Faithful Unto Death Hervey read the banns once, twice and then a third time. The day came close. She would never be Campion, never know love, and she yearned for love.

“By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth.” And by night on her bed Campion tossed in an agony of apprehension. Would Scammell take her as a bull took a heifer? She cringed from her imagination, hearing his grunts, feeling the hanging weight of his great body as he mounted her. She imagined the fleshy lips at the nape of her neck and she cried out helplessly in her bed. Charity stirred in her sleep.

Campion saw her own death as she gave birth, dropping a sleek, bloody mess as she had seen cows drop. Sometimes she thought it would be simpler to die before the wedding.

Her father spoke to her only once about her wedding and that three days before the ceremony. He came upon her in the pantry where she was slapping butter into great squares for the table. He seemed surprised to see her and he stared at her.

She smiled. “Father?”

“You are working.”

“Yes, father.”

He picked up the muslin that covered the butter jar, twisting it in his huge hands. “I have brought you up in the faith. I have done well.”

She sensed that he needed reassurance. “Yes, father.”

“He’s a good man. A man of God.”

“Yes, father.”

“He will be a tower of strength. Yes. A tower of strength. And you are well provided for.”

“Thank you, father.” She could see that he was about to leave so, before he could disentangle his hands from the muslin, she asked the question that had intrigued her since Scammell had spoken to her beneath the beech trees. “Father?”

“Daughter?”

“What is the Covenant, father?”

His heavy face was still, staring at her, the question being weighed in the balance of his mind. A pulse throbbed in his temple.

She would always remember the moment. It was the only occasion when she knew her father to lie. Matthew Slythe, for all his anger, was a man who tried to be honest, tried to be true to his hard God, yet at that moment, she knew, he lied. “It is a dowry, no more. It is for your husband, of course, so it is not your concern.”

The muslin had torn in his hands.

Matthew Slythe prayed that night, he prayed for forgiveness, that the sin of lying would be forgiven. He groaned as he thought of the Covenant. It had brought him riches beyond hope, but it had brought him Dorcas as well. He had tried to break her spirit, to make her a worthy servant of his harsh God, but he feared for her if she should ever know the true nature of the Covenant. She could be rich and independent and she might achieve that effortless happiness that Slythe sensed in her and feared as the devil’s mark. The money of the Covenant was not for happiness. It was, in Matthew Slythe’s plans, money to be spent on spreading the fear of God to a sinful world. He prayed that Dorcas would never, ever, discover the truth.