“Don’t try to spare me, Ottery. I have seen quite enough of a like reaction in females to be sure of the cause.”
He moved to the table where the landlord had set the light repast which had been ordered. He picked up the coffee pot in slightly unsteady fingers, and felt Ottery’s hand upon his shoulder.
“Don’t refine too much upon it, my lord. Even if you are not over-sensitive, as I believe, I am sure you will find that custom will ease the difficulty.”
It appeared, when Rosina presently entered the room, that there might be truth in this. Raith braced himself as she glanced at him, but it seemed to him that her gaze did not flinch. Rather it travelled from his face to the table. He was glad, however, when Ottery took it upon himself to supply her with a cup of coffee, which was all she would take.
“Will you not eat something as well, ma’am? It will be several hours before you are able to do so again.”
“Thank you, but I am not hungry.”
In fact, Rosina was feeling a trifle sick. When the landlady had left her in a bedchamber, she had sat down abruptly on the bed, overcome by faintness. A little water splashed on her face had eased the sensation after a short rest, and she had not troubled herself to do much more than cleanse her hands after making use of the house facilities.
She had straightened the set of the dove-grey chemise gown, which was the only one she possessed with any suitability to the occasion. It was of damask, close-fitting at the bodice with a low round neck sloping to a V-shape in front, where the edged lacing of her underdress afforded modesty. The skirt was full and long, with a plain hem, the sleeves tight to the wrist. She wore no sash, and had added one of her habitual enclosing caps, of silk and lace.
The rest of her meagre wardrobe had arrived in a small trunk, along with herself and Mr Ottery, in the hired carriage in which he had fetched her from The Crown at Brinklow, for she had not wished to advertise her departure from Gatty’s cottage in the little village of Withibrooke. The trunk was now, she must suppose, bestowed in Lord Raith’s chaise.
Lord Raith! She was now his lady, for better or for worse. She was recovering from her stupefaction, and could even sympathise with his reluctance to show himself prior to the wedding. If this was his secret, so also had she hers, one susceptible to a more acute reaction than her own had been to his.
Once refreshments had been consumed, Raith was inclined to hurry, bearing his groom’s pessimistic forecast in mind. In short order, he was handing his bride into his chaise, and turning to speak brief words of farewell to his lawyer.
“I will come to Raith Manor as soon as the legalities have been formalised, my lord. Your signature will undoubtedly be required on several papers, but I do not anticipate any difficulty with the procedure.”
Rosina had noticed the coat of arms on the door of the chaise, and remembered how fortunate she had thought herself to have secured a haven with a peer of the realm. It must assure her safety, so Gatty had said. But would her old nurse, to whom she owed so much, have let her go so readily into this had she known of Lord Raith’s unfortunate affliction?
He had told her during their brief sojourn at the inn that, his estates being about twenty miles distant, they would make the journey over two days. His own horses, it appeared, were stabled at Marton, where he had made a change this morning when he was driven up for the wedding. He did not wish to put them through a second such journey on the same day.
“Besides, it will be growing dark by the time we arrive there, and it will not be comfortable for you to travel by night. I have secured accommodation at the Bell Inn. It is not the posting-house, so we need not risk running the gauntlet of curious eyes.”
Rosina had immediately had a vision of a bedchamber such as the one she had left upstairs, with a bed easily able to accommodate two persons. She had felt herself grow hot, and quickly looked away, forgetting in her agitation to wonder at his not wishing to meet acquaintances.
She thought of it again now, for she had leisure enough to think. Having stepped up into the coach — electing to sit upon her right hand for a reason which was not hard to seek — the companion of her future life had loosened his bulky drab greatcoat, enquired civilly of his wife whether she was comfortable, and thereafter turned his gaze upon the restricted view from his window.
He was sticking closely to the letter of the agreement, Rosina reflected, for no further word had been spoken inside the carriage. She was glad he did not expect her to engage in polite conversation. She would have been hard put to it to think of anything untoward to say. Their brief acquaintance had already crammed her mind with questions which she would shrink from asking, not least concerning the fearful gash, the unexpectedness of which had thrown her into shock.
To her shame, she felt herself burning with curiosity. She had forced herself to look at him casually, afraid of betraying herself, but she had wanted badly to stare. How had he come by it? It was so vicious a blemish. She could not blame him for concealing it. Nor for not wishing, as he put it, to endure the gaze of the curious. Or was it because he was bent upon keeping the manner of their marriage secret?
Rosina supposed that a man might not wish the world to know he had felt himself obliged to advertise for a wife. She had been considerably taken aback upon first seeing the advertisement. Before, that was, she’d had any thought of applying for the position herself.
It had become a ritual for the apothecary’s boy at Hopsford to trudge the half-mile from his employer’s shop to the cottage at Withibrooke where Gatty had taken her in, to bring theGazettefor her. Toly Aughton had befriended poor Gertrude Hoswick some years ago, Gatty had told her.
“It was when I could still see a little, my dove,” had said her old nurse. “I’d sent to the shop to get something for my rheumatics, I think it was, and Toly brought it over. Well, when he saw what a sad and sorry state I’d got myself into, not being able to manage quite with the fire and what not, he took pity on me, bless the boy.”
Rosina had been poring over the newspaper, looking for a post that might suit a female with few accomplishments and no references, while her old nurse slowly felt her way about the kitchen making a meal of sorts, when her eye had been caught by the oddity of the advertisement.
“Gracious goodness, Gatty, here is a gentleman advertising for a wife!”
At first she had been inclined to be dismissive when her nurse, once the extraordinary announcement had been read out to her, had suggested that perhaps Rosina should write in reply.
“Gatty, are you mad? I have not escaped one tyranny to put myself into another. Why, who knows what sort of a man this person is?”
“You won’t find out, my dove, if you don’t write,” had urged her nurse prosaically. “It may be as he’s perfectly amiable and respectable.”
“A man who is obliged to advertise, Gatty? He cannot be respectable.”
“Could be all kinds of reasons. No harm finding out. It ain’t needful to do more. He won’t know where you are, no more than that other, if you only give the Receiving Office at Brinklow for your direction. If you don’t wish to take it no further after, that’ll be the end of it.”
“But, Gatty—”
