Regardless of the madness she seemed to be exuding, she managed, as ever, to do it in style. She wore a thin, fitted top and a pair of light blue pants that hung low on her hips and clung to the right places. She was barefoot, her toes painted a deep, rich red, and her thick, blonde hair was waving softly around her face and down past her shoulders. However flimsy her clothing, she looked like she could walk down the street in them and have every woman wanting the same outfit and every man staring at her just as Douglas was staring at her now.
She skidded to a halt in front of him.
“I heard a scream,” she told him, breathless.
That was not what he had expected to hear.
Before he could respond, she put her hand on his chest in that familiar way of hers, bent slightly at the waist and took in two shuddering breaths.
She pulled herself straight again and said, “The kids are okay, sleeping. But I heard this awful scream.”
He looked down at her hand on his chest and then at her, regarding her silently.
He could turn on his heel, walk into his study and close the door, leaving her to her bizarre moment of insanity. Or, a far more pleasant idea was to pick her up, carry her to her rooms and make her so exhausted she’d cease these ridiculous actions, go to sleep and let him get back to work.
He nearly had to shake his head to clear that unbidden and unwelcome but very interesting thought from his mind. Dragging her to bed on her first night and seducing her while she was displaying symptoms of temporary insanity was most likely not the best way to welcome her to Sommersgate House.
He couldn’t let this woman, who was letting jetlag, unfamiliar surroundings and a highly emotional situation the like of leaving everything near and dear to her behind and starting a new life in a foreign country, lead her to strange delusions, stand in a cold hallway.
“Come to the study, let me get you a drink,” he offered.
She didn’t move even as he did. “Did you hear me? Douglas, I heard a woman scream. A… woman… scream.”
He continued walking and, as he expected, after a moment’s hesitation, she followed him. He poured a whisky for himself, a sherry for her.
He handed it to her.
“Drink,” was all he said.
She took the glass but did not drink. He lifted his whisky to his lips and sipped from it, watching her over the rim of his glass.
She was staring at him as if it was he that had lost his mind, her lovely green eyes managing to look both rounded and narrowed at the same time.
“Douglas –”
“Julia, calm yourself. Sit down, drink,” he commanded and expected her, as he would anyone, to obey.
“Douglas! I heard… a woman… scream!”
He sighed. He’d lived at Sommersgate his whole life, he had, of course, heard this story before.
“You heard nothing. You have jetlag. You were probably asleep and dreaming.”
“Jetlag doesn’t make you start hearing things. I know what I heard. And I wasn’t asleep,” she retorted sharply.
Douglas watched her. Her breathing had slowed but she still kept looking out the door as if she was going to see something there.
She hadn’t sat, she hadn’t drunk, she hadn’t done anything he told her to do.
He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had spoken to him in that tone. In fact, outside of his father, there might never have been a time when anyone had spoken to him in that tone.
He also couldn’t remember a time when he’d issued an order that hadn’t been carried out immediately.
This was a new sensation for him and it was intriguing.
“Do you hear anything now?” he asked, feigning concern.
“No.”
“What were you doing when you heard this… scream?”
“I was making lists. I was doing a budget. I was wide awake and…” She stopped herself and looked back out the door. She tipped her head to the side and seemed to be listening for something or thinking about something.
Then she took a deep breath and her teeth bit into her generous bottom lip. When her eyes came back to his, she seemed to have come to some conclusion.
“Yes, yes, you’re right. It was just… I’m exhausted. I’m sorry. I can’t sleep. Haven’t slept well in a long time. I’m sorry.”
When she stopped speaking, he raised an eyebrow then motioned to the couch with a nod of his head. This time she obeyed his unspoken command and sat down. She took a drink and then opened her mouth wide and breathed out like something burned her tongue. Her expression was so preposterous, it almost made Douglas smile.
“What is that?” she asked, lifting the glass to indicate the source of her question.
“Sherry,” he replied, walking to the desk and leaning a thigh against it. Then he took another sip of the whisky while he watched her.
“I’m sorry but it’s awful,” she told him, setting the glass down on the table in front of her.
“That’s a sweet sherry, would you like something dry?”
She raised comically horrified eyes to him at the thought of anything sherry and said, “No. No, thank you, no. No sherry, sweet or dry. Sherry, blech. Are you drinking sherry?”
As he regarded her sitting on his couch in her tight, fetching outfit, Douglas thought that this was a very bizarre conversation and would have preferred not to be having it. He also didn’t have time (nor would he allow himself) to consider the many things he would have preferred to be doing, most specifically with her or, to be precise, to her, as his call would be coming through shortly.
“Whisky,” he replied, seeking patience.
“May I have some whisky?”
Obliging her, he walked to the drinks cabinet, thinking to give her some spirit to soothe her mental state and get her to go to bed. There were a number of things to do and she was distracting.
“Do you like whisky?” he asked.
“I hate it,” she answered and when he turned on that strange comment, he saw she was again looking out the door. She had lifted her hand to pull her hair off her face and then she looked back at him, dropping her arm. He couldn’t help but notice how even these superfluous movements were innately graceful. Her face was free of makeup and her hair was slowly falling back into place around her face. He knew that she was thirty-six years old but she looked a decade younger.
Her voice was low and deep but entirely feminine and very sensuous. He’d always liked the way she’d said his name in that voice.
He’d forgotten that.
She lifted her legs to sit crossed-legged on the couch as he brought her the whisky. His mother would have had a coronary, to see a woman at Sommersgate sitting cross-legged, wearing whatever it was Julia was wearing, no matter how fetching (and whatever it was, it was not couture), with her feet tucked underneath her. That thought, as well, almost made Douglas smile.
“It feels warm going down,” Julia said.
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
“The whisky. It tastes terrible but feels warm going down. I’m chilled the bone.” And as if to demonstrate, she shivered dramatically.
He wasn’t surprised she was cold. She was barely wearing any clothes.
With effort, he pulled his eyes from her body and his thoughts away from the better ways there were to warm her and said sardonically, “Welcome to Sommersgate.” And to that, he lifted his glass to her in salute.
Her green eyes, which had been staring into her whisky glass, moved to him and in the briefest second, they lit right before she laughed.
He could not recall ever making her laugh before although he’d seen others do it. She’d always had an uninhibited laugh, throaty and rich, which engaged her whole body, rather than just her mouth. He’d always enjoyed hearing and watching her laugh.