Page 68 of The Farmer Has a Wife

And regret led to that sinking feeling in her stomach that she refused to acknowledge as heartbreak.

Truth be told, she’d known from the moment she’d walked out of Danni’s front door that she was making a mistake. Had known it in the way her fingers had ached to reach back for her. Had known it in the way the air felt thinner, cooler, as soon as she left. But here she was, forcing herself to be productive, forcing herself to believe she’d done the only thing she could decently do to save the situation. And forcing herself to paint this poor wall for the fourth time. If she focused on the house, if she made it her entire world, then maybe…

“Oi!” Samson’s voice rang through the mostly empty room. Startling Eleanor so badly she nearly sloshed paint onto herboots. “What d’you think you’re doing here, eh? It’s not a museum you can just wander around, you know.”

Eleanor stood up hurriedly, wiping her hands on a rag, and rushed out into the hall to see just what was going on.

She arrived just in time to see Samson put his hands on his hips and glare at someone standing in the doorway.

“Nuffin to worry about, Your Maj, I got this,” he growled.

“I think you’ll find that the Lady Eleanor is more properly titled as Your Ladyship,” Isabella said crisply. “And who might you be, young man?”

“Samson,” Samson said suspiciously. “And what about yourself?”

“Lady Isabella Brewster, dowager of the house.”

Samson snorted. “What’s one of them, then?”

“A dowager?” Isabella asked. “Simply the wife of a dead important man.”

“It won’t do that,” Samson said. “Not defining yourself by a man. My daughter’d have none of that. She’d say you’re a woman in your own right.”

Isabella raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like a sensible girl,” she said. She turned to Eleanor. “My dear.”

Eleanor finally found her tongue. “Grandmama,” she blurted, horrified. “What on earth are you doing here? This is a building site!”

“Calm yourself, child,” Isabella said breezily, adjusting the fur stole around her shoulders as if she were arriving at a grand ball rather than a half-renovated manor house. “I’ve walked through war zones, I’ll have you know. Your paint fumes are hardly a deterrent. Now, what must one do around here to get a cup of tea?”

“I can get you one, Your Dowagerness,” Samson said grandly.

“Nonsense,” said Isabella. “You look like a man with an important job to do, and you should do it, not run around after old women with teapots.”

Samson chortled. “Right you are, Your Ladyship.”

He walked off and Eleanor watched him. “He gets it rightoccasionally,” she said. “And he’s a magnificent renovator.”

“He seems like a very nice man,” Isabella said. “Now, about that tea.”

Eleanor nodded. “To the kitchens.”

“You’re not going to stir it with that, are you?” Isabella said.

Eleanor looked down to see that she was still holding a paintbrush. She hurriedly put it down on the nearest paint can, and led her grandmother down the passage toward the kitchens.

“I do hope you have biscuits,” said Isabella as they walked. “The good kind, not those tasteless digestives. If not, I shall ask that Samson, I’m sure he’s got a stock.”

Eleanor sighed and once they were in the kitchen, pulled out a box of biscuits. Isabella crowed in delight as Eleanor put the kettle on.

“Now,” Isabella said, once a pot of tea was on the table and she’d eaten a chocolate bourbon biscuit. “Elizabeth has told me everything.”

Eleanor almost dropped the sugar bowl. “She had no right—”

“Oh, hush. Someone had to tell me before I found out by reading about your dramatic spiral into despair in the society pages.”

“I am not dramatically spiraling,” Eleanor snapped, then she waved vaguely at the half-painted kitchen. “I’m renovating.”

“One can do both,” said Isabella, given the kitchen a cursory glance. “And nothing screams ‘emotional stability’ like attacking a single patch of plaster as though it insulted your lineage.”

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