by Jenny Frame
Clementine sighed. “Thank you, but I fail to see the relevance of the stuffed animal.”
Evan seemed surprised. “Why?”
“They’re for children,” Clementine said flatly.
“Surely not, I have loads of soft toys, and this little chap is the mascot of Fox Toys.”
Looking at Evan’s appearance, with her now visible red braces peeking out from underneath her tweed jacket, Clementine didn’t doubt she had children’s toys. “I’ll give it to my friend’s children. Come in.”
As Evan followed her in she said, “Oh, you mean the Dayton family? Toby and Dexter? I met them last night. Great kids, they have one each already, so keep Mr. Fox for yourself, please.”
“Sit down,” Clementine said.
Evan felt a distinct frostiness coming from the duchess, and she hadn’t been expecting that. She also hadn’t been expecting such a young, normal-looking but naturally beautiful woman, dressed simply in a jumper and jeans.
She had expected an older lady—that’s how she pictured a duchess—but Clementine had opened the door, looked her in the eye, and then she had been whacked in the head with a banjo, or so it felt. Hence why she got the titles so embarrassingly wrong at the door.
Her dad had described the feeling of meeting her mum as being hit in the head with a banjo, and Evan, being a romantic, had set that as her benchmark for love and had been waiting a long time to feel it.
And I called her Your Majesty. Evan felt the embarrassment still but shook it off and decided to charge on with positivity.
“You look wonderful today, by the way,” Evan said with enthusiasm.
Clementine gazed at her with suspicion from the chair across the room. “Excuse me? I don’t need flattery, Ms. Fox.”
There was that cold breeze again. But Evan was undeterred. She was an expert at bringing people around through good humour and her infectious personality. That’s why she was so good in business negotiations.
“I don’t flatter, ma’am. I spread positivity.” Evan grinned.
Clementine snorted. “Well, don’t waste your positivity on me. Especially since I’m wearing jeans, a jumper, and no make-up.”
Wow. Again, tough crowd here in Rosebrook. Just keep charging on. “I was disappointed not to see you last night at The Meeting Place.”
“The Meeting Place?” Clementine repeated.
“Sorry, the church. We’ve renamed it The Meeting Place because I want it to be the centre of the community I hope to build here.”
“I read your letter, Ms. Fox—”
Evan interrupted, “Evan or Fox, please, ma’am.”
“Only if you stop calling me ma’am, Evan.”
“Got it. Please, carry on.”
Clementine sat back in her chair and started to talk. Evan lost track of her words as her eyes followed Clementine’s fingers as she placed an errant piece of hair behind her ear. She had elegant features and the cutest nose, but the thing that captivated Evan’s attention most was the fire in those green eyes of hers, even though the fire appeared to be directed at her.
Evan’s heart thudded with excitement. She’d never expected the Duchess of Rosebrook to make her head turn to mush and her heart melt into goo.
Oh my God, she’s the future Mrs. Fox. When you met your wife, first you felt like you’ve been hit with a banjo, then your brain turned to mush and your heart melted.
She shivered and realized she had no idea what Clementine had said.
“Are you listening?” Clementine said sharply.
“Um…sorry, could you repeat that?” Evan said.
Clementine sighed. “Your letter implied you wanted to build some kind of new community in this village, and I have no interest in that. I just wish to be left alone.”
Evan was surprised. She cleared her throat. “Ma’am—sorry, Clementine. If you could just hear me out. First of all, it’s such an honour to meet Isadora’s granddaughter. You must be so proud of her.”
“You must be joking. If she had taken care of her family and her duties as duchess, my mother and I would be sitting in Rosebrook house, not you, Evan.”
Evan was taken aback by her attitude to Isadora. Isadora was generally thought of as a heroine and pioneer with good ideas. She’d had setbacks, certainly, but the ideas were good.
She decided to be as nonconfrontational as possible, “I’m sorry to hear that. I wrote the final essay of my business degree on Isadora. She is my hero, but leaving that to one side, I wish you had been at the village presentation last night. I would value your knowledge of the people, village, and the land.”
The fire in Clementine’s eyes got fiercer. “Do you know how many people have owned the house and land since my family left? Many. And of those people the furthest they got was putting up scaffolding around the house before they realized how much money it would take to make this village live again, and they ran, leaving the few of us with a village in its death throes. I don’t trust people with plans and dreams, Evan.”
Evan looked up at the mantelpiece and saw a picture of Isadora with her partner, and she assumed Clementine’s father as a boy. She stood up and picked up the photo. From her research, when Isadora first inherited Rosebrook estate, she was full of life and enthusiastic about the future. Isadora would be unhappy about the current state of Rosebrook and her granddaughter’s opinion of her. Maybe it was Evan’s mission to change both those states of affairs.
Evan put the picture down and turned to Clementine. “Just listen to me for five minutes, and then you can kick me out on my backside.”
Clementine nodded, so Evan began. “My life’s ambition is to fulfil Isadora’s dream of a cooperative community, with houses for fair rents, and jobs that pay a decent wage. A place where the people have good healthcare, education, childcare, recreational spaces, but adding some of my own dreams onto Isadora’s vision.”
Evan started to pace backwards and forwards in front of Clementine as her passionate speech gathered momentum. “I want to build a green village that aims to increase health and happiness, and reduce the effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability. Also a place that is a welcoming and a safe community for all from the LGBTQ community—”
“A gay village?” Clementine interrupted.
“No, a village of safety and acceptance for all.”
Clementine rolled her eyes, but Evan charged on using big hand gestures that matched her excitement.
“A place where the community will have a say on how it’s run. Every member a stakeholder. I’ll rebuild the cottages to make them as ecologically sound as I can, and build more housing to attract young families, a truly safe and supportive place for sections of our community. I want it to be a shining example to the rest of the country as to what we can achieve when we set out to try to leave the world a better place than we found it.”
Clementine closed her eyes and shook her head. “I live in reality, not dreams. I may not own the land any more, but I still feel the responsibility to my people here. You are going to put these people through disruption and get their hopes up for the future, and then once you are fed up with your new toy, you’ll leave them high and dry. You’re a toy manufacturer, not a landowner. You have no qualifications to take care of this village,” Clementine said.
Evan was normally extremely good natured and hard to anger, but Clementine was making it difficult simply by her obstinate attitude.
“What kind of qualifications would I need? I took environmental studies at university, and I have my very own environmental consultant who works for me.”
Clementine gave a hollow laugh. “University course? How about five hundred years of experience, passed down from one Fitzroy to the other. It’s in my blood—I was born to take care of the land and the village. I was trained for it, but thanks to my grandmother and you, I can’t do it.”
My God, thought Evan, this woman has one almighty chip on her shoulder.
Again Evan tried to be conciliatory.
“That’s why I was so disappointed you didn’t come last night. I would value your advice immensely.”
The noise of a lorry reversing interrupted their conversation. She saw Clementine look past her shoulder and out of the window.
“Bloody dirty things.” Clementine stood up quickly. “You want my advice? Follow me.”
What had she gotten a bee in her bonnet about now? Evan never imagined this conversation would be this hard. She got up and followed Clementine out the front door.
When Evan met her, Clementine pointed to an old car parked in front of the gatehouse, which was now boxed in by the lorry.
“You see?” Clementine said angrily. “Four months this has been happening, and no matter how much I complain to your foreman, it keeps happening. My mother is very ill, and I need to be ready to get to her at a moment’s notice, if her nurses call. One morning I waited an hour before someone moved one of your vehicles, and I was late getting to my mother.”
Evan felt immediately sorry. Clementine was obviously dealing with a lot of difficult responsibilities, while she, some new city businesswoman, came and pitched up in her ancestral home.
She put her hand on her heart and said, “I’m truly sorry this has caused you problems. I promise after I talk to them, it will never happen again, on my word of honour. Plus, I’m living here now, so if you have any complaints or problems, come straight to me.”
Evan saw confusion and emotion in Clementine’s eyes. She had obviously been looking for a fight and not gotten one.
“And what about that?” Clementine pointed to Rosebrook House’s roof.
“What about what?” Evan replied.
“Those ugly solar panels on the roof,” Clementine said.
“It’s the first step in making the house and the village ecologically sound. The second stage is to get a wind turbine in the grounds, which will feed a Powerwall battery and make the house run virtually off-grid.”
“Wind turbine?” Clementine said angrily.
“Hey, it may not be the prettiest, but if we don’t make these small sacrifices, we may not have a world to live in.”
Clementine walked up close to her. So close that she could smell Clementine’s perfume. Her heart started to race.
“Just remember, this village is not your latest toy. You’re dealing with real lives, real historic, living, breathing buildings.”
Instead of replying with annoyance or anger, Evan smiled, leaned in close to Clementine’s ear and said, “You’re so pretty when you’re angry, Clem.”
Evan was sure she saw Clementine shiver slightly. Then she turned on her heel and walked back into her house and slammed the door.
“Well, that was eventful.”
Even though Clementine was back in her house, Evan could still feel her. She closed her eyes and smelled her perfume and felt unquenchable excitement after being in Clementine’s company, even though the duchess was angry with her—maybe especially because she was angry.
If a frown made Evan feel like this, she could only imagine what a smile would do to her. One thing was for sure. Evan wanted to experience more of the Duchess of Rosebrook. She was beautiful, sad, and carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, but still she held herself with a natural nobility.
Evan put her hands in her pockets and looked up to the sky. “Isadora? Not only am I going to bring your vision into reality, but I’m going to rebuild your granddaughter’s belief in dreams again.” If she really was Mrs. Fox, Evan was going to have fun finding out.
Chapter Seven
“What do you think, Mum?” Evan said while bouncing on a trampoline.
“I think you’re making me dizzy. Sit down, Evan,” her mother said.
Evan slowed her bouncing and sat on the edge of her large trampoline. One of the many modernizing elements she’d brought to Rosebrook was to have the disused basement rooms turned into a large gym and a games room, and this one housed her large trampoline.
She had always promised herself that if she ever moved from her London flat, she’d have a large trampoline like she’d had when she was growing up, and here she had it in this historic house. An image of Clementine flashed across her mind. If the grumpy but gorgeous duchess saw this in her former home, she’d probably want to kill her, but that would be good too.
An angry Clementine was still a Clementine, and she had thought about her constantly since she met her.
“So, do you like the place?” Evan said to her mum.
She had video-called her mum and taken her on a short tour, ending in the trampoline room.
“It’s a beautiful house, sweetheart, but it’s a big place to rattle around in by yourself,” her mum said.
That was one thing that bothered Evan. It was very quiet. She was a people person, and being on her own troubled Evan. She really needed to get the pub back open as soon as possible, to get the community socializing again.
The other thing was furniture. She’d had no idea how to furnish this place. Sure, she had her trampoline room, games room, toy room, and her bedroom set up with essentials, but she’d had to let an interior designer fill the house with appropriate furniture, and it didn’t quite feel like it suited her personality.
“I’ll be okay, Mum. I bet Dad would love my trampoline. Where is he, anyway?” Evan asked.
Her mother was in Geneva at a climate change conference with one of the Fox Toys environmental charities. Her father always went along with her, wherever she travelled, now that he was retired.
“You’re right. He’d never get off the bloody trampoline thing. Your father is at a collectors’ fair he found out about. Honestly, whatever country we go to, he always finds an antique toy shop or fair. He’s on the hunt for some train set or another.”
“Cool,” Evan said with a big smile. Both Evan and her father were not only passionate about toys, but they were passionate about their respective toy collections. Where her dad collected trains and clockwork toys of the forties and fifties, Evan had an impressive collection of action figures, in their original packaging, including Star Wars, Marvel, and DC action heroes. Now she finally had the room to display them. They were still packed away, but that was her next project. “When can you both come and see the place?”
“Not for another month at least. I have a few more commitments after this convention, but as soon as we can, we’ll be there.”
“I know. Thanks, Mum.”
“So, what’s the reception like from the locals to your big plans?”
Evan immediately thought of Clementine and sighed. “They’ve been great. It’s a small community, but when I met them at the refurbed church, they were really interested, well mostly. The farmers were slightly distrustful.”
Her mother smiled. “You could interest anyone in anything with your positive attitude. I’m sure you can get anyone onside.”
Evan shrugged. “I don’t know about that. The resident duchess is not on board and in fact can’t stand the sight of me, it seems.”
“You’ve met her?” Cassia asked.
“Yep, when she didn’t turn up to the community meeting, I went to her door. I was so excited to meet Isadora’s granddaughter, but she wasn’t happy to see me.”
“What is she like?”
Evan couldn’t help the smile that crept up on her face. “She’s beautiful, passionate, and she has these fiery green eyes—as I said, she can’t stand the sight of me. But I don’t think life is easy for her. She doesn’t seem to have much money and has an elderly mother in a nursing home.”
“Hmm,” her mother said, “think about it from her point of view. She’s a duchess—not only that, but I’ve read that the dukedom of Rosebrook is the third highest ranking one in Britain—and she has no land. That’s what the title is for, and it’s useless if you don’t have your land and people to go with the title. And to top it all off, you are now standing in her family home, which you’ve changed, and come at her with all these plans in that excited way you have. Like a child th
at’s had too much sugar. I’m sure it does remind her of her grandmother Isadora.”
“That’s what I feel like my purpose is, to finish the job Isadora started,” Evan said.
“You might remember Isadora Fitzroy as a pioneer, but I remember what your gran told me at the time. When they lost everything, the family was embarrassed beyond all recognition.”
“What should I do?” Evan asked.
“Don’t go storming in like some wild idealist throwing your money around. Show her and the village they are a part of what’s happening. Let them see your plans, your costings, open up, give them a proper voice on the plans, and I’m sure you’ll convince the duchess that way.”
“You mean make the Rosebrook regeneration a trust instead of my own personal project? Invite the people onto the committee and to become part of the changes?”
“Exactly,” her mother said. “As you know, the Fox family have many trusts, and your dad and I have always found that the best way to make change. Give the people working on the ground a sense of ownership.”
Evan had a new burst of energy. She couldn’t wait to get started, but then one thing popped into her head. “There’s one teeny, tiny problem left, Mum.”
“What? You always say there are no problems, only opportunities.”
“This is a bit different, though. I think Clementine Fitzroy is my wife. She’s turned up at last.”
Her mother burst out laughing. “What? Why do you think that?”
“Within five minutes of meeting her, I experienced all three criteria that Dad told me to expect when I met my wife, what he felt when he met you. First you feel like you’ve been hit with a banjo, then your brain turns to mush and your heart melts.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I know you’re an incurable romantic like your father, but it’s not an exact science. It’s probably just attraction. You don’t even know if you’ll like her personality.”
“I’ve been attracted plenty of times before, and this felt different, more overwhelming. I trust my feelings, Mum,” Evan said.
