Chapter Five
S he’d expected ducks waddling out of the living room and the smell of manure.
What she got was a quaint, cozy little house that was unexpectedly clean.
Okay, so there was a faintly animal smell around, but no worse than the wet dog smell that most country homes had.
Eleanor found herself looking around with something close to approval as Danni led her to the kitchen.
There she found a large, unlit fireplace, a scratched wooden table, a collapsing couch against one wall, and a smug-looking cat sitting on said table. The cat stared at her with the kind of disdain she was only used to from countesses and the like.
She straightened her blazer. “Charming.”
Danni snorted as she petted the cat. “What? Expected a barn with a sleeping bag in it, did you? Or is Cat the problem?”
“Cat?”
“Yes, the cat.”
“Your cat is called… Cat?” Eleanor clarified.
“What of it?” huffed Danni. “I’ve got too much to be doing to go around thinking of fancy names for animals. Cat does the job, it’s a very serviceable name.”
“Indeed,” Eleanor said, somewhat wrong-footed. She cleared her throat. “And you have a very nice home.” Which was overstating things slightly, but it was still basically true.
She had, if she were being honest, expected something far more rustic.
Something that reflected the mud-covered, tractor-wielding, entirely too smug woman standing in front of her.
Instead, the warm, sun-filled kitchen suggested cozy late-night conversations and homemade meals, though it wasn’t the tidiest of places.
It unsettled her.
Before she could dwell too much on her unsettlement, her gaze landed on an official-looking letter on the kitchen table. A letter that looked all too familiar. Her pulse quickened.
“You’ve been getting letters from an investor?”
“Did I not just tell you that literally two minutes ago?” Danni asked, turning to a cupboard and liberating two cracked mugs. She put the mugs down and turned to swipe the letter from Eleanor’s grasp. “And what if I have?”
Eleanor frowned, trying to make sense of this. “Because I’ve been getting them too. Same letters. Same envelopes. Same mystery investor.”
Danni folded her arms and sniffed. “Congrats, I suppose. We have something in common, finally.”
“I wouldn’t celebrate just yet,” Eleanor bristled.
Before she could press the matter any further, Danni clapped her hands together. “Right. Tea. Let’s get this over with. Sit down, if you want.”
She busied herself with the kettle, clearly uninterested in discussing anything further. And Eleanor decided to let it go. It was probably none of her business. Whoever this investor was might just be trying his luck around the entire village.
Instead, she watched Danni. The economy of her movements. The way her hair curled messily but also healthily, shiny and glossy. The clearness of her skin. The boundless health of her. And she found herself growing impatient.
“Well?” she said. “Are you planning to pay for the damage to my car? Or are we just here for a kaffee-klatsch?”
“A kaffee what?” Danni asked. She shook her head as she poured water from the kettle. “Lady, I can barely afford to fix my own stuff, vehicles I need to actually run the farm, let alone your luxury toy.”
Eleanor exhaled sharply. “Then what do you propose we do about it?”
Danni handed her a chipped mug of tea. “First, we drink this. Then we complain about our lives and realize that we’re both up shit’s creek in different but equally annoying ways.”
“You make it sound so appealing,” Eleanor said, taking the mug hesitantly.
“You’ll love it,” Danni said with a smirk. She sat down and wrapped her long-fingered hands around her mug. “So what’s up with you, then?”
Eleanor looked at her in surprise. “Nothing. Other than my car, of course.”
“No, come on. You said you’ve got your own problems. So what are they? Educate the uneducated masses. You might as well tell me. You’ve got to sit here until you drink your tea anyway,” Danni said. “And it might help me have a bit more sympathy for you.”
“Charming,” Eleanor said again. But she took a breath, looked into her teacup, and then, to her immense surprise, found herself explaining her predicament.
The house, the renovations, the chances of her getting concussed before breakfast, which made Danni chuckle in a most annoying way.
And then the inheritance clause, the trust, the sheer absurdity of needing a husband just to claim what was rightfully hers.
And Danni listened, nodding along as she took large, scalding sips of her tea, seeming genuinely interested. When Eleanor finished, Danni leaned back in her chair. “That’s crazy,” she said. “Your rich ancestors really said, ‘no house for you unless you bag a husband’?”
Eleanor sighed. “In essence, yes.”
Danni tilted her head. “Why don’t you just sell it?”
Eleanor blinked at her. “Excuse me?”
“The house,” Danni shrugged. “If it’s causing this much of a headache, why don’t you and your grandmother just sell it and move on? ”
Eleanor gaped. “Because it’s my home.” She raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you just sell this farm?”
Danni’s smirk faded slightly. “Right,” she said. “Yeah. I suppose I get it. Sometimes… a place can define who you are, what you are.”
The words cut right to the heart of it and Eleanor was surprised that Danni, of all people, had said them. A moment of silence stretched between them. The kind of silence where two people unexpectedly recognize something familiar in one another. Eleanor didn’t like it.
Danni took another mouthful of tea and leaned forward. “Well, sounds like we’re both in a right mess.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said in agreement. “We are.” There was another pause until, without thinking, Eleanor muttered, “Unless you’re in the market for a bride.”
To be clear, she had meant it as a joke. An utterly ridiculous, impossible joke.
Which was why it was deeply alarming when Danni said, completely straight-faced, “Alright.”
Eleanor stared. “Excuse me?”
Danni shrugged again. “Why not? Unless…” She narrowed her eyes at Eleanor. “Have you got money? Or are you one of those aristocrats that hasn’t got two pennies to rub together and you kill your own deer, that sort of thing?”
“A lady does not discuss finances,” Eleanor said primly.
“Only asking,” said Danni, grumpily.
And Eleanor, stung by the idea that Danni would think that she would run a failing estate, took a breath. “There are accounts that go along with the house,” she said. “We are not… bankrupt.”
“Alright then,” Danni said, more cheerfully. “In that case, why not get wed? You get to keep your house. I can get a bit of financial help to fix my farm up from your ‘accounts that go along with the house’. Win-win.”
Eleanor laughed, half in disbelief. “Why not? Because we don’t live in an eighteenth century romance novel, that’s why not. Honestly, I do think that marriages of convenience have rather outstayed their course.”
“Really though?” Danni asked with a thoughtful sniff. “I mean, rich lady, poor farmer, marriage of convenience. It all seems a bit on-brand.”
Eleanor opened her mouth and then closed it again. It was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. And yet… The idea did make a certain amount of sense, she supposed.
Danni leaned back, arms behind her head. “We could do it, you know? Just a business arrangement.”
And the quaint kitchen suddenly felt a little suffocating. Eleanor pushed her chair back. “I have to go.”
Danni grinned. “You do that. Give it some thought. See what you come up with. I don’t see why we shouldn’t both help each other out, though. I think it’s a great idea, actually.”
Eleanor left the farmhouse in a hurry, half-convinced that she’d fallen into some sort of strange fever dream. She got safely into her car and drove it, battered as it was, away from the farm before pulling into a lay-by and pulling out her phone.
She dialed Elizabeth’s number. Her best friend and, quite conveniently, also the family solicitor. The friendship part had come first, obviously. The two had endured several years of boarding school together.
She answered on the second ring. “I swear to God, Nor, if you’ve found another loophole to exploit, I—”
“Hypothetically,” Eleanor cut in, because she really didn’t have time for this, “if one were to marry only to satisfy a legal requirement… how binding is that?”
Elizabeth went silent for a moment. Then, in a deeply suspicious tone, she said, “Eleanor, what are you thinking?”
Eleanor drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Just answer the question.”
Elizabeth sighed. “In terms of the actual marriage, it would be binding until you got a divorce, just like any other marriage would be. Though the divorce laws have simplified remarkably in recent years. All divorce is now no-fault, and you simply have to be married for twelve months before filing on-line for divorce. You don’t even need a lawyer if things are amicable. ”
“Not exactly what I was asking,” Eleanor said.
Another sigh. “I know what you’re asking, Nor. I’ve been through that trust paperwork a million times. Fine. Technically, you are only required to marry. There are no other conditions. The contract doesn’t specify a loving, romantic union. In fact, you wouldn’t even have to live together.”
Eleanor inhaled slowly. “Right. Good.”
“Oh God, you are thinking something,” Elizabeth groaned.
“I’m merely considering all my options,” Eleanor said.
“Your options should not include mail-order brides, proposing to random people in the village pub, or, God forbid, simply kidnapping a stranger off the street and forcing them into marriage. There are far more complicated laws about forced marriages.”
“She’s not random,” Eleanor said, still thinking about Danni.
Elizabeth paused. “She?”
Eleanor pinched the bridge of her nose. “Not important. I need to go.”
“Eleanor—”
Eleanor hung up before Elizabeth could talk her out of doing anything she considered stupid.
Because it wasn’t stupid.
It was still ridiculous, absolutely absurd.
But no more absurd than insisting that a woman be married before claiming property. And it definitely wasn’t stupid. Not if both parties could profit from the arrangement.
In fact, she was already getting used to the idea.