Her mother made a “humph” sound that in Julia’s vast experience was more a motherly “I-know-you’re-not-telling-me-something” humph than “I’m-angry-about-something” humph.
When the phone call was done, in an attempt to keep the light-hearted spirit of the day going, Julia organised a game. Lizzie spread the Monopoly board on the carpet in front of the fire in the library in between the three couches that flanked and faced it. They were making teams and the minute Douglas sauntered in, Lizzie shouted, “Auntie Jewel and Uncle Douglas have to be a team!”
Julia’s mind wasn’t working fast enough to find a way to back out that didn’t appear ungracious, so, before she could utter a word, she was saddled with Douglas as her partner.
He, to all appearances, was happy as a clam with these arrangements.
Julia was on the floor, stretched out on her side, her back to the fire, up on her elbow, her head resting in her hand. To her shock (and perhaps everyone else in the room’s, except Nick, who smiled slyly), Douglas stretched out behind her.
With all expectant eyes on her, it would have been impolite to change her position and Julia allowed herself a quiet annoyed noise only to hear Douglas chuckle behind her. This made her feel angry enough to emit a louder annoyed noise which, to the assembled crowd’s bigger shock, made Douglas burst out laughing.
She decided from that point forward to keep her noises to herself and spent the entire game enduring Douglas moving the pieces and rolling the dice by reaching over her to get to the board (each time, his chest pressing into her back).
After awhile she couldn’t stop herself from enjoying the game (as much as she tried). Douglas was competitive and relentless and he preyed mercilessly upon weaker teams which included everyone else playing. Furtively, when she thought Douglas wasn’t paying attention, Julia would steal from their bank and slip notes into her opposing teammates’ piles. When she snuck £100 into Ruby and Ronnie’s fast-dwindling stack, he leaned close to her ear and whispered softly, “Stop doing that.”
She fought the thrill that ran across her skin and twisted her neck to look at him in feigned, wide-eyed innocence, “What?”
He loomed over her, his face so close she took that moment to memorise the shape of the scar on his lip.
“Don’t think you can distract me,” he warned but she could tell he was teasing (teasing!).
Her eyes moved to his and they were dark as midnight.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she assured him and forced herself to concentrate on the game and not provoke him, mainly because she feared the consequences, not from him but from her own damned body (and heart, if she was perfectly honest with herself).
Unable to help the other players, she and Douglas trounced the rest. She could have been the unhappiest winner in history which made Douglas’s now ever present grin all the more pronounced.
Unwilling to start another game or any activity which Lizzie could manipulate into a matchmaker’s dream, they moved on to nightcaps. Soon Douglas was carrying a sleeping Ruby, who was so exhausted she didn’t wake, to her room. Julia followed and Douglas left her to struggle her sleeping niece’s body into a nightgown.
Taking this as their cue, when Julia arrived back downstairs, the others moved to leave and Julia gave them all a tight hug good-bye.
“The best Christmas Sommersgate has had in as long as I’ve known it, lass,” Mr. Kilpatrick said gruffly and Julia awarded him a bright smile that made pink tinge his cheeks.
When it was just family, Julia and Douglas rounded up Lizzie and Willie for bed, walking them into the hall for goodnight kisses.
Once Willie finished his fast-as-lightning kiss on Julia’s cheek, he said quietly, “It was a good day, Auntie Jewel.”
Instantly, Julia’s throat closed. He sounded so like his father that she struggled to keep her face straight and the emotion from showing.
Just like Gavin would do, Willie noticed how hard she’d worked on the day and he commented on it.
“You’re a good man, William Fairfax” she told him, mock gravely putting her hand on his shoulder, trying to lighten the mood.
“I know,” he replied with a cheeky grin, which was also pure Gavin and made Julia’s heart lurch.
Her eyes caught Douglas’s to see he was watching them, his expression soft and thoughtful and she was just about to say something, do anything to dispel the moment when they heard a piercing, blood-curdling scream.
Not a ghostly woman’s scream.
A child’s scream.
Julia’s blood turned to ice but before she could move to the stairs, Douglas was there taking them three at a time, leaving Julia, Lizzie and Willie well behind.
By the time she skidded to a halt at Ruby’s opened door with Lizzie and Willie at her heels, Douglas was standing in the middle of the room with Ruby in his arms, the child’s limbs wrapped around him tightly.
Ruby was crying uncontrollably and through her sobs, Julia heard her say, “I was a good girl, Santa came and everything. I thought if I was a good girl, Mummy and Daddy would come home for Christmas. They said that Mummy and Daddy went far away where I can’t see them but I’ve been shouting…” she hiccupped pitifully, “shouting all the time so they could…” more hiccups, “hear me but they didn’t come back. I thought for certain on Christmas they’d come back and know exactly where to find me because I’ve been shouting and shouting and shouting!”
Douglas turned and looked over Ruby’s shoulder at Julia. The tears Julia wouldn’t allow herself to shed earlier pricked the backs of her eyes and then they were there, falling silently down her face.
Julia stood where she was and reached out blindly to grab Lizzie and Willie’s hands. Douglas would have to do this alone; she needed to see to the other two. They moved into her body, pressing themselves to her, she dropped their hands and wrapped an arm around each as she heard Lizzie’s soft weeping.
Douglas’s hand moved slowly on Ruby’s back until her uncontrollable wailing turned to mere sobs and hiccups and then he said in a soft, gentle voice filled with pulsating tenderness, “They can hear you Ruby, they can even see you, they just can’t come back,” he hesitated a heart-stopping second before saying, “ever.”
At that announcement, Ruby’s breath hitched and so did Lizzie’s.
Douglas turned so his back was to Julia and the children in order that Ruby could see them. He was still cradling her in his arms. “They trusted you to us, sweetheart, we’re your family now.”