“He n-need not tell me, if he does not w-wish to. Rather let me speak, Mr Ottery. You do not want to hear this, Anton, but I will say it now.” He did not turn, and her voice came again, husky and low. “When the first shock had died, I was consumed not with repulsion, but with curiosity. I wanted to touch your face, to know how it felt.” He flinched, willing her to silence. Yet he knew she would not spare him this time. “I was ashamed of myself, and so I did not know how to respond to you, when you spoke of it so bitterly. At last, when you allowed me to touch it, in one of your vile moods—”
“Don’t remind me!”
He muttered the words, but remained with his back to the room, staring unseeingly out of the window.
“When you allowed me to touch it,” Rosina resumed, “the sensation under my finger did not offend me. It was even pleasurable, so that I did not dare to speak of it. For you had told me of that other creature, and—”
“Enough!” Raith swung round and he saw Rosina wince. “Oh, don’t look so afraid! If I am angry, it is not with you, but with my brother. He follows me even into my marriage.” A mirthless laugh broke from him. “Why would he not? It was to prevent me finding a wife that he slashed at my face, with his whip.”
Rosina gasped, her fingers flying to her mouth. “Was he insane?”
“That, or merely vengeful.”
It was Ottery who took up the tale. “I must bear part of the blame. I had foolishly told his late lordship of the inheritance, which, as you know, Lady Raith, was dependent upon matrimony.”
“It was money left to me by my maternal grandfather,” Raith put in.
“But why should the fact of the inheritance affect Piers?”
Raith looked at Ottery. “You tell her.”
“Sheer malice, ma’am, for it gave him independence, which prevented the late Lord Raith from giving vent to his lunatic envy. Mr Raith, as your husband was then styled, desired to take up a commission in the army. Provision had been left by his father, but his brother refused to honour it. Since it was not in the will, I had no power, even as executor, to force him.”
“I took him up on it, and we quarrelled,” Raith said. “Piers had guests. Gambling cronies, Forteviot among them.”
Rosina’s face paled. “Then that is why...”
“Yes, that is why. I imagine it must have been grist to his mill to discover that it was I who had married you.”
“He saw it all?”
“He was witness to my humiliation, yes. We were in the hall, I remember, and the altercation became public. Piers snatched up his weapon too suddenly for me to know what he would be at.” His burned at the memory. “The blow felled me.”
“Oh, Anton!”
“It was viciously done, but I felt more rage than pain. I scrambled up and closed with Piers. I know I managed to get the whip out of his hand, but I was overcome. By the servants, or his friends, I don’t know.”
There was fury in Rosina’s voice. “I wish I had known this when that vile man came to the house.”
“The next thing I knew, I was sprawling on the ground outside the mansion.” Raith’s glance met and held Rosina’s. “That is when Piers chose to jeer at me, bidding me try now to find myself a wife.”
“What happened to you? How did you manage?”
“He had the sense to come to me,” Ottery cut in.
“Kirkham helped me to a horse, and I rode to Banbury.” He came across the room and placed his arm about his lawyer’s shoulder. “You see now why this fellow can never be sufficiently repaid. Ottery not only took me in, but nursed me until the wound was healed. Finally, he furnished me with the means to obtain a commission—”
“It was, I need hardly say, a loan, which has long since been repaid,” put in Ottery. “And as for the rest—”
“—and then he packed me off to the Army.”
“—it is only what anyone would have done,” finished the lawyer in the same breath.
“No friend could have done more.” Raith removed his arm, and took a step towards his wife. “It does not end there, Rosina. He has done more to help me through the exigencies of our marriage than you can ever imagine. If you needs must run away from me, you could not have chosen better.”
Hastily, Rosina rose up from her chair, whisking away. “I don’t know what to do. I wish you had not told me this. No, I don’t mean that. I am glad you have told me.” She turned to face both men. “But I am doubly determined Forteviot shall not harm you. Pray, Anton, if the only way it can be prevented is for us to part—”
“Here is a change of tune.” He came up and she found her hands seized. “Rosy, stay with me, my dearest love. Let us fight him together. Ottery will find a way. And if he cannot, I shall know how to do. That scoundrel will not dishonour your name.”
