“I know, but there is no one here to see me.”
“Except,” her husband had declared bitterly, “myself. Spare me the insult of telling me you don’t care how you look before me, for that I know already!”
With which, he had stormed off into the dining-room, leaving her to follow how she might. A frosty silence had reigned at the dinner table, and Raith had vanished after she had left him to his port. Rosina had not seen him since. He was undoubtedly off about his estate business, a convenient excuse for his withdrawal from his wife. She had spent the day in a state compound of misery and resentment.
How had she been expected to know he desired her to change her appearance when they were in private? Was she supposed to be able to read his mind? It was typical of Raith to take an affront into his head. She had not meant anything of the kind, though she might readily have done so had she thought of it. Well might she hate him! Only did he suppose her to be determined to provoke him deliberately? In his wild moods his tongue was uncontrolled. The memory of his face in quite other mood came back to her. He was, when softened, all too endearing, and so difficult to hate. Either side of him could make her pulse race. It was the lightning changes she found so unsettling.
It was better not to take any risks. Accordingly, she enlisted Joan’s willing assistance with her toilette, bidding her put forth her best efforts. If there was a stirring at the back of her mind of a wish to know how her husband thought she looked in the new fashion, Rosina suppressed it. She was doing this only so that he might not rail at her again.
She was a trifle late, for Joan was as unhandy yet with her hair as she was herself, never having previously attempted to secure it in the topknot advocated by Nadine. At the first attempt it was a degree lopsided, and a vision of Raith’s cynical look made Rosina tear out the pins. He would be bound to make some caustic comment.
“But, my lady, I thought it looked very well,” protested the maid, sighing.
“It was not straight, Joan. I cannot appear before his lordship looking like a scarecrow. Let us try it again.”
Thus adjured, Joan set to with a will, and Rosina presently arose from her dressing-table with a style she considered to be at least respectable. She waited while the maid placed the green net cloak about her shoulders, and examined herself in the long glass with a critical eye. The gown was deceptively simple, with a cross-over front cut low to the bosom, from which the skirt fell in soft folds, and with little sleeves ending in ruffled bands, worn over long tight undersleeves of muslin through which the glow of her flesh could be seen. The green net appeared superfluous.
“Not the cloak,” Rosina decided, slipping it off. “In the daytime, perhaps, but not now. I hope I don’t freeze to death.”
But her blood seemed altogether too active to permit of her feeling the cold, pumping rapidly through her veins as she tripped carefully down the stairs, holding up the unaccustomed looseness of her skirts. What if he was still smouldering too much to meet her for dinner? All that effort wasted. Her heart jumping, she entered the saloon.
Raith was standing by the fire, leaning his arm along the mantelshelf. He was himself attired formally, in that dark coat and breeches from their wedding day, with blue silk to his waistcoat. He looked across at her, and straightened abruptly.
Rosina paused on the threshold, watching his reaction, half-hoping for some word of praise. He was staring, but she could not read his expression. Self-conscious, she averted her eyes, and moved into the room.
Raith’s gaze remained riveted upon her. He was incapable of words. She took his breath away. If he had before thought of her as delicate, she was now doubly so. The air of fragility was pronounced, for the litheness of her form was accentuated by the strange style. There was elegance, enhanced by the lifting of her hair, which equally emphasised the elfin quality of her countenance. But above all, she exuded so much sensuality Raith had only one idea in his head. To sweep her up into his arms, and carry her directly to his bed, there to overbear both her resistance and his own scruples, and make her irrevocably his.
A disastrous desire! How could he possibly do it? Rosina would fight him with her last breath. Or would she? He had expected continued defiance, and braced himself to face her renewed enmity. Instead she had presented him with a show of obedience. Was it to mock him? If so, she was wonderfully successful, for he could barely contain his yearning.
It was several moments before he was able to command it. By that time, a hint of colour had risen in her cheeks, and he realised belatedly he had not even had the grace to compliment her.
“You look—” he was obliged to hesitate over his choice of adjective, for everything he wished to say was ineligible “—charmingly,” he finished.
How inadequate a description. He would have preferred to tell her that she was alluring beyond endurance, but he had not the courage. He watched her lips break into a smile, and found his breath unsteady. One moment more, and his control would break.
“Shall we go in?” he said in haste.
He ought to offer his arm, but he could not trust himself to approach her. He watched her hesitate, eye him uncertainly. Abruptly, he snapped.
Rosina felt him pass her as she made for the door. It slammed shut. Her heart jerked. Raith was leaning against it, the wildness of his features heightened by the livid scar, of which he seemed wholly unaware. He radiated danger, of a kind that made her pulses leap in an erratic dance. Thought fled. His hot eyes raked her, and a blaze of heat rose up inside her as the recognition of his intent drove the blood thrumming into her veins.
Then he reached for her, and she moved as one in a trance, drawn intimately close by his hold. She saw only the depths of his avid grey eyes, hauntingly near. Then they closed, and his lips came down on hers. He mouthed her teasingly, in so tender a minuet that her bones turned to water.
She sagged, and found herself caught close against him, the pressure of his lips increasing. His voice came guttural and low.
“By heaven, but I want you! From the first I have wanted you — desperately!”
Rosina heard him with a melting at her heart, and groaned within his kiss. Her limbs trembled uncontrollably as she became aware of the heat and hardness of the form against which she was so tightly held. Her breath shortened as his lips left her mouth to shift down her cheek, and breathe flame into the hollows of her neck. She shivered the more, and her hands came up without intent, grasping at his shoulders, at his face.
Her hand came in contact with an unexpected ridge, and on the instant that she took in its significance, Raith froze. For a few hazardous seconds, Rosina held her breath, as a chill seeped through the fervid heat between them, like an ill-omened breeze.
Raith fought against the impulse that bade him fling away her hand, while the driving force within him sought to speed him to his goal. Slowly he shifted a little away, bringing his hand up to cover hers against his cheek, holding it there. His eyes found hers.
“You feel it, Rosy? The worst of me under your hand. Can you endure to feel it?”
Her voice was a shaky whisper. “You d-do not let me f-feel it. Let go my hand.”
It was hard to invite her touch, but it struck him on the instant that to do so would be to invite also her trust. He removed his hand from hers, setting his teeth, unable to help his own stiffening. He watched the movement of her black eyes, willing himself to remain still as her fingers traced along the lengthy ridging line from his eyebrow, down his cheek, and to the comer of his lip. Never had he been so aware of it.
