When he was home, he didn’t get all demanding of my time, or pouty that he didn’t have it.
No, in fact, if I called to the house for a sandwich or something, often, it was Battle who brought it out to me.
Not to interrupt me. I only got my delivery and a quick kiss.
He did it to support me.
In other words, we could say, for a variety of reasons, the “falling” bit of falling in love was no longer part of the equation (and that was the best of all of this).
Other than that, everyone left me alone to do my thing, and that was crazy kind.
However, that didn’t mean things didn’t happen.
They did.
The unsurprising stuff:
We still hadn’t run across Charlie’s letters.
I was beginning to think this might be a rare miss in Ravenna’s psychic powers.
The only thing I knew was, it was what it was, and as usual, I just had to sally forth.
So I did.
The kinda boring stuff:
I took Noelle up to a run and I didn’t fall off.
Progress.
I also, at Battle’s suggestion (all right, it was a demand, but I decided to think of it as a suggestion), phoned Mr. Atkins and told him I’d found other accommodation, and I wouldn’t be taking the cottage.
As he said he would be, Mr. Atkins was cool with it.
And so I wouldn’t miss out on time by the sea, Battle promised to take me there for a weekend, if I found a time in my writing where I could go.
So that was something to look forward to.
The oh-so-not boring stuff:
Those candlesticks were Chippendale.
Yep.
They were.
And that only scratched the surface.
The curator from the V and A lost her mind, and since her visit, Prue had more than a half a dozen experts out to look at things, authenticate them and value them. She’d found tons of stuff in that old filing cabinet to help (but alas, nothing that would help my book, all the stuff in the cabinet predated 1880).
There were two more Chippendale pieces, gorgeous giltwood and painted satinwood pier tables that the four siblings agreed would be perfect on either side of the opening to the great hall. Thus, they’d been taken away to be cleaned.
Further, there was a Hepplewhite piece, three by Alexander Roux, five by Lannuier and one by Eileen Gray (Prue, no surprise, was keeping the Gray).
There was also a Sisley painting (which had been taken away as well to be cleaned so it could be displayed somewhere in The Downs).
And then some.
