Chapter Twenty-Five
The Curse
“The Royal Crescent Hotel has confirmed, of course,” Sam was saying, “you’ll arrive in the suite greeted by champagne and strawberries –”
“Isn’t that a bit trite?” Douglas interrupted curtly, wanting everything to be perfect.
“Well, I suppose you can call your intended’s preferences ‘trite’ but I would never presume to do so. Patty says Julia loves champagne and strawberries.”
His silence was the only indication of his apology and his jaw tightened at Sam’s referral to Patricia as “Patty”. All the women in his life were becoming the banes of his existence.
They were, he realised, ganging up on him.
Charlotte, Mrs. Kilpatrick, Sam and Patricia called him day after day to check this detail or that detail of the wedding or of that evening’s dinner (or tomorrow’s) or of his schedule. Or simply to check on him to ascertain he’d done nothing to make Julia run screaming into the night and the clutching arms of certain death.
Their lack of faith in him was appalling.
Although, he had to admit, he hadn’t handled their courtship to his usual exacting standards. However, she had said yes (rather spectacularly), she was wearing his damned ring (rather proudly), she was sharing his bed (or her bed or the couch in the study or the wall of the billiards room, depending on his level of creativity, a heretofore unknown skill he found, through necessity, he had in abundance).
“If you want to buy a ten foot ice sculpture of the Eiffel Tower and set it up in the bloody garden, I don’t care. Your budget for the wedding reception, from now on, is unlimited,” he’d informed Mrs. K (somewhat shortly) just that afternoon.
Instead of taking offense, the woman seemed downright jolly.
He’d spent nearly twenty years making a fortune (quadruple fold) and one small wedding and four pushy, nagging women were going to bankrupt him in a single day.
Fortunately, Julia was a calm amidst this storm. With her never ending lists, her capacity to interpret (and control) her mother’s dramatics, to find Charlie hilarious and to delegate to Mrs. K and Sam when needed, she was taking all this on with a level head – all the while starting a new consultancy, dealing with the children and giving into a (very) demanding Douglas (though he couldn’t help but note that the last seemed to be the most favourite of her tribulations).
“Why on earth don’t they phone you with these details?” Douglas found himself grumbling (actually reduced to grumbling) the evening before.
They were on the couch in his study. Douglas was sitting at one end looking through some papers. Julia was lying on her back with her feet in his lap, Fred, The Cat (his name had been grandly, yet unnecessarily, lengthened by Ruby) sleeping on her belly and she was reading a book.
“I think they’re enjoying torturing you, you haven’t exactly been, um,” Julia hesitated, Douglas cut his eyes to her and she grinned sheepishly, “approachable for the last thirty-eight years.”
“I’m not approachable now,” he ground out. “I’m considering hiring hit men.”
She laughed, the sound throaty and sexy and making him immediately want her. If the children hadn’t been in the house watching television in the lounge, he would have taken her.
When he was going to have his fill of her, he didn’t know and he was beginning to doubt he ever would. Every time he had her, he wanted more, needed more, she was like a fucking drug.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Julia joked, taking him from his thoughts then her smile drained away as she took in his bland look and arched brow.
He saw a worried expression crossed her face and then he turned away, satisfied at her reaction yet unable to stop his lips from twitching.
She set Fred, The Cat aside and launched herself at him, a playful attack he had no idea how to defend. He’d never played with anyone, not even Tamsin.
He wrestled her gently, not wanting to cause her harm but he soon found he didn’t have to worry because the whole time, she was giggling herself silly. He couldn’t help but recognise the strange feeling coursing through him (mingled tantalisingly with desire) was enjoyment.
She ended the tussle on her back, Douglas on top, Julia’s arms pulled over her head with his hand holding her wrists. She was still laughing, her body shaking under him while he smiled down at her, revelling in the pleasure of her happiness and that it was Douglas who was giving it to her.
“You’re just too funny, sweetheart,” she giggled. “I just love…” she stopped, gulped then gave a short, strange, uncomfortable chortle of laughter before finishing, “love your sense of humour.”
Her words sounded forced and wrong and his body stilled when he heard them but then she lifted her head and kissed him and he could think of nothing else.
This time, it was Sam who broke into his thoughts.
“The room will be littered, their word, not mine, littered with white roses.” Sam was continuing to tell him his plans for Valentine’s evening. “They’ll serve your dinner at nine in the room.”
“Right. Thanks,” Douglas replied, no longer listening to her, preferring to think back to what happened on the couch and what it might mean.
After a lengthy hesitation, Sam asked, “What did you just say?”
“Right,” Douglas repeated distractedly.
“Then you said, ‘thanks’.” Her voice was somehow breathy with pleasure and he realised he’d never thanked her before.
Jesus, had he always been such an unfeeling bastard?
Bloody hell, he had.
A feeling stole over him that he now recognised. Guilt.
“You did a good job, you always do,” he offered this statement like a throwaway comment, immediately uncomfortable with the conversation. “Are we done?” His voice was now curt.
“Yes,” Sam answered.
“Good.” Douglas almost wished her enjoyment of her Valentine’s Day but stopped himself. She might have a coronary and he had a wedding to plan and less than a month to do it and he needed her not to be recovering in a hospital bed.
He disconnected the call as usual, without a good-bye.
His anticipation for the night was palpable. He could nearly feel Julia’s limbs around him, the smell of her in his nostrils, the taste of her in his mouth. He’d bought her rubies for tonight, a necklace and earrings to match the dress that Gregory had confided to him (or, more accurately, to Sam) was red. It was an extravagant present, a necklace set with seven oval rubies surrounded by diamonds and diamond-ensconced rubies suspended from diamonds starting at the stud of each earring. Considering her reaction to his other presents, he was most definitely looking forward to giving her the jewels.
Douglas may have been avoiding feeling anything for most of his life but he wasn’t unaware that the last several months, and especially the last several weeks, he was unable to continue in this vein. He knew his emotions were no longer under his fierce control but he had little cause for alarm regarding this development considering that he recognised the dazed feeling he was having (albeit unfamiliarly) was happiness.
He was not surprised, Julia was a good woman. She was a beautiful and stylish woman. She was a gratifyingly responsive, adventurous and demonstrative lover. She was kind and thoughtful and had worked miracles with three grieving children, a household of once distant, now familial staff and the tightening of his own meagre band of friends.
Sommersgate, cold, formal, even monstrous throughout his childhood, rang with laughter, shared confidences, constant hilarity (most of which was instigated by one or all three of the kittens or children or both) and happiness.
Lost in these thoughts, he turned through the gates of his ancestral home.
So lost in his thoughts, when he turned into the long drive of Sommersgate, he nearly didn’t notice the Gate House, normally lit warningly against intruders, now was completely dark and frighteningly quiet.
But he did notice.
And he put his foot down on the brake, stopping the car and turned his head to stare.
Nick was not going anywhere tonight. Nick had left “the job” with Douglas and had taken up his position (now officially) as Douglas’s (but more importantly Julia’s and the children’s) bodyguard.
The rules were, if Douglas was not at the house and Julia or the children were, so was Nick.
And as Douglas was arriving to pick up his fiancée, Nick should have been at the Gate House.
Even if he was at the main house, his lights should be blazing.
That was the deal; those were the rules, that was how Douglas knew everything was okay when he came home.
Therefore, Douglas had to assume that things were not okay.
His stomach clenched and his chest tightened, he snapped the word “Sam” into the dark void around him and the car phone started dialling.
“Yes boss?” Her voice was perky.
“Call the police,” he had started the Jag crawling forward through the mile of parkland that fronted the estate and he turned off his lights. “Tell them to get to Sommersgate but to proceed with caution. I don’t know the situation yet and I’m going in, I won’t report back. Then call the SIS, you know who to speak to, tell him the same thing.”
She was all business, although her voice betrayed worry. “Check.”
Then Sam hung up on him.
He forced himself slowly (and thus quietly) to glide the Jag toward his home, toward Julia.
He had no weapon. He had no idea of the time that had elapsed from when the trouble (he was certain there was trouble) started to now. He had no idea if the children, Ronnie and the Kilpatricks had already left the house. He had no idea if Nick had managed to get her to safety. He had not noticed Nick’s car at the Gate House so maybe he’d succeeded in reaching her but didn’t have time yet to phone and report in.
This thought was made moot when Douglas saw Nick’s car careened off the road a quarter of a mile away from the house, slammed into another car, Nick’s interior light blazing and its driver’s side door hanging open.
“Fucking hell,” Douglas bit out.
It took every bit of willpower not to gun the motor but he knew he couldn’t go charging in, he couldn’t warn them of his approach. He needed surprise on his side.
He slid forward, his teeth clenched, his hands biting into the steering wheel, his eyes vigilantly scanning the landscape and was assaulted by visions of Julia’s dead body lying in a pool of blood, a pool of his making because he wanted a bigger challenge. He had been bored with his life. He needed a more interesting way to pass the damned time.
He rolled passed the silent and dark Groundskeeper’s Cottage, hoping that meant the Kilpatricks had already taken the children to the curry house. Then he slid slowly down the slope and around the chapel. He stopped before he got to the gravelled drive, pulling the emergency brake and turning off the car, the Jag on the gravel would make too much noise. He exited the car, fleet of foot and silent as a cat. He crouched low, keeping to the edges of the wide arc of light illuminating the outside of the house coming from both the lights from Julia’s rooms (the drapes, disturbingly, not drawn) and the outside light.
He stayed close to the side of the house, inching forward and, chancing a glance around the corner of the portico, finally seeing the front door slightly ajar.
Ready for him.
Waiting for him.
He knew a trap lay inside.
He didn’t hesitate because inside, hopefully still alive, was Julia. And he’d rather get his brains blown out than allow her to experience another minute of the terror she was undoubtedly experiencing.
The moment he quietly slipped into his lifelong home, he knew something was wrong. Not just the danger that lurked there but the house.
Something was very wrong with the whole, damned house.
He’d taken three strides forward, ignoring the alien feeling of Sommersgate, when a voice speaking in Russian told him to stop.
The cold steel of a gun was pointed to his temple.
Without hesitation, and quick as lightning, Douglas’s head jerked back. His left hand shot up, grabbing the gunman’s wrist in a powerful grip. The man fired a reactionary shot but it went wide.
Swinging around with all his bodyweight and using instinct and years of practice to guide him, he slammed the palm of his hand into the man’s septum, forcing it into the back of his brain, causing him to die instantly.
Douglas felt no remorse. He knew who these men were and what they did. That swift a death was an act of mercy. He deserved far worse for the devastation he caused to hundreds of lives.
The Russian fell to the ground; Douglas took his gun, strangely a six shooter revolver rather than a semi-automatic, and swiftly checked its load. Three shots had already been fired which made Douglas’s chest clutch painfully. Forcing himself to remain focused, he felt the dead man’s body for any further weapons and discovered a knife strapped to his ankle. He removed it and tucked it in the back of his belt.
Julia would not be pleased about the knife but he’d deal with that later.
If, pray God, he had the chance.
He quickly divested himself of his suit jacket, throwing it aside and did the same with his tie. He moved forward, unbuttoning the buttons at his throat and saw that a light was shining into the stairwell from the drawing room. It barely illuminated a prone human form that was lying at the side of the hall.
With a vague sense of concern he wouldn’t allow to form fully, Douglas moved silently forward then crouched beside who he recognised as Nick. Noticing the blood on his back, Douglas put out his fingers to check and found his friend had a strong pulse.
But Nick was out cold.
Douglas didn’t have time to pay his friend more attention. Hoping the pulse would remain steady; Douglas straightened and walked slowly forward, listening carefully.
The house was utterly silent but somehow he felt almost as if it was alert and watching him take each step.
As he entered the grand stairwell, the drawing room came into view.
And so did Julia.
She stood at the back of a couch facing the door and there was a man standing beside her holding a gun to her temple. She was wearing, as usual, a stylishly sexy dress.
She looked magnificent.
He forced himself to walk slowly, even casually, toward the door, his footsteps sounding preternaturally loud on the stone.
The Russian had seen him and started talking. It was one of the men, as Douglas guessed, who’d been after Veronika. He knew at the time he should have never shown himself to them.
He had his orders, he was too public a figure, it wasn’t his job. His job was that he gathered (in a variety of ways) information but he was not to make contact with the criminals.
But he couldn’t stand by and watch them beating Ronnie nor could he allow them to force her into a life that was no life at all.
Now, he’d pay for that mistake.
God, Ronnie. He hoped they hadn’t found her first.
As he came forward, he sought to allay Julia’s fears with his eyes but as the Russian talked on, making grandiose and threatening statements about taking something that wasn’t his, Douglas finally took in Julia’s face.
And he was stunned at what he saw.
Julia, his bride-to-be, looked annoyed.
Not frightened as he assumed she’d be, or, more accurately, terrified out of her mind.
No, she looked annoyed.
She looked like he’d kept her waiting and they were going to miss their booking at a restaurant she particularly wished to sample. Not like she was being held at gunpoint in the drawing room of her own home by a vile Russian who dealt in white slavery.
If she had checked her watch and tapped her toe, Douglas wouldn’t have been surprised.
And in that moment, he knew.
She trusted him. She believed in him. She knew, without any doubt, that he would know what to do, that he would save her, make their home safe again.
All she had to do was wait.
He felt this knowledge hit him like a physical blow.
Tamsin had believed in him, but she was his sister.
No one else had. Not anyone in his life.
No one.
Except Julia.
Memories of her slid by in seconds, her blowing in his ear at the snooker table; telling him of Sean’s abuse in the study; giving him her Christmas present at dinner; wriggling her engagement ring at Nick proudly; wrapping her legs around Douglas’s waist passionately, protectively, lovingly while he was inside her.
“What am I going to do with you?” he’d asked.
“Whatever you want,” was her reply.
Bloody hell, he loved her.
He came to within a foot of the doorway and her eyes shifted quickly and meaningfully to the side of it, telling him there was another man behind it.
Douglas didn’t react.
He just smiled.
The Russian was still talking, threatening, his voice getting panicky because Douglas hadn’t dropped his gun as asked.
Douglas ignored him.
In an even, calm voice he said simply, “I love you, Julia.”
Her face changed, even from across the expanse he saw her eyes darken and that raw, tender look came about her and he knew what it meant.
Finally he understood.
“Oh Douglas,” she replied, her sweet, husky voice shaking, not with fear but with feeling. “Sweetheart, I love you too.”
And then it all happened at once.
The house rumbled, the windows flexed in dangerously then out like the house was about to implode.
Julia jerked her head back at the same time she jammed her elbow into her attacker’s ribs, drawing a confused yowl from the man. She threw herself over the back of the couch and the last Douglas saw of her was a flash of black netting and her legs ending in two high-heeled black sandals disappearing behind the couch.
Douglas wasted no time; he aimed at her attacker, fired and cursed.
He caught the man in the shoulder but didn’t bring him down.
The door flew toward him and he was ready for it. He caught it with his forearm, violently throwing it back with all his weight and strength. He heard an “oomph” of pain come from behind the door but ignored it.
The lights flashed, off and on, then again and again. The chandeliers were swaying dangerously, their crystals tinkling.
A shot was fired at Douglas by the Russian that held Julia but it was wide and Douglas aimed another shot at him and caught him in the thigh but, before the man dropped to the floor, Julia had re-emerged from her position, holding aloft a Waterford vase that Douglas knew was one of his mother and father’s wedding presents. She hurled it at the Russian and it smashed against the side of his head causing him to grunt and hit the floor with a heavy thud.
The lights were still flashing, not only in the drawing room but behind him as well and likely everywhere in the house. The walls were creaking as if Sommersgate was about to crumble in on itself.
Douglas had no time to worry about the bizarre disintegration of his ancestral home. The other man stepped wide from the door, his gun raised but Douglas caught his wrist, needing to drop his own gun to do so. The man managed to squeeze off a shot which caught Douglas, stinging his upper, left arm.
As Douglas grappled with the man, an otherworldly moan drifted ominously through the house and then another missile, this time a heavy glass paperweight, flew through the air, hitting his opponent on the side of the neck, making him squawk in angry pain.
“Stop throwing things!” Douglas ordered Julia, his hands full with the man who was fighting both a terror of Douglas, the unknown of Julia and her priceless glass bombs and a house gone mad. “You could hit me.”
“I’m not going to hit you! I played softball for seven years!” she retorted, as if that meant anything in a death match.
He noted out of the corner of his eye she was standing there with her hands on her hips as if to say, Get on with it, I’m hungry.
He would have laughed if he hadn’t noticed her original attacker slowly pulling himself to his feet, still armed.
“Julia, down!” Douglas barked.
His clever soon-to-be wife noticed the Russian too and disappeared behind the couch in an instant.
A flame of fire shot out of the fireplace at this point even though no fire had been blazing in its grate the moment before. The moan was still howling through the house, the windows flexing, the chandeliers veering crazily side-to-side.
Douglas whirled, gaining position on the gun, he used his attacker’s weapon and aimed at the other Russian who had already fired, this time toward the spot where Julia had been.
Douglas’s shot went wild as did his mind.
If he hit Julia, Douglas would rip him apart.
He let out a roar of rage and used his newfound fury to plant his feet and throw his attacker over his shoulder onto his back on the floor. Without hesitation, Douglas wrested the man’s gun away, calmly aimed and fired two rounds into him, one in each kneecap.
The man’s howls joined the unearthly thunder of the house and Douglas turned again to the other man who had decided against shooting him to give way to the crazed violence that blazed in his eyes. Charging toward him like a bull, Douglas braced for impact when two things happened at once.
First, the blast of a shotgun unloaded itself into the ceiling by the side doors that led toward the greenhouse.
This happened thanks to a wild-eyed Roddy Kilpatrick who followed the blast with an outcry of, “What the bloody hell is going on here?” and yet stood calmly as plaster rained down on him.
Second, another paperweight, this one bigger than the last, flew with alarming accuracy at Douglas’s assailant, knocking him with a sickening thump on his head and succeeding in dropping him like a stone three feet away from Douglas.
Julia stood behind the couch heaving angry breaths and smartly yanking up the neckline of her strapless dress. Douglas stood amongst the carnage, one man unconscious at his feet, the other writhing in (now whimpering) agony.
The battle against the Russians won, Sommersgate still had a battle of its own.
“Are you all right?” Douglas asked Julia.
“You took your own damned time coming home!” she accused hotly.
He guessed, by that response, she was all right.
“Jesus, Doug. You made a mess. I’m always telling you, not the kneecaps. Christ, the man will never walk again.”
Nick was in the room, staggering a bit, a huge lump had formed on his temple and the bruising had already begun.
“Oh Nick, your head.” Julia started to rush forward in concern. “We need to get you some ice.”
“You’re bloody well not nursemaiding me. I know from experience you aren’t very good at it.”
“Well!” Julia halted with a skid halfway to her friend, clearly affronted.
“Girl,” Nick returned, his voice low with anger, “next time I come tearing into this house and tell you to run, you… better… damned… well… run!”
“Will someone tell me what in the hell is going on?” Roddy Kilpatrick shouted from his position by the doors, a position from which he had not moved, his shotgun still pointed at the ceiling, his hair dusted white with plaster.
Coming up behind him on a wheeze was Margaret Kilpatrick.
“My goodness!” she panted. “Is there an earthquake?”
Roddy whirled. “Woman! I told you to stay with the children!” he yelled, his face going perilously red.
“Ronnie’s with them, they’re all fine!” she yelled right back, an angry flush forming on her own cheeks.
Douglas rolled his eyes to the ceiling in a brief prayer for patience at the utter bedlam in his house and saw the chandeliers lurch precariously.
“Julia, get over here,” he demanded because if the house was going to fall on their heads, it was damned well going to do it when she was in his arms.
She didn’t hesitate. Delicately stepping over bodies in her lovely shoes with her red toenails peeking out of a small, charming indentation in the toe, she muttered, “Should we do something about him?” She indicated the writhing Russian with a low wave of her hand.
“He’ll survive,” Douglas grunted.
She’d come within reach and he reached for her, yanked her forward, her body slamming against his.
“Are you all right?” he repeated his earlier question.
“Yes, fine,” she answered distractedly, still looking down at the man. Then her eyes fluttered to his. “I knew you’d be home any minute so I just waited. You were late, though. That was a bit unfortunate. You’ve been hit.”
Her eyes were now on his bleeding arm but he noted that she was completely calm, as if the house wasn’t at that very moment shirking off a century old curse, as if bodies didn’t litter the hall and drawing room of their home, as if she hurled deadly projectiles at villains every day.
He felt it tear through him. Feelings, emotions, love, desire, happiness, safety, beauty, laughter, everything that was Julia, it ripped through him with a stunning force and nearly brought him to his knees.
Or, more to the point, it mended him, taking the jagged, long-unused shards of his heart and rending them together, complete, functioning and healthy, the scars simply fading away.
He had not needed to put her back together.
He had needed her to do it for him.
His arms stole around her and he buried his face in her neck.
“God, I love you.” His voice was hoarse with feeling, trembling with it and he felt a shudder go through her.
“I’m so glad,” she whispered, her head turned so her lips were at his ear. “I didn’t want to spend my life not telling you how I feel. I love you, Douglas.” Then she tilted her head back, her throat arching and he lifted his head to watch in amazement as she shouted proudly, “Love you, love you, love you. I love Douglas Ashton!”
He would have kissed her but instead, the instant she finished her declaration, the night was pierced by a blood-chilling scream.
The house stilled completely and everyone in the room froze for a moment then scattered, running out to the grand stairwell.
Douglas halted at what he saw. He’d dragged Julia with him, grabbing her hand as he left the drawing room. She slammed into his back then wrapped her arms around his waist, peeking around him and they both, with Nick and the Kilpatricks, witnessed something hideous and momentous.
Douglas could not believe his eyes.
The ghostly vision of a woman was struggling at the foot of the stairs with an unseen attacker who was clearly choking the life out of her.
It was a death struggle.
And she was losing.
A raging howl came from behind them and they all shifted as one and if anyone had seen them, they would have noted it as almost comical.
But it was anything but funny.
Through the French doors they could see the ghost of a man, also fighting against an unseen attacker (or, to Douglas’s way of thinking, more than one considering the bulk of his body, his obvious strength and the desperate nature of his struggle).
The howl he emitted had been fierce, shaking the windows.
And then a blaze of fire shot out of the grate by the leather couches but they all missed it as the ghost man tore away from his attackers and charged forward, up to and through the glass, finding himself for the first time in over a century in the glorious and grand home he built as a proud display of love for his adored wife.
He did not hesitate in triumph at his entry but rushed forward, throwing off her attacker and catching her body, swinging her around as she coughed, spluttered and weakly lifted her hands to hold onto his shoulders.
“Ruby.” His mouth moved but the aching sound didn’t come from there, it came from everywhere, the walls, the floors, the furniture, the carpets.
It came from Sommersgate.
“Archie.” Was her reply, the yearning in the sound was like a caress and it, too, filled the air like oxygen.
“Oh my God,” Mrs. K breathed and Douglas felt a strange sensation behind him, realising that Julia was holding onto him tightly, her arms wrapped around his waist, her body pressed against his and hers was rent with silent sobs.
He pulled her around toward his front, his arms encircling her as she snuggled into his chest, pressing her cheek against him there all the while she watched the ghostly reunion.
Douglas looked again to the beings who had inhabited his home long before he’d come into the world. Beings Tamsin had sworn existed but he had never sensed.
They were embracing, kissing passionately and it was almost embarrassing to watch even though he could not, for the life of him, tear his eyes away.
With the spirits still kissing, the words came from Sommersgate, from the voices long since stilled in the past.
“Douglas, Julia, thank you. We wish you…”
Then they were fading, still embracing but slowly fading until they were completely out of sight.
“…love.” It was a whisper and Douglas felt Julia’s tremble communicate itself through his body.
Sommersgate was still, quiet, all that it was, all that it used to be, was gone, fading with the spectres.
Leaving behind only stones and mortar, wood and glass, iron and granite.
All of it built in love.
Douglas and Julia’s home.