Sommersgate House (30 page)

“Which ones?”
she asked.

“Come on, I’ll
show you,” Julia invited conspiratorially, grabbed her mug, they
went out to the stairway, walked up to the landing and Julia
pointed, “Those two.”

Mrs. K stared
at two paintings she’d seen nearly all her life, even twice, in
that time, had ordered taken down and cleaned.

They stood
alone, the only portraits on the wall at the landing, while all the
other walls were stuffed full of them, higgledy-piggledy arranged
to get as many in the space allowed. They were also the grandest of
them all, twice as big as any other painting. The man stood tall,
looking a bit like Douglas, or at least he had a similar way about
him even if the features were only a touch the same. The woman was
dark-haired, fair skinned and lovely. He looked arrogant and
haughty. She looked, as Mrs. K always thought, happy. She had a bit
of what Mrs. K thought of as a Mona Lisa smile, as if she was
content and had a secret.

“That
portrait, according to one of the books, was finished only two
weeks before her death,” Julia mentioned, indicating Lady Ruby
Ashton’s portrait. “She doesn’t look like a woman who had an
unhappy marriage, do you think?”

Mrs. K
considered it. “I always thought, of all these portraits with their
grim faces that she looked the happiest.”

At that point,
Mrs. K and Julia could talk no more as the kids rushed through
loudly, their voices ringing happily through the halls. Another
change that Mrs. K welcomed but also caused great relief for it
said the children too were adjusting to the changes Julia Fairfax
was causing and, Lord knew, those beautiful children needed,
finally, to adjust.

It was time
for their homework and for her to start dinner and hopefully a
quick apple crumble.

But later,
when she walked around to put the house to bed, Mrs. K found Julia
again on the landing looking up at Lady Ruby with a wondering
gaze.

* * * * *

Julia
sat at her writing desk going through her lists. Or, she was
supposed to be going through her lists, but instead, she was
thinking about
him
.

He’d done it
again, left without a word or warning and now it had been a week
since Douglas left.

This time,
however, he’d called. Just once, but he’d called. Last night, when
the kids were asleep, Ronnie and Mrs. K gone, the phone rang.

For a second,
she didn’t know what to do. She was told by Mrs. K that the staff
answered the phone unless it was in the study. In the study, no one
touched it except Douglas. There was a complicated system of
inter-comming via the phone, which meant you had to memorise which
number rang to which person (which meant the phone rang everywhere
with a specific ring that the member of staff knew meant them) or
room. One was Mrs. K, two Carter, three rang only in the kitchen,
four was Veronika and it went on.

Patricia
always phoned when the kids were awake and not out at one of their
scheduled classes so she could talk to them as well, so if it was
her mother, it was an emergency.

Late
Thanksgiving evening, her mother had the full briefing about Trevor
Fairfax and Monique (not to mention Douglas’s actions, which
elicited a “You’re
joking!
Well,
well, who knew the boy had it in him?” and Julia thought only
Patricia Fairfax would refer to Lord Douglas Ashton as “the boy”).
Patricia had made her usual threats of arriving at Sommersgate
House imminently to save the day and had been talked down by Julia
at the last minute.

If it wasn’t
Patricia, then who would be calling, Julia couldn’t imagine and how
she should answer the phone, she didn’t know.

She was in her
room, the phone on her writing desk (which could be called by
dialling number nine) ringing insistently. She grabbed it nervously
and said, “Sommersgate House,” as she suspected the staff would
do.

“Julia?” It
was Douglas.

She felt a
rush of warmth in her belly at the sound of his deep voice and just
stopped from letting out a little, happy sigh.

Then she shook
some sense into herself. What was wrong with her? For goodness
sake, he’d just said her name!

She tried to
make her voice sound detached when she replied, “Douglas. Where are
you?”

She assessed
her tone and thought it sounded aloof and was somewhat pleased with
it.

“How are the
children?” He, she noticed, didn’t answer her question.

“Fine, in bed,
asleep. It’s late, is something wrong?” It wasn’t late, it was nine
thirty but she was trying to strike a mood.

There was
noise in the background, people talking, just one or two and then
they were muffled. When the muffling was gone, she could hear no
more voices.

“Nothing
wrong,” he replied belatedly and didn’t deign to explain the delay
in answer.

“Then why are
you calling?”

“Did you start
your consultancy?”

She wanted to
growl with frustration. Again, he didn’t answer her.

“Yes, I did –”
Before she could finish, he went on.

“How is
it?”

“It’s good,
fine. They’re in a pretty serious muddle but we think we can pull
them through without any loss of staff,” she answered, trying to be
short and to the point but really she wanted to talk about it. In
fact, she was dying to talk about it. It was something entirely
different than what she was used to doing and even though it was
all familiar, everything was new. It was like starting from the
beginning but instead of it being frustrating, it was a fascinating
challenge and she was loving every minute of it.

But she didn’t
tell him that (as much as she wanted to), instead she said, “I’m
fine, the children are fine, the house is fine, everything is fine.
When are you coming home?”

There was
another pause, this one felt heavy with meaning but she couldn’t
put her finger on what that meaning was.

“Home?” he
asked and his voice was strangely husky.

Julia reacted
to the strange tone in his voice and queried, “Are you all right?”
And she couldn’t, even though she wanted to, completely hide the
concern.

“No,” he
answered, to her surprise and further to her surprise, continued.
“I’m shattered and things aren’t going well here.”

“Is there…”
she didn’t know why she said what she did, but she felt compelled
at this unprecedented sharing of feelings and his announcement of
being “shattered”. The very idea of Douglas shattered was
incomprehensible. “Anything I can do?”

Again, he
didn’t answer her question. “I’ll be back sometime during the
weekend.”

“Okay,” was
the only way she could think to reply.

“Sleep well,”
he bid in a strangely gentle and equally strangely sweet, low tone
and then he rang off without letting her say a word. Julia had
stared at the receiver in her hand and only then became aware that
her legs were trembling.

But that was
then, and now it was the next night, much, much later than nine
thirty and Julia was making lists. Tomorrow she wasn’t supposed to
go to work but she’d been looking through the charity’s budgets for
the last few years and she’d hit on a few places they could cut
back so she thought she’d go in for a couple of hours. She was also
making lists of Christmas presents she wanted to buy. And she was
also delaying when she would go to sleep because to sleep was to
dream and to dream was to dream of Douglas and she didn’t want to
dream of Douglas anymore because she liked it too much.

She’d never
dreamed so much in her life. Before Sommersgate, she would have the
odd nightmare or wake up with a strange feeling and vaguely
remember some images. Every once in awhile she’d recall dreaming of
disjointed events that made no sense but weren’t entirely
unpleasant.

But now
her dreams were vivid and they were always about Douglas. Not
things that had happened, not memories, but fantasy scenarios.
Full-blown, romantic-movie-type fantasy scenarios that were
ridiculous in the extreme but, at the same time, very much
not
.

Douglas
walking toward her smiling, lifting her off her feet and whirling
her around with his face in her neck whispering words she never
could really hear. Or chasing her through the house, but not
threateningly, playfully. She’d always be running from him,
throwing smiles over her shoulder and laughing right before he
caught her and pushed her against the wall and kissed her until she
was dazed and shaking.

And then there
were the ones where they were in bed. After those, Julia would wake
up smouldering, her breath uneven, her body tingling.

She should let
it go and enjoy it, since she wouldn’t allow herself to enjoy it in
real life. It didn’t hurt to dream. But it was different, dreaming
about movie stars or daydreaming about attractive acquaintances you
know you’d never make any advances to, they were safe, because you
didn’t live with them or see them all the time.

Dreaming
about Douglas wasn’t safe. It was very
unsafe
because she could get mixed up, she could allow
her defences to go down and then where would she be?

And
where
would
she be?
Married to a man who didn’t love her, who said she could just move
on when Ruby was gone, just… like… that. A man who could have any
woman he wanted and would most likely go looking for them once he
tired of Julia. He said there would be fidelity but she’d known him
long enough (and she knew men-at-large well enough) to know that
wasn’t likely. And why did he want Julia in the first place? It
just didn’t make sense.

The
problem was, she was beginning to
like
him. She was seeing things about him that she thought were
funny or sweet or kind or (the worst) damned sexy.

Douglas and
all these things (except the last) were incomprehensible.

She
shook her head again. She could like him but if she found herself
sleeping with him, married to him,
attached
to him, then he could find his way into her heart
and break it and she was simply not going to let that happen. Not
again.

She had been
glad, at first, that Douglas was gone. Her defences had gone down
and she’d allowed herself to enjoy his presence a bit too much. Now
she had time to get them back up again and she felt strong enough
for him to come home. She would allow herself to like him, even for
them to become friends, but the rest, well, the rest she had to put
a stop to it.

It was on that
thought that she heard the scratching and her head shot up.

The Master was
back!

He’d been gone
for days, no scratching, no nothing. Mrs. K said that even Ruby had
not seen him. The Mistress also seemed to disappear. Mrs. K, Ronnie
and Julia had spent some time that day over coffee speculating
about this absence, deciding Sommersgate itself felt more settled
with Monique gone. But now, the scratching had returned.

She got up
from the desk and wondered if he’d show himself, wondered if he’d
come through the glass at her, wondered what he’d do if she said,
“Archie, don’t be a naughty boy, just go away.”

She
tentatively pulled back the draperies and looked for the
spectre.

No shimmering
Archie but, instead, there were headlights in the drive and what
she could see with some alarm through the darkness were two men.
One short and he was helping a stumbling tall one towards the front
door, a tall man who looked, she peered closely, her nose nearly
pressed against the glass, exactly like Douglas.

Feeling a
sense of unexplained urgency, she turned around and fled her room.
She met them in the long entry hall that led to the stairwell and
what she saw through the darkness cut only by a small side lamp on
a table made her skid to a halt.

Douglas
was lurching awkwardly and had his arm around the short man who was
holding him up. The other man’s arm was held out straight in front
of him, pointing
a gun
… at
Julia.

Her
heart skipped a frantic beat and she threw her hands up in a reflex
response that was the universal sign language for
Don’t
shoot!

“It’s okay,
Nick,” Douglas muttered, “she’s my wife.”

“
You’re
what?
” the man
asked, his head jerking around to look at Douglas as he dropped his
gun arm.

“I’m not his
wife!” Julia cried.

“You’re going
to be,” Douglas returned.

“
No… I…
am…
not,
” Julia
retorted.

“He’s
delirious,” the man named Nick put in.

“
I’ll
say he’s
delirious!” Julia responded.

Nick decided
their bizarre discussion was at an end. “No, woman, I mean, he’s
really delirious. He’s been shot.”

Julia gasped,
her heart skipping eleven frantic beats and then seemingly
shuddering to a halt.

“Be quiet,”
Nick warned. “I need to get him up to his room without being seen
or heard.”

They were
moving forward and she noticed that Douglas’s left arm was hanging
limply at his side.

It was at this
time she also noticed the wet looking stain on his coat.

Julia’s hand
flew to her mouth, her heart kick started to drill in her chest as
her eyes darted around the hall.

“My room,” she
stated urgently, thinking quickly and Nick looked at her mutely.
“You’ll wake the children. They can’t see him like this, take him
to my room. It’s out of the way.” Then she ordered, “Follow
me.”