And he’d done it without my help.

Heathcliff. My Heathcliff.

Three years of missing him. Three years of longing for him. Three years of agony. The pain balled itself up in my chest and broke out of my throat. I made a sound that was barely human. A cry from the very depths of my being. My shout split the night, banging between the hills, echoing from Thrushcross Grange to Wuthering Heights and back again. And then Heathcliff was there, his arms around me, and he was warm and solid and real and alive.

His breath was hot on my neck as he held me and said, “I feared you had forgotten me, Cathy.”

“Never! Never! Never!” I told him.

The noise I’d made had caught Edgar’s attention. I heard a window being opened and then Edgar calling out to me, “Don’t stand outside, love! Bring the person in if it’s anyone particular.”

I took Heathcliff’s hand in mine and said, “Come in, come in.”

“I doubt your husband will welcome me with the same passion you do, Cathy,” Heathcliff said. “Should you not tell him it’s me?”

I flew back to the drawing room. My joy was so great that I flung my arms around Edgar’s neck and shrieked in his ear, “It’s Heathcliff. He’s come back!”

“There’s no need to strangle me,” Edgar said. “He’s surely not worth this amount of fuss. There’s no need to be so frantic.”

“Oh, I know you never much liked Heathcliff,” I said. Edgar’s irritation did nothing to dent my happiness. “But you must be friends now, for my sake. Can I tell him to come up?”

“Here?” Edgar said, aghast.

“Where else?” I asked.

“Surely the kitchen would be more appropriate?”

“You’d have your wife sit in the kitchen, would you?” I said, teasing Edgar for his foolishness. He didn’t answer. “Nelly, set two tables in here,” I continued. “Edgar and Isabella can drink their tea at one, since they’re gentry. Heathcliff and I will sit at the other table, as we’re of the lower orders. Will that suffice, darling? Or must I take Heathcliff to another room altogether? Tell Nelly what you want, I’m off to fetch Heathcliff indoors.”

Edgar caught my wrist to stop me. “Nelly will bring him up,” Edgar said, waving her out of the door. “You are mistress of Thrushcross Grange. The whole house need not witness the sight of you welcoming a runaway servant as a brother.”

That pulled me up short. “A runaway servant?” I echoed.

“He is a gipsy,” Edgar said. “A ploughboy!”

“I’ll not have you call him such things,” I replied. “Heathcliff is dearer to me than you can imagine and nothing you say or do will change that. Do you not see how happy I am? If you loved me, you’d welcome his return as much as I do.”

“I cannot,” Edgar said.

“Well, then. You have a choice. You welcome Heathcliff in to our home or I will leave it now along with him. And what will the servants say about that, I wonder?”