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Felicity, her beloved oldest sister. She’d be so happy to see her, but there was still the worry of traveling to Prince Carlo’s estate when they hadn’t two coins to rub together. “H-how far is Florence from here?” she asked. “Can we walk there?”
Marlow pulled the blanket tighter around her. “It’s too far to walk. We’ve no shoes for it anyway. I’ll figure something out.”
No shoes, no money, not even proper clothes. They were paupers, at least until they reached her sister’s household.
There was a knock at the door, and a flutter of greetings from the women. An elderly man entered dressed in a black robe. At first, she wondered if he was an undertaker coming to check if they’d survived the night. Then she noticed his starched liturgical collar and pointed cap. Ecco il prete, said the women. Here’s the priest.
He approached them with arms outstretched, intoning a blessing before he even knew their names, praising God for saving them from the shipwreck. He and the women said more prayers together after that, but she and Marlow could not follow the Latin mixed with Italian, so they just bowed their heads and listened.
When their prayers were finished, the priest engaged Marlow and Rosalind in halting English, asking after their well-being and offering sincere wishes that they might be reunited with their families soon.
His kindness and warmth brought Rosalind to tears. Now that their journey was ended and they were stranded in Italy, she realized how homesick she was. Marlow took her hand and squeezed it, then addressed the priest.
“Por favore, Padre.” He stopped, gesturing to Rosalind. “Desideriamo…sposati. To marry. Is there any chance you might marry us?”
“Sposati? Lodari Dio. Sì, sì.” He waved his hands, as if drawing them together. “Riti matrimoniali, yes?”
“Yes, marriage rites.”
Marlow looked at her questioningly and she tried to smile back at him despite her tears. Yes, why not marry now with a man of God in front of them?
“Please, Father,” she said to the priest in her best Italian. “Please do us the honor.”
The grandmother clapped her hands with pleasure while her daughter bustled away, exclaiming blessings. She returned a moment later with some pink roses from the vase upon the cottage’s table and a white linen cloth for Rosalind to use as a veil.
This was not the way marriages were performed in England, where one needed to have banns read, or procure a special license. For that matter, their officiant would not be a vicar, but after all they’d gone through in the last few days it seemed unimportant.
The grandmother took offense to the linen veil her daughter offered and asked them all to wait a moment. She went into the cottage’s back room and returned with a delicate lace head covering, and arranged it carefully atop Rosalind’s loose hair. This tender favor made her all the more homesick for her mother.
“Grazie,” she told the woman.
Marlow took one of the dewy pink roses from her lap and spoke to her quietly.
“You should have had a grander wedding,” he said. “When we return to England, we’ll have another one. But now, I think it’s better not to wait.”
“Yes. I agree. We must not wait.”
He held her gaze and she thought back to the hours they’d spent in the storm, in his bed. He’d made her his wife with his body already. She did not understand the whole of what they’d done—she would ask him about it at some private time in the future—but she did understand it must be a very special act for those who truly loved one another.
“This is a fine wedding anyway,” she said, taking the rose he offered. “A beautiful wedding among caring people.”
The priest led them through the Latin rites of marriage, which were very like the English ones. They made their replies in Latin: Volo. I do. After the short ceremony, the priest took a weathered holy book from the folds of his robe and wrote their names into the back of it, their true names, along with the date and place of their marriage and the names of their witnesses. That was how she learned they were in a village named Santa Maria di Leuca, and that it was the fourteenth of July, and that the women who had cared for them were Maria Regina (the older) and Maria Regina (the younger.)
Marlow touched her hair beneath her veil and kissed her with a sort of adoration, to the delight of the three Italians watching them. “You deserved so much better,” he whispered to her. “You deserve a thousand times better, lovely Rosalind, but I shall endeavor to be enough.”
