34. Chapter 34
Evie
Julian Ashford is prompt to the minute. I decide to take that as a good omen, because I’m currently taking everything as an omen and have been since six this morning.
I sent Milo into town with a grocery list twice as long as it needed to be.
Half of it we don’t need until next week.
I wrote ‘sourdough starter, ask Caroline’ at the bottom purely to buy an extra twenty minutes, because his excitement had reached a pitch I could no longer be in the same room as.
He’d been vibrating with it since breakfast, telling me the feature was going to change everything, that Julian would take one look and love this place, that I deserved this.
The words kept hitting the same raw spot until I wanted to climb out of my skin.
I couldn’t hold my own nerves and his hope simultaneously.
And if it all goes sideways in the next hour, I’d rather fall apart alone and pull myself together before he gets back.
So I’m alone on the porch when the tires crunch up the gravel.
It’s a black town car, waxed to a shine, and it rolls up my drive like it’s done me a favor by coming. A driver gets out and opens the rear door, and I spend a full three seconds wondering whether I’m meant to tip him.
Julian climbs out in a charcoal suit, wearing sunglasses, which is a bold move under an October sky that’s been threatening drizzle since dawn.
It makes no sense, and I don’t think he cares.
He wears the wrongness of it without noticing, and suddenly I’m aware of every wrinkle I failed to steam out of my lavender dress.
“Ms. Feywin.” Julian grins at me. “Thank you for having me.”
“Evie, please.” I step back to let him in. Everything hinges on the next four seconds, and I’d very much like to know how they’re going.
The entry hall does its quiet work. The floorboards are original heart pine, worn pale down the center where a hundred and twenty years of feet have walked the same line to the parlor.
They were under three layers of ugly varnish when I bought the place, and I spent two weeks bringing them back because some things deserve more patience than money.
The staircase creaks on the fourth step.
It always has. I stopped meaning to fix it and started leaving it, because guests learn it within a day and then it becomes theirs—a thing the house says to them every night.
That’s the part I’m proud of, more than the fresh paint or the booking numbers, or the stupidly expensive linen sheets.
The guestbook slumps on the hall table, the leather cracked at the spine, so fat with other people’s gratitude that I’ve had to loop a ribbon around it to keep it shut.
His expression settles into quiet approval, and I let myself breathe.
And then I make the mistake of trying to see it through his eyes.
The wallpaper is a botanical print I chose myself and love with my whole heart.
There’s the lamp with a fringe I’ve never had the nerve to replace.
For one lurching moment, I wonder if a man who steps out of a Bentley walks into this room and thinks cluttered and fussy, whether antique reads, to a person like him, as a nice word for someone else’s leftovers.
There’s a small stain on the runner near the base of the stairs. I take one casual step sideways, park my foot on top of it, and commit to standing there for the foreseeable future.
I walk him through the history the way I’ve walked a hundred guests through it, except this time every word matters, so I slow down.
I tell him about the couple who ran it for forty years before me, and how they sold it to me instead of three developers because I’d scrubbed these floors as a teenager and they trusted me not to gut the soul out of the place.
The sage green paint came from a scrap I peeled out from under a century of overpaint in the attic, which sounds charming now and felt significantly less charming while I was standing on a ladder with dust in my bra.
The foxgloves out front are the reason for the name, even though right now the beds are mostly brown stalks and seed heads.
In June, they’re taller than me, pink and purple bells crowding the path like they own it.
I leave the dead ones standing on purpose so the flowers can scatter themselves and come back wild, because half the trick with this place is knowing what to fix and what to leave alone.
“You’ve kept the bones,” he says, running one hand along the banister. “Most people renovate the character right out of a house.”
“The charm is the only reason guests forgive the plumbing.”
He laughs, and I risk believing this is going well.
The Bartletts are in the parlor when we pass, mid-crossword. They look up at Julian with the frank curiosity of two people who consider every guest in the house their personal business. Mr. Bartlett peers over his glasses. “New arrival?”
“Julian Ashford,” he says before I can. “I’m doing a piece on the inn.”
That’s all it takes.
Mrs. Bartlett puts down her tea. “I hope you’re planning to say every good thing there is, because there isn’t a bad one to find. We’ve stayed in grand hotels, you know. Marble everything. I didn’t sleep a wink in a single place. But upstairs, I sleep like the dead.”
Which is not the endorsement she thinks it is.
“That’s very kind,” I manage.
“It isn’t kindness, dear, it’s a review.” She turns to Julian. “Write that down.”
“There’s no need to—”
“There’s every need,” Mr. Bartlett says, still doing his crossword. “Six letters. Something you can’t get anymore.” He taps his pen. “Decent. That’s what she is.”
I’d like to lie down on the heart pine floor now.
Mrs. Bartlett nods. “And she bakes the entire breakfast herself. Every morning.”
“I feel I should state,” I say to Julian, “for the honor of the establishment, that I didn’t pay them to do this.”
His mouth curves. “That’s exactly what someone running an arrangement would say.”
“It’s also what someone not running one would say. That’s the tragedy of my situation.”
Julian laughs. “Consider me an impartial witness, then. Bribed or not.” He looks around the parlor, taking it in.
“Can I get you tea?” I ask, seizing the lifeline of a task. “There’s shortbread. Lemon biscuits, if you want to be the judge of whether they’re bribery-grade.”
“I’d be a poor journalist if I didn’t say yes.”
After tea, I guide him upstairs through the rooms.
We start with the Garden Room, with its ivy-patterned wallpaper, brass bed, and narrow writing desk tucked beneath the window, because someone, someday, will absolutely come here pretending they’re going to finish a novel.
The wardrobe is Victorian, dark walnut, and dramatic enough to look personally offended by modern luggage, but the drawers still run smoothly because I spent an entire Sunday waxing them while questioning my career choices.
Then the Sunrise Room, where I draw back the lace curtains so he can see the peach quilt, the pressed-glass lamps, the old washstand I use as a coffee tray because history is lovely but people still need caffeine.
I show him the little cast-iron fireplace, the marble-topped table, the bell pull beside the bed that no longer rings anything but looks too perfect to remove.
The floorboards dip near the window. A handmade coverlet lies across the bed, sewn by a woman in Montana who charged me less than she should’ve, so I send her a Christmas card every year and pretend that makes us even.
My favorite is the Honeysuckle Room, though I try not to say that to guests.
It has the carved bedframe I found in a barn and paid a man far too much to restore, with curling vines and nicked mahogany.
The wallpaper is cream with faded yellow flowers; the mirror tilts slightly no matter how many times I straighten it, and the rug has one corner that refuses to lie flat.
In June, when the real honeysuckle blooms outside the window, the whole room smells like sugar and green leaves.
Right now it carries the subtle aroma of beeswax, laundry soap, and the old lavender sachets I keep.
Julian writes nothing down. He watches and asks the right questions in the right order. Every so often, he says something so precise about the place that I understand why the magazine has the reputation it does.
He sees it. Not the way Milo sees it, which is a whole separate ache I’m not examining right now. But he sees it.
We’re on the landing, the tour done, when Marmalade appears at the top of the stairs. He clocks Julian and halts.
This is routine. My cat stops before every guest to conduct a brief, insulting appraisal before deciding they may continue existing.
What isn’t normal is what he does next. His pupils narrow to slits, ears flattening against his skull.
And then Julian, who clearly has never met Marmalade or possibly any cat, crouches and extends one manicured hand.
“Well, hello.”
“I wouldn’t,” I begin.
Marmalade goes off like a trap. He’s across the landing before I finish the sentence, hackles up, teeth bared to the gums. Julian rips his hand back with a reflex that doesn’t match the calm on his face.
I lunge and catch a howling ginger disaster against my chest. He keeps yowling, twisting toward Julian, dead set on finishing what he started.
“I’m so sorry.” I tighten my hold before Marmalade can launch himself again. “He’s rude, but he doesn’t do this. I genuinely don’t know what’s gotten into him.”
“Please. I don’t take it personally.” Julian straightens, openly amused. “I’d be short-tempered too, in his position.”
I carry the traitor down the stairs, deposit him in the kitchen pantry, and shut the door. The offended silence lasts until a bag hits the floor.
I wince. I’m going to be finding lentils in that pantry until Christmas.
“He’s being appalling,” I say, coming back.
Julian straightens his cuff, unbothered. “In any case, I’ve seen enough.”
There it is: the polite letdown, the lovely place, but sentence.
“I want to run it.”
I don’t move. My whole nervous system has unplugged itself to reboot. “I’m sorry. Run what, exactly?”
“The feature on The Foxglove Inn.” He tilts his head like he’s checking I’m still with him. “I want it for the winter issue. Which is why I need to be direct, Evie. I don’t have the luxury of sitting on this. I’d want to move this week. Is that possible?”
I hear this week very clearly, and everything after that arrives in pieces.
Photographer here by next Monday; he’s got one he trusts; she wants the morning light.
A short interview he needs me for. The money, which he names without flourish.
I ask him to say it again, because there’s no way they pay me that much.
He repeats it. I haven’t misheard.
I bite down on a scream and clasp my hands behind me, staying composed in front of this man who has just casually rearranged the rest of my life.
“This week,” I say again, because apparently it’s the only phrase I have left.
“I’m in a hurry.”
“Yes.” I don’t remember deciding. His hand’s already out, and I take it, his grip firm and certain, making myself let go at a normal time.
“Forgive me, I have a meeting I’m already late for, and I’d like to get the wheels turning today.” He’s halfway to the door now. “You’ll hear from me by tomorrow. Truly, Evie, you’ve built something rare here. I’m glad I got to you before anyone else did.”
The door shuts behind him, and the squeal I’ve been holding in finally escapes.
“I have returned victorious,” Milo announces, coming in through the back door, “with sourdough starter, extensive commentary from Nora, and no idea what half of the second page was for.” He stops the instant he sees me. “Evie?”
I open my mouth, but no words come out.
He’s already crossing to me, all that easy brightness gone taut with worry. “What happened? What did he say? If he was unkind to you, I don’t care what he writes for; I’ll find him—”
“He said yes.” My laugh breaks halfway into a sob. “Milo. He’s running the feature. It’s happening, it’s actually—”
I don’t get to finish, because he lifts me clean off the ground and spins me in the middle of my entry hall until the wallpaper smears into a blur of green.
I grab his shoulders to hold on while he laughs, head tipped back, and I’ve never in my life seen anyone this happy about something that isn’t even theirs.
“I knew it.” He lets me slide back down, my body dragging the length of his until my feet find the ground. I stay tucked against him. “I told you. You’ve made something people would give anything to belong to for a single night. That’s all you.” He presses a kiss to my forehead.
That’s what does it. I’m crying now. He gathers me in, one hand splayed warm and wide across my back, the other coming up to catch my face, thumb sweeping under my eye. I realize this is the first good thing I’ve ever let someone share with me before I’ve had time to contain it.