“It is a trifle difficult,” he said, turning so that she received his good side. “His legacy surrounds me.” His hand threw an arc that encompassed the house and grounds. “You’ve seen the place. It was never thus when my father was alive. Piers has brought it to this pass in the space of seven years.”
To his secret satisfaction, Rosina came to join him at the window. “Was it then done to thwart you?”
He emitted a mirthless laugh. “Not until he knew at the last that I must succeed him. He had only to marry and beget an heir to keep me out. Only his reputation was so besmirched no female of any standing would have him. Piers would never have stooped to the sort of bargain in which I have indulged.” She winced and he put out a hand. “That was not meant to insult you, Rosina.”
“I take no offence.”
“You should!” It was forceful. He moved closer and took her hands in a grasp that sent shivers through her. “Rosina, I meant to make a marriage of convenience, but I find myself with something quite different. I don’t yet know what it is.”
She was conscious of softening. “It must be what we make it.”
He drew her closer, and Rosina found herself looking directly up into his disfigured countenance. There was vibrancy in his tone, a throb of something she did not understand.
“Can you truly stomach this?”
Her voice shook, for her pulse had begun a slow thump that made it difficult to speak. “If I am permitted to become accustomed, why should I not?”
His gaze bored into hers and for a wild instant, Rosina thought he was going to kiss her. She felt her lips quiver and her fingers trembled in his. His face changed. He released her and stepped back, turning to give her the good side of his face. Rosina watched him, oddly bereft. A rush of heat had enveloped her, and her knees were still shaking. For the first time, she found herself wondering what it might be like to give herself to her husband’s caresses.
There was a lengthy silence. Rosina cast about for something to say. Her mind was all chaos, but she wanted more than anything to hold him here. Let him not leave her flat as he was wont to do, after rousing in her so tempestuous a reaction. All at once, she remembered. “Speaking of paintings.”
He started, frowning as he looked round. “Yes?”
“The one you caused to be put in my bedchamber,” she pursued. “It is of your mother, I understand?”
Raith stared at her, hardly aware of what she meant, so intensely had he been involved with the too-close step towards disaster. He had almost given in to the temptation to kiss her. But then he felt her reaction and knew he could not do it. She would let him, but she was intensely afraid. A highly inconvenient discovery to realise that he could not satisfy his desire at the expense of her dignity. To know she was forcing herself to accept his caresses? No, a thousand times. It had cost him an effort to mention the scar, to ask. She had shown willing. Was that to be all?
“My mother?” he repeated vaguely.
“She seemed not to resemble you, but then I could not properly see her face. Is there no larger portrait?”
Rosina felt as if she was babbling. His abstraction had not escaped her. He was retiring into his shell again. She became aware she could not bear it.
But then he caught up with her train of thought. “There was no portrait done of her. I have a miniature.”
“Why did you have it put in my room?”
“I thought it suitable. It is the most attractive painting in the house. Besides, it was her room once, and I remember her with — affection.”
The word drifted between them, poignant and wistful. Rosina had no words.
Her husband glanced at her. “I must go. I came only to... say what I did.” She felt him reach for her hand and his gaze dropped to her fingers as he caressed them lightly with his thumb, sending a flitter through her pulses. “If I give you further cause to hate me, Rosina, remember that it is the last thing I desire.”
Then he dropped a light kiss on her fingers, released her and walked quickly away down the gallery. Rosina gazed after him, aware of a tingle at her fingers where his lips had pressed. She stayed thus for a long moment, thinking. Then she gave a determined nod, and went in search of Mrs Fawley.
Raith spent the day battling with his memories. His agent, Longridge, led him to Ratley, one of the villages on his estate a couple of miles away, where he lunched in the local inn, in a deliberate move to show himself. He then visited each of the farms and cottages in turn, as he was doing in all areas, day by day, meeting every tenant and listening to their grievances. They were many, increasing as word spread of his activities, and more took courage to come out with the list of wrongs.
His brother Piers had been the worst of landlords, squeezing from the estate every penny that he could, and putting nothing back. Raith made no attempt to defend him, and accepted instead the words he heard time and time again.
“T’weren’t like this in your father’s time, me lord.”
“I am aware of it, my friend,” he told them. “I hope to mend matters in time, but you must have patience. It cannot be done all in a minute. Now, what is it you need? Longridge will take down a list, and we will do our best to accommodate you by and by.”
The time he had to spend with each one was lengthening, the more so today, for the news of his marriage had got about. He was obliged to accept felicitations, and answer questions about his lady. An exercise which added a new dimension to the drift of thoughts at the back of his mind as he listened with spurious attention to what were more or less the self-same complaints from end to end of his domain.
Hearing of the deprivations that had attended the tenure of his half-brother served to increase the bitterness. If Piers had deliberately chosen this way of revenge, he could not have done it more thoroughly. Their father must be turning in his grave.
But the remembrances evoked by thinking of Piers led him instantly to visions of Rosina’s delicate face. He had inflicted that bitterness on one who least deserved it. Yet she had generosity enough to forgive him, to understand. Yet he, ungrateful dog that he was, did not want her understanding. What he wanted, she was unable to give him, small blame to her. What female could? Which led him directly back to Piers.
