Sommersgate House (7 page)

By the time he
exited the study, she was racing back down the stairs.

Regardless of
the madness she seemed to be exuding, she managed, as ever, to do
it in style. She wore a thin, fitted top and a pair of light blue
pants that hung low on her hips and clung to the right places. She
was barefoot, her toes painted a deep, rich red, and her thick,
blonde hair was waving softly around her face and down past her
shoulders. However flimsy her clothing, she looked like she could
walk down the street in them and have every woman wanting the same
outfit and every man staring at her just as Douglas was staring at
her now.

She skidded to
a halt in front of him.

“I heard a
scream,” she told him, breathless.

That was not
what he had expected to hear.

Before he
could respond, she put her hand on his chest in that familiar way
of hers, bent slightly at the waist and took in two shuddering
breaths.

She pulled
herself straight again and said, “The kids are okay, sleeping. But
I heard this awful scream.”

He looked down
at her hand on his chest and then at her, regarding her
silently.

He could turn
on his heel, walk into his study and close the door, leaving her to
her bizarre moment of insanity. Or, a far more pleasant idea was to
pick her up, carry her to her rooms and make her so exhausted she’d
cease these ridiculous actions, go to sleep and let him get back to
work.

He nearly had
to shake his head to clear that unbidden and unwelcome but very
interesting thought from his mind. Dragging her to bed on her first
night and seducing her while she was displaying symptoms of
temporary insanity was most likely not the best way to welcome her
to Sommersgate House.

He couldn’t
let this woman, who was letting jetlag, unfamiliar surroundings and
a highly emotional situation the like of leaving everything near
and dear to her behind and starting a new life in a foreign
country, lead her to strange delusions, stand in a cold
hallway.

“Come to the
study, let me get you a drink,” he offered.

She didn’t
move even as he did. “Did you hear me? Douglas, I heard a woman
scream. A… woman… scream.”

He continued
walking and, as he expected, after a moment’s hesitation, she
followed him. He poured a whisky for himself, a sherry for her.

He handed it
to her.

“Drink,” was
all he said.

She took the
glass but did not drink. He lifted his whisky to his lips and
sipped from it, watching her over the rim of his glass.

She was
staring at him as if it was he that had lost his mind, her lovely
green eyes managing to look both rounded and narrowed at the same
time.

“Douglas
–”

“Julia, calm
yourself. Sit down, drink,” he commanded and expected her, as he
would anyone, to obey.

“Douglas! I
heard… a woman… scream!”

He sighed.
He’d lived at Sommersgate his whole life, he had, of course, heard
this story before.

“You heard
nothing. You have jetlag. You were probably asleep and
dreaming.”

“Jetlag
doesn’t make you start hearing things. I know what I heard. And I
wasn’t asleep,” she retorted sharply.

Douglas
watched her. Her breathing had slowed but she still kept looking
out the door as if she was going to see something there.

She hadn’t
sat, she hadn’t drunk, she hadn’t done anything he told her to
do.

He couldn’t
remember the last time anyone had spoken to him in that tone. In
fact, outside of his father, there might never have been a time
when anyone had spoken to him in that tone.

He also
couldn’t remember a time when he’d issued an order that hadn’t been
carried out immediately.

This was a new
sensation for him and it was intriguing.

“Do you hear
anything now?” he asked, feigning concern.

“No.”

“What were you
doing when you heard this… scream?”

“I was making
lists. I was doing a budget. I was wide awake and…” She stopped
herself and looked back out the door. She tipped her head to the
side and seemed to be listening for something or thinking about
something.

Then she took
a deep breath and her teeth bit into her generous bottom lip. When
her eyes came back to his, she seemed to have come to some
conclusion.

“Yes, yes,
you’re right. It was just… I’m exhausted. I’m sorry. I can’t sleep.
Haven’t slept well in a long time. I’m sorry.”

When she
stopped speaking, he raised an eyebrow then motioned to the couch
with a nod of his head. This time she obeyed his unspoken command
and sat down. She took a drink and then opened her mouth wide and
breathed out like something burned her tongue. Her expression was
so preposterous, it almost made Douglas smile.

“
What
is
that?” she
asked, lifting the glass to indicate the source of her
question.

“Sherry,” he
replied, walking to the desk and leaning a thigh against it. Then
he took another sip of the whisky while he watched her.

“I’m sorry but
it’s awful,” she told him, setting the glass down on the table in
front of her.

“That’s a
sweet sherry, would you like something dry?”

She raised
comically horrified eyes to him at the thought of anything sherry
and said, “No. No, thank you, no. No sherry, sweet or dry. Sherry,
blech. Are you drinking sherry?”

As he
regarded her sitting on his couch in her tight, fetching outfit,
Douglas thought that this was a very bizarre conversation and would
have preferred not to be having it. He also didn’t have time (nor
would he allow himself) to consider the many things he would have
preferred to be doing, most specifically with her or, to be
precise,
to
her, as his
call would be coming through shortly.

“Whisky,” he
replied, seeking patience.

“May I have
some whisky?”

Obliging her,
he walked to the drinks cabinet, thinking to give her some spirit
to soothe her mental state and get her to go to bed. There were a
number of things to do and she was distracting.

“Do you like
whisky?” he asked.

“I hate it,”
she answered and when he turned on that strange comment, he saw she
was again looking out the door. She had lifted her hand to pull her
hair off her face and then she looked back at him, dropping her
arm. He couldn’t help but notice how even these superfluous
movements were innately graceful. Her face was free of makeup and
her hair was slowly falling back into place around her face. He
knew that she was thirty-six years old but she looked a decade
younger.

Her voice was
low and deep but entirely feminine and very sensuous. He’d always
liked the way she’d said his name in that voice.

He’d forgotten
that.

She lifted her
legs to sit crossed-legged on the couch as he brought her the
whisky. His mother would have had a coronary, to see a woman at
Sommersgate sitting cross-legged, wearing whatever it was Julia was
wearing, no matter how fetching (and whatever it was, it was not
couture), with her feet tucked underneath her. That thought, as
well, almost made Douglas smile.

“It feels warm
going down,” Julia said.

“I’m sorry?”
he asked.

“The whisky.
It tastes terrible but feels warm going down. I’m chilled the
bone.” And as if to demonstrate, she shivered dramatically.

He wasn’t
surprised she was cold. She was barely wearing any clothes.

With effort,
he pulled his eyes from her body and his thoughts away from the
better ways there were to warm her and said sardonically, “Welcome
to Sommersgate.” And to that, he lifted his glass to her in
salute.

Her green
eyes, which had been staring into her whisky glass, moved to him
and in the briefest second, they lit right before she laughed.

He could not
recall ever making her laugh before although he’d seen others do
it. She’d always had an uninhibited laugh, throaty and rich, which
engaged her whole body, rather than just her mouth. He’d always
enjoyed hearing and watching her laugh.

He’d forgotten
that too.

There
was something quite unusually…
pleasant
about being responsible for that kind of
laughter.

What was
unpleasant was noticing that she did look exhausted. As her face
lit up, the exhaustion was replaced by a light that he was far more
familiar with when it came to Julia. And, as soon as the laughter
died, the exhaustion settled back on her features. This was not
evidenced in haggard lines, in fact, she hid it well. He hadn’t
noticed it until she laughed. But she was pale and, once the
laughter died away, there was none of the usual brightness to her
eyes.

She lifted her
glass to return the salute and downed the contents after which she
grimaced.

“I’m sorry,”
she said when she’d wiped the grimace from her face. “You get home
late and have some crazy female running around your house like an
idiot. You’re probably wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into.
I promise, this is not an indication of the years to come.” And
with that, she gave him a small smile that did nothing to transform
her face and most certainly did not reach her eyes.

He had no
reply and she didn’t seem to expect one. She stood and gathered the
glasses.

“I’ll just
take these to the kitchen and leave you in peace.” She turned
toward the door finishing with, “Goodnight, I’ll see you
tomorrow?”

“Julia,” he
stopped her and she turned back. “Just leave the glasses. Veronika
will see to them.”

She hesitated,
looked at the glasses, at him then put the glasses on the table
seeming somewhat confused.

“I’ll see you
in the morning,” he finished, done with the episode, done with
her.

She hesitated
again and he wondered, in a detached way as his mind was already
moving forward to when she would be gone, what she planned to do
next.

Then she
walked up to him, put her hand on his arm, leaned into him and
kissed his cheek.

She smelled of
tangerines and jasmine.

“Goodnight,”
she said softly. “See you tomorrow.”

He stood
leaning against his desk, his arms crossed on his chest and he
watched her walk out of the study and into the dark hallway until
she disappeared out of sight.

Yes, he had a
problem and that problem was Julia Fairfax.

Then the phone
rang and she went completely out of his mind.

Ruby’s
Friend

The next
morning, Julia sat down to her sugarless porridge and stared at it
with distaste.

After leaving
Douglas last night, she’d tossed and turned in the big, soft bed
with its even softer sheets. She couldn’t get her strange behaviour
out of her head. Behaviour which, if it ever came down to a nasty
custody battle, could and would no doubt be brought up to prove she
was a raving lunatic incapable of raising three children.

What had come
over her last night?

It was the
house, the damned house. It was creepy.

She
hadn’t heard any scream or felt any spooky arctic
draught.

She was
disoriented and over-emotional, exhausted, jetlagged and
homesick.

At least
that’s what she told herself but the entire night she couldn’t get
it out of her head that something, not someone but
some
thing,
was in
the room with her.

She’d managed
to drag herself out of bed at an ungodly hour feeling as if she’d
only had moments of sleep, which, in reality, was all she had. She
was determined to help Mrs. K get the kids ready for school. Mrs.
Kilpatrick had taken enough on and it was now time to alleviate her
burden.

It was
chaos, but quiet and controlled as Douglas was in the house and it
was clear the children had long since learned that Douglas was not
to be disturbed (although, she soon learned from Mrs. K that
Douglas was
not
in the house
but out taking his morning run).

Lizzie and
Willie were now bolting down their food, no matter that it tasted
like cardboard, or maybe because of it.

Julia had made
sure they were up, washed, dressed and their rucksacks were filled.
After all this, Julia appeared in the kitchen to help with
breakfast but Mrs. K had shooed her out and ordered her to sit in
the dining room to await the meal. Julia was surprised they sat in
the huge, formal dining room for breakfast. Dinner her first night
there as a celebration but breakfast?

She’d made an
effort when dressing for the sake of the kids and Mrs. K. She
didn’t need anyone worrying about her and she knew she looked
terrible. She tried to hide the dark circles under her eyes behind
a mask of light makeup. She’d put on a pair of charcoal grey,
boot-leg, corduroy trousers, the belt loops threaded with a heavily
embossed, wide leather belt that ended in a huge, silver,
Western-style buckle. She wore high-heeled black boots and a fitted
black t-shirt that had a scooped neck and long sleeves that fit
snugly down the arms but flared out slightly from the elbows to
hang gracefully passed her wrists. She’d thrown on a necklace made
of a strip of black leather from which dangled a hammered disc of
matte silver and she’d completed the outfit with big, wide,
silver-hooped earrings.

“You dress
like a rock star’s wife,” Gavin used to tease her.

“She does
not!” Tamsin would defend.

“Okay, you
dress like a rock star’s somewhat-classy wife,” Gavin allowed.

Pushing the
once happy, now devastating memory and the porridge, aside, she
reached for her coffee and took a sip just as Douglas strolled into
the dining room.