Sommersgate House by Kristen Ashley Read Free Book Online

disappointed his father, Maxwell would
unleash a verbal fury on Douglas that shook the windows.
    And Douglas
disappointed his father often.
    Maxwell had
never once used his fists on his son but back then Douglas often
wished he would. Douglas had seen, and done, violence in his life
and those kinds of wounds healed a great deal more quickly.
    “Jesus, I look
at you and wonder if you’re even my son,” Maxwell spat at him once,
his eyes narrowed with contempt.
    It was a
ridiculous pronouncement. Douglas looked almost exactly like his
father, except he was three inches taller and ten pounds
leaner.
    At first
Douglas worked to prove his worth to his father, to make him proud,
exhausting himself in the effort.
    He’d stopped
doing that somewhere in his teens, learning the lesson that no
matter what, no matter how much, no matter how well, nothing would
make his father proud.
    Through all of
this, Monique blithely went her way, never once defending her son
(but often defending Maxwell), never once dirtying her hands with
the sordid little secret their family shared (but often accepting
bribes to keep her silence or to encourage her to go on her
way).
    After he’d
given up on his father, the only thing Douglas had to prove was
Tamsin’s faith in him.
    Through all
these times, Tamsin had been there. She soothed his brow when they
were children and she cheered him on when they were older. After an
episode, she’d seek him out and try to make him smile or she’d
defend him fiercely in whispers, hidden away from Maxwell or
Monique’s ears.
    “ Doug,
you’re worth ten of him!
Maybe fifteen! Don’t listen to a word he says,” she would
say.
    Douglas
never knew what he’d done to deserve such devotion from his
sister.
    On the other
hand, Maxwell had adored his beautiful daughter. She’d never borne
the brunt of his anger and scorn. She had her own tortures to
endure from a Mother who simply didn’t care. But Tamsin held little
love for her father, always loyal to Douglas and the two of them
grew up like children without parents. The adults who bore and
sired them being necessary evils on a path that they both hoped
would lead to freedom.
    Douglas
allowed himself a rare moment to feel pleased that Tamsin enjoyed a
taste of that freedom if only for awhile.
    For his part,
he had found his own escape. If Tamsin had known what he did or how
he spent a great deal of his time, Douglas had no idea how she
would react. Perhaps proud, he thought, and frightened, to be
certain. She, and everyone else, thought he was bent on money and
power, and this was true, he enjoyed the tactics of business. But
it was not a challenge and Douglas was very like his father in many
ways, he enjoyed a challenge.
    Now Tamsin
would never know (not that he would have ever told her, he wasn’t
free to tell anyone).
    His
sister was dead and she left him responsible for a mess. What
possessed her, he’d
never know. Tamsin’s mind worked in mysterious ways and her wishes
for her children, Julia and Sommersgate was just another one of
those mysteries.
    Or perhaps,
Douglas thought absently, not so much of a mystery.
    Tamsin had
always been a hopeless romantic and since she was a little girl she
believed in the legendary Myth of Sommersgate, its awful history
and its alleged curse. She’d told him more than once she’d hoped
he’d free the house she loved from the curse and free the long line
of barons who presided over it from the tragedy and unhappiness
that plagued them.
    In other
words, his sister desperately wanted Douglas to fall in love.
    This desire
increased substantially after she’d found Gavin, wanting some of
the bounty she had for her beloved brother. Douglas thought this
had to be her reasoning, throwing Julia into his life. Douglas had
little doubt that in Tamsin’s romantic imaginings he would fall for
Julia and end the curse she foolishly believed rested on
Sommersgate and, in so doing, afflicted Douglas himself.
    Driving by a
still-lit