Chapter One
Have you remembered to add toilet roll to your shop this week?
Bog roll. That’s as exciting as my life gets. I nod at my phone and slip it back into my bag, trying to pretend it was an important business email and not a weekly reminder from my online shop. I want the two men in the room with me to think I’m such a sophisticated person that I can’t even go for one meeting without someone needing me for something vital.
I’m sitting in a solicitor’s office in central London, two places I try to avoid at all costs, and all I’ve seen on my way here are sophisticated, together-looking people, unlike me who couldn’t find a shirt smart enough so used a striped work shirt and put a cardigan over it so no one would notice the supermarket logo. It’s August and twenty-eight degrees outside. It’s way too hot for a cardi, this solicitor has clearly never heard of air conditioning, and the sweat prickling my forehead has started melting my make-up.
Globules of foundation dripping off my eyebrows is doing nothing to make these men think I’m sophisticated, or that I understand a word that’s been said since I entered this room. Nothing makes sense and I can’t grasp everything the solicitor is trying to tell me. I risk a glance at the bloke next to me, who meets my eyes and gives me a gleaming smile. I huff and look away, folding my arms as the solicitor talks, and he goes back to nodding along calmly like being told you’ve inherited a French castle is an everyday occurrence.
‘As I was saying,’ the solicitor says, pushing back thinning grey hair that he looks much too young to have. ‘My client, Mrs Beauchene, left a will. It was written, signed, and witnessed within the last year of her life, and she was of sound mind. In it, she bequeaths Le Château de Châtaignier to you, Miss Clayton. However, we have encountered a snag.’
I look at the bloke to my left again. I don’t know what’s going on but it seems like he is the admittedly very handsome snag.
None of this can be true. Eulalie didn’t have a château. She was ninety-six years old and lived on the seventh floor of a crappy block of flats in outer London that should’ve been demolished years ago. In the winter, her minuscule pension often left her with a choice between buying food and putting the heating on. The only thing she had to bequeath to anybody would’ve been a sticky boiled sweet from the bottom of her handbag.
‘As Mrs Beauchene held dual citizenship, French law applies to her will, and as such she foregoes the right to disinherit any direct descendant. Therefore Mr McBeath…’ He gestures towards the gorgeous bloke on my left. ‘…Is entitled to an equal share of the estate.’
Why don’t solicitors speak English? Is that what they teach them at solicitor school? To completely lose the ability to communicate with other humans? I take a deep breath and smooth my trousers across my legs. This is surely a mistake or some kind of scam. I expect his next line will be something about a Nigerian prince wanting to give me a million pounds, and all I have to do is give him my bank details and pin number. ‘This is a mistake. Eulalie wasn’t a French citizen. I mean, I know she married a French bloke but he died years ago. She’s lived here for as long as I’ve known her.’
‘She still held French citizenship. She owned property in France and paid her French taxes. She may not have lived there, but French law still applies to French citizens. I have all the documentation right here.’
I sneak another look at this Mr McBeath bloke. He’s still nodding along like he understands all this perfectly, and I wonder how he can be so calm. Isn’t he even half as bewildered as I am?
‘But she didn’t have a château in France, and she definitely didn’t have a nephew. She didn’t have any family. She’d lived alone for twenty-odd years since her husband died.’
‘Great-nephew,’ he says in a Scottish accent.
Annoyance flares in me at his flippant response. This is a big deal and he’s acting like someone’s told him it might rain tomorrow. ‘No nephew. This whole thing is a joke. You’re—’
‘If you don’t mind…’ the solicitor interrupts. ‘There is no question of legitimacy here. You, Miss Clayton, and you, Mr McBeath, are now the proud owners of Le Château de Châtaignier, a nineteenth-century castle in a little corner of lower Normandy, France. Once owned by Lord Beauchene, the Duke of Toussion, passed to his wife upon his death, which she now leaves to you, and—’
‘The Château of Happily Ever Afters.’ I let out a breath. Normandy, the duke, a château. Eulalie always spoke about it. She’d told me so many stories of France in the 1950s, of a young girl falling in love with a handsome duke and living in a castle, but I never thought it was real. She loved to read romance novels and I always thought her tales were nothing more than the fantasies of a lonely old lady, stories spun like those in the books she read. Her hands were arthritic and she couldn’t write them down so she told them to me instead.
Both men are looking at me like I’m a few bananas short of a bunch. ‘Eulalie talked about it. She called it “The Château of Happily Ever Afters”. She used to tell me stories about a duke and a huge château with so many rooms they didn’t know what to use them all for.’ I can’t help smiling at the memory. I miss her so much, the easy evenings with a glass of French wine each while we sat in front of her window, looking at the street down below. The smell of the Indian takeaway three doors down, grown men fighting each other in the road, drunken people vomiting on the pavements. ‘How can you be so drunk that you feel the need to vomit in the street at eight p.m.?’ she’d say. ‘People have no sense of refinement these days. In my day, projectile vomiting was saved for strictly two a.m. onwards.’
Eulalie told stories of a different life, of romance and adventure with a handsome duke in France, stories of love and laughter, a million miles away from the grotty streets and mildewed block of flats where we lived. But they were just stories to escape from reality. None of it was real. Was it?
‘Forty rooms,’ the solicitor says, running a finger down a sheet of paper on his desk. ‘Fifteen acres of land. It’s been unoccupied for twenty years. It’s yours to do what you want with now. You can use it as a holiday home, move there, sell it on and keep the money…’
‘I’ll buy her out,’ the fake-nephew says, like I’m not even in the room, and I splutter at his nerve. Who does he think he is?
‘The property has been valued at just under a million euros,’ the solicitor says.
I choke on air. A million euros?
Fake-nephew goes red in the face and starts fidgeting with his cufflinks. ‘Well, maybe not buy her out as such…’
Ha. Serves him right for being so blasé.
‘It’s a very large property, in a good area, with a good amount of land. Châteaux are still popular with expat buyers and always fetch a decent price.’
Decent? I think about Eulalie. How could someone own such an expensive château in France, and live out their days in a leaky London flat approximately the size of a cramped shoebox?
‘Mrs Beauchene also left a letter for you, Miss Clayton.’ He hands me an envelope. ‘Wendy’ is written across the front in Eulalie’s neat handwriting and the sight of it makes me blink back tears. I cannot cry in front of these men. I’m hyperaware of McNephew’s intense eyes on me as I lean forward and snatch the letter off the solicitor much harder than I’d meant to.
‘Mrs Beauchene also left, er, somewhat of a riddle in her will. She requested that a copy of it be given to both parties.’ He hands me and Nephew-git a sheet of paper each, more words scrawled by Eulalie. ‘Allow me to read it?’ He barrels on ahead without waiting for an answer. I get the impression he wants us out of his office.
The Château of Happily Ever Afters is not just a house, or a home, or a castle.
There is magic in the walls, and there is treasure too.
Treasure at the property just waiting to be found. When you find it, you will be rich enough that you will never have to worry about anything again.
But the château will show treasure to you only when you are ready to see it.
It will only commit to you when you commit to it.
It gives the owners what they need but not what they want. It will give them what they need before they know they need it and what they want before they know they want it.
It is yours to find.
The solicitor is reading aloud from a copy as I read Eulalie’s once-neat handwriting, which had become shaky with age.
‘Treasure?’ Nephew-git sits forward. I can almost see pound signs pinging down behind his blue eyes.
‘She was in her nineties,’ the solicitor says. ‘People tend to drop a few marbles by that age, I wouldn’t pay any attention.’
I glare at him. Eulalie hadn’t lost any marbles. Admittedly, going on about treasure and magical walls from beyond the grave is not quite the most sensible thing she’s ever done, but still. She wasn’t a barmy old bat, she just had a vivid imagination. And maybe it was less imaginary than I thought. If the château is real, and Eulalie’s husband really was a duke, what else is real?
‘Mrs Beauchene also entrusted my firm with the key.’ The solicitor holds up a purple satin bag. ‘Which one of you will take it?’
Fake-nephew springs forward with his palm open. ‘I will.’
Sudden rage overtakes the shock I’ve felt since I came in here. ‘No, you won’t. It’s not yours. Eulalie left it to me, only me, right?’ I say to the solicitor without taking my eyes off the horrible McBeath, who holds my gaze with one perfectly plucked eyebrow raised.
‘Yes, but due to this loophole in French-English law, Mr McBeath has an equal right—’
‘I don’t care.’ I narrow my eyes at Nephew-git. He can only be in his late thirties, but his smart suit makes him look older. His dark hair is smooth with hair product and he looks like he’s trying too hard to look stylish. No one is naturally that polished. ‘She didn’t even know you. It doesn’t matter if there’s any truth in what you say. If this château is what I think it is then it meant the world to her. She loved the place, and she wouldn’t want someone she’d never even met to have it. She chose to leave it to me.’
He fiddles with his navy satin tie. ‘But I have a loophole.’
‘And I’ll have the key.’ I hold my hand out towards the solicitor. ‘Eulalie left it to me, not some git with a loophole.’
‘I’ve been called plenty worse than that.’ He grins at me and I force myself to look away. ‘Fine, fine, ladies first.’ He sits back in his chair and crosses one leg over the other, hooking a shiny shoe in my direction. Who bothers to polish their shoes that much?
I hide my shaking hands under my legs. Look at me, standing up to people. I don’t usually do things like that. If you looked up ‘doormat’ on Google, my picture would be there. But I can’t believe Eulalie’s Château of Happily Ever Afters is real, and she wanted me to have it. That means something. It means more than whatever bogus claim this McBeath person thinks he’s got, and I can’t let him win.
The key the solicitor gives me is unlike any I’ve ever seen before. It’s a big brass thing with an ornately scrolled top, heavy in my hand. It’s a world away from your average British door key, and I can’t imagine the kind of door it would open.
‘Any questions?’ The solicitor checks his watch and then glances at the clock on the wall, as if one time check wasn’t enough of a hint.
‘None at all,’ Nephew-git McLoophole says with a grin. How can he have no questions? We’d be here until midnight if I started asking mine, but the solicitor won’t be able to answer them. The only person who can died four months ago.
The loophole-git stands next to me as we lean on the solicitor’s desk to sign the paperwork, spicy aftershave reaching my nose, which is just unfair. He’s too much of a git to smell that good.
The solicitor looks like he’s got more grey hair than he had half an hour ago as he hurries us out of his office, and I stand in the reception room in a daze. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. In my bag is the key to a million-euro château in France, a place of wonder and magic and love, if Eulalie’s stories are anything to go by. And it’s somehow mine. It’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in my life, and I can already feel the pull of it, like I want to go there. Maybe it’ll become real if I see it in person…
It’s a lovely idea but it’s not something I can do. I can’t just drop everything and take myself across the Channel in pursuit of some silly fairy-tale castle that my batty old next-door neighbour somehow owned.
Everyone knows happily ever afters don’t happen in real life, château or no château.
As I walk down the steps outside the solicitor’s building, someone shouts ‘Wait!’ in a Scottish accent.
‘Oh, go away, you knobkettle,’ I mutter. When I turn around, he’s right behind me and I flush with embarrassment. Oh well, he is a knobkettle, what does it matter if he hears or not? I don’t know why I’m blushing as much as I am.
He doesn’t go away. ‘What do you want?’ I snap, even though I should probably talk to him because we’ve both just signed documents I didn’t understand that transferred a very expensive château into our joint ownership, but the whole thing sits wrongly with me. Eulalie didn’t have a nephew, and if she did… well, it’s very convenient that he happens to come out of the woodwork when there’s a French château on the cards.
‘I was hoping to catch you. I wouldn’t want us to get off on the wrong foot. Wendy, right? I’m Julian.’
He holds his hand out but I turn away and carry on walking down the steps. I hear him sigh behind me and he catches up as soon as I’ve hit the pavement. ‘Can we talk?’
‘I have nothing to say to you.’
‘You don’t even know me.’
‘Exactly.’ I turn to face him. ‘And neither did Eulalie, and yet you still think you’ve got some right to waltz in and claim what isn’t yours.’
‘I’m family,’ he says, fiddling with his tie again.
‘If you cared so much, maybe you should have been part of her life while she was alive. I’m the closest thing she’s had to family for years.’
‘I didn’t know she existed.’
‘You… didn’t?’
‘No. And I doubt she knew I did either. I’ve been looking into the family history since I heard about the will.’ He adjusts his tie yet again, and it makes me wonder why he’s put so much effort into dressing smartly when the suit is clearly making him uncomfortable. ‘Eulalie had a brother, right?’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘But they had a huge argument about seventy years ago and never spoke to each other again?’
‘Yeah…’ I say slowly, not wanting this to go where I think it’s going. Eulalie probably mentioned her brother twice in all the years I knew her. The fact he knows about him means he’s probably genuine.
‘He was my grandfather. He died years ago now, but what I gather from my father is there was some massive disagreement and the family split in two. My grandfather went to Scotland and settled there, obviously Eulalie married this French duke and did pretty well for herself.’
It suddenly makes more sense than it did earlier. She did have a brother who she hadn’t been in contact with for decades. She wouldn’t have known if he had children and grandchildren, her nephews and nieces. I feel myself softening towards him and have to stamp it down. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re really her nephew or not. Nothing changes the fact that she left the château to me.’
‘Maybe she’d have left it to both of us if she’d known I existed.’
I glare at him, but he’s probably not wrong. Eulalie would have loved a nephew, even if he lived miles away in Scotland. She might’ve had a grudge against her brother, but that wouldn’t have extended to his children and grandchildren. If she’d known this Julian existed, she’d have been asking me to teach her how to use Skype and enquiring if pensioners got a discount on rail fares to go up and meet him.
‘So, what do you want to do with the old place then? Should we sell? We’d get half a million euros each. Even with the exchange rate, we’d do pretty well out of it. I don’t know about you but half a million euros wouldn’t go amiss in my life.’
‘It’s not for sale. Eulalie left it to me because she knew I wouldn’t sell it,’ I say, every bit of softness I was feeling towards him disappearing in an instant at the mention of money. Of course that’s all he’s bloody interested in, like all bloody men.
‘What do you intend to do with it then?’
‘I don’t know. This has come as a shock to me. But I will never sell it, no matter how much it’s worth. It’s nothing to do with money. Eulalie loved that château. She talked about it all the time, I just never had a clue that it was an actual place.’
‘And this whole riddle-y, treasure-y thing… She was a looney, right? That’s just the nonsensical ramblings of a mad old fogey? Lost a few marbles?’
‘No, she hadn’t lost any bloody marbles, she was…’ I trail off as I realise what he’s doing. He’s trying to wheedle information out of me without asking outright if there’s some kind of treasure hidden at the château. ‘I mean, she had a vivid imagination and was prone to fantasies. She told so many grand stories, you could never be sure of what was real and what wasn’t…’
‘And you obviously think there’s something in it.’
‘I doubt it. If Eulalie had treasure of any kind, she wouldn’t have lived in the flat she did. She had no money. She lived hand to mouth on her pension.’ This isn’t a lie. Eulalie’s riddle is surely just another one of her stories. If she had money hidden away anywhere, she would have used it years ago.
‘Are you going to open your letter then?’
I raise an eyebrow at the cheek of him. ‘What, here? In front of you? My private letter, to me personally?’
‘She could’ve given you coordinates or something. It’s not right if you have an unfair advantage.’
‘An unfair advantage to what?’
‘Finding the treasure, of course.’
Oh, for God’s sake. The money-obsessed git. ‘There is no bloody treasure.’
He nods. ‘Right.’
I bet he gets punched a lot. He seems like the kind of person who would get punched a lot.
‘I’ll remind you of that when I find it before you and use it to buy you out.’
‘I won’t sell.’
‘I’d make you an offer you can’t refuse.’ He raises an eyebrow in a way he probably thinks is sexy. A three-day seminar on the history of plumbing would be sexier. Really, it would.
‘I doubt that. Some people aren’t soulless bastards obsessed with money.’
He lets out a laugh that sounds genuine, making his eyes crinkle up. ‘Wow. You really don’t like me, do you?’
I plaster on a false smile. ‘Put it this way, if you were on fire and I had a bottle of water, I’d drink it.’
That makes him laugh even harder and I frown at him, unsure whether he’s being patronising or just has a terrible sense of humour. ‘On that note, goodbye,’ I say, pushing past him and stalking off down the street, hoping he doesn’t follow me this time.
Of course, I’ve gone the wrong way and have to hide behind a corner until he leaves before I can double back and find the train station for the next train home.
I don’t know what’s got into me today. I can’t believe I called him a soulless bastard. I’ve never said anything like that to a stranger before.
Men bring out the worst in me. Particularly this one, obviously.