‘Come on. I’d grab your coat. It looks as if it might lash down later.’

‘What’s this?’ She indicated the grey gloomy weather.

‘It’s only spitting.’

She rolled her eyes. Hannah had already learned the variations of rain, from a ‘soft day’ to spitting and to lashing – the Irish certainly knew their rain.

In rainproof jackets they set off climbing up the hill beyond the farmhouse, through a wide grassy field edged with the dry-stone walls she’d become so used to. They were an endless source of fascination to her. Miles and miles of them, like haphazard piles of books that magically seemed to fit together to form straight lines traversing the fields, following the contours undulating over the terrain and disappearing into the misty, murky distance. Their surfaces were lichen-patterned and dampened by the fine drizzle that swirled around them. Although it wasn’t cold, Hannah kept her head down, focusing on where she was putting her feet.

It wasn’t long before Conor tugged at her hand. ‘There she is.’

As she raised her head, she saw the large sprawling grey stone building, transformed at one end by a huge picture window and new wooden window frames.

‘This is the place you’ve been working on?’ There was a flutter in her chest.

‘Yes,’ said Conor, suddenly serious and a touch wary. ‘Thought you might like to see it.’

‘I’d love to,’ she said, aware that this was akin to him placing a tiny, fragile baby bird in her hand. Now probably wasn’t the time to tell him that she wanted to stay.

She followed him round to the front to the house. A gravelled track ran up across the hill which she assumed led down to the farmhouse in the next valley. She smiled. ‘A good distance and out of sight of the family.’

‘Exactly.’ He winked at her before leading the way to a neat storm porch with a weathered tiled roof and sturdy front door of oak. She could picture it in a few years’ time with climbing plants trailing up the posts. He opened the door and she stepped over the threshold into a stone-flagged hallway with a freestanding wooden staircase which wound around the wall up to the next floor, where a long gallery fronted the void which was open to the high ceiling.

‘Wow. This is quite an entrance.’ She gazed upwards, admiring the wonderful light and the gorgeous sense of space.

‘Like it?’

‘Love it. It’s fantastic.’ Her eyes glowed with enthusiasm and suddenly Conor’s face broke into a grin. He grabbed her hand and pulled her forward through another solid wooden door.