Julia opened the door and a short woman with dark hair highlighted expertly with blonde streaks charged in.
“Okay… I hope I’m not too late but I had a million things to do,” the woman announced without saying hello.
But she didn’t have to say hello.
Julia had never met Sam Thornton but she would know her voice anywhere.
Sam whirled around once she’d gained entry and stopped. Julia saw Sam was wearing a well-cut, black suit with impossibly high-heeled black pumps and still she was at least four inches shorter than Julia.
“Well, I can see I didn’t need to rush. Wow, that’s quite a dress,” Sam pronounced, her eyes giving Julia a head-to-toe.
“Sam,” Julia said and walked forward, bent down and tightly hugged the woman she’d known for months but had never met.
The last three days, as with the last five months, Sam had been her lifeline. She’d arranged for Julia to have a mobile phone, a laptop and had the technician come to Sommersgate to connect Julia’s new computer not only to the high-speed broadband that was already laid to the house but also to connect it to Douglas’s complicated, wireless network in the house. Sam acquired an e-mail address for her as well and this meant Julia was in touch with family and friends back home and for that she’d be forever grateful.
Sam had sent Julia all the forms she needed for her driving license and from the Home Office. She’d researched health insurance and sent her job openings and volunteer opportunities in Julia’s field. She’d even looked into getting Julia a bank account, which right now seemed impossible due to laws put in place to prevent terrorist activities and thus Julia had to be a resident of the country. It appeared Douglas had to open an account for her which was an aggravation Julia did not need and something she had to discuss with him on Sunday.
As the days went by, Julia was getting more and more uncomfortable with the “arrangement”, as Douglas had called it, and needing to rely so heavily on him, even when he wasn’t there. Her debts to him were mounting up and Julia was making carefully updated lists to tally these debts so she could (if she ever saw him for long enough to have a conversation with him) settle them.
Once Julia stepped back from Sam, the other woman started talking in her usual rapid fire way.
“Good to meet you too,” she said, obviously flustered at Julia’s show of affection. “I brought half a dozen frocks just in case you didn’t have anything suitable to wear tonight but it seems I didn’t need to worry.” She gestured at Julia’s outfit and then quickly on to another thought, she glanced around her. “Where are the kids?”
Without a response from Julia, Sam headed directly towards the lounge and the other woman’s command of the situation and everything around her made Julia smile.
She looked down at her dress thinking with amusement about Sam taking charge of even her wardrobe. Julia’s dress was jade green satin, with a high, mandarin neckline with intricate aquamarine frogs and scrolled cording. The hem was embroidered extravagantly in pale yellows, deep pinks, aquamarine with accents of black and gold with high slits up her thighs on either side. She wore a pair of delicate but dangerous-looking high, spike-heeled, slingback pumps. She’d twisted her hair up at the back, clipping it at the crown with a gold barrette inset with jade allowing the thick, waving blonde mass to fall over the clip.
She followed Sam into the lounge and it was clear the children knew her as they crowded around and Sam gave them affectionate hugs. Either they knew her or they were overwhelmed by the big chocolate bars she was freely distributing from her handbag.
Julia’s week had been hectic, settling in, getting sorted, understanding the children’s schedules which included daytime trips for Ruby to gymnastics and ballet classes and evening piano and violin lessons for Willie and Lizzie with Lizzie also taking ballet. There was also homework and instrument practice and the rigid schedule of the house mealtimes and bedtimes to keep.
That day they’d left early and Julia was thrilled to be free of the forbidding house that, even as enormous as it was, still felt claustrophobic. She sensed a strangeness there she couldn’t put her finger on and Ruby’s imaginary friend (whom the girl talked about all the time) was giving her the creeps.
Carter drove them to London where they spent an excruciatingly busy day visiting Kensington Palace, the mad, tourist-filled crush of Madame Tussaud’s and the equally crowded Tower of London.
Still not sleeping well, with a day on her feet fighting crowds, watching over the children and hustling from one place to the next, Julia was shattered.
All week, when she did eventually sleep, it was fitful, filled with strange dreams she couldn’t quite remember or disturbed by an odd tapping at the window that was most likely the branch of a tree or shrub but in the dark of night seemed something else, something sinister.
Tonight, Sam had told her, she would be having dinner with Douglas and two of his friends, Charlotte and Oliver Forsythe. Julia had met Charlotte and Oliver on several occasions when she’d visited Tammy and Gav. Charlotte was the editor-in-chief of a glossy fashion magazine and Oliver’s family was in banking. “In banking” was Tammy’s way of saying his family owned the controlling share of a bank with hundreds of branches nationwide. Julia liked them both. Even though she didn’t know either of them very well she knew they’d been good friends to Tammy and Gav.
They would all then be off to an art gallery opening. There, Sam warned her, she would face the “paps”. Thus the need for Sam’s “frocks” as Sam had informed her she wanted Julia to be confident in the face of the onslaught.
“And every girl knows, confidence often comes in the form a fantastic outfit!” Sam had proclaimed (quite rightly).
This was something Julia had not anticipated. She did not look forward to this evening, dressing up and having dinner with people she didn’t know very well was enough of a drain on her flagging resources. But facing “paps” made it all the worse.
“Paps” was English slang for “paparazzi”. Tamsin and Gavin, she knew, were both photographed frequently at balls and other events that Tamsin supported in her role as Lady Tamsin Ashton Fairfax. But Douglas was positively hunted by the photographers. Julia had seen his face dozens of times in various magazines in The States. Until Sam reminded her, it hadn’t occurred to Julia that, in being with him, she would also face the paparazzi. This would be a unique experience but she couldn’t imagine they’d have an interest in her when Douglas was there as a target. Perhaps, she thought (or more to the point hoped), it wouldn’t be that bad.