Forteviot picked up the letter and turned it over, examining the seal. “You amaze me, Anton. You really have refrained from opening the thing.” He laughed gently, and Raith set his teeth at the sound. “You know, your chivalry is quite misplaced. Perhaps I would even say, wasted.”
A chill swept through Raith. His eyes narrowed. “Do you care to explain that remark?”
“Do you know, Anton, I don’t care to,” Forteviot said apologetically, breaking the seal on the note. He ran his eyes down the single sheet, and his smile broadened. “Well, it is what I expected.” He held it out. “Will you read it now? Or are you still bent upon being noble?”
Raith did not take it. “I will rather have you tell me the substance.”
“Very foolish, sir. Would you expect me to betray a lady?”
“Spare me your affectations!” Raith twitched it out of his hand, and pocketed it. “Write a reply, and I will take it to Rosina myself.”
A pitying look was cast upon him. “Thus forcing her to recognise the unparalleled nature of your forbearance, in the hopes this will induce her to confide in you. My poor Raith, you must be gravely mistaken in her character.”
Raith felt his temper rising, and reminded himself the man was bent upon provoking it. That he had doubts himself was one thing. To hear Forteviot impugn Rosina was quite another. He was hard put to it to refrain from striking the villain where he sat. If he did so, he must prepare to be challenged. He had the intention of calling Forteviot to account in due time, but on his own terms.
“You do yourself no good by these hints, sir,” he said instead in a cold tone. “Unless you can substantiate them, be assured I will believe no ill of my wife.”
The eyebrows rose again. “Yet you come here in a righteous fury, demanding to know why she is writing to me. Permit me to tell you that I find you a trifle inconsistent.”
“Call for pen and ink. I have no mind to listen to your smooth-tongued insinuations.”
“As you wish.”
Forteviot rose, and moved across to a small table set in the window embrasure. Upon it rested an inkstand and several leaves of paper. He took up a pen, and dipped it in the ink.
“I did wonder how you had become inveigled — I hesitate to say entrapped — into marriage,” he said, throwing the remarks over his shoulder. “But I realised how unwitting had been your involvement when I found out about your advertisement.”
Raith heard his words with alarm and puzzlement. He knew about the advertisement? “How did you find out?”
Forteviot turned slightly to survey him, holding the pen poised. “I have my sources. An apothecary’s boy was extremely helpful.”
Concern for Rosina’s nurse attacked Raith. She had half-expected, when he and Ottery called upon her, that her visitors might have been this man or the guardian, he recalled. He did not wish to ask whether Forteviot had seen Mrs Hoswick, for fear of alerting him to her whereabouts if he did not know them. Yet what of the boy Toly, whom he had certainly seen? Had Forteviot bribed him, or used some other method?
“Where did you find this apothecary’s boy?”
“At Hopsford. By the same method you did, I fancy. Those fellows at Brinklow Receiving Office appeared unsurprised at my enquiries. I suspect, my dear Anton, from the boy’s guarded remarks, that my visit followed hard upon your own. What he had to tell me was most interesting.”
“Indeed?” Raith eyed him with growing suspicion. What need had he to make such enquiries, if he had seen the announcement of Rosina’s marriage in theGazette? Why give her husband this information? What mischief was he brewing? Like a fool, Raith had fallen straight into his trap.
Forteviot was folding his letter. “I have not a seal with me. No doubt you will carry your nobility so far as to contain your curiosity until you reach home.”
Rosina paced the saloon, in much the same state of tension as she had paced her bedchamber on the previous evening. Had Forteviot yet had her letter? Would he respond instantly? She had known he meant to make trouble. But she was not prepared for the dreadful nature of it.
With her chocolate this morning, Joan had brought the fell tidings, contained in a note from Forteviot that had been brought over from the Cross Keys. She had passed over his sarcastic felicitations upon her marriage, and read quickly to discover what he intended. It had been an unhappy moment.
Since she had deprived him of his prize, he said boldly, it behoved her to repay him what she had been worth to him. Now that she was so advantageously placed, he had no doubt of her being able to do it. She had better find a way, or he would be obliged instead to request it from her husband, and she must know what that would mean.
Blackmail! How could she pay a tithe of such a sum, even had she a mind to do it? It was not her debt, but her guardian’s. She had sent Joan for pen and paper, and sat down immediately at the little table in her bedchamber to answer him as much. She said nothing of Raith, nor deigned to say that she could not afford to pay him. She recommended him to apply to Herbert Cambois, and let her alone.
Once the letter was despatched, she had become prey to tension, wondering what might be the outcome. Hearing from Joan that Raith had ridden out, she’d had the maid dress her again in the simple sprigged gown and come downstairs to await Forteviot’s response.
She dared not suppose he would accept her refusal to pay him. What would she do if he told Raith everything? Would his version of events march with the truth? She doubted it. Better that she tell Anton the whole. What did it matter any longer? Her marriage was all but over.
Raith walked in on her unexpectedly halfway through the morning. He had evidently just ridden in, for he was in his green riding frock and buckskins, his boots a trifle mud-splashed. His aspect was forbidding, and the memory of last night’s uncomfortable interview sprang into her mind. She stared at him as he shut the door and locked it.
“I have no wish to be disturbed.” His tone was curt. He must have seen her alarm for he added, “I am not locking you in, Rosina. You may leave here at any time that suits you.”
Rosina knew not what to think. Did he mean to renew his questions? “What is it you want?”
