The château is worth a lot of money and I can’t let myself forget that. There’s not much that someone wouldn’t do for something worth a million quid. How far would Jules go? Once he’d failed at ousting me through annoyance and git-ness, would he have changed tack? Presented himself as the laid-back, unthreatening, fun guy he now seems to be to earn my trust, all the while undermining me? What’s that old saying – you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?
Something’s changed since we first met. Then, I was certain all he wanted was money. Now, I wish I could be certain that it isn’t. It doesn’t seem like it, but the last guy I had any kind of a relationship with didn’t seem like it either, and look how well that turned out. I won’t let myself fall for another man’s lies, no matter how genuine he seems, and I cannot forget this started as a battle. A few weeks ago, it was me versus Julian, and there could only be one winner. No matter what he says, I can’t let myself believe that’s changed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Things are a lot easier now the lights are on. You no longer have to plan your tasks according to daylight and what can be completed in the dark by torchlight. Rooms I had closed the door on because it was too dark are accessible again, making the place feel as overwhelming as it did at first.
I’m wandering upstairs one night when I see a light on. ‘Jules?’
‘In here.’
He looks up when I poke my head around the door of a room on the third floor. It’s an odd room, this one. It’s like everything that didn’t fit into any other room got chucked in here. There’s a little window looking out over the gardens behind the house, a big three-seater sofa that would probably be quite cosy if it wasn’t a spider hotel, loads of unlabelled cardboard boxes, and a life-size stuffed wildebeest in the corner. The shadow of that scared me half to death when I first saw it by torchlight.
‘I was about to come and get you.’ He holds a photograph out to me. ‘Is this Eulalie?’
He’s sitting on his knees on the faded orange carpet, an empty shoebox in front of him and old photos spread out all around. There’s a frayed denim headband tied around his head, holding his hair back, and it makes me smile. For a model, he wears some strange things sometimes.
I pick my way through the mess and crouch beside him. I automatically put a hand on his shoulder to keep my balance. If he minds, he doesn’t say anything, and I have such appalling balance that it’s a good excuse to keep it there. I mean, no, it’s not an excuse. I do have appalling balance. I don’t want my hand on his shoulder, I just need it to stop me falling over.
‘Wow.’ I take the picture from him. It’s a black and white photo of a young Eulalie standing with a handsome man in uniform. His arm is around her shoulders and both of them are smiling so wide I can feel the happiness emanating from the photo, despite the faded image and moth-eaten edges. ‘Yeah. This must be her husband. I’ve never seen a picture of him before.’
‘Really?’
I nod as I look at the photos spread across the floor and the unlabelled cardboard boxes stacked against the far wall. ‘Do you think these are all photos?’
‘I don’t know. I only peered in the top of another two and they’re both the same.’
I hadn’t thought of this. Coming here and finding so many mementoes of Eulalie’s life. For all the years I knew her, she had everything she needed in a tiny flat. I never imagined she had a whole other set of memories in a whole other life.
Julian pulls another photo towards us and picks it up, holding it out so I can see it. ‘Look, that’s taken in front of the door.’
I lean over and look at the photo he’s holding. ‘Wow, the paint’s not even peeling.’
It’s another photo of Eulalie and her husband in their younger days, standing at the top of the steps in front of the main door. She’s smiling at the camera and he’s squeezing her against him, his eyes closed as he kisses the top of her head. ‘They look so happy. She never looked that happy when I knew her.’
‘She must’ve missed him,’ Jules says softly. His elbow is hooked over the inside of my knee, helping me keep my balance while crouching next to him, and I’m leaning on him too much. I could just as easily sit down on the floor but that would mean I had to take my hand off his shoulder, and I like it there. I like the feel of his solid muscle and soft hoody under my fingers.
‘And look at this one.’ He pulls another picture across the carpet towards us and hands it to me, pointing at someone in it. ‘Tell me that’s not a young Mr Adelais.’
‘Wow.’ I recognise where the picture was taken easily. Even in black and white, you can see the dark floors are shining, and the chandelier twinkling from the middle of the high ceiling. It’s the grand ballroom downstairs, and I can almost imagine Eulalie taking it from the double doorway. In the photograph, the ballroom is filled with dancing couples waltzing around the floor, their faces frozen in time forever. I recognise the man Julian points out as Mr Adelais, our nearest neighbour – if someone who lives three miles away could be called that. He’s dancing with a young woman I don’t recognise. ‘So the villagers really did used to come here for balls,’ I say as my eyes scan over the picture, trying to pick out the younger faces of old people I’ve met since I got here. ‘Eulalie always used to talk about throwing huge dances for the village.’
‘Pretty cool, huh?’ He nudges me with his elbow and I nearly overbalance and have to grab his arm to stop myself falling over. I decide it’s my cue to get up, so I stand and tread carefully across the photos, and peer into one of the large cardboard boxes. There are more shoeboxes like the one Julian’s emptied.
‘Why would she leave all these here?’
‘Too many memories?’ he says. ‘Not enough space in her flat? This whole place is like a living memory that’s been left for someone else to find.’
I realise I’m blinking wet eyes as I look at him because he’s sensitive and sentimental in a way I never imagined, and I have to distract myself by poking through a box.
There’s a photo of Eulalie and another young man. They can only be teenagers, and as I squint at the aging picture, I’m certain of who it is. ‘Jules, is this your grandfather when he was young?’
He sucks in a breath as he takes the photo. ‘Yeah. God, if they stopped speaking in their twenties, this must’ve been one of the last pictures ever taken of them together.’
‘You look like him.’ It’s the first time I’ve seen a family resemblance in Jules. It’s not surprising that he doesn’t look anything like Eulalie – great-aunt is quite a distant relation, and I’d never seen anyone else in her family. At first, I wondered if Jules was running some kind of scam, if a DNA test would put an end to his loophole, and I don’t think I should feel so relieved at seeing the resemblance.
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Yeah. Around your eyes and your forehead.’ I wave my finger at my own face. ‘You look like her brother.’
‘Thanks.’ He sounds genuinely pleased. ‘I mean, my connection to him is what brought me here. He is my loophole. It’s kind of nice to think I resemble him. I’ve never known that before. We don’t have any family photos so…’
I don’t realise how much I want him to keep talking until he trails off. It’s the most open and unguarded I’ve ever seen him, sitting on a threadbare old carpet surrounded by photos of family he never knew. I’ve always thought he didn’t give a toss about the family side, but he seems genuinely touched tonight, quiet and emotional as he searches photos for faces he might know.
‘I wish I’d known her. I know you think I’m…’ He struggles to find the words. ‘An imposter, I guess. A git who doesn’t care about anyone but myself, but I do wish I’d known her. I wish I’d been old enough to really know my grandfather when he was alive. I don’t have much in the way of family…’ His voice breaks and he stops, and it takes every last vestige of my willpower not to go over and hug him.
He takes a deep breath and
exhales slowly, shakily. ‘I know you don’t believe me, but it makes me so sad to know I had an aunt I never knew existed. I know I live in Scotland but I’m in London fairly often. I would’ve visited, and it’s all… I don’t know… some stupid row that these two had when they were young, and it split a whole family in half.’
‘Where are the rest of your family?’
He shakes his head. ‘Gone. My mum died when I was young, and my father… my father never wanted kids, and he made sure I was under no illusion that he did.’
I bite my lip as I look at him because there’s an unsteadiness in his voice that’s making my resolve not to hug him slip further and further out of my reach.
‘I know I didn’t know Eulalie, but from everything you’ve said, she sounds amazing. And it has nothing to do with money or French castles, I just think it would’ve been nice to have someone like that in my life.’
‘You said your father’s in a nursing home now?’ I venture, desperate to know more but well aware I’m probably pushing him too far.
‘Yeah. Now he’s verbally abusing the lovely staff and obstinately refusing to do anything that might help his failing health. I pay more than I should and don’t visit often enough. When he dies, which he will, because his liver’s packed in from all the drinking and he’s got a dodgy ticker, I’ll hate myself for not visiting more, but whenever I’m with him, no matter how old I get, I go back to being a pathetic child who has to apologise for my existence.’
My nails leave crescent-shaped indents in my palms as I force myself to stay rooted to the spot. I can’t go and wrap him in my arms. We’re supposed to hate each other, and no matter how genuine he seems sometimes, I have to remember why we’re here. Old photographs, that little bit of insight into his upbringing, none of it changes what he wants now, which is surely everything he can get out of this place.
He rubs his fingers against his forehead and tugs at one of the fraying denim strands from the band holding his hair back. ‘Shit. Sorry for oversharing. I’ll leave you to it.’
He climbs to his feet and bends to tidy up the photos.
‘Jules, don’t. Please don’t go.’
When he looks up at me, his eyes are wet with unshed tears, and he looks so broken and unsure of himself that I’m certain my nails break the skin of my palms as I force myself not to hug him.
‘Tea!’ I say suddenly. ‘I’ll go and make us a cup of tea. You stay here and…’ I wave a hand in the vague direction of the photos on the floor, not really sure what I mean. I just know I can’t stay here and see him this vulnerable without doing something stupid.
When I get back up the three flights of stairs with a cup of tea each and a few slices of the lemon drizzle cake I made this afternoon, Jules is sitting on the sofa under the window.
He pats the cushion beside him. ‘Every spider has been evicted. It’s safe, I promise.’
Even if it wasn’t, I’d still sit there. I feel safe with him, even if I’m not. I sit on the opposite end of the sofa, put the tray between us and push a cup of tea in his direction. I want to ask him if he’s okay but I can’t let myself care if he’s okay or not.
Gladly, he speaks before I have a chance. ‘Did Eulalie have any children?’
‘No. Surely you know that. You and I wouldn’t be here if she did, this place would’ve been theirs.’
‘Yeah, but… It feels like she was expecting us. It feels like all this stuff has been left here for us to find. I wondered if there was someone else she might’ve expected to come here one day.’
I shake my head, although I know exactly what he means. It doesn’t feel like an abandoned old house. It feels like a house that’s been waiting twenty years for someone to come along. No, not just someone. Us. Both of us.
‘You don’t think she knew we’d be coming?’ he says.
‘No. She hadn’t even met me when she left here, and she would’ve been in her eighties. I doubt she expected to have children then.’
‘No, probably not.’ He shakes his head. ‘Ignore me. I just get a weird feeling sometimes, almost like the house knew we’d be here.’
‘Another one of those weird quirks, I guess,’ I say, trying to ignore how much I feel like he’s hit the nail on the head. ‘This place has got as many quirks as it has bats.’
‘Aw, don’t you moan about my bats. We can’t get rid of them, we may as well enjoy them.’
‘They’re blind flying mice with teeth. How can you enjoy them? They wouldn’t even make a nice stew.’
He laughs and leans back, resting his head against the sofa arm and pushing the denim band askew. It makes me want to reach over and tuck his hair back where it curls around his ears. I clutch my mug of tea so tightly that the china threatens to crack.
‘Tell me her stories.’ He rolls his head until he’s facing me. ‘You were lucky to know her. I’d have done anything to grow up with that kind of presence in my life. What did she tell you about this place?’
I settle back against the other sofa arm, facing him, and when Jules pulls his legs up, I put mine up next to them. ‘It was never “I used to do this and live there”. It was always “once upon a time, there was a young woman who met a French duke. They had a beautiful house and shared many exciting adventures.” She always spoke in the third person. I never for one moment imagined she was telling me about her own life.’
‘You knew she lived in France?’
‘Yeah, and that she’d come back to Britain after her husband died, but she barely talked about him or their life together. He was the love of her life, I don’t think she ever got over his death, and talking about him upset her. Obviously I know now that she talked about him a lot without me realising.’
‘She kept him alive through the stories she told.’
‘Yeah. It’s probably why she left all her photos here. All his paintings on the walls. She didn’t need them to remember him by. He lived on inside her mind every day.’
He pokes my thigh with his big toe. ‘That’s getting a bit romantic for someone who doesn’t believe in love and sappiness.’
‘I believe in it for other people, just not me. Love and sappiness obviously worked for Eulalie.’ I smack lightly at his foot but instead of removing it, he pushes it under my knees and sighs, and although I should push it away, I hook my ankle over his calf instead.
It’s the weirdest position I’ve ever been in with a guy. His legs are all around me and his feet are everywhere, we’re tangled around each other from the thighs downwards, and even though my mind is screaming that I’m too close, I look up at him, both hands wrapped around his mug of tea, sipping it carefully, and something inside me settles. There’s no place I’d rather be. Tangled legs are the equivalent of the hug I couldn’t give him earlier, and when he looks at me, his face breaks apart with a wide smile, the kind that makes his eyes dance, a smile that makes him look years younger than he is. And in that moment, I know he’s completely unguarded, that this is a rare glimpse into the genuine Julian, the person he hides under his layers of muscle and sarcasm, and I really, really don’t hate him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Shit!’ It’s my turn to swear as I drop a bowl of flour on the kitchen floor and watch it smash into a million pieces, sending a floury white dust storm right around the room. ‘Knob wankering squirrel tits!
‘I didn’t know squirrels had tits.’ Julian appears in the doorway.
I glare at him. ‘This is all your fault.’
He looks between me and the smashed floury mess with a look of indignation. ‘I was upstairs minding my own business! What does this possibly have to do with me?’
‘You volunteered me for this!’
‘Ahh.’ I see understanding dawn on his face. ‘Well, you volunteered me for it too, you can’t say fairer than that.’
‘You haven’t got to make six billion perfect cakes before tomorrow morning.’
‘Neither have you. You’ve got to make a c
ouple of batches of your cakes, which always turn out incredible, no matter what. I know because I’ve eaten pretty much all of the two practice runs you made yesterday, and Mr Adelais was super impressed when I took a few over to him for breakfast this morning.’
This is all still his fault, even if he is being very sweet. ‘Kat’ll gut you and tie your intestines in a bow if you start feeding her customers before she gets there.’
‘Don’t worry, I made him promise he’d still buy the same from her when she came around. I find Kat terrifying, I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.’
I can’t help laughing and a weight lifts off my shoulders for just a second as I giggle at his smiling face and twinkling eyes.
‘What can I do to help?’
‘Phone Kat and tell her it’s off, I’m not doing it.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
I glare at him and he laughs. ‘You’re not getting out of it that easily. Besides, I’ve been looking forward to it all week, and we’re in this together.’
I try not to smile at the sentiment. ‘You just want me to do more practice runs so you get more cake to test.’
‘Yeah, that and I want you to do something you’re excited about, even if you’re scared too, because no matter how much you protest, I know you can’t wait for tomorrow morning, and I think if you’re doing something that you feel equally excited and scared about, then you’re doing exactly the right thing.’
He’s much more insightful than I give him credit for. ‘Is that how you feel about getting your kit off on camera?’
He snorts. ‘You seem to think my job involves nothing but stripping. I model sportswear, you know, tracksuits, football kits, running gear, trainers. I’ve done ads for aftershave and catalogue photos for dressing gowns and those slippers you heat up in the microwave, so right at the upper end of sexy fashion, obviously. I rarely model underwear, and it’s underwear, so everything is covered. I don’t stand in front of a camera and model my own genitals, and I’m not sure why you think that.’
The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters Page 21