“Repeat after me...”
Rosina winced a little as the fingers tightened. She watched the bare browned hand imprisoning her own, listening with only half an ear to the low-pitched murmuring beside her, conscious of the warmth emanating from the firm grip. Without warning, the shadowy figure had become real, and only one phrase penetrated her consciousness:for better or for worse.
It echoed in her head, tauntingly, as the parson turned to her. She was about to take that final, fatal step.
“I, Rosina, take thee, Anton...”
As she repeated aloud the words she was given, she had only one conscious thought. There was no going back.
Raith could not resist the impulse to turn slightly, that he might keep her under surreptitious observation. He heard only vaguely the words of her promises, listening rather to the hushed tone of her delivery, almost in question, as though she was not aware of the meaning of what she said.
She was as intriguing as he remembered. That elfin face, its pallor heightened by the mere wisps of black curl escaping from the confinement of a close cap. He had thought, that first day when he had watched her, himself unobserved, from his post behind Ottery’s Judas painting, that she looked younger than her given years. Of all the candidates, she had been the only one who had caught his interest. Something in her look had touched him. She had it now as she repeated the phrases that were giving her into his keeping. She seemed lost. There was a wistfulness, a vulnerability, which had struck with him an instant chord of sympathy. He could feel her plight, with the memory of his own.
“Have you the ring?”
Raith turned quickly back to the priest, looking to the man at his side. The plain gold band Ottery had purchased winked in the light. Raith watched the cleric take it, beset by an abrupt thrill of possession. She was his, come what may.
Rosina felt her fingers released, and emerged from the hushed daze that had enfolded her as she spoke the fatal words. She took in that the pastor was addressing her. The ring? Yes, she must take off her glove. She tugged at it, frantic as the silken folds resisted. Her fingers were all thumbs, feeble and unresponsive. A tiny sound of frustration left her lips.
Then she felt Lord Raith’s hand once again close over her own. Removing her trembling and hopeless fingers, he turned the hand palm up with gentleness and tugged at the ends of the fingers. The glove slid off, and was gone. Covered in confusion, Rosina kept her gaze lowered.
“With this ring...”
Only now did she see that her bridegroom was supported by a person on his other side, for her whole attention on coming up the aisle had been taken up by this man, who was sliding his ring carefully down her finger as he spoke the words of its significance. Riveted, Rosina gazed at the encircling gold as if in a waking dream, a fog wreathing her brain. All thought suspended, she heard herself pronounced a wife.
“Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”
It was done. Trance-like, she turned to the man to whom she was vowed, and found his eyes upon her.
They were grey, and in their depths was a mix of apprehension and defiance. But Rosina did not see it. Her heart felt as if it had stopped. Time did not exist. The dream had turned to nightmare. The only reality was the shock of the countenance that was at last turned full-face towards her. A countenance destroyed, hideously marred, by a disfiguring scar that ran from eyebrow to chin, cutting across Lord Raith’s cheek, hitherto hidden from her sight. Ridged and ugly, its harsh ragged line stood out white against the tanned roughness of his skin.
