She turned to Ivy. “Thank you so much, miss, for those directions, and how fortunate that Mr. Shaw is your uncle.”

Shaw bustled up, coming to a stop beside Ivy. “That’s Reverend Shaw, if you please, and who might you be?”

Good heavens. Had he no grasp of manners? “I am—”

“Don’t bother telling me,” he said, flapping a Book of Common Prayer at her. “I can tell by looking at you that you’re the wretched creature who gave birth to Ivy. Ivy, you are to go directly home and straight to your room. I’ll speak to you later.”

Ivy, stay. A touch on Constance’s arm kept those words behind her teeth. Rothhaven was at her side, all languid grace and pleasant smiles.

“Reverend Shaw,” he said. “I apologize for the irregularity of this encounter, here before the whole village, but we had heard that you make a priority out of morning prayers and thought to respect your piety by putting off the introductions. I am Robert, Duke of Rothhaven. I have a letter of introduction from Dr. Pietr Sorenson, our vicar.”

He passed along a folded and sealed sheet of vellum and offered a goggle-eyed Ivy a bow. “Miss Ivy, good day.”

That was clever, to acknowledge her as if she was more than a child truant from the schoolroom.

“I have little patience with dukes,” Shaw snapped, glowering at Rothhaven and then at Constance. “And even less with strumpets.” He spoke clearly, as if trying to make a spectacle in the middle of the market day.

“I have no patience with hypocrites,” Rothhaven replied, pleasantly. “If our Lord can forgive Mary Magdalene for her failings, then who are we to cling to judgment when a young girl was taken advantage of by a worldly bounder?”

Shaw blinked, then widened his stance. “Forgiveness is a virtue, I’ll grant you, but what of you, Your Grace. Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle, than for a wealthy man—”

Ivy closed her eyes and took a step back.

“Excuse me,” Constance said, “but might we move this game of scriptural battledore someplace more private? I had hoped to avoid airing family business for the entertainment of greater Fendle Bridge.”

Shaw glanced about, not an ounce of chagrin in his bearing. Mrs. Hodges stood nearby looking ready to smite him with her cabbages, though, and some of the wind dropped from his sails.

“My home is humble,” he said. “I am willing to hear you out there, but don’t think you can waltz into Ivy’s life, your corrupting influence already on display, and expect to be granted any access to the girl. She is impressionable and headstrong, and it won’t serve for her to form attachments when she’s soon to depart for the Lord’s work in the colonies.”