Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(110)
Author: Kristen Ashley

Indeed, if he were actually to love her, she might expire from the rapture of it because it could scarcely get better than this.

Although, in the deepest regions of her heart (where she had firmly and stubbornly buried it), she wished for that vow of love more than anything in the world.

She was humming to herself as she was getting ready for Valentine’s dinner. Douglas was taking her somewhere in Bath and they would be gone the entire evening, not to return until the morning, and she knew (happily) what that meant.

Ronnie, who also had a new boyfriend of her own, was home at her bedsit getting ready for her date. Carter was off for the evening. The Kilpatricks had taken the children out for a curry and would be watching them for the night.

Julia had the house to herself.

She had wrapped Douglas’s present, no cologne or tie this time, but a pair of gold cufflinks of Gavin’s which had also been their grandfather’s.

She had Patricia’s approval of this gift, indeed, as with everything that had to do with Douglas, she had Patricia’s approval, especially after Julia (in a moment of weakness and in deepest confidence) explained the Kilpatrick’s story of his childhood.

Julia had the cufflinks cleaned and put in a handmade box of cherrywood that was lined with black velvet. They had been (except for his wedding ring) Gavin’s proudest possession and Julia truly hoped that Will didn’t mind that Douglas owned them until such time as nature took its course (in, hopefully, about sixty years) and they came to Will.

She had spent an age getting ready, bathed, lotioned, powdered and made up. She donned her frock, made specifically for the night by Gregory. It was an absolute vision, a swathe of scarlet red satin, strapless and form-fitting, cut at the knees. In the back hem, frothing forth from a deep slit, sprung a dramatic poof of black tulle. She wore it with black, high-heeled sandals with peek-a-boo toes and a daring ankle strap.

It looked like something Marilyn Monroe would wear and Julia loved it.

She was affixing her diamond studs to her ears, her diamond watch to her wrist and had moved from humming to singing Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You.

She couldn’t wait to give Douglas his present. If she couldn’t tell him she loved him, she was going to do everything she could to show him.

Giving her cheekbones one last swipe of blusher, she felt the draught against her ankles and ceased her singing.

“Well, Lady Ruby, where have you been lately?” she asked the draught as if it would answer her.

To her surprise, the icy draught turned polar, freezing her ankles and drifting up her calves. It was so uncomfortable, Julia jumped away from it.

“Now, Lady Ruby, nothing is going to spoil my evening. Run along now and play with the kittens. They could use a good scare,” Julia suggested (though, not meaning it), walking swiftly out of her dressing room and into her bedroom to avoid the chill.

The sun had long set but, as Julia had been in the dressing for hours, she had not pulled the drapes. The scratching was there, louder than ever, and she saw that Archie was outside her window. The spectre was scratching frantically with both hands, looking like he desperately wished to come inside. His mouth was moving like he was shouting but no words were coming out.

Julia stared at the vision in horrified silence.

The freeze hit her ankles again, swirling around her calves and thighs and Julia staggered back from the frenzied Master while trying to escape his Mistress.

“What’s going on?” Julia breathed.

She felt as if the entire house swayed with motive, as if trying to voice some eerie foreboding.

Then she saw him by the illumination of the outside light.

Nick, running toward the front door. She knew from seeing him that something was wrong because he was running hell-bent-for-leather.

Julia’s heart leapt into her throat, panic seizing her at remembering another night not long ago when Douglas had come home with Nick, wounded and bleeding.

The draught of Lady Ruby moved, surrounding her, almost squeezing her but she ignored its clear warning, turned on her heel and fled the room, running as best she could on her slim heels towards the front door.

When she arrived, Nick had forced his way through the heavy front doors (doors that only Douglas seemed to have no trouble shifting) and was careening down the hall, motioning to her by flailing his arms.

He shouted, “Run, goddammit, Jules, run!”

And then the world tilted, the house darkened ominously, closing in on itself. It felt as if the stone walls flexed inward, the shadows everywhere lengthened, stretching out like claws as a gunshot exploded followed closely by a strange “ping” sound and Nick went down like dead weight, cracking his skull with a sickening thud against the flagstone floor.

Leaving Julia to face three men, all pointing guns at her and speaking what she knew was Russian.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Curse

“The Royal Crescent Hotel has confirmed, of course,” Sam was saying, “you’ll arrive in the suite greeted by champagne and strawberries –”

“Isn’t that a bit trite?” Douglas interrupted curtly, wanting everything to be perfect.

“Well, I suppose you can call your intended’s preferences ‘trite’ but I would never presume to do so. Patty says Julia loves champagne and strawberries.”

His silence was the only indication of his apology and his jaw tightened at Sam’s referral to Patricia as “Patty”. All the women in his life were becoming the banes of his existence.

They were, he realised, ganging up on him.

Charlotte, Mrs. Kilpatrick, Sam and Patricia called him day after day to check this detail or that detail of the wedding or of that evening’s dinner (or tomorrow’s) or of his schedule. Or simply to check on him to ascertain he’d done nothing to make Julia run screaming into the night and the clutching arms of certain death.

Their lack of faith in him was appalling.

Although, he had to admit, he hadn’t handled their courtship to his usual exacting standards. However, she had said yes (rather spectacularly), she was wearing his damned ring (rather proudly), she was sharing his bed (or her bed or the couch in the study or the wall of the billiards room, depending on his level of creativity, a heretofore unknown skill he found, through necessity, he had in abundance).

“If you want to buy a ten foot ice sculpture of the Eiffel Tower and set it up in the bloody garden, I don’t care. Your budget for the wedding reception, from now on, is unlimited,” he’d informed Mrs. K (somewhat shortly) just that afternoon.