Sea’s hooves rang as he came out of the woods on to the stones of the lane towards Acre and I turned his head east towards my land. I had half a will to look at it once more and then to go, to leave it for ever. I belonged neither there on the land, nor in my old life without her. I belonged nowhere and I had nowhere to go and no idea what I should do. I rode as I had ridden that night, without direction and Sea stopped at the little stream, as he had stopped that night and dipped his head to drink while I smelled the cold mist off the water.

‘Sarah,’ a voice said, and I looked up. My eyes were blurred – they had been watering as I rode – and I blinked to clear them. It was Will Tyacke standing under the trees on the other side of the stream.

‘You,’ I said.

Sea put his ears forward and went out of the stream towards Will and put his great head down for a pat. He liked Will; he was the only man he did like.

‘Sarah, in your old clothes,’ Will said.

‘My riding habit’s being mended,’ I said. ‘I wanted to ride early.’

‘Sleepless?’ he asked.

I nodded and he gave me a little smile. ‘Too soft for you at Havering?’ he asked.

The months of our quarrel slid away from us both. ‘Too soft, too big, too grand,’ I said in a little voice. ‘It’s not my place.’

‘Where is your place?’ he asked. He patted Sea’s neck and came close to stand at his shoulder so that he could look up into my face.

‘Nowhere, as far as I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve come too late for this life, and I don’t care to go back to the old one. I’ll never learn to be a lady as Lady Clara. I suppose now I couldn’t be happy with the work I used to do. I’m betwixt and between. I don’t know where I should be.’

He reached up to me and rested his hand on my leg. I stayed still, I did not mind his touch. ‘Could you be here?’ he asked very low. ‘Could you be with us in Acre? Not up at the Hall as gentry, but in the village with the ordinary people? Living with us and working with us, making the land grow and feeding the people, selling in the market and working and planning?’

I looked down at his face and saw his brown eyes were full of love. He wanted me to say yes. He wanted me to say yes more than he wanted anything else in the world. Despite our quarrel, despite my turning from him to go to Lady Clara’s parlour, he wanted me to say yes and to go to Acre with him, as his equal.