The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters. Jaimie Admans
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