Chapter Nine
Rosina stared at her maid in ill-concealed dismay, and requested her to repeat herself.
“His lordship’s compliments,” said Joan again, her slow delivery showing how careful she was to recall the precise wording that had been relayed to her, “and please to join him in the antechamber before you retire.”
Rosina had already been halfway out of her clothes when the knock came on the dressing-room door. She leapt with shock, but recollected after a moment that Raith could not yet have come up. Besides, the knock had come from the door that led to the corridor, not to the antechamber.
Joan had already gone to answer it, opening the door a crack and peering out. “It’s Mr Paulersbury, my lady,” she announced, and slipped out of the room. By the time Rosina recalled that this individual was her husband’s valet, Joan had come back into the room with this disturbing message.
Rosina was thrown into an agony of apprehension. What now? Was it possible he had changed his mind? Did he mean this for an assignation? No, it was too absurd. If it were that, he would wait for the servants to leave, and then come himself to her bedchamber. Realising she was halfway undressed, she began automatically to resume her gown, and then stopped, horrified.
Wear that again? To invite his abortive caresses? Hastily, she instructed Joan to help her to change, beset by horrid sensations. They had not talked again at dinner, after she had extracted that promise. Yet Raith had not disappeared, as she had thought he must. Instead, he had come into the saloon where they had taken tea together, and sat in a chair at a distance, looking abstracted. He had not once glanced at her, not even when she said good night. And now this! What did he mean by it?
When she was attired in her nightgown, and covered with a wrapper of blue linen, tied firmly at the waist, Rosina felt several degrees more secure than she had in the new muslin gown. Her hair was already loosened, and she combed it through and secured the bulk within a mobbed nightcap. The ensemble must, at the least, discourage her spouse from any resumption of physical intimacy.
She dismissed her maid, and went to the door of the antechamber. Her breath caught, and she put her ear to the wood, listening intently for some sound from within. Perhaps he was not yet there. What if she did not appear? Would he let it be, or come to find her? She fought down the flutters in her stomach. What use to defy him? Better to get it over with, whatever it was he wanted.
She took hold of the door handle, and cautiously pulled it towards her, peeping around it.
“There is no need to be so shy of me, I will not bite,” came Raith’s sarcastic tones.
Rosina stepped gingerly into the room, closing the door, keeping her back against it, and her fingers about the handle.
Raith was standing by the fireplace, where a two-pronged candelabrum threw light on his face from the mantel. It spread over the area immediately before the grate, in which a small fire was throwing up a lick of flame. The chairs had been set facing each other, in evident preparation for a tête-á-tête.
She looked warily at him. He was also clad in his night gear, a green-lined banyan of yellow silk belted loosely over his long nightshirt. His hair was untied, falling raggedly to his shoulders. Light flickered on his scar with the motions of the candlelight. He looked excessively attractive, and warmth flushed in Rosina’s depths. His attitude, however, was far from amorous.
“Come here and sit down,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I want to talk to you.”
Rosina took a single pace towards him. “Why could you not talk to me in the saloon?”
“Because I don’t want to be disturbed. Moreover, there is no necessity to keep the servants awake.”
How long did he mean to keep her awake? Her heart began to thump. Oh, she knew what this betokened. There was no intent of love-making here. He meant instead to question her, she was sure of it. He had chosen this place so that she was thoroughly at a disadvantage. For to where could she escape? With the servants abed, he might keep her here all night and none the wiser.
“Rosina, come here, I said!”
Her lip trembled, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I d-do not w-want to.”
“Oh, good God!” He moved towards her.
She backed, fumbling again for the door handle, but Raith was quicker. He took her by the shoulders, and she looked up, white-faced, into his shadowed features.
He brought one hand up and cupped her cheek, quite gently. “Are you crying? Don’t be a little fool, Rosy. I mean you no harm, I swear it. Now, come.”
The threat of tears receded. She allowed herself to be drawn to the fire, where Raith obliged her to sit down. She did so, primly, hugging her wrapper about herself.
Raith stood over her for a moment, watching these signs. How ill-at-ease she was. No wonder. He moved to the other chair, and shifted it so that he sat at an angle, where the candlelight could only fall upon the good side of his face. He had himself well in hand, but the sight of her had given him a jolt. If she had looked enchanting in her new gown, she was unbearably sweet in the blue wrapper and mob-cap. But mercifully less seductive, although the consciousness that she was naked under the thin nightgown that peeped below the bed gown had a deleterious effect upon his concentration.
Enough! He must control his thoughts. There was to be none of that. He hastened to come to the point. “I want to talk to you, Rosy.”
“So you said. What about?”
He gave a brief smile. “You look at me with so much suspicion. The truth is that I am at a loss, dear wife.”
Rosina’s gaze became even more suspicious. “I do not understand you, sir.”
He relaxed into the chair. “We know so little of one another.” He threw up a hand as she drew back. “I mean only that we seem to be yet strangers to one another.”
