“I told you!” she cried. “I saw it! She was standing… floating… forming, whatever! Right over there!” Julia pointed at the corner. “And what’s more, The Master scratches at the window every night. I hear him and I saw him once too.”
“Who told you this story?” Douglas asked, his voice and face now beginning to betray anger.
“No one, I saw him and heard him and felt her. I asked Mrs. K…” She stopped when his head tipped back and his eyes moved to the ceiling.
After a few seconds, his gaze locked on hers. “Mrs. Kilpatrick told Tamsin these stories too when she was a little girl. Tamsin believed them all her life, just like you do now.”
“Well, Tamsin didn’t tell me. Neither did you. But I saw or felt them both and I know Ruby does as well and so does Veronika.”
“It’s an old ghost story. Someone puts it in your mind and you see it.”
“So,” she stood with hands on her hips, “there was no old baron who died trying to get in this house while his wife was locked inside and mysteriously strangled?”
“That story is true,” he admitted.
“See!” Julia threw up her arms, dislodging his hand.
When it was clear she wasn’t going to listen to him or calm down, he grabbed her and pulled her into the safety and warmth of his strong arms and, Julia had to admit, she felt exactly that. Warmth and safety. Intense warmth and safety.
Oh dear.
“Julia, listen to me,” Douglas ordered quietly when she automatically relaxed in his arms. “You’re safe here. Nothing is going to happen to you.”
She stared into his eyes and they were so serious and so grave, she believed him.
“Promise?” she asked on a whisper, sounding childish but she didn’t care because, bottom line, she’d just seen a ghost! Douglas nodded and then something occurred to her. “What were you doing in the dining room?”
He smiled and his arms tightened. “Coming to see how sorry you were about your comment earlier this evening,”
It was such an audacious thing to say and do, and the night had been so pleasant, she threw back her head and laughed, then tilted it forward and rested her forehead against his chest. After she caught her breath, she looked at him and noticed he was grinning down at her.
That grin warmed her even more and made her stomach clench pleasantly.
Even so, she informed him, “I’m not that sorry.”
“I figured not.” He was still smiling.
She realised belatedly that this had gone on long enough. She stiffened in his arms, pulled away and said, “I’m okay now, Douglas, you can leave. But… um, thank you.”
He didn’t try to reach for her again and she fought against a strong sense of disappointment she knew she shouldn’t have.
“Are you going to send my electricity bill even higher by sleeping with all these lights on?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she lied without remorse.
He stared at her a moment and nodded again.
Then he carried on with his unusual sweet Douglas behaviour which meant his hand came up and he cupped the back of her head. Bringing her forward, he kissed her forehead. It was a strange and, she had to admit, gorgeously intimate gesture that made her feel something deeper than warmth. It was sweeter and it was also very, very frightening.
Then he walked away and she had to fight again to tamp down more disappointment as she watched him go.
The door closed behind him and she was forced to acknowledge, against her better judgement, even if it was only in her own mind, that she had a wonderful evening that night (apart from the ghost, of course) and Douglas had contributed to that wonderful evening, more than a little.
She washed her face, slathered on her moisturiser, put on stretchy pair of black pyjama bottoms and a plum-coloured tank top and slid into bed, keeping every light burning.
She was just settling down with her book when her door opened and she jumped a mile.
It was Douglas.