Image copyright Tess Kincaid
Her life felt disjointed, like a jigsaw badly cut from cheap cardboard, the pieces difficult to fit together. He felt helpless but did not sympathise. She could not make herself understood. He didn’t know what to say. Her words came out jumbled and incoherent. He asked her to repeat. She offended unintentionally, was hurt when he grew angry. He asked questions. She answered. He doubted. She wept. He shouted.
Perhaps, after all, theirs was not the fairy-tale romance everyone had assumed it to be. Their backgrounds were too dissimilar and love could not overcome all. He had grown up with great privilege, the product of centuries of breeding, a true pedigree, one might say. She was newly come to riches and of modest lineage.
The parents shook their heads and decided that the marriage should not take place. Too late! The plans were already afoot, the cameras set to roll, and so bride and groom met at the altar and pledged their troth, each knowing that the other was lying, each wondering how long it would take before they could be set free.
