Chapter Nine
E leanor had never considered herself a woman of weak constitution. But as she stood in the doorway of the farmhouse’s so-called guest room, she found herself feeling slightly faint and reconsidering just how sensitive she might be.
“This is it?” she asked, slowly stepping inside.
The room was small, functional even, and painted in a cheerful shade of pale yellow that looked like sunshine. It was, however, missing a rather critical element. There was a wardrobe in the corner, a comfortable-looking armchair by the window, a rug on the floor and… nothing else.
Danni leaned casually against the doorframe and grinned. “Yep. Welcome home, wife.”
Eleanor turned to her, incredulous. “Danni, where exactly am I supposed to sleep?”
“Hey, I said that there was a guest room, not a guest bed,” Danni said. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “I suppose we could haul that old couch up from the kitchen. I think we’d get it up the stairs as long as we took it on a sort of diagonal sideways approach.”
“Absolutely not,” Eleanor shuddered. “I’m not moving furniture around.”
Danni puffed out a breath. “Well, you were sleeping on a camp bed up until now,” she said. She looked around the room. “And at least here there’s no bricks falling. No dust either.”
Eleanor raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry,” Danni said with a shrug. “I was thinking mostly about the no bricks part. Less about the no bed part.”
Eleanor exhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of her nose.
She’d been prepared for plenty of inconveniences about this arrangement.
The absence of a bed had not been one of them.
And whilst it was nice of Danni to offer her a place to stay, she was regretting her decision rather sooner than she’d expected. “Danni, be serious for a moment here.”
“Fine,” Danni said with a sigh. “You can have my bed, Princess. I’ll sleep on the couch in the kitchen.”
“I didn’t mean to kick you out of your bed,” Eleanor said quickly. That hadn’t been her intention, and it seemed, well, unfair.
“It’s not like I sleep in,” Danni said. She sniffed. “And to be honest, it’s not like I don’t sleep on the couch most nights, anyway. Climbing the stairs just to come down them a couple of hours later doesn’t always make a lot of sense.”
Eleanor studied her. Danni looked completely unfazed, as if giving up her bed to a woman that she barely tolerated was no big deal.
Eleanor herself was already starting to feel guilty, though only slightly.
This had all been Danni’s idea, after all.
“Thank you,” she said finally. “That’s very generous. ”
“Don’t mention it,” said Danni, already turning to leave. “I’ll just consider it one of my wifely duties.”
Eleanor unpacked what little she’d brought, stowing things away in the wardrobe and small bathroom. This wasn’t the worst idea, she told herself as she worked. In fact, it was probably a good thing. If anyone came asking, they lived together. And it wouldn’t be for that long.
Anyone could put up with anything for a few weeks.
And, to be fair, the room was larger than the one she’d had at boarding school, and at least she wasn’t sharing a bathroom with eleven other girls.
No, she had to look on the bright side .
She stowed her small case under the bed and, in search of a proper cup of tea, descended into the kitchen. Only to freeze in horror at the sight before her.
Muddy boots were lined up uncleaned next to the door. A sink full of washing up awaited attention. There was a butter dish in the middle of the table that bore the distinct mark of a cat’s bite.
Eleanor took a slow, steady breath. You can deal with this, she told herself.
Rolling up her sleeves, she got to work on the washing up.
When she was done, she wiped down the counters and, seeing that the spices in the rack were out of order, began alphabetizing them.
She was placing nutmeg when the back door opened and Danni strolled in, stopping short at the sight of Eleanor.
“Um, what are you doing?” Danni asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Putting your spices back into alphabetical order,” Eleanor said. “Where I presume they belong?”
“Then you presume wrong,” said Danni. “They belong in whichever order they last got used in, to my knowledge.”
“Ah,” said Eleanor, standing back. “Right.” She looked around and picked up a dish towel that had begun to stiffen. “And how long has it been since this was last washed?”
Danni shrugged. “Dunno. Couple of weeks. Three maybe. It’s a dish towel. Only used to dry clean dishes. So it doesn’t touch dirt, you see.”
Eleanor gasped as if she’d been struck. “Three weeks?”
Danni sighed and shook her head. “Oh, you’re going to be so much fun to live with,” she said.
Eleanor dropped the dish towel into the sink and began running boiling water over it.
???
When the alarm went at a quarter to five, Danni stretched the crick out of her neck and pushed the bundle of blankets to the end of the couch. She pulled on the jeans she’d left on the kitchen chair and went out into the cool of the morning to get started.
By half past seven, the animals were fed and cleaned out, and Danni was gasping for a cup of tea.
Not that she expected Eleanor to be up and about.
Still, she supposed she had to make allowances.
Allowances that were a bit easier to make given that Eleanor had signed off on a new rental tractor that was due to arrive that afternoon.
She crept into the house, making sure that the door didn’t creak, only to be greeted by the sight of Eleanor, already dressed, definitely already awake, and already fuming.
“Honestly, who leaves their dirty dishes next to the sink rather than in it?” Eleanor demanded, arms crossed.
Danni yawned. “Um, me?” she hazarded. The piece of bread she’d scoffed down that morning seemed so long ago that she barely remembered it. Which reminded her. “What happened to the butter?”
“I threw it away,” Eleanor said. “The cat had taken a bite out of it.”
“Not all of it,” Danni said. “You just have to be careful to take a bit from the opposite end.”
Eleanor huffed and turned to the kettle. As Danni watched, she performed what looked like a very complicated routine involving a loose-leaf tea, a strainer, an egg timer, and what appeared to be some sort of sacrificial offering to the gods of tea perfection.
After three minutes of this, Danni shook her head and grabbed her own tea mug, still dirty from that morning, from the draining board. She threw in a tea bag, ran the kitchen tap until it was hot, then stuck the mug under it.
She turned around to see Eleanor staring at her in horror.
“That is not how you make tea!”
Danni grinned, took a slow, deliberate sip, then shrugged. “Tastes alright to me,” she said.
Eleanor looked personally offended, and Danni had to bite back her laugh. The tea was disgusting, but it was worth it, just to see the look on Eleanor’s face.
IT WAS LATE evening by the time Danni was done with farm chores and Eleanor was back from the house. Danni frowned as she flicked through the mail that Hector had dropped off. She really should re-direct everything. Then she saw the familiar envelope and stiffened.
“You got one too,” Eleanor said, looking up from her phone.
“Yeah,” said Danni, tearing the envelope open. “And look at that. The offer’s gone up again.”
“Mine too,” Eleanor said. “They must be getting desperate.”
“Not tempted?” Danni said, eyeing her.
“Are you?” asked Eleanor, raising an eyebrow.
Danni scoffed. “Not a chance.”
For a moment, they simply sat there, then, without a word, Danni crumpled the letter up and threw it into the fireplace.
“That would be far more impressive if you had a fire going,” Eleanor pointed out.
“Yeah, well, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?”
Eleanor’s lips twitched. “I threw mine into the compost bin with the worms,” she said.
“Lucky worms,” said Danni. “But I’m quite sure that’s not how compost works.”
“It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?” Eleanor parroted.
Danni grinned and then Eleanor was grinning back, and for a brief second they weren’t so different after all.
“Mind you, at least I know how to load a dishwasher,” Eleanor said, ending their little moment. “You can’t just shove everything in willy-nilly.”
“Did one of the servants teach you how?” asked Danni, an innocent look on her face.
“I’m not quite as spoiled as you might think. I did go to boarding school, you know?” Eleanor said indignantly.
“Oh, did you? Boarding school. That must have been horrific. Were you expected to wash your own knickers?” Danni asked.
Eleanor glared at her. “I can adapt. ”
Danni snorted. “Of course you can, Princess.”
“I do wish you’d stop calling me that,” Eleanor scowled.
“Your wish is my command, Your Royal Highness,” Danni said.
Eleanor groaned, resisting the urge to throw something at her. “You’re going to have to mind your manners,” she said. “Not to mention getting a bit of a wardrobe update.”
“There’s a wardrobe in the spare room,” Danni said. “There’s no bed, but there’s definitely a wardrobe.”
“Not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
Eleanor tapped her phone. “There’s a small gathering at the country club next week. I thought it would be a good occasion to make our public debut.”
“Debut?”
“Why not?” asked Eleanor. “There’s less chance of you embarrassing yourself if we’re just popping in for a glass of something. No sit-down conversations. It seems an ideal opportunity.”
And for once, Danni was the one lost for words.