‘It’s not even your stall.’
‘No, but Theo doesn’t think the guy will come back, and if he does then there will be another one. You could join me on my round too… Or even better, you make cakes and I’ll make bread, we’ll meet and swap half of each other’s stock and then go in different directions. We’d double the area we cover and gain more customers. I’m already stretched as it is, I can’t cover any more ground, but with you on board too… I’m just saying, it’s viable.’
‘Why do people keep telling me that?’
‘Because it is.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m letting Eulalie’s talk of happily ever afters influence me. I’m genuinely starting to think it could be possible… but it couldn’t. And that’s that.’
‘Only if you decide to let that be that. I know what it’s like to leave somewhere when all you want to do is stay, Wend. Even if it’s hard or not what you’d planned, some things are worth taking a risk for.’ Her eyebrows rise as Julian appears at the side of the château. ‘Particularly when they look like that. And that’s with clothes on.’
It makes me laugh and wonder again how I’m going to tear myself away from this on Tuesday. Kat, the baking, the market stall, and Jules.
He looks up and smiles openly, wide and unguarded, and my heart starts beating faster.
Especially Jules.
When we get home from another busy day at the market that afternoon, there’s a letter waiting inside the door. I get quite excited at the sight of our first post out here, but Jules makes a noise that’s not good. ‘Solicitor’s logo on the envelope.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s addressed to both of us.’ He tears it open. ‘It’s from a French notaire. They oversee everything to do with buying property over here. He works in conjunction with Eulalie’s solicitor back in London, and our case has been passed to him as it’s in regard to French inheritance tax.’
‘That sounds about as fun as a salad sandwich.’
‘He’s requesting we make an appointment to discuss the matter in person as soon as possible.’
He hands me the letter and I scan through it, glad it’s at least written in English.
Jules sighs. ‘I knew something like this was going to come up. The French are notorious for taxes. I wondered how long it would be before they caught up with us.’
A sudden anxiety settles over me. ‘Is it likely to be bad?’
‘I don’t know.’ He pushes a hand through his hair. ‘But you need to be here for this. I’ll phone them and see if they can fit us in on Monday.’
Great. My last day will be spent sitting in a solicitor’s office. Perfect.
Chapter Thirty
I have an overwhelming feeling of dread as I sit in the notaire’s office on Monday morning, watching the man shuffling through a slew of papers spread across his desk. Jules is in a seat next to me and he keeps giving me reassuring looks, but it’s not working. I don’t want to hear what this man is about to tell us, because I’m sure it’s not going to be good, and the feeling of dread is getting heavier, and not just because I have to go home tomorrow. I keep looking at Jules and feeling like our story is about to end in the same way it began – sitting in a solicitor’s office.
‘The property was valued at just under one million euros at the time of Mrs Beauchene’s death,’ the man says with a strong French accent. ‘As you are not a blood relation of the deceased, Miss Clayton, and you are only a distant relation, Mr McBeath, you are jointly liable to pay inheritance tax of sixty percent of the value of the estate.’
Sixty percent of a million is… six hundred thousand? I almost laugh. ‘You’re joking, right?’
He looks at me like he doesn’t understand. ‘The French government expect payment within six months.’
This time I do start laughing. ‘I’m sorry, you expect us to come up with six hundred thousand quid in six months?’
‘Euros, Miss Clayton, the exchange rate is on your side.’
I glance at Jules. His hair is pulled back in a neat ponytail and he’s dressed in a plain black shirt and navy jeans, and he looks just as unperturbed as he did in the first solicitor’s office all those weeks ago. ‘There must be some relief available,’ he says to the notaire. ‘We’ve only inherited fixed assets, not cash. It’s unreasonable to slap a six-hundred-thousand-euro bill on us and not offer any help.’
‘The only deductions available have already been made. Neither of you are children or grandchildren of Mrs Beauchene, therefore you are liable for the full amount.’
I knew this was too good to be true. I don’t know if Jules is as unconcerned as he seems or if he’s just playing it cool and collected in front of the solicitor, but I’m beating myself up. Of course something like this was going to slap us in the face. People like me are not just gifted beautiful French châteaux without a catch.
‘Unfortunately, you find yourselves in the position of a lot of beneficiaries,’ he says. ‘Often the only way to pay the inheritance tax is to sell the very property you have inherited.’
‘But that defeats the object,’ I say. ‘What’s the point in Eulalie leaving us something she knew we’d have to sell within six months?’
‘Perhaps Mrs Beauchene didn’t fully understand the complicated business of inheritance tax.’
Obviously. He’s telling me that Eulalie paid taxes every year when she could’ve sold it, to leave it to me and make me come here, and now it comes with such a hefty tax bill that the only way to pay it is to sell up? That’s not what she would’ve wanted. Obviously she didn’t know any of this.
‘Look at it this way,’ the notaire says. ‘At least you’ll both be better off than you were before. If it’s sold for market value, and châteaux are very popular in this area so I don’t think you’ll struggle, by the time the tax is paid and our fees are taken off, you’ll both walk away with a hundred thousand, easily.’
‘I don’t want a hundred grand,’ Jules says, almost making me laugh again at how odd that sounds out of context. He leans forward in his chair. ‘What are our options? There’s got to be more than pay up or sell up?’
‘You could submit an application to extend the payment time. The French government will consider an extension of up to five years depending on your circumstances.’
‘But?’
‘But there will be interest added to the amount and you will need to offer a guarantee. The château will be it. If you fail to make the full payment within five years, the château will be repossessed.’
‘That’s it?’ Jules says.
‘There’s nothing else I can do for you, Mr McBeath. This is a common problem with inheritors who aren’t direct bloodline relations to the deceased.’ He shuffles through more papers. ‘I also have a letter addressed to you, Miss Clayton.’
My head snaps up.
‘It’s been forwarded from my partner in England. I believe you had a meeting with him some weeks ago.’ He holds up an envelope. ‘Wendy’ is scrawled on the front of it in Eulalie’s handwriting.
I hold my hand out for it but he pulls it back.
‘It comes with a condition set by the deceased. Mrs Beauchene stipulated that this letter is only to be passed on to you if you have decided to stay at Le Château de Châtaignier.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a stipulation laid out by Mrs Beauchene in her will. This letter is only to be given to you if you have decided to stay at the property you’ve inherited.’
‘That’s ridiculous. She can’t do that.’
‘She has,’ he says with a smile. ‘Would you like me to give you a moment alone to consider your options?’
‘Yes,’ Jules says instantly.
He nods and gets up, taking the letter with him, which scuppers my plan of nicking it from his desk when he’s out of the room.
Even so, I breathe a sigh of relief when he’s gone. Jules gets up and starts pacing, and I feel like my world
is crumbling. We’re going to lose the château. Neither of us has got that kind of money. I feel like sobbing, but I also feel numb, watching the implosion of the daydreams I’ve been turning over in my head since Jules drove back up that driveway. They burst apart and shatter into pieces like someone’s just stuck a pin into my balloon. I should’ve known this was too good to be true, that the bubble would burst, because that’s what bubbles do. This was never going to be more than a distant dream.
‘This is ridiculous,’ I say when I can’t take the silence any more. ‘She can’t manipulate me from beyond the grave like this.’
He stops pacing and looks at me. ‘She’s not. She’s giving you an excuse to do what you really want to do.’
‘She can’t leave me a letter and tell me I can only have it if I stay here. She’s bloody dead. Dead people can’t do that.’
‘Do you want to stay here?’
‘I…’ I go to deny it, to snap ‘of course I bloody don’t’ at him in anger. Frustration and fear are pressing down on me, filling my head with the sadness of going home, leaving Jules, and now losing the château too, but he stops pacing and crouches down in front of me. He takes my hand and holds it between both of his, resting his stubbled chin on it. ‘None of the other stuff matters,’ he says, his deep, calm voice spreading some of its tranquillity to me. ‘Do you want to stay?’
I take a deep breath, a hit of his ebony dark aftershave that makes me feel still in a swaying sea. ‘Yes,’ I whisper.
‘Then you have to stay. You have to take that letter. It could be the treasure. It could be telling us where it is.’
It’s the first time I’ve thought about treasure in ages, the first time he’s mentioned it, and it bothers me. I thought he’d forgotten about it. I didn’t think he cared. I sigh. ‘There is no treasure, Jules. She wrote the riddle as an incentive. She knew I don’t do holidays and I hate travelling. She would’ve known I needed a kick up the backside to come here. That’s all there is to the treasure riddle. This new letter is probably admitting that.’
‘Then at least we’ll know.’
‘We’ve been through this a hundred times. There’s no way Eulalie had any kind of fortune hidden away. If you’re expecting some underground vault full of gold bars, you’re sorely mistaken.’
‘Okay, answer me something. Do you honestly, honestly think she kept this place for so many years, paid God knows how much tax on it annually, told you everything there was to know about it through stories painstakingly constructed to make sure you never knew they were the truth, and finally left it to you in her will, knowing you’d have to sell it straight away to pay the bill?’
‘She couldn’t have understood the inheritance laws.’
‘From all you’ve said, she was pretty switched on. And she was obviously in contact with solicitors a lot. Her will wasn’t scribbled on a piece of paper at home. It was made up properly, legally, to ensure the person she wanted to have the château would get it.’
‘Well, that worked, didn’t it, Nephew-git McLoophole?’
He rolls his eyes and gets up, letting my hand drop, and I feel a stab of guilt for having a dig at him again, but all this talk of treasure has taken me right back to the start.
‘Has anything she’s ever told you about the fictional château been false?’ He runs a hand through his hair, loosening some strands from his ponytail. ‘She told you about the library, the moat, the giant kitchen, the grand ballroom and villagers dancing at the balls. We’ve even got photos to prove that’s true. Nothing she’s ever told you about the place has been a lie.’
‘She also told me there was magic in the walls and the house gives everyone who lives there a happily ever after.’
He gives me a half-smile. ‘Well, maybe she was overly optimistic on that front, but we have no reason to doubt the treasure story. Her husband was a duke. They obviously had money. Treasure would be hidden, we wouldn’t have found it the moment we walked through the door because any burglar would’ve had it years ago. The riddle said you have to commit to the house, and this second letter is her way of ensuring you’re committed before she reveals the location of it.’
‘Jules…’
‘If there’s treasure, it’s our only hope of paying off this debt.’
I swallow hard. ‘If there’s treasure, I’ll never see you again, will I?’
‘What?’
‘Oh, come on,’ I snap. ‘You’re still only interested in the money. Nothing’s changed, has it?’
‘Nothing’s changed because I was never interested in the money in the first place.’ He suddenly seems to deflate. He sinks down and sits cross-legged on the notaire’s office carpet, leaning back against the desk. ‘You’re never going to trust me, are you?’
‘I…’
‘Even after all this time. Even after we’ve got as close as we have. You still can’t trust me because of some guy in the past. I’ve just quit a bloody well-paid job because I love that place. If I cared about money, I’d have driven away on Friday without a second thought. I didn’t because I couldn’t bear to leave the château and I couldn’t bear to leave you. If you honestly think I came back because of some batty riddle about treasure then I’m not sure which one of us is more fucked up – you for being so caught up in the past that you can’t see anything else, or me for whatever it is I’ve done to make you think I’m such a git.’
He’s stunned me into silence. My mouth opens but no words come out because he’s right, as always.
‘And I swore I’d never let anyone get close enough to hurt me again,’ he continues, closing his eyes and giving a bitter laugh. ‘Congratulations, you proved that one wrong too.’
My eyes are brimming with tears as I look at him sitting there. He looks small and broken, and it’s because of me. Julian who wrapped his bare hands around a snake because I was terrified, the guy who’s been up to his elbows in grease every day trying to get the generator going, who doesn’t like cutting back weeds in case he hurts their feelings, who buys some kind of plant at the market every time we go there because it looks lonely, who jumps in puddles and likes eating uncooked cake mixture out of the bowl more than he likes eating the finished cakes. My Jules, who makes me feel calm just by being close, and his arms that make me forget everything else when they’re wrapped around me. The absolute desolation I felt on Friday when I watched him reverse down the drive. The bubbling joy when he came back that I forced myself to put a cap on. Why didn’t I let myself feel it fully? Because of the overhanging cloud of me leaving too in a few days.
I look at him sitting on the floor of this stranger’s office, his eyes still closed, his head thumped back against the desk, hair escaping from his ponytail. I would give anything not to go home tomorrow, and it has nothing to do with the château. No matter what it meant to Eulalie, no matter what secrets might be hiding in its walls, it’s just a building. I could leave it easily. The part of it I can’t leave is Jules.
Jules who can walk around naked, but will never be as naked as when he’s fully clothed. Anyone can take their clothes off. Letting me into his secrets, his fears, his past, letting me see him without his walls up – that was being naked. He trusted me not to hurt him and my own reservations, my own comfort zone that Eulalie was always telling me to get out of, my own certainty that I can’t trust anyone but myself is what’s hurt him, and as I sit here looking at him, I’ve never been more disappointed in myself. It feels like I felt after I got home from the police station, after my ‘fiancé’ hadn’t been in touch for a week and I’d started to get worried. How they’d giggled at my tale and said things like, ‘he didn’t ask you for money, did he, love?’ And I went home a sobbing wreck and swore I’d never let it happen again. I’d never let a man fool me again. And now, my own barriers have hurt someone I never, ever wanted to hurt. Well, not since about four weeks ago, anyway.
I’m on my knees at his side before I even realise what I’m doing. I slide my hand alo
ng his stubbled jaw, turn his face towards me, and press my lips against his before he has a chance to react.
It’s just a peck, nothing more, and I pull away long before I want to.
His eyes have shot open but he doesn’t look angry. ‘What are you doing?’
I’ve gone so red I resemble a boiled lobster with sunburn. ‘Trying to tell you I’m sorry. It’s not you, Jules, it really is me. I do trust you, and every time money comes up, I try to convince myself I don’t as a way of protecting myself, like you protect the real you by taking your shirt off. You use your body as a defence. You let people insult the outside so no one hurts the real you, the one you’ve shown me, and you deserve better than this, and I’m sorry.’
He sits up and kisses me without warning. It’s still no more than a peck, a touch of his lips to mine, but it makes me glad I’m already sitting on the floor because I’d probably have ended up there anyway.
His hand holds my face and I slide one of mine into his hair. I press my forehead against his. ‘What was that for?’
‘Because you know that. Because you care about me enough to have worked that out when I’ve never even admitted it to myself. Because in my normal life, I tell people not to worry about me and they don’t. I tell you not to worry about me and you worry more.’
He kisses me again. I close my eyes and feel myself melting into his touch. It’s been a long time since I let anyone get close enough to kiss me, but it’s different with Jules. Until now, I’ve felt like kissing someone would be too big a risk, but with Jules, it feels like the bigger risk would be not kissing him.
It’s a kiss that doesn’t last nearly long enough, and when he pulls back, all I want is to kiss him again.
‘I understand not trusting people. I’m the most cynical, distrustful person on the planet, and I wish we’d have met in circumstances where money isn’t involved. I wish we didn’t have a financial responsibility to each other with the château, and at the same time I wouldn’t change it for the world. There’s nothing I can say to prove to you I’m not interested in the treasure, because I am now, but only because I can’t see any other way of not losing the place.’
The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters Page 29