Her skin was smooth again, the marks that she’d borne out of the Tolbooth were gone. Though the drave was still meagre and farmers were charging hefty prices for their produce, her diet was much improved. Her body had slowly healed and she’d lost the stick-thin, waif-like look they’d all worn when they emerged from captivity. Nettie looked as though nothing had happened to her. It was only if you caught her face in repose and saw the darkness behind her eyes that you realised this was a woman with bleak secrets. A raging anger, too. It was the same with Beatrix, and it didn’t take much to make either of them snap and utter words that could be misconstrued. So afeared were Lillie Wallace and Margaret Jack of being found guilty again by association that after Sorcha’s celebration they’d left the Weem to look for work in another port town — the further afield, the better. Who could blame them? Not now Cowper’s sermons had become more pointed than ever. It was as if Aidan’s departure had shaken something loose in the man, something beyond reason.

And today she had to listen to another of them. God, if only she could plead a megrim or, better still, claim Dagny needed her in St Andrew’s. But she was neither sick nor needed, least of all by her sister. If anyone needed her it was Nettie, Beatrix, Isobel, Nicolas, Janet and the other fishwives, and the women and men who refused to be bullied by a furious beast wearing a clerical collar and his threats of God’s wrath.

Glancing at the clock, Sorcha sighed. The service would start soon. She must be there lest Cowper fine her or worse, use her absence against her. With one last look around the room, ensuring the fire was a warm glow, she grabbed her shawl and headed outside.

Reverend Cowper’s sermon was worse than Sorcha anticipated. Seated at the back of the kirk, she’d come late and was squeezed between Callum Gregson, a former councilman and mercer, his widowed daughter Caitlin, and the village doctor — a title generously bestowed rather than earned. Everyone understood that anything of use Duncan McLeod knew he’d learned from his mother and not the university he’d attended for less than a year in Edinburgh.

Grateful for the cold air coming in from the rear of the kirk, which meant the doctor’s terrible body odour and the reek of wine from Mr Gregson were at least bearable, Sorcha looked for Nettie among the parishioners. Against the Anster doctor’s advice, Thom had gone away on business, so Nettie was coming to stay again. It was a moment before she spotted her, halfway down, Isobel on one side and Beatrix on the other. So much for keeping their distance in public…