Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(144)

Patricia smiled back and turned to the crowd.

“I’ve been waiting fifteen years to do this, as long as it took him to figure out he was in love with my daughter. He may have a head for business and a reputation for quick decisions but I’m here to tell you, there are some ways he can be very slow.”

The crowd laughed but if Julia was stiff before, she was rock solid now. She would not allow her mother to badmouth her husband in front of hundreds of guests. She was about to interrupt when her mother continued.

“But, the longer we wait, the sweeter our victory, eh, Douglas?” Patty grinned, any sting in her earlier words taken out by the dancing light in her eyes.

Douglas merely inclined his head.

“I, for one,” she told the crowd, “feel damned lucky to call Douglas Ashton my son. He’s a good man, has taken care of my grandchildren during a very trying time and has, finally, after I fretted for years that it would ever happen, made my daughter unbelievably happy. I mean, look at the girl, she’s glowing!” There was more laughter and Douglas’s other arm wrapped around Julia.

“So please,” Patricia continued, “join me in raising your glasses to Douglas Ashton, my daughter’s husband, my grandchildren’s uncle, my new son and a very fine man. To Douglas!”

“Oh Mom!” Julia cried, reached across Douglas to embrace her mother and after she did so, Patricia gave Douglas a loud kiss on his cheek.

“You should know, my boy, I’ve put you in my will,” she informed him grandly.

He nodded gravely, as if he needed to be put in her will and didn’t have enough money to buy a small country. Patricia winked at Julia then hustled the children down the stairs.

Douglas kept hold of his wife, his arms loosely wrapped around her.

“That was well done of you,” Julia praised him.

“Let’s go,” he answered, completely ignoring her compliment.

Julia laughed, light-hearted and carefree, the music of her laughter sounding through Sommersgate.

When she sobered enough to speak, she realised he was serious and therefore protested, “We can’t leave our own wedding reception.”

“We can,” he insisted.

And Douglas was correct.

Because, without delay, they did.

Epilogue

Sommersgate House

Julia Ashton, Baroness Blackbourne, finally bested Douglas in the present giving stakes.

That evening they arrived at The Ritz (several hours earlier than expected) for their wedding night.

Their honeymoon flight to Fiji would leave early the next morning.

Sometime deep into the night, when the room was dark and they lay na**d and replete in each other’s arms, in a low voice, Douglas explained his arrival during her wedding preparations. He expected her to have cold feet and was going to warn her that if she left him, he’d find her and drag her home. Upon her announcement that he should buy them a small island where they could live in sin, he realised she wasn’t going to leave him.

Julia rewarded him for this admission by giving him his wedding present.

She shared her secret with him and informed him she was pregnant.

He was, for Douglas Ashton, beside himself with delight.

They named their daughter Margaret Tamsin Fairfax Ashton.

* * * * *

A great number of happy years later, Douglas insisted to Roddy Kilpatrick that they lay his wife to rest in the family plot on the grounds of Sommersgate House.

No one, really, could think of anywhere more appropriate for Mrs. K to spend eternity.

Roddy joined his wife there shortly after.

Flowers were delivered to their graves, as well as the graves of Tamsin and Gavin Fairfax, on a weekly basis for as long as Douglas was alive.

Unfortunately, Margaret and Roddy’s version of heaven meant that their ghosts, forever, benignly and often hilariously haunted Sommersgate and all of its inhabitants.

* * * * *

Many, many, many years later, Sommersgate was inherited by William Fairfax as Douglas’s only male heir and because Douglas wanted his sister’s beloved home to go to her only son.

Will kept his father’s mellow, friendly ways but, after years spent with Douglas, acquired more than a hint of his uncle’s arrogance and commanding authority.

Will eventually married a beautiful woman named Rebecca (under rather romantic circumstances) and sired three children of his own.

* * * * *

Elizabeth Fairfax married for love, the son of some friends of her Aunt Jewel’s who had survived leukaemia many years before. Lizzie moved to Indiana and hosted the family Christmases there every third year and brought her ever-increasing family to Sommersgate for the other two.

Lizzie became a social worker, specialising in helping others to survive loss.

* * * * *

When she was in her teens, Ruby Fairfax helped Nick to investigate the murder of Lady Ruby Ashton (the children were eventually told of the lovers’ release but that was the only thing they were informed about regarding that night) and the Sommersgate House Curse.

As the trail was cold, they found very little but both agreed that it had something to do with a woman whose cottage was burned down with her in it. The townspeople thought she was a witch and police suspected arson but the inquest was inconclusive. Her son, however, was discovered to be serial murderer who strangled his victims. Most of those victims were unveiled at the trial but in his dying moments he hinted at another, the first woman who didn’t want him and, therefore, had to die.