“Did Chris really plan to get the family to pay him tithes?” I asked as I peeled potatoes for lunch.
Archer glanced up from where he was tenderising the steak. I could take him out of his forge, but I couldn’t stop him from hitting things with a hammer.
“They wouldn’t stand for that, would they?” I continued. “I’ve never heard of such a criminal thing, using the head of family status to demand money.”
That piece of steak was going to be tender. Or vaporised, given the force with which Archer was suddenly hitting it.
“My father,” he said, then put the mallet down and looked straight at me, giving me all of his attention. “The idea of tithes originated with him, and he had the charm to get away with it. Half the family probablywantedto give him their money. The other half, well, I guess they didn’t dare refuse.”
I stared open-mouthed at him. So many things made sense. “That’s why you pour all of yourself into being the best head of family there’s ever been, because you think you have to make up for what he did.”
He shut down, his face becoming stern and immobile, the way it always used to be. “I just do the job. Are those potatoes done?”
“Archer.” I put my hand to his arm. “You don’t have any space foryouin your life, and I’m worried about what that’s doing to you.”
He looked away from me.
“After all, I don’t want to live here if I never get to see you, or you’re always exhausted.” I could play dirty.
He swung round. “You’d stay?” Something was dawning in his eyes, a level of happiness I didn’t think I’d seen in him before.
“Try and get rid of me,” I told him, and he dragged me into his arms and kissed me. He kept kissing me, until we had to move things upstairs, missing lunch entirely.
Afterwards, Archer was loose and relaxed. I propped myself up on his chest and looked into his face. “I meant it about the fact you give to everyone else but not to yourself,” I told him.
“There’s a pot somewhere complaining about a kettle,” he replied, which I didn’t understand. He was silent for a few moments before he nodded, as if he’d made a decision. “Okay. You’re not wrong. I’ll scale back my visits. Not the surgeries, though. They’re important.”
“Of course,” I said, surprised and thrilled that he’d agreed to so much. “And if the garden thing takes off, maybe you won’t have to work quite so hard in the forge either.”
“Maybe.”
He moved, forcing me to remove myself from my comfortable resting place on his broad chest, and propped himself up on one elbow to look steadily at me. “So if we’re making resolutions, are you finally going to accept that you are, to quote someone who isn’t even a fan of yours, bloody brilliant?”
I couldn’t hold his gaze. He put his fingers beneath my chin and tilted my face up so that I had to look at him. “Because you are. And youknowI don’t do flattery.”
A bubble of joy rose inside me, filling me. It didn’t matter that he was wrong. What mattered was that he believed it.
For reasons I didn’t understand, my joy threatened to turn to tears, and he drew me close. “We’re going to have that on your business cards—Bloody Brilliant Ollie Shaw.”
All danger of tears disappeared as I laughed, and he kissed me. “I love you,” I told him, meaning it with all my heart. My honourable, bossy,wonderfuldragon. I didn’t know how I could ever have lived without him.
I’d never have to again.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Four months later
ARCHER
“Fuckingpeacocks.” Ollie buried his head under the pillow. “Why did no one warn me howloudthey are?”
“They’re probably still mad at you for stalking them to scavenge tail feathers,” I told him.
He rolled over and blinked up at me where I was pulling my jeans on. “But they’re for fastening to pens so they can be sold as quills to kids. It’ll help pay for their food. The peacocks’ food, not the kids’.”
Today would be the first time we had our shop open. We’d cleared out one of the old stable buildings, and now it was equipped with purpose-built shelving, displaying a small range of items—my ironwork, the peacock pens, and Ollie had done deals with a few locals to sell locally produced soap, honey, and jams. He was insistent we had a decent range of cheap gifts for kids to buy. As a result, our fridge was now decorated with magnets bearing pictures of the house, the folly, the maze, and Ollie’s favourite, the one that proclaimedI survived Talbot Court Maze.
“I’m having that made into a t-shirt,” he said when he unpacked the box they came in. After rather too many abortive attempts, Ollie had finally learned the path through the maze. It had come in handy when he and Chris had spent a day cleaning the pond and installing a solar-powered fountain.
