Chapters (50)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- The Pengarron Sagas
- The Harvey Family Sagas
Her lips trembling, she repeated her earlier prayers. ‘Please God, I’m sorry for sinning against You and Matthias and the children. I am utterly lost if You don’t forgive me. I swear I’ll never commit the abominable sin of adultery ever again. I beg You, forgive me also for sinning against Lady Pengarron. I couldn’t confess this to anyone, not even the Reverend Lanyon, even if he wasn’t Sir Oliver’s son-in-law. It’s too terrible, too wicked!’
She repeated the prayer twice. She had committed the sin three times and felt she must. Racked with guilt after her first coupling with Sir Oliver, she had sworn she’d never do it again. But when her lover had crept up behind her in a secluded spot in the rambling farmyard, and softly put his arms around her and nestled his mouth on the back of her neck, she had turned round to him at once. Renouncing the devil and taking an oath of penitence and carrying Matthias’s Bible everywhere she went, had not saved her a third time.
Yesterday, Oliver had met up with her at Marazion market after she had completed the business of selling her own eggs and other produce and, as fate would have it, the dairymaid she had taken with her so as not to be alone, had given her the slip to meet her own favourite.
As if she had no will of her own, no tongue with which to deny him, she had allowed Oliver to take her to a large house in the town. Whose it was or exactly where it was located she couldn’t remember now. Only that he had said they were in no danger of being discovered, and he, pleased at the prospect of making love in comfort for a prolonged period, had plied her affectionately with gifts and compliments and tender encouragements to undress completely and give herself to him without reserve. He had taught and she had learned. To her everlasting dishonour, he had taught her to touch and kiss in ways she had not even imagined before. To her bitter shame, after her preliminary uncertainties, she had enjoyed every moment.
Now for the remainder of her life, she would bear the invisible stain of deceitfulness and corruption. She deserved it, welcomed it. She wanted to be punished. What she was finding unendurable was her betrayal of her gentle and loving husband, a committed Christian, who ministered to an ever increasing flock of members at the Methodist meeting house: tinners, fisherfolk, farm labourers and estate workers, the destitute and dying, people who called him Preacher Renfree.