At a loss for anything inoffensive to say, she cast about in her mind, and recalled what he had just said. There was material a-plenty here. Without thought, she plunged in.
“She would not have it that our betrothal had been arranged, as Mr Ottery told me was the planned story. She said that your mother died when you were a boy, and then she spoke of scandal, and...” Her voice died.
What had she been thinking of? That was what came of trying to keep off the subject uppermost in her mind. Now he would retire again behind that impossible barrier of ice.
“I beg your pardon. I did not mean to p-pry.”
Raith heard the tremor of her voice with a further twist of the knife in his sorely tried conscience. So strong was the impulse to go to her, he was obliged to turn away, moving to the window and looking out. But here, at least, was one thing he could remedy.
“You have a right to ask, Rosy,” he began, using the name involuntarily. .
Rosina heard it with a melting at her heart. Had his anger then indeed died? When he called her by that nursery name, though it might be in impatience, it seemed always to betoken affection. Was there not a degree of fondness? He had said so on that fatal night. He had spoken of his regard. And she had rejected it. His gentleness on occasion would indicate it. Only it was not, she reminded herself sadly, strong enough a feeling to withstand what lay between them.
She glanced at him, and found Raith observing her. But the instant he caught her eye, he looked away. Her gaze went to her fingers, unquiet in her lap. If things could only be other than they were!
“Lady Doddinghurst spoke no less than the truth. I should not keep you in ignorance.”
What was he talking of? Then she remembered. “Do you mean there was a scandal?”
“Long ago. It forms, in large part, the basis for my brother’s unrelenting enmity.”
Her curiosity aroused, Rosina turned to look at him. “Was he so much your enemy?”
“Have you not wondered why the lawns are all of ash?” He was staring out at the desolate frontage of the house. “Piers had them fired.”
“You cannot mean he caused them to be set alight.”
Raith shifted away from the window, and came to the mantel, looking down into the charring logs below. “Ottery thinks he had some hope the flames might spread and burn the house. But since he was in it, he could scarce set the house on fire directly.”
It was stated flatly, but Rosina’s shock was intense. “But how could he — how could anyone do such a thing?”
“A final act of revenge,” said Raith, without moving from where he stood, nor looking round. “Everything in the house that was worth a groat had been sacrificed to his gambling. The estate was a wreck. I must suppose he wished for nothing to be left intact.”
To learn that the man had been a gambler was oddly not much of a surprise, although it caused a shiver to run through Rosina’s frame. In just such a fashion had her guardian been driven to reduce his own home. But the gambling of Herbert Cambois had been a sickness. This, Raith seemed to suggest, was a deliberate wasting of resources.
“Why should he do that to you?”
Raith turned, and the bitter look was pronounced. “Because he chose to believe in the gossip that suggested I was not my father’s son.”
Rosina stared at him blankly. “Was he blind, sir? Could he not see how you resembled him?”
“He was nine years my senior. The likeness was not readily apparent until I grew to manhood.”
“But why in the world should he think such a thing?” She found herself caught up in this first hint of the origin of her spouse’s deeply felt hurts. This must be the scandal of which Lady Doddinghurst had spoken.
Raith sat down in the chair lately vacated by that dame, and glanced across at her. He was himself so taken up by his memories he saw his wife’s features without taking them in. They were overlaid by the vicious curl of his half-brother’s mouth, the taunting voice.
“Spawn of a strumpet! Anton whatever-your-name-is, you are no brother of mine.”
He set his teeth, and his gaze went back to the fire. “My mother eloped at sixteen, and my grandfather brought her back only upon the following day. Papa was a widower, and a close friend of my maternal grandfather. He offered to marry her, to save her name.”
Rosina heard it with mixed feelings. She ached for the pain in his voice. Yet she saw how his history was affecting her own. Small wonder he cared so for the purity of his wife.
“Piers had me almost believing I was born of that other union, but my father made a point of teaching me that it was not so.” He drew in a breath, and let it out in a heavy sigh. “I don’t know why Piers persisted in the belief. He was the elder son, there was no possible way I could inherit. Perhaps my father petted me too much, or showed me preference because of my mother’s youth. I know he was ever kind to her.”
“Some men are disposed to evil, I believe. They will use any excuse.”
For a moment or two, Raith came out of the memories. He spoke without thinking, with no intent of upsetting her or probing for a truth that he was in a fair way to find out for himself. “You speak from experience, no doubt.”
