She had made her plans and enlisted the aid of those two of the servants who were her particular friends. But that night her guardian had stumbled drunk into her bedchamber.
“He looked just as you did, standing in the doorway with a candelabrum.”
“That is what threw you into the memory, and made you so afraid?”
Rosina drew a sobbing breath. “He meant, he said, to teach me submission. He — he laid down his candle, and — fell upon me. I managed to throw him off, but he pulled at the covers. He caught me, and he is a big man. I thought I was done for.”
She spoke of her struggle, the loathsome wetness of his slobbering kiss as she had tried to evade his mouth. He had torn at her nightgown, and she had flailed half-naked in the cold night air. She had felt him thrusting at her thighs, while his hot hands seized at her flesh.
She had been saved in that moment when he raised himself up in order to effect an entry, for the wine had gone to his head and he had paused, swaying. She had pushed into his chest, driving him off. As he had fallen among the disarranged covers, Rosina struggled out of the bed, and run as for her life, slamming the door upon his infuriated grunting. She fled to the attic room of one of the maids, where she had remained for the rest of the night.
“In the early dawn,” she finished, “we crept out when the other servants had ascertained that he was abed in his own room. He had stumbled about looking for me, we thought, for the place was a wreck. Aggie helped me to pack as much of my belongings as I could carry in a portmanteau, and she promised to send the rest secretly by carrier to Brinklow.”
There was silence for some moments in the saloon. Raith was too harrowed by the tale to speak. The near rape so appalled him he wished fervently that he had never asked her for this history. Was his not the cruel demand that had thrown her time and again back into this memory? How hurtful must it have been for Rosina, to be reminded of it each time that he had harried her to tell him.
But Rosina, he saw, was quiescent now. In the telling of it, had she exorcised something of the ghost? Or was it merely that exhaustion now prevented her from feeling anything? It was a sensation he could appreciate.
“How did you get to your nurse?”
Rosina heaved a sigh. “In disguise. A groom stole for me a great-coat, a slouch hat and a pair of boots from the stables. I looked less like a country wench than a farm boy. I had no money, so I had to make my way by asking lifts from carriers.”
She fell silent again. She felt both exposed and empty. How might Raith be less disgusted than she was herself? She was not impure, nor was it her fault, but she was nevertheless tainted. Had their marriage remained a convenience, he might have been expected to tolerate it. But they were long past that. How could he possibly bear it? If she could only know his present intentions towards her.
“What will you do now?”
Raith straightened abruptly. “I am going back to Kington.”
“To see Forteviot? To what purpose?”
His jaw was set, danger in his eyes. “To challenge him with this story and dare him to answer me!”
Alarmed, Rosina rose from her seat. “You will not call him out?”
“Have no fear. I mean to settle this affair. Do not forget that he has come here with the intention of extorting money.”
He went purposefully to the door, and turned the key in the lock. Rosina followed him, laying one hand upon his arm. “Anton, wait!”
“I must go, Rosina. It is useless to try to stop me.”
“One moment only, I pray you!”
Raith hesitated, his fingers about the handle of the door. “What is it?”
Her fingers left his arm, travelling to her bosom as she searched his face. “Anton, do you believe what I have told you?”
“Of course I believe it. Why should I not?”
“And when Forteviot gives you some twisted version of it, to make you think ill of me, will you believe it then?”
His face softened. He let go the door handle, and caught her hand. “How can you suppose otherwise? Do you imagine I would take that fiend’s word before yours?”
“Why should you not? You know me little better than you know him. How long have we been married?”
“I don’t know. Two weeks or three? What does it matter? It feels like a lifetime.”
She clung to his fingers. “But it is not, Raith. It is little more than two weeks. That man is persuasive. I have no proof that I am telling the truth. And you have entertained doubts of me from the beginning.”
His hand cupped her cheek, the grey eyes remorseful. “For which I hope you can learn to forgive me.” Then he drew her to him and dropped a light kiss on her hair. “But you need have no apprehension. Ottery is even now at the house of Herbert Cambois. I will wager that he will extract the truth. He is no fool.”
