“Not at the table, Ruby,” Douglas warned automatically, sounding to his own ears like the doting but strict father-figure.
Before he could react to this unwelcome thought, however, Julia shot him another pleased look, her green eyes melting from bright to tender. His chest constricted further and he used every ounce of willpower to ignore it even as he noticed Charlotte give Oliver a meaningful look and Sam hiding her grin by shoving a fork full of coffee cake in her mouth.
“Sorry Unka Douglas but can I say what I’m thankful for?” Ruby asked politely, at a decibel level that was still loud but didn’t shake the windows.
“Please do,” he invited.
She screwed her face up with her big announcement and then broke out into a crooked smile, “I forget!”
Everyone burst out laughing and Douglas watched Julia. The exhaustion that had been etching her features since she arrived was gone, the light was back in her eyes. Her glance fluttered to his yet again but this time she turned away and busied herself with filling her plate.
“We’re not eating again until three or four so you better fill up now,” Julia told the crowd, acting the kind and efficient hostess and making Monique’s dark expression turn black.
Julia didn’t have to encourage anyone, all plates were piled high, except Monique, who had a small bit of eggs and a rasher of bacon.
Regardless of her expression, Monique was being uncharacteristically well-behaved and Douglas didn’t trust it. She had something up her sleeve and Douglas was keen to give Julia her Thanksgiving weekend. Having friends and family around her seemed to delight and relax her and he planned to take best advantage of that.
Last night, he’d seen a serious thawing of the icy reserve Julia had been showing him since he announced his intentions.
He still couldn’t credit the moment when she’d leaned over him, her br**sts brushing his back, and blew in his ear. He’d nearly grabbed her, thrown her over his shoulder and carried her to his bed like a caveman.
He’d never had such an acute and uncontrolled reaction before, to anything, much less a woman.
He knew she was more than slightly inebriated at the time but he had never worried too much about the ethics of his tactics, just as long as, in the end, he got what he wanted.
However, unfortunately, he knew it was too soon and Julia would have been furious at such an action perpetrated in front of Charlotte and Oliver, so he kept control of himself, but only just barely.
And Douglas was more and more determined to get what he wanted, for a variety of reasons.
In a short time, Julia had a remarkable effect on everything around her and thus everything around him.
Sommersgate itself had changed. It was more welcoming than he’d ever felt it. The staff were more cheerful, even smiling openly to each other, Julia, the children and even him (they were still dour-faced and smile-less when Monique made an appearance). Last night, entertaining friends, the house felt normal. Although he’d never really known normal but he knew that Sommersgate felt no longer cold and forbidding but instead warm and even welcoming.
Douglas cleared these thoughts. He’d never believed what many of the staff, local myth, and even Tamsin thought as the house having its own personality.
What he did believe was that Julia thought that she had truly seen a ghost last night. As hilariously adorable as she was in her fright (and she was, indeed, adorable), it was clear she believed thoroughly in the myth that shrouded Sommersgate. To Douglas’s way of thinking, this was only to his fortune. He was pleased she saw The Mistress last night and hoped the ghost would return and drive her, again, straight into his arms.
He just hoped the next time she ran into him, they were closer to his bed.
The breakfast manfully consumed with still enough left over for another group of their size to eat until they were satiated, everyone filed away from the table. Sam and Charlie headed to the kitchen and Oliver and Douglas were off to the stables when Douglas saw Carter.
Monique was drifting toward the morning room and Julia was seeing to the children when Douglas called out to the man.
“The shrubbery around Miss Fair…” he stopped himself and thought of how the staff addressed her less formally, “Miss Julia’s windows needs cutting back. Please see to it.”
Carter simply nodded but Douglas caught the look of disdain on Monique’s face and the look of pleasure on Julia’s.
Everyone but the women spent the day pleasantly occupied however they saw fit. After breakfast, the children followed Oliver and Douglas to the stables, they all saddled horses and took a morning ride, Ruby seated in front of Douglas, Willie and Lizzie on their own mounts.
When they returned, the children came and went from the kitchen. Charlie and Sam would emerge for a rest but Julia was firmly entrenched in her cooking and Douglas didn’t see her the entire day.
At three, Veronika moved through the house timidly to tell people that supper would be served in forty-five minutes. At the allotted time, Douglas and Oliver met Charlotte at the bottom of the stairwell. Charlotte had changed from casual clothes into a fetching black dress.
“Did it really take you three and Veronika and Mrs. K to make Thanksgiving dinner?” Oliver asked his wife after he’d kissed her cheek.
“No, but we didn’t make a Thanksgiving dinner, we made two Thanksgiving dinners,” Charlotte answered.
“For God’s sake, why?” Oliver breathed, likely still recovering from the breakfast orgy.