Instead they stood before a house so humble it was little more than a hut. The place was called Wragby and, despite the priest’s fulsome description of its weekly market, it was no more impressive than this tiny home at its far edge. Nan stood before the door, so still for so long that he was sure she had frozen to the spot. If he had been able to see the letter from Morency, he might know her business here. But he knew only that she had journeyed to meet whoever was inside, and it did not endear her to the ill-mannered priest.

He watched her move at last, heard her call softly to ask for entry and open the door. Her mood had infected him – his breath was held, his heart hammering as she stepped inside – and suddenly he found himself there on the threshold. Though he thought she did not want him and knew she did not need him, he could not resist following.

She stood in the gloom of the hut, her hair reflecting what little light there was, before an old woman seated on a crude bench. The house was only a single room with a hearth at the center, the wooden beams above black with soot. The woman sat with her hands gripping a shallow bowl in her lap, work of some sort, and squinted up at Nan. Her eyes have seen better days, the priest had said.

“Come closer,” said the old woman, setting the bowl aside and gesturing her forward. “I won’t know you if I can’t see you.”

Nan took a deep breath and swallowed. She knelt before the woman and whispered, “Aunt Mary. I’ve found you, Aunt Mary. I’ve come to you.”

There was a hitch in her voice on these last words, and the old woman’s face softened, crumpled. Her hands came up to hold Nan’s face.

“Oh bless me,” she exclaimed softly. She drank in the sight of her niece. “If it ain’t our own sweet Nan. You live.” Tears dripped down her face. “I did not dare to hope you still lived.”

It was the sight of tears forming in Nan’s eyes that made Gryff turn away. He was not meant to see this. Now the old woman was saying that when the priest claimed he had received word from Morency that her niece searched for her, she had thought it must be a cruel trick. She wept and laughed as she said it, patting Nan’s cheek. He should wait outside, or walk all the long way down the lane until he reached the center of the town. Something, anything to avoid the pain of seeing this love overflowing, this homecoming, this joy he would never know for himself.