The following morning, Eleanor was back in the stables to check once more on her soaps. After many failed attempts, she was hoping that this batch might actually work.
Annie brought her up a flask of coffee once she had arrived.
‘I’ll have to bring you our old kettle,’ said Annie. ‘I haven’t thrown it away yet. It’s a bit ancient, but it works.’ Her smile faded. ‘I still worry that we should have noticed something was up with Megan before it all got out of hand the other night.’
‘It’s been a bit busy,’ said Eleanor. ‘You’ve been rushing around being a future countess, trying to find the perfect bridal dress as well and I’ve had all this going on.’ She waved her hand around the stable. With each passing day, it looked more like a workshop than the derelict room she had first stepped into. She could hear the sawing of wood outside as Tom worked on the other stables. She found his presence quite comforting.
‘Even so,’ said Annie. ‘We’ll have to think of something, some way of getting her involved in the fete.’
‘Definitely,’ replied Eleanor, even though she couldn’t think of anything at that moment.
‘And don’t mention the dress,’ said Annie, with a heavy sigh. ‘If I can’t find the right one soon, I’ll end up wearing the curtains that your mum’s making.’
Annie headed back to the house. Eleanor, for once, was grateful to be alone. She was about to test her next batch of soaps and didn’t want to show herself to be a failure in front of Annie. Having failed at her job in London, it would be too much to bear if she was to fail in Cranley as well.
Bracing herself, she slowly turned over the plastic and gently pressed on the first soap. With a soft thud, it landed on the counter. Eleanor picked up the cream-coloured bar and turned it over in her hands, peering closely at it. In shock, she carried it outside where Tom had just stopped to stretch his back.
‘Look,’ she said, quickly heading over to show him. ‘I think I’ve made soap.’
He looked down at her hands briefly. ‘It is definitely soap,’ he said, his eyes crinkling up at the edges as he smiled at her.
She suddenly felt stupid. She hadn’t cured cancer, for god’s sake. It was only soap.
‘Anyway, I just needed to share with someone,’ she said, turning to hide away back in her workshop.
But he grabbed her arm. ‘Hey, don’t rush off. I was just about to take Dylan down to the river to cool off. Come with us.’
Eleanor wasn’t sure but she did feel hot and sweaty, so in the end agreed to go with them.
As they walked along the path through the woods, Tom said, ‘I need to ask your advice about Dylan.’
‘Has he been chewing your favourite Nikes again?’ she said, with a grin.
‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘But I can forgive him for that. We’re well past the limit on anyone claiming the dog, so I was thinking about getting him microchipped. And adopting him.’
‘Wow,’ said Eleanor, stopping briefly in amazement. ‘That’s amazing. What are you going to do with him back in London? I mean, you’re going to need a garden, aren’t you? What about when you’re on tour?’ She made a face. ‘Sorry. Lots of questions. I must get that from my mother.’
‘That’s okay,’ he told her. ‘I appreciate that I need to think it all through properly. But by law he ought to be microchipped.’
She nodded. ‘I think that’s a great first step.’
‘Do you have the details of that vet we went to? I can’t remember his name.’
‘It’s Ben. And as it happens, I need to talk to him about something anyway. How about I get us an appointment and we’ll go there together?’
‘That would be great.’
As they headed into a clearing, they found Dylan leaping about in the long grass, disturbing the insects as he sprang about. Butterflies flew up in the air in his wake. The meadow was certainly looking very pretty. The blue of the cornflowers matched the many poppies. She picked a bunch for her mum to take home with her later.
Dylan came charging out of the long grass as soon as Tom called him.
Eleanor began to laugh as she realised that the dog was almost completely covered in grass balls. ‘You look like some kind of alien,’ she told him, reaching down to remove the sticky buds from his fur.
‘Do you need a hand?’ asked Tom.
Dylan collapsed onto the ground, rolled over and showed them both his tummy.
‘He seems pretty relaxed about the whole grooming thing,’ said Eleanor.
‘Perhaps it’s just your gentle touch,’ said Tom.
They both locked eyes for a second before Dylan leapt up and carried on towards the river.
Seeing the glistening water through the trees, Eleanor was seriously tempted to follow Dylan into the water to cool down. She was just considering kicking off her flip-flops when she saw a movement on the other side of the river. Expecting perhaps to see a deer, instead she saw a couple of teenage girls trying unsuccessfully to hide behind some trees.
‘Tom,’ she murmured. ‘We’ve got company.’
She could feel him immediately become alert, his whole body tense. ‘Who is it?’ he asked, glancing around as he came to stand next to her.
‘Behind the other riverbank. A couple of your fans, I think.’
He looked across and made eye contact. They could both just about hear a gasp as the girls realised that they had been spotted. The snapping of many twigs and blur of school uniform confirmed that they were moving away, anxious not to be seen.
‘What is it that they want?’ he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
Eleanor laughed. ‘They want to see our amazing romance, of course.’
He looked across at her and raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? Well, if they want to see romance,’ he said, stepping forward to stand right in front of her. ‘Let’s show them some, shall we?’
Before she could register what was happening, his lips were coming down onto hers.
‘It’s all for show,’ he murmured against her lips as they met.
But somehow, it turned into something else altogether. Time stopped still. It built into a passionate kiss that assaulted her senses until she couldn’t think of anything but him. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching for Tom to bring him closer to her.
Eventually they broke apart. Eleanor and Tom stared at each other, both breathless and wide-eyed, trying to comprehend what had just happened.
Eleanor stared up at him, still trying to steady her breath. ‘Well, that showed them,’ she said, her voice sounding husky.
‘Exactly,’ he told her, looking equally stunned.
And then he broke into a warm smile and she couldn’t help but smile back at him.
At the sound of nearby splashing, Tom turned away to play with Dylan, leaving Eleanor standing beside the river on her own, feeling more confused than ever.
This was bad, she told herself. She shouldn’t have kissed him back. But it had felt so good. And he had kissed her first, after all.
She tried to tell herself that it was just a crush. It had begun before Glastonbury and their accidental kiss had just made it worse. That was all.
And yet, she knew it wasn’t that at all. She looked out for him every day. She enjoyed his company. She had told him things about her dad that only her best friends knew about.
He was just a friend, she decided.
A gorgeous, handsome, good-looking friend.
But she knew deep down that it wasn’t a crush. That she had to stop lying to herself.
Because she was pretty certain that she was falling in love with Tom.