Sommersgate House

by Kristen Ashley

  She broke into his thoughts. “The kitten, he finally has a name.”

  That got his attention.

  “You named him Fred?”

  She giggled. “I didn’t name him Fred, Willie did. He and I traded, since I couldn’t pick a name, I let Willie name my cat and I get to name his dog when he gets one.” She tilted her head adorably. “I’m thinking ‘Babykins’ is a sweet name for a dog, what do you think?”

  “I am not addressing a dog as ‘Babykins’,” Douglas replied gruffly.

  “Babykins it is!” Julia chortled and then, shocking him to his core, she leaned into him, kissed his cheek just like she had her first night at Sommersgate, tugged her hand gently free and headed to her room, humming the whole way.

  Leaving him watching her go and knowing that he was quite emphatically done with sweet anticipation.

  It was time for victory.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Julia Decides

  Julia had lost.

  She spent the entire day after her lovely evening catching up with Tony avoiding Douglas at the same time thinking about him nonstop. She’d even not gone to dinner, feigning a headache (not exactly the most original excuse in the world but she couldn’t think of anything better that wouldn’t worry the children).

  While she was thinking, she realised she knew she’d lost, probably known it for ages but was too stubborn to admit it.

  She loved Douglas, loved him as long as she knew him, regardless of how cold, proud and haughty he was (or maybe because of it) and had been fooling herself for fifteen years.

  Charlie was right, even if he would never love her, couldn’t love her and even though she knew one day she’d lose him, the time she had with him would be better than anything she could get from anyone else. She needed to take that risk, even if her happiness was short-lived, at least she’d have it for awhile. Tamsin and Gav hadn’t known their joyous lives would be cut so short and they still lived every moment like it was precious.

  Julia needed to learn that lesson.

  Douglas wasn’t just gorgeous, dangerous, mysterious, sexy and rich as Croesus. His voice made her tremble, his hands made her shudder and his mouth made her wild. When he looked at her, she felt the most beautiful woman, not just in the room, not in the world, but in history. Though she knew it wouldn’t last, now she felt safe with him, she believed to the depths of her heart that he would always do the best for the children and no matter how it ended; he’d never be deliberately cruel to her.

  So she was going to marry him.

  And tonight, she was going to tell him.

  Her consultancy was done. They were ready to hire an Executive Director and begin to put her and Douglas’s business plan in motion. Even though they wanted Julia to apply for the job, she still had no leave to work in the United Kingdom and she didn’t think she could take full-time employment for the sake of the children. One of the Trustees offered her another consultancy with another charity he supported, an even smaller organisation. Julia took the job, it would last less than a month but it was something to do.

  Today was her last day at work and they’d had a small going away luncheon for her that was very sweet. Julia had made friends with the women there and before she left, they officially invited her to attend their monthly “Girls Night Out” dinner. Julia felt honoured, making friends was another important step in feeling home and conquering homesickness.

  It was all falling together for Julia, she was settling into her life in England.

  She just had one more thing to do.

  She was later arriving at Sommersgate than usual due to stopping by the grocery store on her way, getting steaks, potatoes and anything else she thought Douglas would like (though she had no idea of his favourite foods or if he even had any, but she felt safe as most men seemed to like steak and potatoes).

  Julia had a simple plan, she was going to ask Mr. and Mrs. K to watch the kids for the night, she was going to make Douglas dinner, she was going to agree to marry him and then she was going to seduce him.

  Or she might do the last two the other way around.

  Julia came in the kitchen door carrying her bags and saw Mr. K at the table. He had taken to coming around during their break times every once in awhile to have a cuppa and a gab.

  Upon entry, Julia offered him a smile, “Hey Mr. K.”

  “Julia,” he said but didn’t meet her eyes and she had the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

  She came forward and dropped her bags on the table and saw Mrs. K approaching with an already prepared cafetière of coffee.

  One look at the determined set of Mrs. K’s face made Julia’s entire body tense before she asked, “Mrs. K, is something the matter?”

  The older woman set the coffee down, stood back and crossed her arms on her ample bosom.

  “We have to talk,” Mrs. K announced.

  Julia’s heart leapt and the blood drained from her face, “Is it the children?”

  “No, lass, it isn’t the children,” Mr. K assured her. “Sit down, luv,” he continued gently.

  Watching Mrs. K’s curiously blank face the entire time, Julia sat on one of the benches.

  “Is it Douglas?” she asked quietly, hoping he was all right. It could be him, he’d been shot, for goodness sake, anything could happen if he’d once been shot. He could have vicious, armed villains stalking him everywhere for all she knew.

  “Not what you’re thinking, no,” Mrs. K said, sat down herself and prepared the coffee. “But it is him we want to talk to you about.”

  Mr. K broke in. “You have to know that what we’re about to tell you could –”

  “We could get sacked.” Mrs. K interrupted abruptly, finishing with the coffee.

  “Wha…” Julia’s voice cracked and she cleared her throat, feeling her mouth go suddenly dry. Whatever they had to tell her had to be important. They both loved Sommersgate and she thought they would do nothing to put their places there in jeopardy. “What is it?”

  Mrs. K didn’t hesitate but reached across the table and slid over two framed photographs that used to be in Julia’s room, the one of her family at Christmas and the one of her wrapped around Gavin when they were children. “Sorry, luv, I hope you don’t mind but I took these out of your room.”

  Julia shook her head, indicating she didn’t mind. She also didn’t know what the photos had to do with anything. Scanning the photos she memorised, she tentatively took a sip of her coffee.

  “For weeks and weeks, I’ve been searching and all I could come up with is this,” Mrs. K went on, then, she slid something that looked like a piece of paper across the table and when it was in front of Julia, she flipped it over.

  It was a photograph, a formal portrait taken of the Ashtons with Monique and Maxwell and a young Douglas (who had to be the same age as Gavin in the other photo) and Tamsin (at the same age as Julia).

  They all looked refined, well-bred and very serious.

  What they did not look was happy.

  The stark difference between Julia’s photos and Douglas’s photo was undeniable.

  “What…?” Julia started to say, confusion marring her features and dread beginning to seep into her bones as she stared in fascination at the handsome but serious-looking boy who used to be Douglas.

  “As long as I’ve been in this house, there has been no love here,” Mrs. K announced.

  Julia’s heart clenched and she had half a mind to flee the room because she knew she didn’t want to hear what was going to come next – what she knew from piecing together memories and thoughts; what she knew of Tamsin, Douglas and Monique; what Douglas had said Christmas Eve; and what she’d been denying now for weeks.

  But she had to stay, she had to know.

  “You know Lady Ashton, the way she is with you and her grandchildren, she was no different to her own children, cold, uninterested, self-absorbed, sometimes cruel,” Mr. K explained and Julia shuddered at the thought of having a mother like that.
Patricia might have been strict but Gavin and Julia always knew her sternness came from love.

  “Mister Douglas and Miss Tammy, they were close. I was wrong earlier. There was love in this house. Miss Tamsin loved her brother. She loved him like crazy.” Mrs. K shook her head. “But it wasn’t enough. Not without a mother who cared and not with a father who abused him,” Mrs. K stated quietly.

  Julia’s body jerked at the words and she felt her blood run cold.

  “Abused him?” Julia’s voice was a horrified whisper. “Maxwell abused Douglas?”

  She frantically tried to picture Maxwell in her mind. He was always friendly, though not overtly so. He was solicitous but not exactly kind. Douglas and he clearly did not enjoy each other’s company but they didn’t avoid one another. Julia had always thought the way Monique and Maxwell treated their children was just the reserved way of the English, titled, upper-class.

  “Aye, lass,” Roddy Kilpatrick said. “We wouldn’t be telling you this if we didn’t think, well, that is to say –”

  Mrs. K again butted in. “We know you care but you’re holding back. I’m sure you have your reasons, Mister Douglas seems an unfeeling man and maybe he is, though lately…”

  Mrs. K trailed off and Mr. K took over. “There’s a reason for it, the way he is.” He was speaking gently, watching Julia with thoughtful, searching eyes. “And we thought you’d want to know.”

  She didn’t want to know, she had to know.

  Julia spoke around the lump in her throat, her voice croaky. “How did he abuse Douglas?”

  The couple looked at each other and Mr. K nodded at Mrs. K to go on. “You saw it most, my love,” he prompted quietly.

  When Mrs. K turned to Julia, there was wetness in her eyes and Julia’s heart went out to her at the same time she braced for what was to come.

  “It isn’t something you could see, no bruises, no broken bones. In fact, I don’t think I could even explain.” Mrs. K’s hands were resting on the table and they were clenched into fists. Mr. K put his hand on one of his wife’s and squeezed. She took a shuddering breath and went on. “Mister Douglas tried so hard to be the best at everything. He never played, never sat around and watched telly, such an intense child. If he was outside with a football, it was because he was practising, driving himself to be the best he could be. If he was inside, he was studying or reading or –”

  “It was never good enough for old Lord Ashton,” Mr. K broke in and explained what his wife was trying to say and Julia felt a sinking feeling begin in the pit of her stomach, a sinking feeling she remembered well. “Once, before Carter, we had a chauffeur named Hodges. One day, ole Hodges was ill so Lord Ashton asked me to go and pick Douglas up from school for a weekend at home. Didn’t go himself, even though he had nothing to do, he asked me to go. When I got there, the boy was waiting for me, telling me his father had mixed up the schedule and there was a rugby match he had to play and asking me politely if I could wait. I like my rugby, so instead of waiting at the car, I snuck around to watch the match.” He turned eyes that shone with admiration and a hint of pride to Julia and her sinking stomach tightened uncomfortably. “He was magnificent. Could have played professionally, given time, he was so good. Think the coaches felt the same.”

  “After he came home,” Mrs. K picked up the story, “Lord Ashton started shouting at him for being late. When Mister Douglas explained, Lord Ashton didn’t even ask him how it went or if he won, just asked him if he made captain. Douglas hadn’t, he wasn’t popular with the other boys, seeing as he wasn’t outright friendly. It didn’t matter that he was the best player on the field, Old Lord Ashton just found the thing he could use to hurt his boy and then he yelled at him, right in the stairwell, in front of all the staff and Tamsin and anyone who was in hearing distance which could have been all the way to town. Yelled and yelled, red in the face and cursing, saying things to the boy… calling him names –”

  “Enough,” Julia whispered, her stomach in knots, her heart in her throat, tears pricking at her eyes and pain shooting throughout her body. But it was as if Mrs. K didn’t hear her, so caught was she in the ugly memories.

  “And it wasn’t just then, it didn’t matter what he did, how he did it, how well he did it, which was always well, mind. He’d yell, scream for hours, saying things no child should hear. Even when he was a young man –”

  “Enough,” Julia repeated, not thinking she could take anymore because she knew, she knew. She was an adult when it happened to her, the mental abuse, the shredding of confidence, the abrasion of the soul, to have it happen to you as a child by your very own father, the thought was unbearable.

  Mrs. K continued, seeming to need to get it all out and Julia leaned forward and put out her hands, encompassing both Mr. K and Mrs. K’s and squeezing, trying to instil warmth and comfort in the older woman while she dredged up the past.

  “He shouldn’t hear those things, not from his father, not from anyone but especially not from his father.” The tears were falling down her face unheeded. She looked haunted and lost, as if she was somewhere else. Julia couldn’t imagine her pain, her feelings of powerlessness, being forced to witness something she could do nothing about. At the thought of it, of what Douglas had endured, she felt her own tears spilling over and Mrs. K continued. “Douglas shut down, day-after-day, year-after-year, slowly he shut down. I’m not surprised, no one could take it. I don’t blame him for not allowing himself to feel, to trust and love, because all he felt for years was nothing from his mother and unspeakable…” She gulped, unable to find the word to express herself then she pressed on. “At first he found strength in Miss Tamsin, solace, I think, she tried so hard to be everything to him, his champion. But then even she couldn’t penetrate the wall he’d built around himself.” At that, Mrs. K straightened and her eyes focused on Julia. “And he was good at everything, great at absolutely everything, so he built the best wall anyone could ever build,” she said with determined pride as if this was an accomplishment akin to singlehandedly building The Great Wall of China.

  They sat there, the three of them, their hands together on the table and looked at each other. Julia and Mrs. K with tears streaming down their cheeks and Mr. K’s face red with the effort of not being unmanned in front of the women.

  Eventually, Mr. K cleared his throat loudly and said, “What’s in the bags?”

  Julia wanted to laugh. She wanted to run screaming from the room. She wanted to hunt down Monique Ashton and beat her black and blue, to say a tiny prayer to Tamsin that she hoped her sister would hear to thank her for being the one ray of light in Douglas’s dismal life. She wanted to find Douglas, tell him she loved him and do something, anything to erase his pain.

  Instead, Julia didn’t move, didn’t take away her hands but kept looking deeply into Mrs. K’s eyes. “Tonight I thought I’d ask you to watch the children and then I’d make dinner for Douglas. Awhile ago, he asked me to marry him and, yesterday, I decided I’d tell him yes.”

  Mrs. K gasped, her tear-streaked face lighting up.

  “Well that’s a damned fine piece of news!” Mr. K exclaimed, his expression both shocked and extremely pleased.

  Julia smiled at Mr. K then moved her eyes to his wife. Quietly, but firmly, she stated, “I love him. I think I’ve loved him for years.”

  Oddly, at her words, Julia sensed something. It seemed the air in the room closed in on them, warming, becoming heavy.

  Before Julia could process the change, she saw the tears were coming in earnest now from Mrs. K and then, abruptly, the older woman was all a-flurry. She jumped up and ran around the bench and hauled Julia to her for a bone-jarring hug. Then she let Julia go as suddenly as she grabbed her and turned to the bags, pulling out the goods inside.

  “Steak, good, he likes steak,” not lifting her head, she ordered her husband, “get Ronnie down here, and Miss Lizzie, too. We have things to do.”

  Mr. K rolled his eyes at Julia, all the despair of moments before dispelled
at Mrs. K’s exuberant busyness. He stood to do as he was commanded.

  “And I need you to go to the store for some things.” Mrs. K was standing, holding a bag of potatoes in one hand and asparagus in the other, looking back and forth between them and one could practically see her mind whirling. Then she turned to stare at Julia. “You go get ready, wash those tears off your face. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “But Mrs. K, I wanted to –” Julia began to say.

  “Go,” she ordered. “We don’t have time for dilly-dallying, Mister Douglas keeps no schedule, he could be home any minute and we need to be ready.” When neither Julia nor Mr. K moved she shouted, “Go!”

  They jumped to do her bidding.

  * * * * *

  When Julia heard the tires crunching on the drive, she was ready.

  While getting ready, she’d allowed herself to think of the Kilpatricks’ words and to feel compassion for her soon-to-be fiancé. He would not accept or thank her for her sympathy, even though she, of all people, knew how he felt (which must have been why he reacted so strongly when Julia explained what Sean had done to her, a fact that, now that she understood it, made her stomach melt). She knew, though, for the sake of his pride, that she could never let him know that she knew the truth. It tore at her heart, knowing why Douglas was the way he was, but it would always have to be her secret with the Kilpatricks.

  After years of abuse as a child, she knew it was unlikely she’d ever break through that wall but he wanted her and by God, he was going to have her. If she only had a week or was lucky enough to have years to show him love and tenderness, she was going to give it to him.

  Starting tonight.

  She was embarrassed about going on to Douglas, of all people, about being alone.

  How selfish she’d been. How stupidly lost she’d been in her own grief and bitterness. She’d always had her mother and Gavin and a big family and loads of friends to love, cherish and look after her. Even here, she had Charlie, Sam, Mr. and Mrs. K, Ronnie and the children.

  But Douglas had always been alone. Truly alone.