Chapter 26
AS MAGGIE AND GRAY walked back down the drive, she frowned at a sleek black car parked in front of the chateau.
Pulling her phone from her pocket, she saw thirteen missed calls from Mungo. Plus seven increasingly irate WhatsApps.
Hi darling, pilot says there’s a storm coming so took off early and just down now. See you in an hour and a half, the driver says.
Did you get the flowers?
Will you let me know you’ve seen this? We’re 45 minutes away.
Maggie?
Maggie?????
Maggie, where are you? We’re ten minutes away?
MAGGIE?
‘Shit,’ she mumbled, slipping her phone back into her pocket.
‘What’s up?’
She nodded towards the car. ‘They’re here and my husband’s annoyed.’ Also, she’d forgotten the flowers.
‘I’m sorry. Was it the ice cre—’
‘No, no, they’re early.’
‘I’ve got this,’ Gray said confidently, swinging his bag of cheeses beside him. ‘I’ll charm him. You’ll see. I deal with producers all the time, guys who have egos the size of Brazil.’
‘Like yours?’ she teased.
‘Hey, watch it. I just bought you an ice cream.’
‘Mungo?’ Maggie said louder, as she walked up the steps to the front door.
He appeared at the top of them, the Englishman abroad: pale-blue linen suit, white linen shirt, Panama hat and cheeks that had already turned pink. ‘Darling, where have you been? I tried calling but … what is that on your dress?’
She looked down and saw a stain. ‘Ice cream. It’s the market today so I went to get a few things an—’
‘Hello, I’m Mungo Le mon ,’ said Mungo, stepping forward and thrusting his hand towards Gray.
‘Hi, man, I’m Gray.’
‘Gray, how do you do. Are you working here or …’ Mungo trailed off, confused by the sight of a large and muscled American in a woman’s sunhat standing beside his wife.
The past few days had been so busy that Maggie had totally forgotten to tell Mungo about Gray. Also, because she’d almost forgotten the significance herself. Since that first day he’d worked in the garden, he’d proven that he was serious about helping, and Gray had felt more like one of the artists or musicians her aunt had roped in while she was restoring the chateau: an old creative friend who’d simply come to stay to patch up the painting. Or at least he’d felt like that until they’d sat together on that bench eating ice cream.
‘He’s staying. He’s a guest, I mean,’ she explained, trying to push the moment on the bench out of her mind. Mungo obviously hadn’t recognized him. ‘But he’s offered to help with a few things. Gray, do you mind taking the shopping through to the kitchen? If Audrey’s there, she can put it away. She’ll do it if you’re the one asking her.’
‘Sure, no problem. Here …’ He reached for the bag of figs.
‘And a glass of water wouldn’t go amiss,’ Mungo added, as Gray stepped inside, before turning back to Maggie. ‘I asked that woman with orange hair when we arrived but she seems to have vanished. How do you even get hair that colour?’
‘Mungo, he’s a guest. Don’t ask him for water,’ Maggie said quickly, deciding that she’d explain Gray later. ‘Where’s the billionaire?’
He looked as if she’d just suggested sleeping with Bob Lacey. ‘Maggie!’
‘What?’
‘You can’t refer to him like that! And he’s on the phone over there.’ Mungo gestured towards the back of the chateau and then frowned. ‘You mustn’t mention the old story about this place being haunted, either. He won’t like that.’
‘Mun, ’course I won’t.’
His face softened and he held out his arms. ‘And hello. Sorry to snap. It’s nice to see you after so long.’
Maggie folded herself into the familiar shape of him. ‘Hello.’
‘Missed you.’
She felt guilty all over again but wasn’t quite sure why. ‘Missed you too,’ she echoed dutifully, before pulling herself away because she suddenly felt claustrophobic, as if she was physically trapped by him. Stepping back, she waved up at the hotel. ‘Looks good, doesn’t it?’
‘What does?’
She nodded at the fa?ade.
‘Oh. Yes. Tired but I’m sure he’ll see the potential. I’d forgotten how sublime the views are.’
She left Mungo gazing out at the hills and hurried upstairs to change, then returned downstairs to find a gaggle of people on the steps: her husband, a lady in a red trouser suit, a weedy-looking man holding a clipboard, who Maggie took to be the surveyor, and a very large man with pockmarked cheeks, and eyes that ran over her body before her face, as if taking stock of her worth as a woman.
Maggie steeled herself. ‘Mr Lacey, I presume? Hello, welcome to Le Figuier.’
‘Maggie?’ The lady in the red trouser suit quickly spoke up in a nasal, American accent. ‘Hello, I’m Ellen Payne, property agent for Boho House. Please, let me introduce you. Mr Lacey, this is Maggie Lemon, Mungo’s wife and owner of this beautiful chateau. Maggie, please may I present Bob Lacey.’
‘Mrs Lemon, nice to meet you,’ Bob said, in a gruff voice, taking Maggie’s hand and grasping it so hard she felt a finger joint click. ‘You used to work for that French bloke.’
She smiled warily. ‘Olivier? Yes, yes I did, among other places. How do you know that?’
‘Always do my homework before meetin’ someone. Never made it to your place out east, but I gather you’re quite the chef.’
‘Once upon a time,’ she said, with another smile.
Bob Lacey was a hulking character physically and metaphorically. A titan of the corporate world who’d made his first million in property by the age of nineteen, he’d gone on to buy run-down parts of East London in the Eighties and develop them into New York-style apartments, with lofts and exposed beams and floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the Thames. By the time he was thirty-nine, people guessed at his wealth in terms of billions, not millions, and he decided to launch his own members’ club, because, despite all his wealth, he was still deemed too rough to be accepted into any of the traditional St James’s clubs, where posh men in pin-striped suits gathered for lunch to discuss their shooting weekends.
Boho House was born, first in Mayfair, then another outpost in Chelsea, then Notting Hill. Pin-striped suits were banned and bad behaviour encouraged, although rumour had it that the police never did anything about the all-night parties and drugs that were taken within club walls because Lacey paid them off. He poached chefs from the best restaurants, promising to double their salaries, and the waitlist for membership grew. Boho House clubs became the place to sit with a laptop and pretend to work while people-watching to see who else came in. Celebrities could party there without fear of being papped; the odd young Royal dropped in for a date.
Lacey opened his first hotel four years later, in the Cotswolds, then another in Somerset. Then Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam. He was now fifty-nine, Maggie knew (because she’d spent the previous night Googling him), on his third wife, and supposedly terrifying: a wolf in wolf’s clothing. He was also said to be strangely superstitious, according to a Financial Times interview she read, in which he admitted to carrying a red handkerchief in his left pocket, given to him by his grandfather, for good luck, and refusing to allow cactuses in any of his hotels in the belief they brought the opposite. He never signed business deals on the thirteenth of any month, and always stepped through a doorway with his left foot, never his right. He was, clearly, a character.
‘It’s a nice gaff, this,’ he growled. ‘I like it. Yeah, I like it a lot. Very impressive.’ He nodded at the view. ‘Lucky to have hills like that nearby too.’
‘Oh?’ said Maggie, noticing the flash of red handkerchief poking from his suit pocket.
‘Protection from bad fortune, hills.’
‘Right, OK … Interesting. Now, can I offer anybody a drink before we look round?’
‘Nah, I have to get back to London sharpish, so let’s have a gander now.’
Maggie glanced towards the pool where the babymooning couple were lying on sunbeds. ‘OK. Why don’t we start with the grounds? I’ll show you the pool, built by a Californian architect called Taylor Jackson. You may have heard of him? It’s designed to look natural, on the east side of the chateau, with views over the Var.’
She rattled on while leading Bob, Ellen, Chris the surveyor and Mungo around the pool, pointing out the view of the valley over the cypress trees, explaining that this side of the hotel caught the sunlight all day. She pointed out the roses entwined around the pergola, and the tidied vegetable garden, before leading them around to the drinks terrace where she gestured towards the plane trees lining the drive. ‘They were planted by the duke who built the chateau in 1871.’
‘A duke?’ exclaimed Bob Lacey, sounding impressed. A title was the one asset he didn’t have and longed for.
‘The Duc du Miradoux built the chateau originally for his wife, and he planned to live here with her and have a large family. That’s why they built so many bedrooms. But she died within a year of their marriage, so the duke lived here alone, heartbroken and mourning what might have been. But my aunt, she was the one who restored the place twenty-five years ago, she was very taken with this story and wanted to bring the chateau and the grounds alive, to make it a romantic place once again. She was ill in the last few months of her life so I appreciate the hotel needs some attention, but I hope you’ll agree it has a kind of magic?’
Maggie glanced at Mungo, who winked reassuringly at her.
‘I have to say, I’ve seen a lotta beautiful places in my line of work but this takes some beating,’ said Ellen. ‘Mr Lacey?’
‘I like it,’ he mused, gazing at the gardens. ‘We’d ’ave to take these down,’ he added, sweeping his hand towards the trees. ‘To make room for a bigger car park and, Chris, can you note this, we need a bigger pool. This one’s way too small, and the spa would ’ave to go over there.’ He gestured towards the wildflower field on the left of the drive. ‘Chuck some ’ot tubs in front of it so they can sit there with a drink. Lovely stuff.’
Maggie looked from the plane trees to the pool, her eyes widening.
Ellen, noticing this, quickly stepped in. ‘Yes but we don’t have to decide any of this now, obviously. Could we have a look inside?’
‘’Course,’ Maggie said, less enthusiastically, before leading them in.
‘My aunt always liked to point out the light in here,’ she explained, gesturing at the staircase that wound around the walls and led to the third floor. ‘The duke designed the chateau with especially large windows, for the views but also to allow the sunlight in, so it creates an atrium effect, the light from the landings flooding inside.’
‘Very clever man from the looks of things,’ Bob Lacey murmured, peering at the ceiling above them. ‘And ’ow many bedrooms?’
‘Eight in total.’
His upper lip peeled back. ‘Only eight?’
‘Er, well, plus an annexe with another two bedrooms, which can be used for staff.’ She led the troupe up the spiral staircase and threw open the door to the lavender room. ‘And Phil, that was my aunt, she kept all the rooms simple but very comfortable.’
Bob Lacey’s penetrating stare took in the whitewashed walls, the stone floor, and the linen curtains, then turned to frown at Maggie. ‘This one’s for the staff?’
‘Er, no. No no, this is a bedroom for guests.’
‘And all the rooms look like this?’
‘Yep,’ she said tightly, ‘pretty much.’
He scowled and scratched at his chin before turning to Chris once more. ‘To make this work, we may need to rebuild. More rooms, more space. Modern bathrooms. No offence,’ he added, glancing at Maggie, ‘but punters these days want posh beds and TVs in front of the shitter.’
‘OK, sure,’ Ellen interjected again, as if placating a child, ‘but why don’t we think about how the space would work later? Because I think what we can agree’ – she turned to Maggie with a smile so wide it puckered her face – ‘is that this is a very special place, and it deserves very special attention.’
‘Absolutely,’ Mungo said, seizing his moment to step in. ‘I really think, Mr Lacey, that in the hands of the right buyer it could be magnificent. Technically it isn’t even on the open market. You’re the only potential buyer to have seen it, so if you’re keen, I’d move fast before we start talking to anyone else.’
Maggie flinched at her husband’s sales patter and looked seriously at the businessman. ‘I don’t think I could let this place go if there’s any risk it’ll be pulled down or changed hugely. My aunt left it to me to ensure that it’s looked after. But if you were keen to take it on, and restore it, so that the place is cared for, I’d be happy to talk.’
‘Great!’ cried Ellen. ‘Let’s talk! Here’s my card. Mungo, you’ve got my details.’
Mungo patted his breast pocket. ‘I have indeed.’
‘You want to get back?’ Ellen looked at her boss.
‘Yeah, seen enough. Thank you, Mr Lemon, Mrs Lemon,’ Bob Lacey said, glancing over his shoulder as they made their way downstairs. ‘It’s not bad, this place. I ’ope we can do business.’
‘I do hope so,’ Mungo replied. ‘Like I said, it hasn’t been on the market for twenty-five years so it’s a very exciting opportunity for the right person. And think of the history! The people who have stayed here. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories but, in its day, it was quite the most fashionable hotel, which, I think you’ll agree, makes it especially fitting for Boho House to take on and restore, to make it sing once again.’
Maggie glared at the back of her husband’s head. He’d only ever been here once before, and yet here he was making out as if he was the expert on it, sucking up to Bob Lacey because he could smell a deal. For a second, she wished he hadn’t come at all.
In the hallway, Bob spun and his eyes bore into Maggie. ‘Tell me, ’ow fast could you move?’
‘Mr Lacey isn’t a man who beats around the bush,’ Ellen added.
‘We’re keen on a quick sale, so as fast as you like, wouldn’t you say, darling?’ Mungo put his arm around his wife.
‘Er …’ Maggie began. ‘Well, I need some time to pack up the pla—’
‘If you can move fast, so can we,’ Mungo interrupted.
‘Terrific!’ enthused Ellen. ‘OK, wonderful to meet and we’ll be in touch.’
Bob Lacey said goodbye and crushed Maggie’s hand in his again before making his way back to the Mercedes, where a chauffeur leapt from the front and opened the passenger door.
‘I think that went extremely well,’ Mungo remarked, as he and Maggie stood on the steps and watched their visitors get back into the car: first Bob, before the chauffeur let Ellen in on the other passenger side and Chris slid into the front. ‘I know a keen buyer when I see one.’
‘How can you tell?’ she murmured, watching the car glide down the drive.
‘Because he asked how quickly we could move. Always a good sign.’
‘I’m not selling it to anyone who wants to pull the hotel down, Mungo; that’s not what Phil would have want—’
‘Oh, darling, come on, there are all sorts of French property laws that will protect this place. Don’t look so worried, trust me. I know what I’m talking about.’ As the Mercedes disappeared, Mungo turned to face her and rubbed his hands. ‘How about a drink to celebrate?’