Sommersgate House (20 page)

“One rule,”
Julia declared.

“No rules,”
Douglas replied.

“One rule,”
she ignored him, “whatever it is you’re after, you don’t drag the
children into it.”

He didn’t even
think, just inclined his arrogant head in agreement.

“Good. Let the
games begin,” she declared sarcastically.

And before he
could reply, she left, trying not to look like she was fleeing. Her
heart was racing, her head was aching and she was scared to death.
As she walked, she felt the arctic draught around her feet and
looked down.

It wasn’t an
invisible draught this time but looked like wisps of fog gathering
around her ankles. She picked up the pace but it stayed with her,
detached from her ankles and floated ahead. Julia watched in dread
as it approached her bedroom door but then it slid past, towards
the chapel, disappearing around the corner. She ran into her room,
slammed the door and, for good measure, threw the bolt home.

“Dear Lord,
what have I gotten myself into?” she asked the room.

The scratching
at the window was her only reply.

Julia’s New
Position

The next
morning, Douglas arrived to an empty breakfast table. Julia had
gone with Carter to take the children to school. Avoiding him no
doubt.

Knowing this
almost made him smile.

After
breakfast, he holed himself in his study, catching up with e-mails
and telephone calls he’d not been able to return while he was away
with Nick. His mother arrived home with the usual fuss and fanfare
and he kept his door closed. Monique knew from experience that
meant he did not wish to be disturbed. For hours, he heard nothing
more, Julia, Ruby nor Carter returned home. Julia would have to
come through the front door, of course, the family never used
anything but the front door. To do that, she’d have to pass his
study.

Then it struck
him that, being Julia, perhaps she didn’t use the front door.

Finally,
impatient to set his plan into action, he went to find her.

Mrs.
Kilpatrick was in the dining room using a foul-smelling,
lemon-scented balm to polish the already exceptionally high sheen
of the dining room table.

“Sir,” she
muttered, not looking at him.

“Mrs.
Kilpatrick,” he replied as greeting, intending to pass her as usual
and go straight to Julia’s rooms.

Then he heard,
“Lady Ashton got home not two hours ago.”

Mrs.
Kilpatrick addressing him caused him to stop in surprise. He turned
back to her, saw her eyes on him were hesitant and inclined his
head as a gesture of gratitude at her unnecessary bit of news.

“Miss Julia…”
she said loudly when he started to walk away.

He stopped
walking and turned towards her again.

“Is at the
supermarket,” she finished hurriedly.

He regarded
her inquisitively.

Mrs.
Kilpatrick had been in his life for as long as he could remember.
She excelled at her job, never complained, was immensely loyal to
his house and her work and, for all of that, he respected her.

Even so,
except for when she reported the household finances to him on a
quarterly basis, he wasn’t certain she’d ever spoken more than a
few words to him of her own free will.

“Is that so?”
he replied in an effort to be polite and he swore he saw her gulp.
He couldn’t imagine what was wrong with her though he didn’t give
this much thought as he had other thoughts on his mind and he
started back towards his study.

Then he
stopped and saw Carter outside surveying the fountain as if
something was wrong with it.

If Carter was
outside, how was Julia at the market?

“Tell me, Mrs.
Kilpatrick, did Miss Fairfax get her driver’s license while I was
away?” he asked courteously, glancing in her direction again.

She nodded.
“She certainly did, sir. Pleased as pie, ‘Freedom!’ She said.
‘Relief!’”

Misinterpreting what the woman wanted him to understand, and amused
at her description of Julia’s reaction, he thought she wished to
report that Julia had taken a car.

“So, she’s out
in one of my cars, is she?” he prompted.

She surprised
him by shaking her head. “No sir. She walked.”

“Walked?” He’d
never been to a grocery store but he’d driven by them and he knew
the closest one was in town and that was at least three miles away.
Furthermore, why didn’t she simply ask Carter to get her what she
wanted from the market? “Why would she walk?”

“She’s begun
to like the excursions, sir. She takes Ruby. They both come in with
cheeks pink and healthy,” Mrs. Kilpatrick answered.

Douglas
crossed his arms on his chest.

“Mrs.
Kilpatrick. I have things to do,” he explained impatiently, his
tone telling her in no uncertain terms she was wasting his time and
she should get to the point.

And Douglas
was impatient because he was annoyed. This was obviously Julia’s
way of telling him she was not going to use his staff and that she
was going to do her bit to contribute to the household by
purchasing groceries since he wasn’t going to allow her to pay her
way.

“Sorry sir,”
Mrs. Kilpatrick bent to her task and he couldn’t help but think she
looked scared to death. This annoyed him all the more.

He expected
his staff to respect him, to be quiet and go about their duties but
he never expected, or to this point received, fear. He knew the
staff were anxious around his mother but they’d never appeared that
way with him.

“
It’s
just,” she went on, interrupting his thoughts, her voice so quiet
he could barely hear her and it held both a tremor of fear and, if
his hearing didn’t deceive him, a note of anger, “those children
need something decent in their bellies, something they like to eat.
And Lady Ashton won’t allow me to add anything to the grocery list
or Carter to buy anything more. It’s a long way for Miss Julia and
little Ruby to go, carrying back bags and all, especially when it’s
raining. And since Lady Ashton forbid them to use Carter unless she
gave her
express
permission, then they had to walk all last week. I thought
that they’d get to use a car, seeing as Miss Julia has a license
now and she was so excited about it. But today, Lady Ashton said
now she couldn’t use a car unless she gave her
express
–”

“Thank you,
Mrs. Kilpatrick,” Douglas cut her off, turned away and walked
toward his study, his jaw set, his gait determined. The annoyance
was escalating to an extraordinary feeling the like of which he had
not felt for a very long time.

Then he turned
back and called down the hall. “Mrs. Kilpatrick,” her head shot up
and her hand flew to her throat in fear, “tell Carter to go fetch
them. When he gets back, tell him I want to see him.”

“Yes sir!” she
replied and walked swiftly towards the front door. As she passed
him, he could tell she was holding back a smile.

For his part,
Douglas found nothing to smile about.

His phone was
ringing when he walked into the study. He strode to his desk,
jerked it angrily out of the cradle and answered curtly, “Yes?”

“Oh no, sounds
like you’re having a bad day,” Oliver Forsythe returned.

“
I’m
hoping it’ll get better,” Douglas ground out as he sat, turned in
his chair and stared out the window, thinking of Julia and little
Ruby tramping out there in the cold and mud, heaving carrier bags
of groceries home all because of his
bloody
mother.

“I’m afraid
I’m calling to tell you it’s going to get worse. Charlie had a
conversation with Julia this morning and now she’s…” the other line
buzzed and Douglas swivelled in his chair to look down at the phone
while Oliver finished, “on the warpath. She told me she was going
to call you.”

“I don’t think
she’s wasted any time. The other line is going.”

“Good luck,
mate,” Oliver replied, his tone amused, and rang off.

Douglas hit
the button to connect to the other line and before he could speak,
Charlotte exploded, “Douglas, have you lost your mind?”

“Hello
Charlotte,” he responded evenly to her irate voice.

“Don’t you,
‘Hello Charlotte’ me. Do you know where Jewel is right now?”

He wondered
vaguely when Julia had become “Jewel” to Charlotte and he felt a
bizarre twist of jealousy slice through his gut.

“The
supermarket?” Douglas ventured.

“Do you know
how she got there?” she yelled.

“She walked.
Listen Charlotte, I just got home last night –” for some reason,
far beyond him, he felt compelled to explain. Even though his
feeling the need to explain was a rather spectacular event,
Charlotte ignored him and broke in angrily.

“
And
that’s another thing, you’re gone too much. Not only have you left
Jewel like a lamb at the slaughter that is Monique, you’re never
home. I called this morning to tell her I have some friends who are
trustees at a faltering charity and they need some quick, and
cheap, as in free, consultation. With a little work bringing her up
to speed, and Sam could do the research for her, Jewel could have
helped them. It would have been a great way for her to get some
experience, start to network, learn the ways in a different
country. But,
no
…” she drew
out the last word sarcastically, “she doesn’t trust Monique with
the children and doesn’t want to ask more of your staff, so she
refuses to leave the children behind and won’t do it.”

He had barely
processed her speech when she went on, telling him of Monique’s
little “tea party” and something about “lollipop girls” and how
Monique told Lizzie she was overweight. His brain conjured an image
of the girl with her sunken cheeks and bruised eyes and his jaw
tightened again.

“Enough,
Charlotte,” Douglas interrupted her curtly. “I get your point.”

“You’d better
because it isn’t fair on her, putting up with all of that and
dealing with her homesickness and her and the children’s grief. I
didn’t expect much of you, and, doubtlessly, neither did Tammy, but
I expected more than this.” Before he could reply to that cutting
remark, she said, “I’ll see you on Thanksgiving,” and the phone
went dead in his hand.

He replaced
the receiver and stared at the phone. As Charlotte and Mrs.
Kilpatrick’s words started to penetrate, he felt a slow,
unfamiliar, but not in the slightest indecipherable, burn
begin.

“Darling!
You’re home! How lovely.”

He looked up
from the phone and saw his mother in the doorway.

Monique had
very bad timing.

Douglas didn’t
like what he was feeling. He had, for many years, guarded against
feeling anything at all. He’d had to or he would have been crushed
by his father’s tirades. But now the thoughts were racing through
his mind and anger was boiling at his gut.

While he’d
been away, he thought a great deal about Julia.

Once he made
up his mind about something, he didn’t often turn back. He was
intent on starting his strategy to win her around to his way of
thinking, of making her his wife and then, or before (if he was
successful) taking her to his bed.

But he’d
allowed himself to think of that kiss. That extraordinary kiss in
the dining room and just how easily she responded to it. Sean
Webster had been a wealthy man of position; it wouldn’t be the
first time Julia had found herself a good catch. Douglas was
definitely her type if Webster was anything to go by.

And Douglas
had allowed himself to believe from his vast experience of human
behaviour that no one did something for nothing. Especially if that
something required a great sacrifice that altered their entire life
and their future.

And he had
limitless knowledge of conniving women who put on a great show for
the ultimate goal, which was him.

So he berated
himself for his quick decision to make her his wife, which would be
exactly what she wanted. He talked himself into believing the worst
of her and then decided to confront her with it. He’d been thrilled
she’d given him that opportunity quickly by appearing so
fortuitously in his study last night. He intended to trip her up,
make her expose herself and then he intended to kick her out.

He had not
expected how their conversation would turn. He had not expected for
her to admit to sustaining the same abuse from Webster as he
himself had endured from his father.

And lastly, he
had not expected his intense reaction to it.

When she said
the word “hurt” in that awful voice as if it was dredged up from
her very soul, he knew it corresponded to a feeling long since
buried deep in the pit of his own.

Rage and
sorrow for another human being, he found, did not mix well. Julia
had never let on, not once, to the extent of Webster’s callousness.
She had always put on a brave face.

He found, to
his surprise, that he wanted to do something about it, to take away
her pain, her bitterness, to make her happy.

Her face had
been in shadow but her words were enough. She was either the best
actress in the world or she was innately damaged. Her proclamation
that she’d next marry a balding short man who would clean the
bathroom was said with such force, he thought she believed it.

He then
decided immediately to resume his strategy. She would
not
next marry a short, balding man
unless he himself started to lose his hair and shrink.

And not only
would he never, but she would also never again clean a
bathroom.

He faced his
mother with his temper close to the surface.

“Mother,” he
said tersely by way of greeting, “you’ve been busy while I was
away.”