Then how had Mrs. Turnbull settled so quickly on Fiona as the intended target of such venom? She wasn’t a clever woman, nor one overly endowed with either imagination or vindictiveness. How had she picked Fiona out as the evil woman? Because Fiona hadn’t lived here all her life? Because her aunt was dead now and she had to run the inn alone, without proper chaperoning—it hadn’t occurred to her that she needed any! Was that it, the impropriety of a respectable young woman serving men in the bar? Since the war, the inn hadn’t paid well enough to keep a barmaid. . . .

“This is malignant nonsense! Where did you get it?” Fiona demanded.

Mrs. Turnbull said, “It was under the mat by my door. And I’m not the first. Nor the last! Wait and see!”

. . . not the first, nor the last . . . There had been other such letters. Fiona tried to absorb that and couldn’t. Had all the people who shunned her now received malicious, unsigned messages like this one? But how could they believe such things? Surely someone could have warned her—a friend, a neighbor—

The washerwoman snatched the letter from Fiona’s hand and strode off, self-righteousness in every line. She was a simple woman known for her stringent faith and her narrowmindedness. Both had given her the courage to speak out in her own anger. And fear.

Like the old woman at the back of the church, Mrs. Turnbull had found the bravado of the mob.

IN LATE JULY there was a policeman at Fiona’s door. Constable McKinstry stood on the step, uncomfortable and flushed, stiffly in uniform.

“Don’t shut the door in my face,” he said placatingly. “I’ve come to ask— It’s about the lad. There’s— Well, there’s been talk going around, and I don’t know what to make of it.”

Fiona sighed. “You might as well come in. I’ve seen one of the letters myself. They all say the same, do they? That I’m a fallen woman?”

Alistair said, remaining where he was on the step, casting a swift glance up and down the quiet street, “Those letters? Nasty piece of work, they are. I’ve just been shown a number of them. You don’t want to hear what’s in them! Cowardly—unsigned— meant to be cruel. Mark my words, a woman’s behind it, a woman with nothing better to do than stir up trouble with lies.”

“But people are believing these lies, Alistair, and I don’t know how to put a stop to it. They’re talking about me behind my back—they must be—but no one will speak to me about it. I’m shut out, treated as if I’m invisible.”