"I am," Eleanor replied evenly.
"Fool's errand, that place. Cursed, some say."
"I do not believe in curses, Mrs. Kettering. Only in neglect and missed opportunity."
The woman's expression shifted slightly, surprise perhaps, or grudging respect.
Eleanor purchased seeds, lamp oil, a sturdy spade, and twine with the last of her money. As she was leaving, an old man sitting by the shop stove spoke up.
"Your Duchess Thomasina," he said, his voice rough with age. "My grandmother used to speak of her. Said she healed half the village when the fever came in '41. The Duke, the one before this one's father, he forbade her to continue. Said it wasn't fitting for a lady of rank."
Eleanor turned to him. "What happened?"
"She kept on anyway, quiet-like. Saved more lives than the physician ever did. They hated her for it." He spat into the fire. "Ravensmeres never could abide being shown up by a woman."
Eleanor felt the spark in her chest flare into a steady flame. She would not just restore the garden. She would finish what Duchess Thomasina had started.
The work was brutal. For weeks, Eleanor labored alone, dawn to dusk. She cleared the garden beds of decades of overgrowth, her hands blistering and bleeding. She patched the glasshouse roof with salvaged panes and oiled canvas. She repaired the irrigation channels, directing the natural spring she discovered at the garden's edge. She planted the seeds she'd bought, following the instructions in Thomasina's journal.
The villagers began to take notice. First, it was just old Mr. Harrow bringing a cartload of manure for her compost heap, refusing payment. Then, Mrs. Kettering's son delivered a bundle of glass panes left over from a job. A young woman named Anne, a weaver's daughter, appeared one morning and simply began helping, saying nothing, working until dusk.
Word spread. The strange girl at Grey Hollow was bringing the duchess's garden back. And slowly, grudgingly, the villagers' suspicion turned to curiosity, then to support. Eleanor did not work for their approval. She worked because the garden deserved to live. But their help meant she could do more than survive. She could build.
Winter came, hard and cold. Eleanor had managed to make one wing of the manor barely habitable. A single room with a patched roof and a working hearth. She spent the dark months studying Thomasina's journal, learning the medicinal properties of each plant, preparing for spring.
In February, Anne brought her a gift, a kitten, black with white paws, found abandoned in a barn. "For the mice," Anne said simply. Eleanor named her Thomasina, Tamsin for short. The cat curled by the fire, purring, and for the first time since arriving at Grey Hollow, Eleanor did not feel entirely alone.
Spring arrived like a promise kept. The garden erupted in life. The plants Eleanor had tended through the winter thrived. The seeds she'd sown began to sprout, and in the village, people began to come to her.
First, it was a farmer with a persistent cough. Eleanor gave him a syrup made from horehound and honey, following Thomasina's recipe. He returned a week later, cured, with a haunch of mutton as payment. Then a mother with a feverish child. Eleanor brewed a tea of willow bark and elderflower. The child recovered.
Word spread beyond Ravensmere. By summer, people were traveling from neighboring villages to seek Eleanor's help. She never called herself a healer. She simply offered what the garden provided, what Thomasina's knowledge had preserved. She charged nothing, but people paid what they could. Food, firewood, labor.
The manor slowly transformed. Villagers repaired the roof in gratitude. A carpenter rebuilt the front door. Anne and her mother sewed curtains for the windows. Grey Hollow was coming alive.
And then, on a bright day in late May, exactly 1 year after the auction, a fine carriage rolled up the newly graveled drive. The Duke of Ravensmere had returned.
Eleanor was in the garden when she heard the commotion. She set down her pruning shears, wiped the soil from her hands, and walked calmly to the front courtyard.
The Duke stood beside his carriage, his expression one of utter disbelief. Besides him was his solicitor, Mr. Pemberton, and Lady Marguerite, her face pale with shock. They were staring at Grey Hollow.
The house was transformed. The ivy had been cut back to reveal clean stone. The windows gleamed. Smoke rose cheerfully from the repaired chimneys. The courtyard was swept and planted with lavender.
"Impossible," Lady Marguerite whispered.
The Duke's gaze found Eleanor and for the first time in his privileged life, he looked uncertain. "Miss Ashford," he said, his voice lacking its former arrogance. "I confess, I did not expect—"
"To see me still here?" Eleanor finished calmly. "Or to see Grey Hollow restored?"
"Both," he admitted.