Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(20)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“How was your week?” she asked in an attempt to dispel her bizarre feeling.

“Long,” he answered shortly, not offering any more information as he shifted his gaze from her legs to her face. “Yours?” he asked.

“The same.”

And that was it, the extent of their conversation. Not long after, they slid to a halt at the front of a fashionable restaurant, so fashionable that Julia had heard of it, even in Indiana, and all the celebrities that haunted it.

The place was a crush at the front but the moment the doors closed behind them it was serene, decorated with an overdose of trendy bamboo and lots of glass. The hostess immediately stiffened and came forward, oozing courtesy as she guided them to the table Charlotte and Oliver were already occupying.

Julia was pleasantly surprised when both the petite, slim, stylish, black-haired Charlotte and the tall, straight, sandy-haired Oliver greeted her with friendly familiarity.

They’d barely taken their seats when a waiter appeared at the table.

“Would you like drinks, Lord Ashton?” he asked reverentially.

Douglas didn’t even look at Julia before saying, “Miss Fairfax will have a dry vodka martini, up, with an olive. I’ll have the same, with gin, no olive.”

Julia was stunned speechless.

It was true, she had a strict regimen of drinking. Margaritas while eating Mexican or on hot summer evenings. Micro-brewed beer while watching sports. Spiced rum and diet cola while lounging at home with friends or on the rare occasions when she was at a beach. Dry red wine with dinner. Amaretto with coffee after dessert. Mojitos when she was feeling saucy or eating Texas chilli. And, on posh nights out, a dry vodka martini, up, with an olive.

She didn’t know what was more shocking, that Douglas knew her preferred drink or that he hadn’t bothered consulting her when ordering it. No man, not even Sean, had ordered for her without taking her request. The sensation was alarming because even though it was irritating, it was also somehow delicious.

She tried to hide her contradictorily pleased annoyance but when she glanced at Charlotte, the other woman was watching her closely.

“So!” Charlotte cried suddenly and Julia jumped. “How are you settling into the spooky manse? I see Monique hasn’t driven you to tearing your hair out yet, which, I must add, is a shining testament to you, my dear.” Then she lifted her drink in an amusing salute to Julia.

“Monique is on the Mediterranean,” Douglas announced, the waiter long gone, rushing to do the bidding of a very famous and powerful client.

“Oo, what luck. So, you’ve been spending this time counting your lucky stars,” Charlotte asked Julia, a twinkle in her eye.

Julia didn’t know what to make of Charlotte, nor how to respond, but was spared by Oliver who said warningly, “Charlie.”

“She’s been around long enough, I think she knows what she’s in for,” Charlotte told her husband with blithe unconcern at his warning and turned back to Julia. “I’m putting my money on you.” Her eyes still sparkled but there was something kindly speculative in them that told Julia that Charlotte Forsythe understood very well and not just about Monique.

With that firm announcement of support, Julia began to relax and enjoy the evening.

Dinner was delicious, even if the servings were sparse, and Charlotte and Oliver were good company. She learned that Oliver and Douglas had gone to school together, played rugby and cricket together and raced cars, horses and anything else that was fast or dangerous while Charlotte, at a sister school for girls “across the lake”, tagged along after them, naughtily egging them on whenever she could.

Julia realised almost immediately that she liked Charlotte immensely. She was witty, obviously in love with her husband and not at all reverential of Douglas.

Julia’s enjoyment of the meal and the company was only marred when, after they were finished and enjoying coffee, Douglas leaned back and rested his arm across the back of her chair.

It was an entirely male gesture and incongruously familiar. And the way Douglas did it was somehow… predatory.

What was more, their table was the focus of a great deal of attention from the other diners and even the staff and Douglas’s behaviour was odd in the extreme.

True, she and Douglas had known each other for years, spent holidays together, ate many a meal in each other’s company and had even engaged in a variety of conversations both with others and alone.

And there had been three times, three very memorable times, when Douglas had shown her fleeting moments of tenderness.

The first was during one of her early visits, a summer holiday. They’d been outside Tamsin and Gavin’s house, Gavin at the barbeque with everyone else eating and drinking. Julia had turned her ankle walking back into the house. Douglas had just arrived and had been close enough to catch her before she fell. Unfortunately, she’d turned it quite badly and he assisted her to a chair, his strong arm supporting her. Once he had her seated, he bent to her foot, carefully, even fondly, lifting her ankle and inspecting it. Gavin had come forward to take over but Julia had never forgotten Douglas’s (strange, for him) thoughtful attention.

The second was during her first visit to Gavin and Tammy’s after her divorce was final. When they’d had a moment alone, Douglas had asked quietly if she was all right and she had the distinct impression that he genuinely cared about her answer. Douglas had been quite obvious about the fact that he never cared for Sean, unlike Monique who doted on her ex-husband. However, with no small surprise, Julia felt that it wasn’t the fact that Douglas disliked Sean and was making some point in asking, it was that he wanted to be certain she was, indeed, all right.

And last, after Tammy and Gavin’s funeral, Julia had found a quiet corner in the library at Sommersgate where she thought no one would find her. Douglas, to her stunned amazement, not only found her, she had the impression he’d come looking for her and, without a word, pulled her stiff body loosely into his arms. At this act of compassion, she’d clutched his shirt, buried her face in his chest and burst into tears, the grief shuddering through her body as the gravity of her loss settled on her soul. Through this, he silently absorbed it, the whole time stroking her back in a way that was both absent (for him) and comforting (for her). Then Patricia walked in and Douglas turned her into her mother’s arms, again without a word, and walked away.

Putting these things out of her mind, Julia also tried to shrug off her feelings at Douglas’s arm on her chair. Gavin would and did put his arm on the back of her chair and it was obviously never predatory or possessive (but maybe protective). Perhaps, Julia told herself, it was a brotherly gesture.