Chapter Eleven
Rosina was shrivelling inside. He had come. Had she not known that he would? Every moment of her wedded life had been but a prelude to this one. Fate had a hand in it, and the gods were cruel.
“Admit the gentleman, Kirkham.”
Her eyes flew to Raith’s face. He had spoken in the hardest voice she had ever heard him use. His eyes were on the door as the butler departed, the wrecked side of his profile hidden from her. The good side was set, the jawline stern, the high cheekbone standing out white against his tan. He did not look in her direction, and Rosina knew she was lost. She had given herself away and not a word said.
If she could have fled the room, she would have done it. But her legs were like lead, her heart likewise. Time had no meaning. Numbly, she waited for the entrance of doom.
“Lord Forteviot.”
Into the saloon he strolled. Arrogantly at ease, the thin cruel line of his mouth curled in that well-remembered smile that mocked even as it signalled his intolerable self-satisfaction. He was dressed more conformably and neat than she had been used to see him, presiding over the card table in her guardian’s house. There he had sprawled, even in her enforced presence, with cravat untied and waistcoat unbuttoned, eyeing her with that lascivious assurance of ownership.
“My dear Lord Raith,” he said, silky-smooth, crossing to her spouse and holding out his hand. “Or may I call you Anton? It seems excessively strange to be addressing you by your title.”
“No doubt.” Raith’s tone was short, his handshake brief. “I was not much more than a youth, when last we met.”
The edge to his voice caught Rosina’s attention. Anton knew him? It was worse than she had supposed. They were not of an age, for Forteviot was near forty to her husband’s eight and twenty years. What a hideous mischance that he should be acquainted with the man.
“Ah, yes.” Forteviot was all ease and false charm. “You went into the army, did you not? A worthy career. I am sure you acquitted yourself as heroically as ever.”
Rosina experienced a sense of disassociation, as if her mind had become detached from her body. For an icy coldness had so entered her she was unable to feel anything beyond it. But her thoughts formed clearly, as if she watched a pantomime unfold before her eyes, convinced of its utter falsity.
She looked again at Raith, and saw his own cynical look pronounced. But the next moment, all thought suspended again as Forteviot turned his lizard eyes upon herself. She had ever felt him as reptilian, and the green slits that surveyed her from his invariably half-closed eyelids had borne out the impression. She shuddered inwardly.
“Present me, my dear fellow, I conjure you. This must be — I feel sure I cannot be mistaken — this must be Lady Raith.”
Rosina’s glance went to her husband. The chill barricade of his eyes thrust through the protective shell of numbness that had momentarily encased her. Her heart plummeted. She became conscious of faintness, and had to concentrate hard to keep herself from a swoon.
Resistless, she let her lifeless hand be kissed, staring up into that hated face.
“My very dear Lady Raith,” purred softly from his lips, while the contemptuous mockery of his eyes taunted her with an entirely different message, “I am altogether delighted to make your acquaintance. How fortunate is my dear friend Anton to have secured so elusive a prize.”
Raith’s attention caught on the word. It had been so odd a thing to say of her, had he not been already certain of the villain’s identity in Rosina’s life. This was undoubtedly the man from whom she had sought protection. That tiny clue — or had it been planted deliberately? — confirmed it.Elusive. Had she been so to Forteviot? That he had come here seeking her could not be in doubt. Bile rose in Raith’s stomach as his imagination painted for him what must be the truth of their previous relationship. Was there to be no end? The fell hand of providence was once more at his throat.
Rosina paced up and down her bedchamber. It was horribly late. Would the creature never go? What was he saying to Raith? Had he betrayed her? Not that it mattered. She had all too clearly betrayed herself.
The nausea in her stomach intensified. Oh, to what torments of horror and despair had she been subjected? Gone was the gentleness that had characterised Raith only moments before Forteviot’s arrival. Gone forever, she did not doubt. After the veiled hints the wretch had thrown out, how could she blame her husband? They were deliberately vague, designed to prey upon the sensitivity of a jealous mind.
“Your features are uncannily familiar, Lady Raith,” he had said at one point, in his silkiest tone. “Yet I feel sure I would remember meeting you. Is it possible I am acquainted with one to whom you are related?”
Rosina had not known how to answer him. Had hesitated too long, while Raith’s tight-lipped tension grew, to her increasing distress.
“I have few relatives,” she had said, hoping to deflect the man.
Forteviot smiled upon her in a knowing way, and returned his attention to her husband. How like a snake were his approaches. He behaved as if his acquaintance with Raith’s half-brother gave him claim upon Raith himself.
“So many years since we met, my dear Anton. And I so fond at one time of your dear brother Piers. How could I fail to take opportunity to renew our acquaintance?”
As if she could be in any doubt as to why he had come here. But to Rosina’s consternation, Raith had chosen to accept this, if with a stilted manner of studied civility that had sat uneasily upon him.
“How, indeed? I was not of an age at the time to lend sophistication to your gatherings.”
Then Forteviot pretended to fall into a mood of reminiscence. His smile increased, but Rosina read contempt in his gaze. “You afforded us a deal of entertainment, I recall. Piers was perhaps less amused by it. But then, there is often that little frisson between brothers where there is a great disparity of age.”
“That little frisson, yes,” Raith responded, so lightly that Rosina was moved to stare at him in perplexity. “Unhappily, it has proved vain. For there is my poor brother so early in his grave, while I am here in his place.”
“An instance of the strange workings of fate,” agreed the other man smoothly.
