Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(110)
“You sound angry.”
“I’m not angry,” he clipped.
“Then what are you?”
He looked for a second uncertain and Julia couldn’t believe her eyes.
His eyes became focused and he glared at her. “I’m frustrated.”
Julia stared at him for a second before returning, “Well, remind me never to do anything nice for you again. Frustrated was not what I was going for.”
And before he could reply, she took her opportunity for escape (something, at that moment, she dearly needed) and quickly exited the room, not looking back.
Chapter Twenty
Ruby Finally Understands
After leaving Douglas in the study, Julia was of a mind to make the men do the Christmas dishes, including and especially Douglas. She came to her senses and realised she’d escape him more easily by doing the dishes herself because he rarely stepped foot in the kitchen.
The children talked to Patricia while Ronnie, Mrs. K and Julia scoured the pots and pans.
Julia came to the phone last.
“How’s it going?” Patricia asked.
“So far so good,” Julia replied.
“They sounded good. Happy. You did a good job Doll Baby.”
Julia was silent. She wanted to tell her mother everything but couldn’t. Patricia would be there in twenty-four hours raising all kinds of ruckus if she knew even half of what was happening.
“Jewel?” Patricia broke into her thoughts.
“You having an okay Christmas?” Julia queried.
“Your Aunt Doris made the most heavenly cake. It has twelve melted Milky Way bars in it.”
“It’s not time for dinner there yet, how have you had any cake?”
“I might have sneaked a piece,” Patricia admitted.
Normally Julia would have laughed but she was in no mood to laugh.
On a sigh, Julia said, “I miss Aunt Doris. Tell her I love her, will you?”
Patricia was silent.
“Mom?” It was Julia’s turn to break into her mother’s thoughts.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Her intuitive mother demanded.
No, Julia was most definitely not going to tell her mother what was going on.
“I’m fine, the kids are fine, everything’s fine,” Julia lied.
“Is Douglas fine?”
Julia felt a shiver go up her spine. Her mother’s insight was uncanny. It was almost as if she could read Julia’s thoughts.
“Yes, I’m just, we’re both…” Julia paused and then continued. “Mom, it isn’t the happiest day, if you know what I mean, even though we’re all pretending it is.”
Patricia, as usual, didn’t fall for Julia’s evasive manoeuvre.
“What’s this about a diamond watch?” Patricia asked.
Julia closed her eyes.
Lizzie.
“It’s probably nothing to him.” It was definitely not nothing to him and it certainly wasn’t nothing to her. “He’s rich as Rockefeller, Mom. Richer, even. He was very generous, with all of us,” Julia explained and hoped it sounded plausible.
Her mother made a “humph” sound that in Julia’s vast experience was more a motherly “I-know-you’re-not-telling-me-something” humph than “I’m-angry-about-something” humph.
When the phone call was done, in an attempt to keep the light-hearted spirit of the day going, Julia organised a game. Lizzie spread the Monopoly board on the carpet in front of the fire in the library in between the three couches that flanked and faced it. They were making teams and the minute Douglas sauntered in, Lizzie shouted, “Auntie Jewel and Uncle Douglas have to be a team!”
Julia’s mind wasn’t working fast enough to find a way to back out that didn’t appear ungracious, so, before she could utter a word, she was saddled with Douglas as her partner.
He, to all appearances, was happy as a clam with these arrangements.
Julia was on the floor, stretched out on her side, her back to the fire, up on her elbow, her head resting in her hand. To her shock (and perhaps everyone else in the room’s, except Nick, who smiled slyly), Douglas stretched out behind her.
With all expectant eyes on her, it would have been impolite to change her position and Julia allowed herself a quiet annoyed noise only to hear Douglas chuckle behind her. This made her feel angry enough to emit a louder annoyed noise which, to the assembled crowd’s bigger shock, made Douglas burst out laughing.
She decided from that point forward to keep her noises to herself and spent the entire game enduring Douglas moving the pieces and rolling the dice by reaching over her to get to the board (each time, his chest pressing into her back).
After awhile she couldn’t stop herself from enjoying the game (as much as she tried). Douglas was competitive and relentless and he preyed mercilessly upon weaker teams which included everyone else playing. Furtively, when she thought Douglas wasn’t paying attention, Julia would steal from their bank and slip notes into her opposing teammates’ piles. When she snuck £100 into Ruby and Ronnie’s fast-dwindling stack, he leaned close to her ear and whispered softly, “Stop doing that.”
She fought the thrill that ran across her skin and twisted her neck to look at him in feigned, wide-eyed innocence, “What?”