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“And is that such a big thing?” asked Danni, pulling out a chair.

“Do you know, it just might not be,” said Eleanor. “Now, are you ready to eat?”

“Famished,” said Danni. She picked up her knife and fork as though ready to carve into the table. But the weight of what she had to tell Eleanor had settled heavy in her chest. After dinner, she told herself. She’d tell her after dinner. Because something told her that, after tonight, everything might change.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Eleanor sat at the kitchen table, her fingers curled around the glass of whiskey that Danni had given her, swirling the liquor around absentmindedly. She wasn’t entirely sure she liked whiskey, but it was what one did when faced with shocking news. One swirled a drink and pretended to be alright, to be in control.

Across from her, Danni was leaning against the kitchen counter, her arms crossed, watching with a look of worry and wariness on her face. “So, are we just going to sit here while you process this, or should I fetch you some smelling salts?”

Eleanor exhaled through her nose. “It’s just… unfathomable.”

“Oh, it’s pretty fathomable,” Danni said, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the table and biting into it. “Your great-uncle’s a greedy sod who lost all his money and now wants to take what isn’t his.”

Eleanor narrowed her eyes. “A very succinct summary of an extremely complicated family dynamic,” she admitted. She couldn’t remember the first time she’d set eyes on Stephan Marren. But she did remember that he’d always made her uncomfortable. He’d always been a little too loud, a little too happy, just not quite… right.

“Well, I do my best,” Danni said with a wink, and Eleanorfound herself almost smiling. Almost.

She set her glass down with a sigh. “Stephan Marren. Maybe I should have known, should have guessed.”

“Why?” asked Danni, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting down to eat her apple.

“Because… he never seemed quite right. I only remember him coming to the house a handful of times, but every time it was like he was valuing it with every glance, like he was totting up the amount he could get for it. He always seemed interested in family history. A ruse, I suppose, to find out more about the house. He’s only related by marriage, of course.”

Danni tilted her head. “What exactly is his deal?”

Eleanor leaned back in her chair. “My great-aunt, my grandmother’s younger sister, was… beautiful is the first word that comes to mind. But also…” She breathed out. “I don’t quite know how to put it delicately. I know that there were some problems at her birth, though no one ever told me what exactly. And she was perfectly nice and gentle and a lovely woman. But not… bright.”

“I see,” said Danni.

“In those days, a lot of families would have put their daughter into an institution. It’s just what was done. But my family didn’t. From everything my grandmother said, everyone just pretended that nothing was wrong.” She sighed again and rubbed at her face. “And for the most part, I think Imogen lived a good life, a happy life, she was always surrounded by friends, she was always smiling.”

Danni smiled at Eleanor. “Better than being institutionalized.”

“Indeed,” said Eleanor. “And then Marren came along. Imogen had her own money, though my grandmother and her husband got the house and the estates. He was thirty years younger than her, and everyone knew he was a gold-digger. Everyone except Imogen. My grandparents did what they could, but she wouldn’t listen, and in the end I think it was easier just to let things go as they would. We all knew that my grandparents would look after Imogen when the worst happened.”

“And it did, I assume?” asked Danni, biting down to the core of her apple.

Eleanor nodded. “Marren married her and spent her money on bad investments and disastrous horse-racing bets, and then blamed my family for not bailing him out. Imogen died not long after, I’m not sure if she ever knew that he was a sham. I hope not.” She bit her lip. “It appears he’s still holding a grudge.”

Danni let out a low whistle. “And now he’s got his sights set on your house and my farm.” She frowned. “Wait, does that make sense? The house and the farm?”

Eleanor nodded. “If he’s working with developers, he’s likely planning to sell the entire area for commercial property. He’ll have already bought or made offers on other properties in the area, I’m sure.”

Danni sucked on her teeth. “A lot of it around here is council land,” she said. “I know from when I was buying this place.”

“Right, so he’ll probably have brought that for a song and all he needs now is the random privately-owned properties to join up with the other segments he’s purchased in order to make one large plot of land.”

Danni let out an unimpressed grunt. “He sounds like a right bastard.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Eleanor, taking a sip of whiskey.

They sat in silence for a moment, the light low and orange still coming through the kitchen window. Eleanor was lost in thought, her mind running through all the ways that this could go wrong, all the signals that perhaps she should have recognized.

But Danni, apparently, was thinking of solutions. “If we can’t stop him outright,” she said. “We can at least make things harder for him.”

Eleanor turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”