The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters: a laugh-out-loud romcom!. Jaimie Admans

the trees, and I hide at the corner of the window and watch as Nephew-git McLoophole saunters back to his car. He does something to make his seat tilt back, then he sprawls into it, putting his feet up on the dashboard. He lifts his sunglasses out of his shirt, slides them on and settles back with his arms behind his head. He looks like he’s going to bed in a luxurious hotel, not a small-willy-syndrome car.

      Well, of all the things that have gone wrong in my life lately, this is definitely at the top of the list. My grand plan was to refuse him entry and send him packing with his tail between his legs. How did I end up getting myself trapped in here with no way out other than surrendering? And why didn’t it even cross my mind that, in a house that’s been unoccupied for twenty years, any food left in the cupboards would be likely to have sell-by dates so old they’d be written in roman numerals?

      As I stand there trying to brush muck off my once-lemon T-shirt, ignoring the rumbling in my stomach, which has got more insistent since his smug display outside, my mind wanders to treasure.

      What if he has a point? All the times I sat and listened to Eulalie talking about an English girl falling in love with a French duke, the lavish château they shared… I always thought they were embellished versions of reality. I knew her husband had been French and they’d spent their married life in Normandy, but there was so much glamour and luxury in her stories, and she was such a fan of unrealistic romance books, and she had been alone for so long. I always assumed she was rewriting her own memories into a love story, that there was some truth, but mostly she was just a lonely old lady who wanted to remember an ordinary life as extraordinary.

      And now I’m standing in the middle of her stories. Her husband really was a duke. There really was a château. The moat with a bridge across it. The grand ballroom I peeked into downstairs. It was all real. Is it really that far-fetched to think there might be some truth in Eulalie’s treasure riddle?

      All Loophole-git out there wants to do is squeeze as much money as he can from this place. He’s already said he wants to sell. He doesn’t care about the personal meaning. Eulalie could have sold this place years ago and made herself rich. But she chose not to. Just as she chose to leave it to me because she knew I wouldn’t. She didn’t have children, but if she had, she would have left it to them as a family legacy. I’m not family by blood, but I know this place is worth more than money. But money is my only chance of getting Nephew-git McLoophole out of my life. And it’s the one thing I don’t have.

      Unless there’s treasure.

      And I find it first.

      If there is some kind of treasure hidden here, I can use it to buy his half of the château. It’s the only way of un-loopholing him and setting things right again. He’ll get what he wants, which is undoubtedly money, and I’ll get to keep the château, which is what Eulalie wanted. It’ll give him a fair share of the inheritance, which she would probably have wanted him to have if she’d known him. If there’s treasure here, it’s my only chance to make things right.

      It will be a nightmare with him involved. He’ll march in and take whatever he wants. There’s a lot of antique-looking furniture lying around. He could gut the place and what right would I have to stop him? None. The only thing my co-ownership means is that he can’t sell the château without my consent, but he’s so good at loopholes, I even wonder how watertight that might be.

      If there’s any hint of truth in that treasure riddle… it would be worth looking. While I’m in here and he’s out there.

Chapter Four

      It’s a good plan until it gets completely dark outside. Although there are plenty of lights in the château, most of them fancy crystal chandeliers, I can’t get any of them to switch on. The electricity supply has probably been cut off after so many years of the place being empty. Which is just great when you’re treasure hunting in the dark. I didn’t think to bring a torch with me, and after using my phone’s flashlight to poke around a couple of rooms, the battery has died, and without an electricity supply, I can’t charge it.

      It’s getting quite dangerous actually. It’s pitch-black inside now and there aren’t even any streetlamps to let in light from outside like there are at home. I have no way of telling where I’m going or what I’m looking at, my legs are covered in bruises from walking into things, and this is an old house that makes a lot of creaking noises. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t keep looking at shadows and trying to work out the difference between the noise of a pipe expanding and an axe murderer coming to kill me.

      Just as I’m thinking of giving up until morning, I see something. I’m on one of the lower floors, although I have no idea exactly where. I’ve lost track of how many sets of stairs I’ve gone up and down. I’m in a small room, much smaller than the others in the house, and as I’m about to walk out, a glint of silver catches my eye. I crouch down to the floor and try to see through the wooden boards in the way. There’s a hole at the base of the wall that’s been boarded up, and whatever that silver thing is, it’s hidden between the walls.

      It would be a good hiding place for treasure…

      I scoot backwards and kick out one of the boards. It’s so old that it crumbles under the heel of my shoe, and I scramble to clear enough space to get my arm through.

      I stretch my hand in, trying not to think about the cobwebs that cling to me. It’s still out of reach though, and I break more wood away and try again, getting further, to my shoulder this time, but still not far enough. Only one of the wooden boards crumbles, leaving a slim gap into the wall cavity; the other one is rock solid and I need a crowbar to prise it off, but it’s too dark to go hunting for tools.

      Right, come on, Wendy. Enough pratting around. If Loophole-git McNephew was in here, he’d be through that hole by now with the promise of treasure, and you wouldn’t be getting a sniff of it. I’ve got to get this before he does.

      I look at the gap. It doesn’t look completely impossible. I mean, if I breathe in and squash my boobs down a bit… surely I could get in there with just a bit of squeezing. What could possibly go wrong?

      I’m stuck.

      I am stuck halfway into a wall in a French château, my phone is not only dead but in the upstairs room where I left it, and no one knows I’m here. No one is going to come looking for me.

      And I locked out the only person within a five-mile radius.

      Well, this is just great, isn’t it?

      I wriggle and struggle, trying every way I can think of to free myself, but I have to face facts.

      I am going to die here.

      Within hours of arriving, I will disprove Eulalie’s belief that this place will give anyone who lives here a happily ever after.

      It should be renamed The Château of the Grim Reaper.

      I’m going to starve to death. Unless the spiders eat me first.

      Or that noise upstairs actually is an axe murderer.

      I lose track of time as I lie there waiting for death to take me, trying to work out what will kill me first. Starvation? Dehydration? Choking to death on dust, or suffocation by cobweb? Being cannibalised by French spiders?

      I’ll wait until morning and then start shouting for help. There’s got to be a neighbour somewhere nearby who might hear. Maybe Nephew McGit will hear and phone the fire brigade to break in and cut me free. Even letting him in is better than dying. Probably.

      I must have dozed off eventually, despite the wooden board digging into my stomach, because the next thing I’m aware of is laughter. Laughter with a Scottish twang to it. And a shutter noise and flash of light.

      ‘Did you just take a photo of me?’ I shout at him, so annoyed that I suck in a mouthful of cobweb and choke on it.

      He’s laughing so hard he can barely catch his breath to answer me. ‘I came in here to find nothing but a pair of legs