Sommersgate House

Chapter Three The Problem

Douglas Ashton drove his Jaguar through the winding country roads outside Bristol Airport.

Normally Carter would have collected him from the airport. However that morning when he left, Carter had to get to Heathrow to pick up Julia.

Douglas thought, at the time, this was likely the first in a long line of inconveniences he’d have to put up with concerning Julia.

Now he was glad for the chance to be alone, behind the wheel of the car, on the dark, deserted roads.

He thought ahead to the call he’d be getting from Japan in a few hours time, to his trip to Munich tomorrow, the meeting there in the afternoon and then on to the business he needed to see to in St. Petersburg. When he was certain that all plans were in place and nothing had been left to chance, he let his mind turn to Sommersgate and what awaited him there.

Julia Fairfax.

She’d changed her name back after she’d divorced her ass of a husband.

Douglas’s mother had loved Sean Webster. “How she would even dream of finding someone better than him is beyond me. She doesn’t know how lucky she was to trap him in the first place,” Monique had declared when she’d heard the divorce was made final.

Douglas had wondered distractedly why Julia had settled for the bastard in the first place. He was from money, as Monique mentioned more than once, but Julia very obviously outclassed him from the first.

What Monique didn’t know about Sean, and probably, Douglas thought, wouldn’t have cared about, was that Sean made a pass at anything in a skirt, including Tamsin.

Tamsin never told Gavin, but she told Douglas.

His sister had always been a smart girl. Gavin, being Gavin, mellow and good-natured most of the time, but fiercely loyal and, in Tamsin and Julia’s case, protective, would have immediately lost his mind and done something immensely stupid.

Douglas wasn’t so impetuous.

Julia may have been blinded by love (or, more likely, from Douglas’s vast experience of women, money) to fall for Sean Webster, but Douglas was counting on the fact that she was smart enough or, at the very least proud enough, not to keep him around.

She didn’t.

Everyone was surprised at Sean’s accident three months after the divorce was final.

Douglas was not.

He felt no remorse. He had ordered that Webster would not sustain a lasting injury. But there was only one human being that Douglas Ashton had ever loved in his thirty-eight years and that was his sister. He could not allow anyone to make her even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

Sean Webster had made that mistake therefore Douglas had made him uncomfortable.

Smoothly negotiating a deserted roundabout, Douglas allowed his thoughts, as they had for obvious reasons of late, to move to his sister.

Growing up, Tamsin had been the only bit of warmth in their cold home, save the Kilpatricks but they were servants and therefore, it had been drilled into Douglas and Tamsin at an early age, had their place and that place was not a familial one.

But Tamsin, she was like a changeling, not born of their family. Sweet-tempered, kind-natured and she loved Douglas openly. She thought he could move mountains, she thought he could rule worlds. Until Gavin, the sun rose and set for Tamsin through Douglas.

She saw the best in him even when Mother ignored him or after one of Father’s fierce tirades. Douglas rarely permitted his thoughts to turn to his father, mainly because there was no purpose to it. Maxwell Ashton was dead, but he had been dead to Douglas years before his father’s heart exploded. This, Douglas thought, was the ultimate irony because he’d always thought his father hadn’t had a heart.

His sister’s death meant certain unbidden, long-buried memories resurfaced, though Douglas had long since grown too detached for them to affect him. He allowed them to drift through his consciousness now but he was, as always, immune.

If Douglas brought home a poor grade (anything less than a first was an excuse for a screaming, red-faced lecture that lasted at least an hour) or he had not been made captain of the rugby or cricket teams (no matter that he was the best player at both) or any of number of the myriad other ways Douglas disappointed his father, Maxwell would unleash a verbal fury on Douglas that shook the windows.

And Douglas disappointed his father often.

Maxwell had never once used his fists on his son but back then Douglas often wished he would. Douglas had seen, and done, violence in his life and those kinds of wounds healed a great deal more quickly.

“Jesus, I look at you and wonder if you’re even my son,” Maxwell spat at him once, his eyes narrowed with contempt.

It was a ridiculous pronouncement. Douglas looked almost exactly like his father, except he was three inches taller and ten pounds leaner.

At first Douglas worked to prove his worth to his father, to make him proud, exhausting himself in the effort.

He’d stopped doing that somewhere in his teens, learning the lesson that no matter what, no matter how much, no matter how well, nothing would make his father proud.

Through all of this, Monique blithely went her way, never once defending her son (but often defending Maxwell), never once dirtying her hands with the sordid little secret their family shared (but often accepting bribes to keep her silence or to encourage her to go on her way).

After he’d given up on his father, the only thing Douglas had to prove was Tamsin’s faith in him.

Through all these times, Tamsin had been there. She soothed his brow when they were children and she cheered him on when they were older. After an episode, she’d seek him out and try to make him smile or she’d defend him fiercely in whispers, hidden away from Maxwell or Monique’s ears.

“Doug, you’re worth ten of him! Maybe fifteen! Don’t listen to a word he says,” she would say.

Douglas never knew what he’d done to deserve such devotion from his sister.

On the other hand, Maxwell had adored his beautiful daughter. She’d never borne the brunt of his anger and scorn. She had her own tortures to endure from a Mother who simply didn’t care. But Tamsin held little love for her father, always loyal to Douglas and the two of them grew up like children without parents. The adults who bore and sired them being necessary evils on a path that they both hoped would lead to freedom.

Douglas allowed himself a rare moment to feel pleased that Tamsin enjoyed a taste of that freedom if only for awhile.

For his part, he had found his own escape. If Tamsin had known what he did or how he spent a great deal of his time, Douglas had no idea how she would react. Perhaps proud, he thought, and frightened, to be certain. She, and everyone else, thought he was bent on money and power, and this was true, he enjoyed the tactics of business. But it was not a challenge and Douglas was very like his father in many ways, he enjoyed a challenge.

Now Tamsin would never know (not that he would have ever told her, he wasn’t free to tell anyone).

His sister was dead and she left him responsible for a mess. What possessed her, he’d never know. Tamsin’s mind worked in mysterious ways and her wishes for her children, Julia and Sommersgate was just another one of those mysteries.

Or perhaps, Douglas thought absently, not so much of a mystery.

Tamsin had always been a hopeless romantic and since she was a little girl she believed in the legendary Myth of Sommersgate, its awful history and its alleged curse. She’d told him more than once she’d hoped he’d free the house she loved from the curse and free the long line of barons who presided over it from the tragedy and unhappiness that plagued them.

In other words, his sister desperately wanted Douglas to fall in love.

This desire increased substantially after she’d found Gavin, wanting some of the bounty she had for her beloved brother. Douglas thought this had to be her reasoning, throwing Julia into his life. Douglas had little doubt that in Tamsin’s romantic imaginings he would fall for Julia and end the curse she foolishly believed rested on Sommersgate and, in so doing, afflicted Douglas himself.

Driving by a still-lit country pub going about its business of closing down for the night, he turned his thoughts to his current challenge.

Julia Fairfax.

He was surprised Julia hadn’t remarried. It couldn’t be for lack of offers.

He wished she had. If she’d had a loving home with two parental substitutes to offer the children, no doubt Tamsin and Gavin would have left them to Julia alone.

Douglas would have accepted that, unless she’d made another foolhardy choice in husbands, which seemed to run in her family. Patricia Fairfax had married a philanderer who had run off with an heiress but he continued to work as a surgeon at the same hospital where Patricia was a nurse. Trevor Fairfax set up house with his new woman, having three more children and daily rubbing his former wife’s face in it until Patricia had become fed up and moved to other employment.

Gavin and Julia rarely saw their father when they were growing up; Trevor Fairfax was so consumed with his other family. By the time Gavin had his assignment in England as an electrical engineer with a multi-national construction company, his brother-in-law hadn’t seen his father in years.

According to Douglas’s research (and he most definitely investigated his future-brother-in-law), Gavin and Julia hadn’t missed much with their father. Trevor wasn’t invited to the wedding and had never seen his grandchildren. And, as far as Douglas was concerned, that was the end of that.

Which meant, of course, that, indeed, was the end of that.

But now, the Fairfax family was causing another problem and Douglas may have had a great deal of patience with a lot of things but he had no patience with problems.

Julia Fairfax would be living in his house, with his mother, and that was not going to work.

He had no affection for his mother but she was his mother. He owed his existence to her if nothing else. But she was a difficult woman and even though she tolerated Gavin, barely, she loathed his mother and sister.

Julia was Gavin’s sister and Douglas liked Gavin. He was one of the few acquaintances who held both Douglas’s regard and respect. Julia was also the chosen guardian of Tamsin’s children and that, in addition to his regard for Gavin, meant Douglas had to find some way to make the situation work.

In any other circumstances, he would have been happy to settle a monthly amount of money on Julia and allow her to take the children to whatever backwater town she lived in. Or settle an even larger amount of money on Julia and have her just go away. If she had taken the children, Douglas would have been content with Samantha gathering progress reports and sending appropriate gifts during holidays and birthdays. He quite liked Tamsin’s children, even held some affection for them, but he had no desire to raise them.

However, that wasn’t what Tamsin wanted. Tamsin wanted her children to be raised at Sommersgate and for himself, and Julia, to do it and Douglas would respect his sister’s wishes, regardless of how inconvenient they were.

However, there was another issue with Julia.

He remembered when he first met her, or more to the point, he remembered that he wanted her the first moment he saw her.

She was a great deal different then. When she first visited them in England it was the first time she’d left her home country. She was uncommonly pretty, tall and shapely with thick blonde hair, green eyes and long, long legs. She held herself with a posture that demanded attention, effortlessly wearing clothes that were both timeless and vogue. The Americans called it “cool” and Gavin had been the same way, it was one of the reasons (Tamsin had told Douglas) why the American had caught his sister’s discerning eye.

Douglas had overheard a cousin at Tamsin and Gavin’s engagement party referring to Julia as “a bit intimidating.” At the time, he’d been surprised by the remark but watching Julia, who conducted herself with the grace and confidence of an old-fashioned movie star, he could see how those less confident would think it was true.

When Julia was younger, she lit up a room with her laughter. She was affectionate and cuddled up to Gavin and her mother, and eventually Tamsin, without any embarrassment.

But she’d grown out of that or more than likely Webster had worn it out of her.

Now she was still affectionate with the children. She also had the American, or perhaps Midwestern trait of touching your hand or arm when she was talking to you or hugging when you saw each other after a long period of time.

Monique detested it.

Now, he knew, Julia was no longer naive or unsophisticated. And the natural grace had been refined to unaffected elegance, an elegance that had just the slightest bit of an edge. His cousin would no longer find her “a bit intimidating” but undoubtedly very much so.

This appealed to Douglas.

Julia appealed to Douglas, through the years, she always had.

She’d gained her degree from the same university as Gavin, she’d acquitted herself well even after she’d chosen an ass like Sean Webster and she’d shown unconditional love to Tamsin as a member of her family and the same, in wild supply, to Tamsin’s children. Unquestioning, she’d left every scrap of her life and any future she might have had behind her to do as her brother and Tamsin asked and moved to Sommersgate. That showed loyalty and Douglas valued loyalty above all. It was in short supply, he himself had only had four people in his life show it to him, his sister, his friends the Forsythes, and Nick.

In all the time he knew her, Douglas could have easily, and pleasurably, become entangled with Julia and he had thought of this option often.

Always, he controlled these thoughts, not wishing the nastiness which would no doubt ensue when he ended it (he didn’t relish the idea of angering Gavin who was a very genial man but who was also immensely protective of not only his wife, but his mother and sister, and Douglas wouldn’t even consider eliciting the response Tamsin, who adopted Julia as her sister, would have).

Now, he would be living with her, and his mother who detested her, and his sister’s grieving children and he had to find a way to make it all work, not only for them but also for his own peace of mind.

And this was a problem. A problem with no solution. And that made Douglas impatient. He had not encountered a problem he couldn’t solve and he didn’t like that feeling.

He had a half-formed plan. Of course, he always had a plan.

He would have to do something publically to demonstrate clearly to his mother exactly what place Julia held at Sommersgate. If left to her own devices, Monique would relegate Julia to nannydom in the expanse of a week. But Julia was about as much of a nanny as Grace Kelly was a wallflower. Unfortunately, part of being an Ashton meant they lived their lives relatively publically and Douglas had every intention of putting Julia in her rightful place as Tamsin’s children’s aunt, and thus a member of the Ashton family. And he intended to do it immediately.

As for the rest, he’d managed to control his impulses when it came to Julia for fifteen years, another fifteen would not be difficult. Douglas managed to control a great many of his impulses with very little effort. He was rarely home anyway and Julia would just be a woman, albeit a very alluring one, who happened to live in his house.

Nothing else, except Monique’s attitude, need change.

And that, he could, and would, also control, of this he had no doubt.

He drove down the lane and around the chapel, skirting the fountain. He left the Jaguar in the front drive, knowing that Carter would have heard him arrive and would take the car to the garages and put it away.

Douglas grabbed his briefcase and walked to the door. He noted the lights were blazing in Julia’s suite and the curtains were opened. He wondered vaguely why she was awake at this hour, it was well after eleven and she had to be exhausted.

He shoved open the heavy door, not bothering to lock it behind him. Carter would see to that as well.

He intended to go straight to his study. Even if Julia was awake, she would most likely not wish his company this late at night and, with the call from Japan coming soon, he did not wish hers. The last time he had seen her, he remembered her eyes were sunk in their sockets with heartache but she had been resolute in telling him she’d be moving to Sommersgate directly after she arranged things in Indiana. And she had been true to her promise.

He moved down the hall, his study was opposite the dining room and he was about to turn into it when a flash of white caught his peripheral vision.

Immediately on alert, he turned toward the dining room and saw Julia running directly at him.

Taken off guard at the sight of a woman running through his house in the dead of night, he wasn’t prepared and she crashed right into him, rocking him back on his heels. Then she pushed away, disengaging herself from the arm he’d automatically thrown around her waist.

“The children…” Julia muttered urgently before he could say a word and then she pulled away and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

He stood there, staring up the stairs, wondering if this was some strange manifestation of jetlag or if he should follow her. The house was silent, save for her footsteps pounding down the hall. His keen sense of danger, bred in him through a lifetime of assessing his mother and father’s moods and honed through the secret life he had chosen, registered nothing.

He made his decision and walked calmly into the study, turned on the lights, deposited his briefcase on the desk, pulled his tie free, shrugged off his suit jacket and tossed them on the couch before he walked out to see what was happening.

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.