He turned. The bed-curtains were drawn back, and by the candlelight that came from one side, he could see Rosina sitting up in bed, an open book in her hands, staring across at him. She was without a nightcap, her dark hair falling about her shoulders. Her bosom rose and fell rapidly, and Raith broke quickly into speech.
“Am I disturbing you?” No, that was stupid. Of course he was disturbing her. And with intent. “Don’t be alarmed!”
Rosina was more than alarmed. She was frozen with terror. He had come! In an instant, she forgot how she had worried that he might, after her incautious words. Forgot, too, how she had persuaded herself into believing he would not.
An image sprang into her mind. The dread image that had haunted her these many weeks. Her guardian, stumbling through her bedchamber door, the candelabrum in his hand lighting up the coarse, drink-sodden features.
For a hideous moment, she did not see Raith. She was back in her drab little room, in the house where she ought to have been inviolate, with Herbert Cambois — come, he said, sputtering the words, to teach her what awaited her in the future he planned for her with that hateful man.
Her breath pumped as she stared at him, and a measure of sense returned. This was not her guardian. This was Raith. He would not fall sobbing on to her bed, and crawl his loathsome way towards her. That was past. This was her legitimate husband. He had a right.
Raith had not moved from the door. She looked away from him, snapped shut the book, and laid it quickly aside, sitting up. But her jangling nerves would not settle, and her fingers travelled without fully realising it, over her bosom to the back of her neck.
“F-forgive me... You s-startled me,” she managed to say, aware her voice quivered.
Raith’s expression changed and he came quickly to the bed, laying his candle down. Next moment, he was seated beside her, taking her trembling hand into his warm clasp.
“Don’t, Rosina! Don’t be afraid. I will do nothing to frighten you, I promise. You have only to say the word, and I will retire again this instant.”
“It — it is not you, Raith. Pray — pray don’t leave me.”
Deeply concerned, he watched the tremors of her white face, his mind thronging with question. What did this betoken? There was something here that could not be explained by all the careful arguments of his mind. This reaction had no reference to his arrival. If that were all, she would have greeted him with wary uncertainty. Not this stark fright. The black eyes were dilated, a nightmare in their depths. Even his disfigurement did not warrant this, considering her attempts to adjust to it.
Her fingers shook pitiably within his own, and her whole frame shivered. Raith saw the tears on her lashes, and without thought, he shifted forward and drew her gently into his arms, holding her close.
“Hush now, sweetheart, hush,” he murmured, only half aware of using the endearment, intent upon easing her. “All is well. There is nothing to harm you. Hush!”
Insensibly comforted, Rosina felt her jumping pulse begin to subside. She sagged against him, letting her head fall upon his shoulder. His hold was warm, and completely un-amorous, one hand stroking down her back in a rhythmic movement that readily increased her relaxation.
But her proximity started at length to disturb Raith, coupled with the feel of her nestling thus within his arms and the warmth and scent of her skin under the thin stuff of her nightgown. His senses swam. The quality of his embrace began to alter. The motions of one hand took on a sensuality that delineated her contours, while the other shifted upwards, allowing his fingers to run and writhe within her hair. He laid his lips to the wispy curls and kissed across her forehead, travelling downwards as he brought her face up.
For a moment or two, Rosina felt the subtle adjustment of his ministrations as natural, and accepted them. Warmth pervaded her, but it was a pleasant sensation, unalarming.
Then his lips reached hers. The warmth intensified with a rapidity that mirrored the sudden increased pressure of his mouth. She heard his indrawn breath, and fire streaked down her belly. Panic took her. Her hands came up, struggling, and she thrust away from him, pulling back into her pillows.
“No! I cannot, I cannot.”
But the taste of her had overwhelmed Raith, and he forgot everything but his own need. His hands reached for her, drew her back into his embrace. He brought his mouth down on hers again, drawing at her lips, teasing them open.
Sensation flooded Rosina, melting her bones, burning her deeps with a febrile throbbing so intensely vivid she did not know if she could bear it. Instinct bade her fight him off, but her fingers betrayed her, reaching up to his face to touch and stroke. They came, all unknowing, into contact with the scar. Its rough edging brushed Rosina’s fingertips, and a vision of it burst into her head. Shock made her whimper.
An instant later, she was released onto her pillows. Raith threw himself to his feet, a weal of agony in his breast. He felt her revulsion as acutely as if she had spoken of it. The fluttering touch against his mutilated side, followed by a muted squeal of protest, had been enough to jerk him into awareness. He knew it to be his own doing, even as he extricated himself from the intensity of his passion. He had lost control, and come by his deserts.
“I beg your pardon,” he jerked out. “I forgot myself. It will not occur again.”
He thought, as he turned from her, that she reached out to him. Her voice followed him as he got to the door.
“Raith, wait!”
He halted there, but he did not turn. “It is of no use, Rosina. I cannot do it.” Then he was through the door, heading for safety.
The day being a degree finer than any that had gone before, Rosina took herself outside for a breath of fresh air. She told herself she must do so while she might, for November was almost upon them. She did not truly expect that Raith would come riding in. If he did, and she caught him thus unawares, it was unlikely she would be treated to anything other than the distant civility to which she had been subject for the last several days.
It struck her that she had been married for a week. If those first days had been tempestuous, at least that had been better than this dull emptiness which made the time pass slowly. She could not even enliven her existence with an attempt to render Raith Manor more homelike. Her one effort had been crushingly rejected.
Upon the morning after her husband’s abortive entry at her bedchamber, for which she had railed in turn at her own irrational fears and at his absurd sensitivity, Rosina had come down to breakfast to find her place had been changed so that she must sit upon Raith’s left hand.
“His lordship’s orders, my lady.” The butler had been apologetic. “He instructed me on no account to allow it again to be altered.”
