Sommersgate House (6 page)

“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.