She did not answer, and he relapsed into reverie. He hardly knew that he continued to talk of it aloud. “Piers was quite inventive. His tortures were inflicted under a cunning guise. The older brother inducting the younger into the sports of boys. He taught me how to shoot and to play at cricket and other such pursuits. He took me riding, and bird’s nesting. I hated every moment of it.”
“Why did you go with him? Could no one have stopped him from taking you?”
Raith laughed without mirth. “It was rather encouraged. One was ever taught that the worst sin was to rat upon one’s brethren. Who would have believed me? Piers was impatient of my inability to climb with sufficient speed, or to ride on as fleet a hoof and took opportunity to school me for every mistake.”
Rosina shuddered at the horrors she envisaged him suffering. Had he not hinted at this that night? That he knew what it was to be in someone’s power. But a child. It was inconceivable it should have gone undetected.
“But was this your lot for all of your childhood?”
Raith shook his head. “Piers was away at school for much of the time. As we grew older, and I was sent to school in my turn, I used to long for the term and loathe the holidays when 1 must encounter him at home. It did end at last.”
“How?”
Raith got up from his chair and returned to the fire, supporting his hands on the mantel. “Ottery caught him at it. Piers was administering one of his lessons. I suppose he had grown careless. At twenty a man feels invincible, and he’d had me at his mercy for years. He had tied my hands for the purpose, and so there was no possible way he might persuade Ottery of the legitimacy of his actions.”
“What did Mr Ottery do?”
Raith’s head turned, and there was a wealth of satisfaction in both face and voice. “He struck Piers to the ground. You cannot conceive with what delight I saw him fall.”
Into Rosina’s mind flew an instant vision of her hand slamming into Raith’s own cheek. Shame burned into her. Oh, she understood only too well. How she had enjoyed the sensation. Only it was unworthy. There had been no vindictive intent in Anton’s treatment of her. If he had earned of her the blow, he had not deserved her rancour.
“What happened?” she asked, in a bid to rid herself of the unpalatable memory.
Raith turned fully, and moved restlessly back to the window. “Ottery haled us both before my father. Piers was loud in denial, and my father, I think, did not wish to believe his son capable of that sort of petty cruelty.” He winced with discomfort at the memory. “Ottery forcibly stripped me of my shirt to show the evidence.”
He recalled in his mind the lawyer’s words, delivered in a voice of leaden fury. “My lord, how else did the boy acquire these wounds? He could not have inflicted them upon himself.”
Ordered by his sire, and encouraged by Ottery, he had been induced to give a halting account of his brother’s activities.
Rosina eyed the stiff shoulders, and the set line of his jaw in profile, the white ridging laceration where he had forgotten to turn the other cheek. The certainty gripped her that she had not been told it all. Wherein fitted that blemish, which lay at the root of his bitterness?
“It is the only time I have known my father to lose his temper,” he said. “It was terrifying to see him extract a confession from Piers. Then he forbade him the house. Had it been within his power, I believe my father would have disinherited him in my favour. I am glad he could not, for the banishment was enough to secure all the justification my brother needed for his enmity.”
There was a silence. Rosina was moved by the story. This last must indeed have caused a deal of talk. Was it that which Lady Doddinghurst had called the “later disgraces”? That Raith had felt able to share it with her both touched her, and threw her into a fever of anxiety. She was tempted to reciprocate, to give of herself in return. Only she dreaded the inevitable change in his mood if she were to speak of it. It was his own mother’s unchastity that had brought upon him such undeserved punishment. How could she doubt of his being as sickened as she was herself, if he knew the full sum of her own history? She looked down at her fingers, unseeing how one pulled at another.
Was this the truth at last? She had blinded herself to her fears. She had turned her own deep disgust of the event into righteous wrath, and hurled it against Anton. So deep was her shame, she could not endure the thought of her husband knowing the substance of it. Let alone telling him all. He must turn from her in utter contempt and revulsion. She could not tell him.
“Rosina?”
She leaped with shock, looking up. She had not seen him approach. He was standing near her chair, his hands clasped behind his back, regarding her with a concerned frown.
“My l-lord?”
He reached down and cupped her chin in his hand. “You are looking haggard. Have you been so distressingly troubled?”
The black orbs darkened. “How can you ask me?”
Raith’s heart twisted. “I am sorry for it.”
“You are sorry?” On impulse, she reached up and grabbed at his hand, clasping it within both her own. “Anton, I—”
“Your pardon, my lord.”
Rosina slipped her hands away, and Raith moved swiftly to one side, turning. “Yes, what is it, Kirkham?”
The butler came into the room, and shut the door carefully behind him. “I beg your pardon, my lord, but a gentleman has called, and her ladyship has requested that no visitor should be admitted before she had been given a name.”
Glancing at Rosina, Raith saw that the interruption had thrown her back into discomposure. Hell and damnation! Must there be a visitor just then? She had been within an ace of offering him something, perhaps her confidence. Now the moment was lost.
“Who is it, Kirkham?”
“Lord Forteviot, my lady.”
Raith cursed. “Forteviot? That fellow was a friend of my brother’s, if I am not mistaken.”
“True, my lord.”
“What in thunder does he want with me?”
He glanced at Rosina as he spoke, and his thoughts stopped dead. She was gazing at Kirkham in dumb horror, her face draining visibly of colour.
