Plain Jane Wanted

by Rose Amberly

  No, just happy. And in love.

  Stop using the L word. It’s not been a week. You can’t be sure.

  No, but I’ll have three weeks away to think, to be sure.

  No, you won’t. You’ll spend it on the phone every night, and her voice will drive you insane.

  You won’t think. Not with your head, anyway.

  He wished they’d said goodbye somewhere more private, somewhere he could have held and kissed her properly.

  Truth was, he didn’t want to say goodbye at all. He was seriously tempted to take her with him now.

  Yes, perfect. No planning. No thinking. Just take her from her life and her job, until your usual three-month itch sets in.

  The loudspeaker screeched the announcement. The ferry to Guernsey was about to board. Time was running out.

  Prove you’re still George Du Montfort, sharp legal brain, cool head, sound judgement.

  “George? What’s on your mind? I can just feel you calculating and building plans.”

  Smart as a whip.

  “Sorry, work. It’s a huge project, and I have to decide which parts to delegate and to whom.”

  “When do you come back?” she asked and quickly bit her lip as if regretting the question. Then she released her lip and a look of resolve came into her eyes. He knew the look. He’d seen it back in April in the café in London when she insisted on giving him her insurance details. She wanted an answer.

  Don’t make promises until you’re sure you can keep them.

  “Depends.” He traced her collarbone with his fingertips. He didn’t know if it distracted her; it certainly distracted him.

  “Care to be more specific?”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She shook her head in mock frustration.

  Millie was running out of time. They were already up and walking towards the gate. It was goodbye.

  At the barrier, he put his case on the floor and turned to face her. They’d already agreed not to kiss or hug at the busy terminal but he took her hand. “Millie, ask me to stay. I’ll resign and stay here with you.”

  The man was upside down. He wouldn’t commit to a date for his return but was willing to throw his entire life for her?

  It was a very tempting idea though. Stupid, but tempting, especially when he looked at her like --

  Instead she laughed again. “No, don’t sabotage your career for me. Then you’ll blame me later, and I’m done with being blamed. But—” she smiled to lighten the mood. “I have something else to ask you.”

  “Anything.”

  “George, I need you to ....” She kept her eyes down in case the anger in his face stopped her. “Can you think about a way to make friends with your father?”

  She’d been dreading this topic. The subject of his father was a nuclear button for George. But this relationship had to be mended; otherwise he’d never have peace. “He’s not a bad man, not now. It would make me happy if you could reconcile. For me? Please?”

  She finally lifted her eyes to his face. Which looked surprised.

  “That’s what you want?”

  He wasn’t angry. Thank God.

  “Well, I was going to ask you to unmelt the polar ice caps and solve the conflict in the Middle East. But—”

  “You wanted something really big for your birthday.” He brushed the hair away from her face. “You do know usually a woman asks for Jewellery?”

  She laughed. “Yes but I’m not like other women, remember?”

  “Of course I remember, and no you’re not like anyone else.” His eyes burned

  The loudspeaker warned them the gate was about to shut. He moved in closer and reached for her.

  She looked around at the station full of people, staff, crew, the newspaper stand…She stepped back from him. There was no point undoing a week of careful privacy.

  She offered him her hand again which he held in both of his, “Come back soon”

  “I promise.” He whispered

  * * *

  A week later. La Canette, afternoon.

  Never before had Millie craved alone time like she did now. And at no time in her life was it harder to be alone. A week had passed since George had left, and she had a heap of memories of their time together to think about.

  Henry had forced her to live on crumbs of affection, an emotional famine. Now she had a banquet of exciting passionate moments to remember, and she needed time to digest this feast. If only people would leave her alone.

  Even when cataloguing Du Montfort’s books, a task that surely didn’t require explanation, the old man had his eyes on her as if she were a school-girl learning to fly a plane. And he wasn’t the only one. Ann kept asking her if she was all right.

  She’d be a lot more all right if she had a quiet moment to let her mind drift. George had sent her another text message yesterday, and she’d only read it ten or eleven times. Not nearly enough.

  Existing on a diet of coffee, ham sandwiches and government directives. Whenever I lose patience, I—

  “Do you need a break?” Du Montfort broke into her thoughts. “It’s a tedious job, I know.”

  Why was he so solicitous? She swallowed her irritation. He was being nice, and to be fair, she’d been staring into the middle distance for ten minutes.

  “Sorry.” She dragged her attention, kicking and screaming, back to listing the works of nineteenth-century British philosophers.

  George’s two text messages made her phone weigh heavily in her pocket, demanding to be taken out and read again. Shame she couldn’t reply; something to do with how they were sent through iCloud. When she tried texting back, it failed to send.

  He hadn’t given her his mobile number or his email, and unless she was going to ask someone in the house—no. No. If he’d wanted her to contact him, he’d have given her the details himself. A commitment not offered freely was worthless.

  A spontaneous text he sent her out of the blue because he just happened to think about her, now that was worth the world.

  Just passed bright-yellow shop awning. Reminded me of what you said about sunflowers. Sitting on hands & offering no assistance to damsels in distress. You’ll be proud.

  And last night.

  Existing on a diet of coffee, ham sandwiches and government directives. Whenever I lose patience negotiating over the tiniest detail, I look out my window at the Manneken Pis, below. A statue of a cherub pissing into a fountain. I imagine you sitting on the edge, cooling your bare feet in the water, eating Belgian fries from a rolled-up paper-cone.

  He was on the money; that was exactly what she would do. Henry had never known her so well after ten years.

  Henry who? She’d already forgotten him.

  “What’s going through that head of yours?” Du Montfort. Again. “I love my old books, but they don’t make anyone smile like this.” He put down his magazine. “Come tell me what it is you’ve been dreaming about. Since your day trip to Blue Sage Bay, you’ve been walking on a cloud.”

  Millie’s mind reeled. Lying never came easily, and the old man was no fool. She smoothed her skirt as she stood up from the desk and hoped by the time she went to his corner by the window, she’d have thought of a suitable diversion.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Surely this ought to work; he liked a little something mid-afternoon.

  “No,” he said. “One of us should keep a clear head, and that’s not going to be you, is it?”

  She pulled an upright chair opposite him and sat with her back straight, her hands in her lap, and hoped for something to happen and save her from his questioning gaze. She liked the old man, but really, sometimes! Oh, how she longed for the early days when he couldn’t stand the sight of her.

  “It can’t be the bushes and weeds on the headland that’re occupying your mind, so what is it?”


  Oh, thank God. Du Montfort had unwittingly thrown her a lifeline. With a wide smile, she launched into a detailed description of the herbs, the flowers, the weeds, the smells, the flavours, the colours, her dream of renovating the cottage. By the time she’d started on what to paint the boardwalk, she had the perfect strategy. If anyone wanted to ask her what she was thinking, they’d get a long, long description.

  If she couldn’t talk about George with anyone, then the cottage where they’d nearly made love was close enough.

  “I’d love to renovate it, but George thinks the structure is unsound.”

  “Trust my son to rain on everyone’s parade.”

  She hadn’t meant the conversation to go there again. “No, I think he was just concerned.”

  “My son...” He sighed. “Ants crawl over his skin if he has too much fun.” He sighed again.

  No longer obsessed with Millie’s mood, he was on to his favourite topic. “Case in point, I offered to hand over the governing of La Canette to him. He’d make an outstanding seigneur.” Du Montfort’s eyes took on a faraway look. “You can see it. He inspires loyalty with a minimum of effort. People just like him and want to follow where he leads. So it’s patently clear he should take over, but no-o-o!” The old man stretched the o very long. “He won’t take it. You know why?”

  It was a rhetorical questions, and didn’t answer.

  “Because,” he answered himself, “in the back of that dark brain of his, he suspects he might actually enjoy the job. So, he only does the minimum. Annoying little administrative chores. He huffs and puffs and grinds his teeth for two weeks, and just when it becomes interesting, he runs back to London.”

  Did the old man criticise George because it allowed him to talk about the son he wished could be closer?

  “Maybe he is happier in London,” she said.

  “If there was any chance of actual happiness in the capital, he’d have left it years ago. My son’s afraid of being happy. I see it in him. As soon as he starts to enjoy himself, he finds a reason – something. I’ve lost count of how many perfectly suitable girls he’s dated. He plays knight in shining armour for a few months. Then, just when the poor girl’s getting her hopes up”—Du Montfort clicked his fingers—“he switches off like a spent light bulb.

  The old man gazed out of the window. “It would have to be a very unusual woman to finally smooth his sharp angles and get him to grow up, and I suspect such a woman would be in for a rough ride.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Two weeks later. La Canette, afternoon.

  Keys still in his hand, George held the door open with his shoulder while manoeuvring his suitcase, duty-free bags and folded jacket just as his phone started ringing. He pushed the door shut with his foot as he dumped the bags on the floor in front of the hall table and dug in various pockets, trying to find his phone.

  Sod’s bloody law. His phone would have to be in the last pocket he looked. He emptied everything on the table—keys, wallet, passport, Millie’s birthday gift, pen, and finally his phone.

  Rob Matthews flashed on the screen. George wasn’t in the mood to talk island business; he’d just had three weeks working almost round the clock just to get everything organized in Brussels. The family lawyer would have to wait. George rejected the call and slipped the phone into his trouser pocket, then pulled his bags to the bottom of the stairs. Where was everyone?

  “Hello?”

  He went through to the kitchen. Empty. He ran upstairs, but his father’s study was equally empty.

  “Hello?” he called down the upper gallery. “Mrs B? Anybody home?”

  No one answered.

  He took his luggage over to his room. The afternoon sun streamed through the glass, and the room felt like an oven. George lifted the sash window open to let in the cool breeze, then the window on the other wall to create a draught. Ah, so that’s where they all were.

  Everyone was gathered round the water-lily pool under one of the willows. Millie looked beautiful, even from a distance, in a white dress. Like a bride-to-be. His lips parted in a wide smile. Everyone seemed to be standing in a circle around her and someone else.

  His father.

  George was temporarily distracted from looking at Millie by the sight of his father standing. On his own legs.

  The phone rang, Rob Matthews again. George was about to reject it, but Rob must have something important to be so persistent.

  “Hello?” George put the phone to his ear, his eyes on the garden. His father seemed to be making a speech of some kind.

  “Rob? What is it?” He was impatient to go into the garden and join them. Then Rob’s words sank in, and George gave his full attention to the call. “What?”

  “Exactly. I’ve been trying to reach you for two days,” Rob said.

  “I was in Belgium.” He’d finished his work in Brussels then took a day to go to Antwerp. A special trip. For Millie.

  “I sent you three emails. I’m afraid I was powerless to stop the deal.”

  If Rob was wrong, George was going to fire him. “You have to stop it.”

  “The headland and the cottage don’t fall into the historic Du Montfort estate. It isn’t bound by the terms of the trust.”

  “Of course they’re not in the Du Montfort estate. It was my mother’s property left to her by her father.” George reached for his briefcase and found his iPad and searched his emails. Anything from Rob Matthews, like all island business, was filtered into a separate folder, and George checked it once a week. He propped the iPad on the large blackwood chest of drawers and turned it on.

  “But unless your mother left instructions in her will, the property would have passed to her next of kin, your father. Believe me, I spent the last forty-eight hours looking for a legal impediment, but there was none. He can sell it.”

  Sell it?

  “—or he can transfer ownership.”

  “He can’t do that.”

  This was the least amusing mix-up in the history of—

  “I am afraid he can, and he has. The deeds came through this morning, and I have sent them to your father. He was very insistent the thing be done very quickly. I tried to make him delay until you could be reached, but—” Rob sighed heavily. “Well, you know your father. I’m afraid he wouldn’t listen to me.”

  George’s disbelief gave way to anger. “It isn’t his to give.”

  The long list of unread emails scrolled down the screen, but he was too impatient. Rob’s voice took on the tone he used whenever he delivered bad news. “Your only option is to find the new owners and buy it back, then it will be yours and—”

  “Who?”

  Rob must have been rifling through files. “He gave the property to a, just a sec, to a—”

  “To a what?” George wished Rob were here so he could shake the information out of him. “Who’d he give it to?”

  “A lady,” Rob finally said. “Emeline Josephine Summers.”

  Through the window, George saw his father hold up a glass of Champagne, with one hand; his other arm was around Millie’s shoulders. Their heads came close together. George couldn’t tell what they were doing, the angle was wrong, but it lasted a long minute. When they pulled apart, Millie’s face was red, and she had a big smile. Everyone raised their glasses and drank. The sounds of cheers and laughter reached him across the long garden.

  A cold sweat broke on his face.

  “Are you still there?” Rob’s voice came from another universe.

  “What? Yes, I’m here.” His mind was blank. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I’m afraid it’s true. The deeds were delivered to the house today at noon. I just got the confirmation receipt from the courier service.”

  George tossed the phone on the bed and stalked out to the gallery.

  The door to his father’s study was stil
l open. Nothing on the desk. George upturned the in-tray and yanked the desk drawers open. Nothing.

  This was all a ghastly mistake. Had to be.

  He ran downstairs to the hall and looked for the post-tray. It wasn’t there.

  Then he saw it on the table and stopped stock still. A large envelope tied with a blue ribbon. Red Arrow Couriers, special delivery was stamped on it. George was breathing hard as if he’d run a marathon.

  Hand shaking slightly, he picked it up, and a small envelope like a birthday card slipped from the ribbon and fell on the floor; he ignored it while he tore the package open.

  His eyes scanned the pages.

  LAND REGISTRY. PROPERTY DEEDS.

  BLUE SAGE BAY ALSO KNOWN AS LE COU, AND ALL STRUCTURES THEREIN.

  He flicked through all the pages and read everything twice.

  A padlock inside him broke.

  A lid that had been firmly shut, in that far-off compartment in his soul where his thoughts about his mother were kept. That lid now burst open.

  Why would his father do this? George’s eyes scanned the papers a third time, looking for a clue, a hint that it was a mistake. But everything was notarised, signed and stamped.

  He sat down slowly on the stairs and shoved the papers back into the torn package. And that’s when his eyes landed on the small white envelope on the floor. Like a wedding invitation.

  His father’s handwriting.

  To Millie Summers (soon to be Millie Du Montfort)

  George’s stomach clenched and heaved as he tore the envelope open. Inside was a single sheet of his father’s embossed stationary folded over a thin tissue page edged in silver. He pushed it aside to read the message.

  He had to rest his hand on his knee because it was shaking too much for him to make out the words.

  To the future Lady Du Montfort.

  No bride should come to her wedding empty handed.

  Accept this small gift with all my love.

  Yours always,

  Richard.

  George stopped breathing. Richard. His father’s informal signature, his first name that no one ever used.