“Stop it,” she whispered but her voice was husky, her frame had softened, moulding to his and, in her eyes, there was a mixture of warmth and panic.
Progress.
Now, Douglas thought, to make myself perfectly clear.
“I’ll do whatever I have to do. Even break our rule,” he promised, thinking about Lizzie.
The warmth in her eyes gave way to the panic.
“You wouldn’t!” she gasped.
“I would,” he assured her bluntly and her eyes widened then narrowed.
“That’s low,” she accused.
“I get what I want,” he vowed. “I’m a patient man but my patience is running out.”
“Why do you want to marry me? Be my lover?” Her voice rose hysterically. “Douglas, it’s mad!”
He stared at her quizzically. Could she not know her effect on him, on Nick, on Oliver, on men in general?
The thought was ludicrous, all women knew. They knew it and they used it.
All of them.
“Don’t ask ridiculous questions,” he clipped, his voice impatient. “It doesn’t suit you.”
Her mouth fell open and then snapped shut.
Suddenly, she dropped her head and exerted gentle pressure on his arm.
“Okay, fine, you’ve made your point. No truce, no compromise, the battle still rages.” She was talking quietly but sarcastically. He could not read her mood, couldn’t see her face but something in her tone made him let her go.
She quickly took several steps away.
“You should know,” she said when she looked at him, her face carefully controlled but her eyes were still glittering with something he could not read, “that there will be consequences to all of this. I doubt you’ll understand it, that it will even penetrate that reserve of yours, but it will happen.”
He had no idea what she meant and when he started to ask she shook her head.
She moved toward the dressing room. “Please, just go. For tonight, let me be the winner.”
Without looking back, she entered the dressing room and closed the door behind her.
After a moment of gazing at the door, he did as she asked and left.
On his way back to his rooms, he found himself thinking that, even though she said his leaving would make her the “winner”, he knew by her words, her tone, the line of her body as she walked away that she was wrong, he had won.
Not just tonight, but eventually, he knew that she understood that he’d be the ultimate victor.
And somehow, instead of making him satisfied, it made him vaguely uneasy.
Chapter Fifteen
The Emerald
The next three weeks were bedlam.
Mrs. K got the flu and Ronnie and Julia became acutely aware of just how much Sommersgate depended on her when they tried to make it run as efficiently as its housekeeper, and failed.
Furthermore, Julia and Ronnie weren’t about to let Mrs. K suffer without constant vigilance (Mr. K admitting he was hopeless playing nursemaid) so they took turns running up the hill through the wood to the Groundskeeper’s Cottage to make certain she was fed, watered and medicated.
Adding to this, Douglas informed Veronika that Nick was going to move into the Gate House as soon as possible. The Gate House hadn’t been touched in over three years. So Veronika and Julia had to find someone they trusted to clean it and give it a fresh coat of paint. Both women refused to bother Mrs. K for her contacts, which, Mr. K explained “she keeps in her head”. Hiring a cleaning team and decorator was far more difficult than expected and Nick was forced to stay in Sommersgate House in the interim. This meant one more mouth to feed for Julia (who took over the cooking after one look at Veronika’s borsht) and one more bed to make for Veronika (who always made the beds).
It was the Christmas season and all that was Christmas, decorating, shopping, wrapping, baking, cards and the kids with a variety of parties to attend. Julia had to get her presents bought, wrapped and mailed to The States. She also wanted to be certain the children, in this first Christmas without their parents, felt loved and cared for so she danced attendance on them especially.
Julia’s personal shipping came from home, boxes and boxes of clothes and shoes, mementos, photos and things of Gavin’s that she and Patricia wanted the children to have. Most of it was to go directly into storage but as Mrs. K controlled all storage issues in the house and she was unavailable for two weeks and catching up on backlog when she came back. The result was that Julia’s rooms were a mess.
Through all this, Julia was working longer hours than she promised, scouring through budgets, creating reports and writing business plans.
To her surprise, Douglas had retreated completely. There were no more insane conversations filled with marriage proposals and salacious innuendo.
Not that the last conversation was innuendo at all.
He had been quite clear, concise and detailed about everything he wanted.
Indeed, he’d been crystal clear, perfectly concise and exceptionally detailed.
Just the thought of it made Julia blush and, sometimes, squirm (but, she had to admit, most times she thought of it, she’d shiver, in a good way).
And she thought about it a lot.
Too much.
In fact, all the time.
There had been times when he could have, and in the past would have, made some kind of advance, but he didn’t.
Making matters worse, it seemed that Lizzie was throwing herself into a matchmaking role. If Douglas walked into the lounge while the children and Julia were watching television and Lizzie was sitting next to Julia, Lizzie would shoot to her feet and call out to him, “Uncle Douglas, sit here.” Or if they were out to dinner or all getting into the Bentley, she’d boss Ruby and Willie so Julia would have no choice but to slide into the booth or car next to Douglas or else make a scene. Or if Julia was talking about anything at all, Lizzie would declare, “Uncle Douglas is good at that,” or “You should ask Uncle Douglas, he’s the expert!”
Douglas didn’t seem to be the slightest bit aware of Lizzie’s endeavours, though that didn’t stop her from trying. Julia knew that Lizzie was trying to recreate the loving family she once had and even if this would ultimately lead to nothing, it was far better than her despondency so Julia’s heart went out to the girl, so much so she couldn’t bring herself to disabuse her niece of her notions.
In the meantime, Douglas took them to London to fulfil his promise to Ruby and so they could go Christmas shopping. Monique had (thankfully) been in Paris. While they were there, Charlie helped Julia find a gown for Tamsin’s charity ball.
Douglas even spent time with them during this trip but all the while he was an utter gentleman. He often took Julia’s elbow or put his hand in the small of her back to guide her but that was it.
However, sometimes, when she would talk to him on a crowded pavement or in a store, she noticed that he’d lean down to hear her and his eyes would be so warm and intimate, just looking into their dark depths made her belly melt. In those seconds, she believed he was still up to his tricks. But they were just seconds and nothing would come of it.