Chapter One
An air of must and gloom shrouded the dimly lit interior of the narrow church. High walls entombed the line of wooden pews, and the sound of Rosina’s footsteps on the cold stone flags seemed to echo round the vaulted arches above. At sight of the dark figure awaiting her before the altar, the flutter in her stomach intensified.
He was half in shadow, a shaft from the simple rose window casting light in a diagonal across his back, so that only one stiff shoulder and a partial outline of his head were visible. There was a glimpse of waving brown hair tied back, a coat of sombre hue, and that was all.
Rosina felt sick. Her throat dried. Without intent, her fingers closed tightly on the arm of the man who walked beside her. He looked down, and she caught a kindly look of reassurance in the lawyer’s face as he laid his hand briefly over hers, and pressed her gloved fingers. It was meant, Rosina thought, for comfort, but it had the effect of bringing a lump to her throat to add to her fervent apprehension.
Biting her lip, Rosina fastened her eyes once more upon the faded silhouette of the unknown gentleman into whose keeping she was about to pledge her life. He had not turned, though he must have heard her approach. It was all of a piece. Had he not rejected any desire to meet her before the wedding? She must suppose he would not look at his bride one moment before he was obliged.
The aisle appeared endless, giving rise to a flurry of panic. She was making the most dreadful mistake. What was she about, to marry a man of whom she knew little more than his title? Probe how she might, there had been nothing of any significance given away. The lawyer who led her so stolidly to her fate had been uncommonly discreet. Anton, Lord Raith, remained an enigma.
Yet here she was, throwing herself headlong into intimacy with this stranger. Had any other course offered to afford her equivalent protection, she would have taken it. Indeed, as she neared the end of the aisle, she began to wish she had done so. It was too late. She was almost at the altar, where the pastor stood ready to bind her in wedlock to an obscurity.
Rosina was aware that she was shaking as she took her place at the gentleman’s side. The most dreadful palpitations warred with an upsurge of nausea, threatening to choke her. It was all she could do to remain standing upon her two legs as the support of the lawyer’s arm was removed. She drew raggedly on her breath, trying both to still the tumult of her bosom and to conceal its effects from the silent creature at her side.
Yet she could not resist a flying glance cast up at him. She was rewarded only with his stern profile. As well might she be marrying a statue, for all his interest. Curiously, this lack of attention had a slight calming effect, and a little of her panic subsided. She dared a second look.
At close quarters, the profile was personable enough. As much at least as she had believed when she’d had the only glimpse of Lord Raith he had permitted — through the glass of a coffee-room window. Mr Ottery, with whom all her dealings had been done, had arranged it at her insistence, for in this she had been adamant. Willing though she was to compound for a man she had never met, she would not marry one she had never seen. Not that she had got much good by it. Her prospective bridegroom had been as still then as now, she remembered, where he sat at the large table within the inn, only one side of his face turned in her direction, and that partly concealed by the sweep of loosely tied hair that looped upon his cheek, and the broad-brimmed hat that cut off any sight of his eyes.
Rosina could not see much more of him now, for he was taller than she had expected and her head reached only to just above his shoulder. It was enough to note the tight set of a firm jawline and the dip below a high cheekbone.
All at once her attention was recalled to the priest, as he began the marriage rites. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight...”
She stared blindly at the pastor. Dear Lord, it was happening! The heart rattled in Rosina’s bosom. She wanted to cry out to him to stop. She wanted to flee from the church. She could not do this. Was she mad to have consented? Heavens above, let him not continue! She had no notion what the clergyman was saying, although snatches of the ceremony reached her ears.
Wild thoughts of denial chased one another through her head. She could wait for the impediment bit. Only there was no impediment beyond her own dread: she was of age, and free to marry. Why should she not refuse him? She had only to answer, when the vital question was asked if she would take him, that she would not. No, that was unthinkable. She must speak immediately. Interrupt. But her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, and she had no words.
Beside her, Lord Raith listened to the drone of the cleric’s voice with even less attention than his betrothed. But, contrary to appearances, he was far from disinterested in his bride, though he did not look at her. When he had heard Ottery’s murmuring voice, and the priest had said he rather thought the bride was arriving, Raith had trained his gaze upon the statuary behind the altar, and fixed it there.
The light footfall that accompanied his lawyer’s heavier tread had thrown him into his habitual tight control. Of all things, he must withhold himself until the last. Whatever the outcome, he could not endure the mortification of a last-minute withdrawal. He would not afford her any opportunity for regret until the knot was tied. After, let it be as it might. He would know how to act. But he would not go through this ignominious process a second time. He would have this girl to wife, or none.
He pictured her as he heard her approach, the image strong in his mind. Fine-boned and delicate, with coal-black eyes in a face ashen with fear — or want? He had been unable to decide. A riffle of unease at his deception disturbed him. The advantage was all on his side. But then, Rosina Charlton need not have agreed to the bargain. She had chosen to sell herself. There had been no coercion. Her need, he must suppose, was as much a goad as his own.
Not that her story had been any more particular than that of others. It was common enough. An orphan without means, and no better future to which to look forward, he imagined, than the dreary prospect of tutoring other people’s children for a pittance, or a drudgery of companionship hardly less appealing. Marriage, even to a man with whom she was utterly unacquainted, must be preferable.
Only Raith had seen something in her that was out of the ordinary. Something indefinable, but a sense of mystery had struck him. It might have been attributed to that air of fragility, but he had thought there had been more to her story than she was willing to tell. On the second meeting, Ottery had probed on his instruction, but got nothing by it. His fascination had intensified.
Yet Raith could not gainsay a trifle of self-disgust at his subterfuge, necessary though it had been. No matter how cogent her reason, he could not but feel there was more than a touch of the sacrificial lamb in the waif that arrived at his side.
It was with difficulty that he refrained from risking a glance. He felt her eyes upon him, and was barely conscious of stiffening. His thoughts were swallowed up by a wholly unlooked-for surge of sensation in his chest. Like the rush of power at the onset of battle. It was a moment or two before he was able to command himself again. By the time he did so, the cleric was fully embarked upon his litany.
“Wilt thou, Anton, take this woman...”
For a moment of hideous suspense, Raith could not think what he was being asked. There was a breathless pause before the answer came to him.
“I will.”
He heard a tiny sigh beside him, and bit down hard against the flooding intensity of feeling. As the pastor asked the same question of the bride, he held his breath, half-afraid of her answer.
It came, a bare whisper on the air. “I will.”
Tightly controlled, the breath slid out of Raith as the cleric’s voice droned on. The ceremony seemed to drag.
“Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?”
From the corner of his eye, Raith saw his lawyer step forward and take the bride’s left hand. He watched the slender fingers disappear into Ottery’s large grasp, and reached out at the command of the priest. A weird sense of unreality took him as the girl’s gloved hand was put into his.
The fingers shook perceptibly, and Raith was swept with a wave of compassion. He placed his thumb upon the fingers, exerting a slight pressure. They jerked once, as if she would free herself, and then stilled. Even through the silk, he could feel their chill.
