“Be quiet!” She screamed it at him. “Be quiet!”

Goodwife had advised him to beat Campion. She had said it would solve all his problems and he wondered if she was right. He blinked. He knew he was not a strong man, otherwise he might have resisted Grimmett’s insistence that they be married this night. Scammell had protested that a marriage performed at night was illegal, but Grimmett had laughed. “Leave that to Sir Grenville, sir. He knows what’s legal.”

This then was Samuel Scammell’s wedding night, the night when he would take on Matthew Slythe’s sacred charge to lead Dorcas in the path of salvation. Scammell’s religion had brought him to this night, to this bride, and though his flesh cried out for her, he was appalled at her strength of will. Perhaps Goodwife was right. Perhaps he should beat her into submission. He tried one more time.

“Are you truly saved, Dorcas?”

She despised him. She stood straight and tall by the barred shutters. “I believe in Jesus Christ.”

His response was automatic. “Praise Him. Praise Him.”

“I’m not your kind of Christian, though.”

He looked puzzled. One finger scratched at a cavernous nostril. “There is only one kind, Dorcas.”

“And what kind is that?”

He was pleased that, at last, she was talking to him. Maybe he would not have to unloop the thick belt that held up his breeches. He smiled, his thick lips gleaming in the light of the single candle. “A Christian is someone who has taken Jesus as their Lord, who obeys His commandments.”

“Which were to love one another, and to do unto them as you would have them do to you.” She laughed at him. “Is that what you’re doing? Forcing yourself on me is to obey one of His commandments?”

He shook his head impatiently. “No, no, no. If a man is chosen of God, Dorcas, if a man is strong in the Lord, then he has a duty, yes, a duty to guide others. No one said that being a Christian is easy, Dorcas, yet we have to be shepherds to the flock. We have to guide them.”

There was an infinity of scorn on her face. “And I am one of ‘them’? I have to be guided?”

He nodded, eager for her to understand. “Women are weak, Dorcas, they are more flesh than spirit. Yet a woman’s way is easier, because it lies in obedience. If you would submit yourself to obedience then you would not be troubled. I come to you, Dorcas, only in the spirit of God, in a desire to lead you in a goodly path. You should submit prayerfully, Dorcas, knowing that this is His will.”

She leaned forward on the table and he flinched from the anger in her face. Her words lashed at him. “Submit! Obedience! That’s all you know. Punishment, hate, that’s your religion. If Christ were to come back today do you know what you’d do? You’d be running for the hammer and nails and shouting for someone to build a cross.” She straightened up. “You’re not marrying me out of Christian duty, Samuel Scammell. You’re marrying me because it will make you rich, and because you want this!” She drew the hems of her cloak apart, showing her soberly clothed body. She spat on his religious tracts. “That’s for your greed, and that’s for your lust.”