The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters Read online

  Where dreams come true…?

  Wendy Clayton stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago. Instead, she has a ‘nice’ life. Nice job. Nice flat. Absolutely no men. Until her life is turned upside-down when her elderly neighbour, Eulalie, passes away and leaves her the Château of Happily Ever Afters!

  But there’s a catch: she must share the sprawling French castle with Eulalie’s long-lost nephew, Julian. And no matter how gorgeous he is, or how easily she finds herself falling head over heels, Wendy needs to find a way to get rid of him…

  Because surely happily ever afters don’t happen in real life?

  Escape to beautiful France this summer with this uplifting romantic comedy. Perfect for fans of Kat French, Caroline Roberts and Holly Martin.

  The Château of Happily Ever Afters

  Jaimie Admans

  JAIMIE ADMANS is a 32-year-old English-sounding Welsh girl with an awkward-to-spell name. She lives in South Wales and enjoys writing, gardening, watching horror movies and drinking tea, although she’s seriously considering marrying her coffee machine. She loves autumn and winter, and singing songs from musicals despite the fact she’s got the voice of a dying hyena. She hates spiders, hot weather and cheese & onion crisps. She spends far too much time on Twitter and owns too many pairs of boots. She will never have time to read all the books she wants to read.

  Jaimie loves to hear from readers, you can visit her website at www.jaimieadmans.com or connect on Twitter @be_the_spark.

  Mum, thank you for always being there for me, and for the constant support, encouragement, and enthusiasm. Love you lots!

  Bill, Toby, Cathie, and Bev – thank you for always being supportive and encouraging.

  Thank you to my Chihuahua, Bruiser, for letting me use him as a sounding board for plot problems and listening intently when I read dialogue aloud to him!

  The lovely and talented fellow HQ authors – meeting all of you has been the best part of this!

  All the lovely authors and bloggers I know on Twitter. You’ve all been so supportive since the very first book, and I want to mention you all by name, but I know I’ll forget someone and I don’t want to leave anyone out, so to everyone I chat to Twitter – thank you. You make lonely days of writing less lonely, you cheer me up, you prove that ‘it’s not just me’ when it comes to frustrations, and you make it very difficult to close the Twitter tab and start work in the mornings!

  The little group that doesn’t have a name, but I think of you as a writing group because we all started off around the same time – Sharon Sant, Sharon Atkinson, Dan Thompson, Jack Croxall, Holly Martin, Jane Yates. I can always turn to you guys!

  Chris, Aaron, Bryan Thomas, Annette and Sarah, my lovely Llama and Owlee – thank you for being awesome friends!

  Thank you to the team at HQ and especially my editors, Charlotte Mursell and Rayha Rose, for believing in me from the start!

  And to you – yes, you – thank you for reading!

  To my lovely mum, for always reading the first drafts and telling me they’re good, even when we both know they’re rubbish!

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Title Page

  Author Bio

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Endpages

  Copyright

  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 righ
t 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 on
e 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.