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.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Toasts
Julia stood at the back of the cathedral, her bridesmaids, Lizzie and Ruby, milling around her and Will yanking nervously at his collar but still looking quite dapper in his morning suit.
She’d peeked into the church to see Douglas and Oliver line up at the front and to watch Will escort Patricia to her seat. Patricia was wearing such an enormous, baby pink hat, replete with ruffles and rosettes, that Julia wondered how her mother managed to manoeuvre herself down the aisle without toppling over. Her nephew then turned and tried not to (but definitely did) scurry back to Julia.
It was Julia and Douglas’s wedding day.
Monique was not in attendance, she sent word she was deathly ill with the flu.
Julia couldn’t have been more pleased at the news but she tried to hide her reaction when she saw the dark look that crossed Douglas’s face, though, he said not a word.
The very proud looking Kilpatricks sat in the front row on Douglas’s side, next to Charlotte and Nick, with Sam and Ronnie (and their boyfriends) and Carter and his daughter sitting behind.
Julia thought happily that was a far better representation of Douglas’s family than Monique would ever be.
Both sides of the church were filled to capacity. Julia had protested the guest list but Douglas demanded that every business and social acquaintance he had be present.
“If I could,” he whispered into her neck one dark night, “I’d have the world watch me make you mine.”
It was, of course, an atrociously possessive thing to say but who was she to argue?
For her part, a great number of her family and friends were there, mainly because Douglas had bought every seat on a commercial jet flying from O’Hare to Heathrow. That gesture made the trip a great deal more affordable for a lot of people.
Finishing this assemblage, there was enough paparazzi outside to make the BAFTAs look tame in comparison.
Julia was wearing what Gregory termed his “masterpiece” (in a short time, she had become known widely as Gregory’s “muse”).
Her wedding gown was a simple, long, backless, sleeveless, boat necked, ivory silk dress, the silk being the most extraordinary material Julia had ever touched. Cut on the bias, it fit superbly, flowing all the way down to her feet where the very pointed toes of her ivory pumps peaked out. The back hem fell in a graceful train three feet long. She wore ivory gloves up to her middle upper arms, a choker made of four rows of pearls separated by bars of diamonds imbedded in platinum, a matching bracelet and a set of earrings that had a teardrop pearl suspended from a beautiful diamond (this an “early” wedding gift from Douglas making her wonder what the “during” and “after” wedding gifts would be – for her part, she carried with her a secret that was Douglas’s present that she prayed he would adore). She carried a bouquet made completely out of perfect white roses.
As usual in Julia’s life, the day had not run smoothly (to say the least).
She had started it in her rooms surrounded by her girlfriends from Indiana and England, everyone wanting to help but doing nothing but getting in the way. Charlotte, Gregory and Patricia had a fight over how Julia was going to wear her hair even though Julia and Sylvie, the stylist, had long since decided on a style.
“She must wear it up, something soft, with curls at the back and tendrils around her neck with baby’s breath,” Patricia demanded (and Julia thought it sounded like something a girl would wear to a prom).
“Down! Straight! Edgy!” Gregory clipped out, speaking (as per usual) in as many exclamation-point-ending, one-word phrases as he could (Gregory, at last, a match for Patricia’s dramatics).
“A sleek, elaborate up-do, with the front of her hair parted severely, smoothed over and tucked in…” Charlotte declared and then went on for several more words.
Julia let Charlotte win because that was the closest to what Sylvie and Julia had decided and because Charlie happened to be the editor of a glossy fashion magazine and likely knew what she was talking about.
Then Patricia decided she was not sure about the gloves.
Then Patricia launched into her (oft-heard) lecture about how high heels would ruin your back.
Then Patricia doubted the wisdom of having only one wedding colour, ivory, saying they should add a last-minute infusion of something else, like pink.
And so on.
Before preparations to her toilette began in earnest, Douglas had walked into Julia’s rooms causing Patricia to shriek and Gregory to hyperventilate, waving his hand in front of his face like a wilting Southern belle.
“You can’t see her before the wedding!” Patricia exclaimed, her voice shrill.
Douglas ignored his very-soon-to-be mother-in-law and just stared at Julia with an intense ferocity that she had learned from experience looked at lot worse than it was. Before he could say what he came to say, Julia spoke mainly because she’d had enough.
“You sure you want to do this? You’ve got a good fifteen, twenty years having to put up with this crazy old bat.” She indicated her mother with a frustrated jerk of her head.
“Well, I never!” Patricia cried.
“I wish!” Julia retorted.
Charlie giggled.
Julia swung back to Douglas. “If you’re going to pull out, pull out now. It’s not too late. You’re rich enough, you can buy us an island where we can live in sin and install ground-to-air missiles to shoot her down should she try to chopper in.”