Sommersgate House (28 page)

“Julia, is
this really necessary?” her father asked before Douglas could
answer (not that he was going to answer). “I came to make amends,
when things like this happen, you realise –”

It was then
Julia completely lost control, her vision exploding into fireworks
of fury. Her fists clenched and her body tensed from the top of her
head to the tips of her toes.

She
leaned forward stiffly from the waist and hissed, “Make amends? You
can
never
make
amends. Even if I was to spend the next fifteen years telling you,
you will never know what a good man your son was. You will never
have the chance to meet the glorious woman he chose for his bride.
You will never have her joy and light shine down on you. You’re too
late.”

“I know that,
Julia,” Trevor replied, his voice conciliatory. He began to walk
forward and she threw her arm up to fend him off. It registered
somewhere in her brain that Douglas had pushed away from the doors
when father started to approach daughter but Julia was too overcome
to think about what that meant.

“So now,
because I have a little bit of my brother in me, I’m going to let
you have Thanksgiving dinner with your grandchildren. Not for your
sake, but for theirs,” Julia went on. “Their parents just died and
I don’t want anything disturbing what, up until now, was perhaps
their first lovely day in months. And afterwards, you’re going to
go back to your wife and family and never darken our door
again.”

At the mention
of his second family, his face grew pale and his carefully
controlled expression faltered.

“Felicia’s
left me, Julia.” His voice cracked on this admission and instead of
Julia feeling an ounce of compassion, which she saw his eyes
beseeching her for, it all became blazingly clear why he was
there.

If his
wife had left him then now
he
was
alone, only now would he come back into her life. Not of his own
accord, but because, perhaps, he had no one else.

She didn’t
care. She could not believe his selfishness, it took her breath
away. But he wasn’t finished.

“My children,
they’re all…” He didn’t complete that thought and she didn’t wonder
at it. None of her half sisters or brother had ever made any
advances to her or Gavin either. “And then I heard about Gavin and
I just had to –”

She advanced
on him, taking two swift strides and barely registering his wince
and recoil at her quick, furious charge. She realised then how old
he looked, how faded and defeated, his handsomeness nothing but a
memory.

Gavin
would have
never
looked
like that.
Never.

She jolted to
a halt.

“
If you
have problems, they’re
your
problems. We, Mom, Gavin and I, had problems too but we
managed to sort through them without
you!
There was the time when Mom had nineteen cents in the bank
and you hadn’t paid child support and we had no toilet paper, where
were
you
when Gavin
had to break open his piggy bank so we could go to the store? There
was the time when Gavin won All-County in football and all the
other boys stood on the stage with their fathers and Mom had to be
at work and my brother had to stand there alone, where were you
then?” She hurled every word at him like a spear. “So, now you can
take my offer and then you can go away and I swear to all that is
holy, if you ever approach my mother, I’ll hunt you down and
–”

“I believe,”
Douglas cut in firmly, quieting her with his calm words, “dinner is
getting cold. I would imagine the children are missing their aunt
and likely becoming concerned.” Both father and daughter swung to
Douglas who was now standing several feet from the doorway. “If
Julia has anything more to say after supper, perhaps she can do so
then. Now it’s important to get back to the children.”

Julia was
still shaking but she took a deep breath while she watched Douglas.
He looked completely unperturbed at this turn of events and she
tried to suck some of his energy from across the room.

“Of course,”
she agreed with a stiff nod, because he was right, she should be
thinking of the children. “Father, would you like to meet your
grandchildren?” she inquired, but her tone was barely civil, making
these lovely words sound nearly threatening.

He simply
nodded, looking back and forth between Douglas and Julia.

She took
another breath and motioned with her arm to the door. Trevor
started to exit the room and she followed him, her movements jerky.
As she passed Douglas, he caught her hand and pulled on it gently
to stop her.

“You have to
get control of yourself,” he told her from between his teeth. “You
can’t let the children see you like this.”

“
And how
do you propose I do that?” Julia flashed back.
He
may be able to stand cold and controlled in the
face of just about anything but
she
wasn’t built like that.

Douglas
turned.

“Dr. Fairfax,”
he called to the older man and her father, already in the hall,
stopped. “If you’ll give me a moment with Julia?”

Trevor looked
relieved, obviously believing that he had an ally in Douglas as he
had in Monique and therefore he nodded gratefully.

Julia also
wondered where Douglas stood on all this drama and decided that it
was likely exactly where Douglas always stood, casually
removed.

“Please close
the doors and wait for us in the hall,” Douglas requested. “And
please do not approach the children until Julia and I are there to
make introductions.”

Trevor nodded
again before he closed the doors behind him and Douglas pulled
Julia back to the windows where his gentle tug on her hand made her
halt.

He turned her
to face him but didn’t let go over her hand.

“I can’t
believe this is happening,” she muttered under her breath, her body
still shaking, resolving to worry about Douglas some other
time.

“Julia, you
lose your temper, you let him see he can affect you and you give
him power. You cannot give him power. You need to control
yourself,” Douglas informed her, like it was as easy as that.

“
He
does
have
power!” she burst out. “He’s my father. He’ll always be my
father.”

It was
all too much, losing Gavin and Tammy, losing her old life, playing
this game with Douglas and now
this
. She didn’t have the strength, never had, Sean had shown
her that.

She lifted a
hand and raked her fingers with agitation through her hair.

“He’s never
been your father,” Douglas stated and her entire body jerked at his
pronouncement, her arm dropping listlessly, because, in his
statement’s exquisite simplicity, she realised he was right.

She
stared at him, stunned with the knowledge shared eloquently,
through five little words, that Douglas didn’t stand casually
removed, not from her but instead, from Dr. Trevor Fairfax. Gone
was the fury she’d seen the moment her father entered the hall.
Douglas gave Trevor Fairfax nothing and this was because he
was
worth
nothing to
Douglas except his casual indifference. And telling her this,
showing her, Douglas was indicating this was how she should also
behave.

The tears
she’d pushed back sprang to her eyes. She pulled her hand from his
and swung away, putting distance between them as she fought back
her emotions and tried to find the strength to follow his lead. She
stopped, her back to Douglas and pressed the fingers of both of her
hands to her mouth.

Douglas didn’t
follow her and she used the moment of semi-privacy to battle for
control.

“You know, I
don’t really miss him,” Gavin said once when they were talking
about their father. “Whenever we had to go to his house for the
weekend, I always couldn’t wait to get home to Mom.”

Tamsin had
kissed the top of her husband’s head.

“Yeah, Gav,”
Julia had agreed quietly, “I know.”

“I was glad
when he stopped coming to pick us up for visits,” Gavin had
muttered. “It was a relief.”

Then Gavin
looked up at them and laughed off the sad thoughts he was
expressing aloud and the sadder ones that underlay them. Julia
never knew if it was actually a relief or if her brother was trying
to convince himself. Had he wished he’d had a father? Had he wished
he’d not grown up in a house full of women? Had he needed some male
guidance?

She’d
never asked and now she’d never know. What she
did
know was that Gavin worked every moment of every
day to be a good father to his children, a shining example and,
furthermore, an excellent, attentive, loving husband to his
wife.

For Julia’s
part, she’d always wanted a Daddy, someone to make her feel like a
princess just as she’d witnessed her own father treated his other
two daughters. She’d wanted that kind of love and devotion, to be
the beautiful darling, the girl who could do no wrong in her
Daddy’s eyes. And she never gave up hoping for that, hoping that
one day he’d be that kind of Dad. And then came the day he gave her
the cheap cardboard box filled with cheaper earrings after she had
struggled her way through four years of university, working as a
tutor, and left with a staggering amount of student loans which he,
not once, offered to assist her with. That day, she had given up
hope.

She thought
about those earrings, which she kept until just over a month ago,
finding them when she packed up her house. Before she moved to
England she had thrown them in the trash.

Douglas
was right, he had
never
been her
father.

She
straightened her shoulders and drew air into her nostrils, her head
tilting back with the effort. She released it from her mouth and
turned to Douglas.

Not one tear
had been shed.

“I’m ready,”
she told him, her voice, surprising her, was strong.

He assessed
her as she walked toward him but when she went to pass him, he took
her hand. They walked together, hand in hand, as if it was the most
natural thing in the world. Even though she knew it was weak, knew
she shouldn’t allow it, she needed his hand in hers. She might not
have made it across the room without it.

When he
stopped to open the door, he turned to her.

“Well done,”
he whispered, the indifferent expression gone from his eyes and now
clear, undiluted admiration was shining in them.

She felt every
bone in her body turn to jelly and it was an immense effort of will
simply to stay standing.

She should
have nodded casually as if there was no question she could master
the situation. But instead the corners of her lips tilted up
ever-so-slightly at the look in his eyes that made her stomach
clench, not with desire but with pride.

She dipped her
head, slightly flustered, and whispered, “Thank you.”

She felt
Douglas’s hand squeeze hers then he opened the door.

* * * * *

Five hours
later, with a huge dose of Charlie’s experienced flair, coupled
with Julia’s determined grace, a bit of Sam’s hilarious energy and
even shades of Monique’s cultured charm, Thanksgiving Day did not
become the disaster for which it seemed to be destined.

The
children were hesitantly accepting of their grandfather, although
both Elizabeth and William seemed far more reluctant than Ruby,
undoubtedly they’d heard their parents talk. They looked constantly
at Julia
and
Douglas.
Julia would give them reassuring smiles; Douglas took Julia’s lead
(but not so far as to smile, just communicating non-verbally that
all was well).

Trevor acted
the benevolent grandfather but seemed to be more interested in
dancing attendance upon Monique.

Now, the
children in bed, Douglas felt the need for pretence was gone.

He had known
his mother was up to something and he resolved to deal with her
later. He knew exactly what he intended to do to punish her for
today’s antics. He would not, however, do it in front of
guests.

As for
Trevor Fairfax,
that
matter
would need to be dealt with immediately.

Julia’s words
about Gavin needing to smash open his piggy bank so her family
could have the bare necessities made his gut clench. And the new
knowledge that the proud, easy-going man he knew as his
brother-in-law, who showered steady devotion on his family, at one
time stood alone on a stage without a parent to support him, made
him understand with a clarity he never had before why Tamsin had
fallen so deeply in love with her husband. Patricia Fairfax was
clearly a remarkable woman to make up for so much and nurture her
family the way she did.

Douglas
watched Julia and marvelled at her strength of will to control her
emotions, to sit in a room and have dinner with her errant father.
Douglas found her behaviour stunning.

But now it was
high time his soon-to-be wife was allowed to relax and enjoy her
fucking holiday.

They were all
in the formal drawing room finishing a nightcap. Julia’s father
seemed happy enough, sitting and conversing and even, Douglas noted
to his disgust, discreetly flirting with Monique.

For Julia’s
sake, Douglas had been nursing a slow burn for five hours and he
was coming to the end of his patience with it. It was her father,
her issue and he had to allow her to deal with it in her way (with
his guidance, of course), even though he very much wanted to eject
the man the minute he realised who he was.