My father blinked at her.

I fought back a laugh. “Have you slowly been accumulating farm animals over the past year so you can eventually open your own petting farm?”

She looked at me with an earnest expression. “But of course, dear. Why else would I need thirty-six chickens, twenty-three ducks, six goats, and ten rabbits?”

My father pinched the bridge of his nose. “We don’t have all those animals.”

“You’re right. I still need four more goats and ten rabbits, then I’ll be there.”

“You—”

“Young Miles is here, Lady Catherine. Says he ran an errand for you.”

I did a double take as he walked into the kitchen with two big bags of what sounded suspiciously like tins of food.

“Ah, my soup!” Aunt Cat stood up and took one of the bags from him. “Thank you!”

“Why are you buying her soup?” I asked Miles as Dad frowned at the exchange.

“I asked him to,” Aunt Cat replied, rummaging through the bag. “Since you took all mine to the church when you played Mother Theresa.”

I looked at Arthur. “How much sugar did you put in her tea?”

Miles cleared his throat and set the second bag on the island. “I really have to get to work now. I have to go by the garden centre before I start, so—”

“I’m coming!” I said quickly, closing my laptop and jumping up.

Aunt Cat looked me up and down. “In your space pyjamas? As fetching as they are, dear, I’m not sure they’re fit for public consumption.”

“Obviously not in my pyjamas,” I muttered, tugging at the pyjama top that proclaimed “I need my space” with a cartoon drawing of Saturn.

Miles’ lips twitched as he glanced over my pyjamas. “I have to agree.”

I folded my arms across my chest. I wasn’t wearing a bra, either. Oh, joy. “Can you wait twenty minutes for me to get myself sorted out?”

He sighed, then nodded. “I’ll go and get some things ready for today. Find me when you’re ready to go.” He bade goodbye to everyone else and left through the front door, leaving Dad, Aunt Cat, and Arthur staring at me.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, getting up and sliding my laptop off the counter. “I want to go and look at plants for the area I’m doing. Get some inspiration.”

“Sure,” Aunt Cat said, unpacking her tins of soup. “That’s why you’re going.”

“It is. I have to get on with it or I’ll fail.” I shuffled out of the kitchen, but not before I heard my father asking, “What do you mean, that’s why she’s going? Catherine!”

***

“Hey, I’m ready if you are.”

Miles looked over his shoulder at me. “Give me a second, I just need to put these seeds back.”

I wrapped my cardigan around my waist and walked over, peering inside the potting shed. “Are you planting?”

“Checking seed levels,” he replied. “Need more lettuce seeds. Bloody pigeons keep getting at them. I swear they’ve figured out how to get past my netting.”