Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(35)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“Can’t sleep?”

She jumped, whirled and almost dropped the decanter.

“Douglas!” Julia cried in surprise.

He was sitting in the armchair that faced away from the door, towards the window. He was lounging with feet up on the table in front of him like he had no cares in the world. As if he didn’t have three children he was supposed to be looking after. As if he didn’t have a harridan of a mother who was making everyone’s life at Sommersgate a living hell and had been for years. As if none of this touched him.

Something about this made her both angry and on edge.

She could see the glint of a glass in his hand.

“Julia,” he replied calmly in greeting.

“You’re home,” she noted unnecessarily, feeling foolish.

She should be shouting at him because he’d abandoned her to the fate worse than death that was Monique. But something made her stop.

Something made her nervous.

He didn’t reply, just looked up at her, his face partially in shadow, partially lit by the moonlight and the effect was decidedly ominous.

“What are you doing, sitting in the dark?” she asked.

“Thinking,” he answered shortly.

She stood there mutely, holding the decanter and waiting for him to say more.

He didn’t.

She twisted, put the decanter down and turned back. In that time, he had silently risen from his chair and her faint feeling of dread intensified as ominous turned menacing.

What was he up to now?

She wanted to escape but curiosity got the better of her.

And curiosity killed the cat, Patricia always used to say.

“Thinking about what?” she asked.

He walked forward a couple of steps, stopped a foot away and leaned into her.

She inhaled sharply with alarm but he only reached around her, grabbed the decanter she had just set down and refreshed his drink.

He leaned back in to replace it and she said belatedly, “Let me get out of your way.”

“Thinking,” his deep voice rumbled, rooting her to the spot as he paused to take a sip from his glass, “about a woman who would give up everything to come and look after three children. Children who lived thousands of miles away from her and who, upon reflection, she barely knew. Why would someone do that?”

“Do you mean me?” Julia asked stupidly.

He didn’t answer.

She slid away from him in order to put a healthy distance between them. He was frightening her with his tone and his question and with his overall mood.

Douglas didn’t have moods. Douglas glided through life guarded by Teflon.

“Why do you think I did it?” she inquired, trying to read him.

“You tell me,” he responded.

She’d escaped to stand in front of his desk, putting furniture between them. He had to turn and his face was again illuminated by the moonlight. It was blank, not naturally so, carefully so.

“I did it because Tamsin and Gavin asked me,” Julia gave the obvious reply. Again, he said nothing and her nervousness made her go on. “It isn’t as if I barely knew the children. We spoke on the phone regularly. We spent holidays together, I’d come over for vacations. You know, you saw me every time I came out.” That was true, she realised in distracted surprise; he did. Regardless of how busy he was, every visit she made to England, (save for the ones during the time of his Disappearance) she saw Douglas.

He leaned his hip against the drinks cabinet and continued to watch her, his face showing nothing.

“Can we turn on a light?” she requested, her voice pitched a little high, her tone sounding damnably, and obviously, uneasy.

“No.” Her anxiety escalated at his answer and he continued. “You’ve damaged your career, sold your home, left everything behind. It seems a noble sacrifice, extraordinarily so. One might say unbelievably so.”

“Gavin would have done it for me,” she told him, her anxiety beginning to fade to anger as the intent behind his questions began to dawn on her.

What exactly was he inferring? Did he think this was a walk in the park for her? Did he honestly think that she was thrilled to ruin her life, stall her career and live with his Attila the Hun of a mother in this beautifully scary but incredibly ostentatious house that was so far from a home it wasn’t funny?

He didn’t respond, just kept watching her and she felt compelled to explain.

“In fact, he did do it for me, in his way. We take care of each other, we always did,” she said with feeling.

“Gavin gave up his life for you?” he asked, not attempting now to hide his disbelief. “When did this happen?”

“With Sean. And he didn’t actually ‘give up his life’ but if he’d been caught…” Julia stopped, her voice still sounded nervous but it had a slightly belligerent edge.

“Webster? How?” Douglas questioned, his tone still disbelieving.

Julia shook her head. Could she trust him with this information? Obviously he was leading somewhere with this attack and she had the distinct impression she knew where he was leading. He’d obviously taken Monique’s accusations to heart and, with so very much time away to think about it, he decided that Julia had come for the same reason that Monique did. The kiss, she had to admit, undoubtedly helped.

As angry as that ridiculous and arrogant assumption made her, she felt it necessary to explain if just to throw it in his face. Gavin was now gone and even if it changed Douglas’s opinion of her brother, so be it. She’d never spoken to Gavin about it, never told him she suspected but, with Gavin gone, what would it matter?

“I told Gavin what Sean had… done to me,” she started tentatively.

“The cheating,” Douglas interrupted and she was surprised he knew.

But then again, everyone knew, even Julia.

She shrugged lightly and said, “Yes, that…” she paused not willing to share more so she finished, “and other things.”

His eyes narrowed before he put his drink down and took two steps toward her.

She took two steps back and her bottom hit the edge of his desk. She might be angry but she didn’t like talking about this and, furthermore, it was none of his concern. She was beginning to be furious he’d put her in a position of defending herself, just as furious as she was scared of him. He was frightening when he was brooding like this, immensely so.

“What other things?” he asked when he’d stopped advancing.

“Nothing, just… it seems silly now but at the time –”