Early winter, 1910.

As my buggy approached the rise of the road before descending into town, I paused to drink in the beauty of the winter's first snowfall. A closer look, however, made me chuckle, for the double swell of the hillsides ahead resembled a lush young buttocks, with the road a ribbon splitting its velvety cheeks. This placed the town of Redemption in the unenviable position of that body part associated with waste and foul wind-which made me laugh out loud. There was something rotten in Redemption, all right.

These people didn't consider themselves anal, of course-nor did they allow their thoughts to wander farther along that crevice, into the hotbed of sexual excitement. Heaven forbid anyone in this town of tidy white houses would succumb to temptation or adultery! Lord save us all if a wife should lust after her husband unless she wanted to conceive, for the Church had decreed this the only acceptable reason to engage in sex.

As is the case with most people and places, however, appearances can be deceiving. I realized long ago that this picturesque village maintained its saintly reputation more by turning the other cheek-and a blind eye-than by acknowledging its wayward behavior. Rumor had it the confessionals gathered dust, while the magistrate only heard cases about the Thou Shalt Nots of petty thievery and boundary disputes and community concerns. Never sex, nor the wayward, flirtatious behavior that would surely lead to it.

Which is why the Sisters of Samaria ran an orphanage populated mostly by children who only believed their parents were dead, along with the unfortunate few whose families had succumbed to disease or disaster. And in return for this saving of reputations-or perhaps not to ruin such a sweet deal-the citizens of Redemption gave the Sisters the respect and privacy their order required, and donated generously to support those babies they abandoned at the orphanage door. The three paragons who'd established this institution hadn't been seen since anyone could remember, but no one questioned their existence: the orphanage still served its purpose, and the convenience of this illicit situation had served everyone for generations-which was why it thrived.