then it struck her that she need not go back to bed and dissemble. She returned to her bedchamber and tugged at the bell-pull.
Her maid’s demeanour was perfectly respectful, but Rosina caught a knowing glance or two cast her way when Joan thought she was not looking. Yet the maid brought tidings that effectively drove away her consciousness, instead filling her with dismay.
“Begging your ladyship’s pardon, but there’s a gentleman downstairs. Mr Kirkham would have denied him, but he swears as he’ll not go until he sees either yourself or his lordship.”
The pearl of Rosina’s happiness shredded away. She had never a hope it could last. But could she not have been permitted to treasure it for just a little longer? Was it her guardian, come to plague her? Was there to be no end?
“Who is it, Joan? Did he give his name?”
The maid was apologetic. “It’s Lord Forteviot, my lady.”
The entirety of her heart’s triumph of the night vanished at a stroke. The dead weight of inevitability struck at her once more. Had she dared to imagine the fact of Anton having claimed her could change her ill fortune? She ought to be accustomed to the cruel blows of fate.
“Help me to dress.”
A desperate calm descended upon her as she performed her ablutions, and allowed Joan to clothe her.
She chose the old gown of blue kerseymere, perhaps with an unconscious wish of appearing before Forteviot in as unattractive a guise as she could find.
She placed one of her close caps on her head, and then left the bedchamber, unable to overcome a slight quaking at her breast.
She gripped the banisters hard as she came downstairs, recalling last night’s perilous journey with her husband, in the opposite direction. But she must not think of Anton. That were to destroy her composure, and she had need of it.
Entering the saloon, Rosina stood in the doorway for a moment, surveying Lord Forteviot.
He was standing by the window, and he looked round at her approach.
He was dressed with his usual flamboyance, sporting a striped waistcoat under a blue cloth coat and black breeches.
He bowed with a mocking flourish, all his habitual urbanity in his voice.
“My dear Lady Raith, how do you do?”
Rosina shut the door, and moved into the room. She wasted no time in pleasantries. “What do you want?”