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Her Sister's Baby
Alison Fraser
When Dray Carlisle turned up unexpectedly, Cass knew there must be trouble afoot. She hadn't seen Dray for three years, after their brief but intensely passionate affair had ended.However, Cass wasn't prepared for Dray's news: her younger sister, from whom she'd become estranged, had died in childbirth. Cass couldn't turn her back on her newborn niece…and that meant Dray and the irresistible sexual attraction between them would also be part of her life once more….
“You!”
Dray Carlisle reached to switch on a bedside lamp.
“Yes,” she confirmed as light filled the darkness. “Me.”
“I don’t believe it. What are you doing here?”
“Right at the moment, trying to get Ellie back to sleep,” she responded as the baby’s cries escalated. “Unless you’d like to do it? In which case, could I suggest a slightly less aggressive tone?”
She offered the baby to him, but it was purely a mocking gesture.
His eyes bored into her as he responded, “Very funny…I’ll wait outside.”
“If that’s what you want.” Cass’s tone was dismissive.
“No, what I want,” he growled back, “is to go to bed.”
Cass shrugged. She wasn’t stopping him.
“Don’t worry, that wasn’t a proposition.”
“I wasn’t worried,” she returned sharply.
It backfired, however, as he paused briefly to murmur, “Now, that is interesting.”
ALISON FRASER was born and brought up in the far north of Scotland. She studied English literature at university and taught math for a while, then became a computer programmer. She took up writing as a hobby and it is still very much so, in that she doesn’t take it too seriously! Alison currently lives with her husband, children and dogs in Birmingham, England, and is in her forties—she doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up!
Her Sister’s Baby
Alison Fraser
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
CASS walked from the tube station with her eyes down. It was well after dark and, though the streets were lit, few people were about in the driving early summer rain. She had no umbrella, her suede jacket was becoming quickly sodden and her hair hung like rat-tails round her face.
It was times like these she wished she had a car to service instead of a student bank loan. She was just too tired to run. She’d worked the entire weekend and longed for her own bed and eight hours’ uninterrupted sleep.
When she turned into her home street, she was in no state to notice anything, even the sleek expensive car that didn’t quite belong in her neighbourhood. She sailed past it, thinking only of getting the key in her door and reaching shelter.
The driver noticed her, however. He’d been there over an hour and he wasn’t a man used to waiting. Impatience had sharpened his powers of observation and he was out of the car before she’d reached her gate. He followed quickly, having an idea she would close the door on him if she were given the chance.
Cass heard the footsteps behind her and felt the unease most women had on a dark night. She rifled in her bag as she walked and had her key ready by the time she reached her front step.
The echo of footsteps stopped at her gate and made her fingers clumsy as she tried to fit the Yale in the lock and dropped it instead. Unease became alarm as she turned, prepared to cry out at the dark-coated figure bearing down on her.
�Don’t panic,’ a deep, dry voice told her. �It’s me.’
For a moment Cass didn’t recognise the voice—or him—then her nerves steadied and she realised who it was.
�Drayton Carlisle,’ he added, as if it might be necessary.
Did he imagine she’d forgotten? That was an insult in itself.
It had only been three years and he’d changed little. His hair was still dark, the face angular, blue eyes as mocking as ever. The most beautiful man in the universe—that was what her sister Pen called him—and she wasn’t far off. It was just a pity that he was a complete bastard.
�Yes?’ She matched his haughty tone, although hers wasn’t innate. She hadn’t been born sucking on a silver spoon.
He stooped to pick up the key she’d dropped. �May I come in?’
�Do I have a choice?’ she muttered at the action.
�Of course.’ He handed her back the Yale, then stated shortly, �It’s about Pen.’
She had assumed as much. His brother Tom was married to her sister Pen. She wondered if Pen had done something silly again.
His expression was closed, giving nothing away. �Look, can we do this inside?’
�Can’t it keep?’ she appealed. �I’m tired.’
He noted the shadows under her eyes, even as he replied, �No, it can’t.’
�Oh, all right.’ Reluctantly she unlocked the door and let him follow her into the hall. �But if we can make this brief, because I really am exhausted.’
His mouth twisted. �Busy weekend?’
�Somewhat.’ She wasn’t about to go into it; let him think what he liked. He usually did.
�I’ve been phoning you since first thing yesterday,’ he informed her in repressive tones.
�I was out.’
�So I gathered.’
On the town, that was what he imagined. That she had some high social life, the last of the good-time girls. She should be so lucky.
�At work,’ she stressed.
�At six in the morning?’ He clearly didn’t believe her.
It was true, however. Cass had been on call and slept Friday and Saturday in a room in the hospital.
She gave up defending herself and said, �Is this really any of your business?’
Dark brows gathered in displeasure and his mouth thinned, but he surprised her by backing down.
�No, possibly not,’ he agreed, before adding, �If we could go and sit somewhere…?’
He took off his coat, waiting for her to hang it up.
Her reluctance couldn’t have been plainer as she stood, dripping in her own wet clothes and guarding the living-room door.
�I’m not going to leap on you, you know,’ he stated with an impatient edge.
The thought hadn’t entered her mind, but now it did, it hung between them. Not that he’d ever leapt on her. It had been more a mutual thing.
Their eyes met for a second, acknowledging, remembering, then burying the emotions that had briefly coloured their relationship.
She finally took his coat from him and put it on a hook on the wall, then led the way through to the living room.
It always looked shabby, with its odds and ends of furniture bought at junk shops, inherited from friends or simply rescued from skips. He made it look shabbier, dressed as he was in silk shirt and tailored grey suit of impeccable cut.
He was overdressed for a casual visit to her, and the niggle of a bad feeling in her stomach became worse. Was Pen in some kind of trouble?
She watched as he adjusted his long, supple frame in one of her old armchairs and waited for him to speak.
He ran a critical eye over her, too, saying, �If you want to change and get dry first, I’ll wait.’
�No, I’m fine.’ She took off her jacket and threw it over the back of a chair. The blue cotton shirt underneath was damp, as were her navy trousers, but she decided to live with the discomfort. �Do you want a drink?’ she asked out of mere politeness.
It was a surprise when he accepted. �A small whisky if you have it.’
She’d meant tea, but she crouched down to what passed for a drinks-cabinet in the bottom of the sideboard. �I’m afraid it’s vodka and lemonade or martini.’
�Vodka—as it comes.’ He said it like a man who needed a drink, and, when she took out only one glass, added, �I think you should pour yourself one, too.’
Definitely bad news, but then what other kind would this man bring her?
She did what he said, sloshing a little lemonade in her vodka to make it drinkable, and placed his glass on the coffee-table in front of him, before taking the chair opposite.
She watched him fortify himself with a mouthful of liquor, then look across at her, searching for the right words to use, and she realised this wasn’t about some stupid thing Pen had done.
Her sense of déjà vu was too strong. Just that afternoon she’d had to tell a sobbing mother her son was dead, hoping the woman would guess before she had to say the words aloud.
�Something’s happened to Pen, hasn’t it?’ she said to Drayton Carlisle now.
He nodded his head. �I don’t know how to tell you this—’
�She’s dead.’ Cass said the words quickly, then prayed for an equally quick denial.
He looked surprised and gave her brief hope that she was being overly dramatic. Then he took it away as he nodded once more.
He began to speak, to go into detail, but the blood was rushing to Cass’s head and she couldn’t hear what he was saying. She knew she was on the verge of fainting and took a deep breath to steady herself. By sheer force of will, she brought herself back from oblivion, and forced herself to concentrate on his voice.
�The results should be known by Tuesday,’ he concluded gravely.
�The results?’ Cass had missed most of the rest.
He frowned as he repeated, �Of the post mortem.’
�They can’t do that!’ Cass was horrified for Pen. Beautiful Pen, so proud of her looks, her model-girl figure.
�They have to,’ Drayton Carlisle told her quietly, �in cases of unexpected deaths.’
Cass understood that. She just wasn’t thinking on a logical level. The first shock was followed by a sense of unreality.
That sense intensified as he added, �Tom says you may not have known about the baby.’
�The baby?’ she echoed warily—was Pen’s secret finally out?
Drayton Carlisle gave her a puzzled look in return. He’d just explained.
�The baby she was carrying,’ he reminded her. �It’s a girl. She’s in special care.’
Cass shook her head in disbelief—Pen had been pregnant again?
�You didn’t know, did you?’ he concluded from her expression.
Disbelief gave way to anger as Cass muttered aloud, �The stupid, stupid girl!’
Drayton Carlisle’s mouth curved with renewed contempt. �Presumably she anticipated your reaction.’
�I’m sure she did.’ Cass recalled the last conversation she’d had with Pen on the subject. She had warned her then, but of course Pen had never listened.
�She told Tom you might have a problem with it,’ Drayton Carlisle ran on.
That was an understatement. She caught Drayton Carlisle watching her, drawing quite the wrong conclusions. The truth would have vindicated her but how could she reveal it when Pen had paid the ultimate price for her lies?
�What’s the prognosis?’ she asked instead.
�Prognosis?’
�For the baby.’
He frowned at the clinical term, before relaying, �She’s a good size for a premature baby so they’re cautiously optimistic.’
Cass nodded but wouldn’t ask more.
�How is Tom?’ she added instead.
Mention of his brother made Drayton Carlisle’s face grow grimmer.
�Coping,’ he claimed briefly.
Cass doubted it. She thought of Tom Carlisle—less arrogant than big brother, slightly immature, more likeable for his insecurities.
�I’ve arranged the funeral for Wednesday,’ Drayton Carlisle informed her, an indication, perhaps, of the true state of affairs. He had arranged, not Tom.
�Cremation.’ Cass checked he had it right.
He raised a brow at her insistent tone. �No, burial… Why?’
�That’s not what she’d want.’
�How do you know?’
It could have been a genuine question but Cass didn’t think so. He meant: how did she know when she’d had minimal contact with her sister over the last few years?
But she did. She knew her sister better than any of them. She had lived with the real girl, not the sanitised version that had been desperate to become a member of the Carlisle clan.
�You can’t bury her,’ Cass repeated. �She had this thing about it, after our mother died. About bodies rotting in the ground.’
He still looked doubtful. �I’ll check with Tom.’
�Do that if you want—’ she scowled back �—but I’m telling you. She’d want to be cremated.’
�If Tom agrees,’ he conceded, then went on to relay, �It’ll just be a small private funeral, family only.’
She shook her head again. �That’s not what Pen would have liked, either.’
This time his face reflected annoyance as he ceased making concessions for her possible grief. Her hard-bitten tones suggested she felt none, anyway.
�Forgive me, but can you really be the judge of that?’ he countered. �It’s not as if you and Pen were very close.’
Statement or accusation? Cass returned his hard glance. She owed him no explanation of her somewhat complex relationship with Pen.
�Possibly not,’ she conceded. �I just happen to know her attitude towards funerals. At our mother’s, she found it pitiful that there were only a handful of mourners and swore she’d have hundreds at her own. She was only fifteen at the time—’ Cass paused and swallowed hard, determined to hold it together in front of this man �—but I imagine those sentiments stand. Unless Pen suddenly became the shy retiring type?’
�Hardly.’ Drayton Carlisle’s mouth thinned at the idea. �I was thinking of Tom when I arranged the funeral.’
�And I’m thinking of my sister,’ Cass replied.
They abandoned their uneasy truce and exchanged hostile stares.
�And I’m paying for it,’ he pointed out.
End of argument.
Cass’s lip curled. �You’re such a louse, Carlisle.’
He grimaced briefly, before countering, �And you’re the hardest woman I have ever met in my life.’
Deep down it hurt. No woman liked to be called hard. Cass, however, was a past master at hiding her feelings.
�How kind of you to say so,’ she retaliated.
�That wasn’t meant as a compliment.’
�I know.’
They traded stares again. Anger was prevalent for a moment, but it gave way to intrigue as each wondered what made the other tick.
Cass was the first to look away. �I’ll see you out.’
She rose abruptly and he followed. In the hall, they turned at virtually the same moment to reach for his coat and collided a little. The first to recover, Drayton Carlisle put a steadying hand on Cass’s arm.
That was all. But his touch still burned and she recoiled from it as if it were an assault.
�I wasn’t going to hurt you,’ he ground out in a voice tight with control.
�As if,’ Cass threw back, angry at her own lack of self-possession.
Perhaps Pen had been right. She was turning into an up-tight spinster.
�No, of course.’ Drayton Carlisle’s thoughts were on Pen, too, as he relayed, �Your sister always said you were scared of nothing and cared about even less.’
Cass could just hear her sister say the words. She shut her eyes but could still hear them. Tough talk, but quite untrue. Surely Pen had known that she’d cared desperately about her?
Drayton Carlisle watched, at first a detached observer. Finally it was there. Pain etched on her beautiful, high-boned face. He’d wanted it there, to see if the girl he’d briefly known—the girl who could feel and laugh and love—had been real, yet he relented almost immediately as she lifted an anguished hand to her mouth.
�I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that—’ he reached an arm out �—it’s not even tr—’
�It doesn’t matter!’ Cass shook her head before he could retract it. Pointless, anyway. What he’d said was undeniably Pen, a throwaway remark that hurt less than the echoes of her sister’s voice, suddenly destroying her composure.
Tears gathered at the back of her eyes, tore at her throat, threatened to spill too soon, as it finally got through to her, past barriers of self-preservation and years of professional training. Pen was dead. Not just missing for a while. She was never going to sail back into her life, maddening one moment, charming the next, reckless and lovable and, to Cass’s eyes only, so very vulnerable.
�I have to—’ Cass couldn’t get the words out but she made to retreat.
He caught hold of her arm again. �Listen to me, Cass. I was lying,’ he insisted, �and you’re right—I am a louse.’
Just not a total one, Cass realised, unnerved by his turnaround.
�It d-doesn’t m-matter.’ She couldn’t explain. �N-none of it matters. I—I…’ She shut tight her eyes but the tears leaked from them, anyway.
A low, �Damn,’ came from Drayton Carlisle, but, if it was exasperation, he wouldn’t let her turn away.
She tried, only he held her too tightly. She pushed at his shoulders, then actually struck him, when she could no longer stifle her sobs. He let her, offering her something, somebody to rage against in her grief, but she didn’t seem to have the strength. She struck him once more before she suddenly turned into a sobbing pathetic mess in his arms.
She cried for what seemed like an age, her head buried in his shoulder, her hands twisted into the folds of his jacket, and he held her in his arms; for a while their closeness was as natural as breathing. But when there were no more tears left to cry and she sobered up, it was as awkward as a first clinch with a boy.
More so, perhaps, because this wasn’t her first clinch with him.
�I’m okay now.’ She lifted her head away.
�Good.’ He was looking down at her, but she refused to look up.
She spoke to his shoulder. �Please go. I have some calls to make, people to tell.’
�I could do it,’ he offered surprisingly.
�No! No, thank you,’ she tempered her rejection.
�All right.’ He didn’t insist but gently pressed her arm as he said, �Look, I really am sorry—’
�It’s okay, honestly,’ she stopped him before he could go on. �Pen says—said worse to my face. It just sounded so like her, that was all… About the funeral—’
�If Tom agrees, we’ll make it public.’
�You’re right, of course. It’s up to him. But what I was about to say is: I can’t go.’
�What?’ He was clearly shocked.
�I can’t go,’ she repeated as the hand on her arm finally dropped away.
She couldn’t stand at a graveside and bury her sister. It was too hard. No matter that things hadn’t always been right between them.
�I’m on duty all week,’ she claimed as an excuse.
Drayton Carlisle stared at her as if she were mad. �The supermarket could surely spare you for a day.’
Cass stared back, questioning his sanity in turn. Then she realised. Pen hadn’t told them of her career change. Why was that?
�All right, I won’t go,’ she said with blunt honesty. �Satisfied?’
Drayton Carlisle shook his head. It was hard to reconcile this Cass Barker with the one who had been crying in his arms just a few minutes ago.
�I don’t understand you, but then I never did.’
�Did you try?’
It slipped out before Cass could stop it. She heard her own bitterness and was scared of giving more away.
She turned from him and opened the door. She held it wide, waiting for him to leave.
He took the hint, putting on his coat and walking towards the door, but said as he drew level, �We haven’t resolved this yet. I’ll call tomorrow.’
Cass shrugged, as if to say, Do what you like. Tomorrow she might be up to the fight. Tonight she just wanted him to go before she broke down again.
His eyes rested on her a moment longer, intense, searing blue eyes, then he was gone. Thank God.
She closed the door and leaned heavily against it, drained of strength and anger.
Another death to face. It felt like familiar territory. Perhaps because it was. Father. Mother. Sister. Hard not to take personally. Why me? Why us? Why Pen?
She went back through to the sideboard and took out the family photograph album. It contained a record of their lives before their father’s death from cancer when Cass was fifteen and Pen nine. Here were the memories of happy holidays and birthday parties and dressing up for school plays.
These photographs had always made Cass a little mournful. Now, as she turned page after page, and saw Pen, a blonde-haired angel, smiling into cameras, sitting on knees, pulling faces, she felt utterly bereft. This time, when she cried, her grief was for all of them, for her beloved little sister and her strong, clever father and her pretty, laughing mother, and even for herself, the once carefree child she’d been.
The guilt came stealing in later, and, with it, that familiar question: what should I have done? It seemed she’d been asking it for ever. It seemed she’d always got it wrong.
She’d gone away to study medicine at university, imagining that one day she would provide her widowed mother with a better life. When her mother had died in a road accident, how she’d wished she’d never gone away!
The only thing that had kept her from folding then had been her sister. In those first hours and days she had held Pen and comforted her and they had been so close it was hard to imagine they would ever be anything else.
Reality, however, had come to call on the afternoon they had buried their mother. It had been in the shape of a boy, more Cass’s age than Pen’s. Cass had taken in the earring and tattoo and the sullen manner, and stood, aghast, while Pen had grabbed a coat and disappeared before she’d been able to do anything. It had seemed that, in Cass’s absence, Pen had grown up fast—too fast.
When Pen had finally reappeared at two in the morning, Cass’s mind had been made up. She wouldn’t abandon Pen to a life of no-hope boyfriends and, for want of any willing relatives, a year in care. Surely she could do better?
She had fully believed so and had transplanted what had been left of the family to this tiny terraced house in London. Pen had protested loudly and had managed to sulk continuously for a fortnight in between tearful phone calls to the boyfriend. Then gradually she had made friends at her new school and had stopped pining for Pontefract, and Cass had breathed a sigh of relief.
That relief had been short-lived. Within a couple of months, Pen had been going up West—to nightclubs and bars where looks had counted more than birth dates—and Cass had been left to wonder how she could possibly control her.
All those years gone by and Cass still didn’t know the right answer. She just felt if she’d done it, Pen might still be alive.
CHAPTER TWO
WORK was Cass’s salvation. Having finally fallen asleep in the small hours, she was woken at seven a.m. by her pager bleeping. It was the hospital. One of the A and E doctors was himself sick. Would Cass cover for him? She agreed readily. Anything rather than spend a day brooding on her sister’s death.
She told no one and no one would have guessed the serious-faced Dr Barker had cried herself to sleep. She stitched cuts, pumped stomachs, jump-started a heart, all with her normal cool efficiency.
Of course, grief didn’t go away. She put it on hold while she worked the accident unit and coped with other people’s pain, but it returned the moment she was home.
She managed to make phone calls to a great aunt and her mother’s cousin—the only known relatives left—before the cousin’s well-meaning words overwhelmed her. When the phone rang shortly afterwards, she didn’t pick it up. She was crying too hard to talk to anyone.
It was much later when she remembered the call and lifted the receiver to find a message had been left for her. In fact, there were three messages, timed throughout the day, each more terse than the last. They were all from Drayton Carlisle, requesting that she call him on his mobile to discuss funeral arrangements.
He had obviously lost what little sympathy he’d had for her. Cass told herself she didn’t care. She didn’t need his concern. He had never understood her or her relationship with Pen. He knew nothing of the past which had linked them inextricably before driving them apart.
Sometimes secrets did that to families. Pen had wanted to take hers and parcel it up tight and bury it so deep no one would ever discover it. The trouble was Cass. Cass knew the secret, had lived with it, helped her over it. Cass would have kept it, too, but Pen had never been sure of that. Pen hadn’t been able to keep other people’s secrets. She’d assumed Cass was the same and lived in fear of the day Cass would tell. So Pen had kept her at a distance, away from the Carlisle family and her new life.
Cass had accepted this, because she felt partly responsible for the past. If she’d controlled Pen better, she wouldn’t have been pregnant at sixteen, five months gone before realising, sobbing her heart out and suddenly a little girl again. Cass had concealed her own horror and offered comfort rather than recrimination until Pen had become resigned, then excited about the life moving inside her. She’d talked endlessly of possible names and impossibly expensive baby clothes.
It was not to be, however. The baby had made a sudden entrance to the world in a bedroom upstairs. He had struggled and gasped for life. Cass had tried and failed to breathe life into his small perfect body. Pen had been left empty-armed and devastated.
Cass, questioning her very vocation, had abandoned her studies to concentrate on getting Pen through the dark times. For a while it had seemed her sister would stay broken, defeated, unable to get over the pain of it, but in time she had emerged from the whole affair with a new, tougher edge.
Pen had decided she wanted to be a model. Cass had quelled any doubts and happily paid for a portfolio of photographs—anything rather than have Pen aimlessly sitting around. She’d sold her textbooks and stethoscope, believing she’d never go back to medicine. It had been money well spent when Pen had come home in seventh heaven at having been accepted on the books of a modelling agency.
But dreams of being a supermodel hadn’t quite become reality. Pen hadn’t been tall enough for catwalk and had been too slim for glamour. She’d managed to win a few catalogue assignments, mostly for the teen market, and when they’d dried up she’d settled for PR work at trade shows.
It had been through promotional work she’d met the Carlisles and, almost from day one, what had once been a joke—marrying money—had turned into a mission statement. Initially the talk had been of a Drayton Carlisle until Pen had decided he was too ancient and had subsequently transferred her affections to his younger brother, Tom.
Cass should have been appalled and had been really, but it had kept Pen happy. She hadn’t anticipated Pen being successful. Pen had still been only seventeen and, though scarred by experience, had been surely transparent to any man with insight.
She hadn’t reckoned on Thomson Carlisle. Some years older than Pen, but oddly immature. A privileged childhood fractured by the loss of his parents. Sweet, if a little weak-natured.
Had Pen loved Tom Carlisle? Cass had never been certain. Pen had appeared in triumph, waving a diamond engagement ring. At that point Tom had been an unknown quantity, and Pen had been infuriatingly vague. He’d been around twenty-two or -three or -four, had had a flat somewhere in South Ken and had been something in the family engineering business. She’d been more specific about the sporty Merc he’d driven and his two hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year trust fund.
In fact, Cass hadn’t met Tom first, but Drayton Carlisle. He had appeared on the doorstep one evening, this tall, immaculately dressed, studiously polite, breathtakingly handsome creature from another planet. Cass had felt this curious twisting sensation in her stomach, seconds before her normal barriers had gone up.
She’d already been in a bad mood; his uninvited presence had put her in worse. She’d spent the day cleaning the house and worrying about Pen who had been out all night, and in ten minutes she’d been due to start an evening shift as a checkout girl at the local supermarket where she’d been working since abandoning her studies.
�Yes?’ she’d fairly barked the word at this stranger.
He returned politely. �I’m not sure if I have the right address. I’m looking for a family called Barker.’
�Yes,’ Cass repeated, without committing herself.
�Are you Penelope’s sister?’ he added after studying her face.
He sounded mildly surprised. He’d possibly expected a petite, short-skirted blonde like Pen, and ended up with a tall, nylon-overalled mouse.
�You’re Tom?’ Cass was surprised, too. This man looked far too mature for Pen.
He shook his head. �I’d better introduce myself. I’m Drayton Carlisle, Tom’s brother. And you are…’
Confused, that was what she was. She had yet to meet Tom and here was his big brother on the doorstep. She smelled a rat.
�Cass,’ she replied abruptly.
�Cass?’ He checked he had it right, �That’ll be short for…?’
Cass thought it fairly obvious and said with irony, �Castleford.’
�Castleford?’ he repeated quizzically.
�Town up t’North,’ she relayed, exaggerating her Yorkshire vowels.
His eyes narrowed briefly. Did he realise she was winding him up?
�How unusual,’ he commented dryly.
�And Drayton isn’t?’ she couldn’t resist countering.
�Family name,’ he grimaced. �My mother was a Drayton.’
�Really.’ Cass pretended to be impressed. �One of the Draytons?’
Of course, she’d gone too far. She’d put him down as an upper-class twit. She was right on one count but not the other.
He stared straight at her for a moment. It was an intense scrutiny. His eyes were ice-blue and hard and intelligent.
�More Northern humour, I presume,’ he finally concluded before directing at her, �Is Penelope in?’
�No, sorry.’ She shrugged into the jacket already in her hand. �Is there a message I can pass on?’
�Are you expecting her back soon?’ he persisted.
How to answer that? Pen came and Pen went. Cass had long since lost any control over her movements.
Cass confined herself to a shrug.
�In that case, perhaps you and I could have a talk about matters?’ he suggested, a hint of steel now behind the polite, well-modulated tones.
Matters being his brother marrying a nobody that he’d known five minutes. Even Cass could see the family would be less than thrilled.
�Look—’ she glanced at her watch �—I don’t mean to be rude, Mr Carlisle, but can we make it some other time? I have to be in work in fifteen minutes.’
�Is your work close?’ he asked as she shut and locked the door behind her.
�A mile or so.’ She was going to have to run.
He must have read her mind as he said, �I’ll give you a lift.’
Cass was briefly tempted, before replying, �It’s all right. I can be a little late and I don’t want to put you to any bother—’
�It’s no bother.’ He followed her out on the pavement, and directed a remote unlocking device to the row of cars ahead.
She saw a set of tail-lights briefly illuminate but it wasn’t until they were level that she read the logo and had a good look at the sleek sports car.
She kept her face impassive. Pen might be impressed by fast cars but she refused to be.
He opened the passenger door for her, and waited as she debated whether to accept this lift or not. He looked safe. Well, safe as in unlikely to turn out to be a psychopath or safe as even less likely to be interested in girls dressed in supermarket overalls.
She climbed in and found herself sinking into opulent leather. How the other half lived.
She gave him directions and, though it wasn’t far, they were caught in the rush hour.
�I wondered—how do you feel about their relationship?’ he asked as they inched along the High Street.
�I really can’t say.’ Cass knew Pen would never forgive her if she did. �I haven’t met your brother.’
�Then you must have some doubts,’ he was quick to conclude. �Your sister’s only…what, seventeen? Rather young to be rushing into marriage, don’t you think?’
Quite, Cass could have agreed, but she wasn’t willing to give him the satisfaction—especially when she remembered Tom wasn’t the only Carlisle Pen had gone out with.
�Not too young to be dated by men in their thirties, though,’ she said pointedly.
His eyes narrowed briefly from the road to her. �You mean me?’
�Who else?’
�That was once only.’
�Well, that’s all right, then,’ Cass returned with heavy irony.
�No, it isn’t—’ he sounded annoyed �—and I didn’t date her. The company had an exhibition stand at Earls Court. I took those involved to dinner on the final day and somehow ended up with your sister. When I discovered how young she was—not to mention immature—I sent her home in a taxi, unsullied.’
Cass swivelled her head in his direction and saw from his tight-lipped expression he was being totally serious.
She felt an odd rush of relief, although she was not quite sure why. If Pen hadn’t slept with this man, there were others.
�I’ll take your word for it,’ she finally said.
�Do,’ he said with insistence, before shifting back to his original argument. �At any rate, I’d say she’s too young for commitment.’
�Really,’ she replied archly. �How kind of you to be concerned for her.’
His eyes went from the road to Cass, checking if she were that naive. The curve of her lips told him otherwise.
�Yes, all right, it’s obviously my brother’s interests I’m protecting,’ he admitted.
�Or even his trust fund,’ she suggested somewhat recklessly.
He was quick to observe, �You know about his fund, do you?’
Cass could have kicked herself. She’d never met his brother yet she knew his financial situation!
She shrugged as if it had been just a guess. �All you rich types have trust funds, don’t you? Turn left here, by the way,’ she added, relieved to see they’d arrived.
He drove into the supermarket car park and Cass jumped out the moment he drew into a bay, muttering an offhand, �Thanks,’ as she went.
He wasn’t so easily dismissed, however. A detaining hand was laid on her arm before she reached the outer door.
�I’m late,’ she protested.
�Tough.’ Unmoved, he resumed their conversation. �So, having a trust fund, that makes Tom fair game, does it?’
�I didn’t say that.’ Cass tried and failed to shrug off his hand.
He tightened his grip. �But you think it.’
Cass’s temper rose along with his. �Pardon me, but have we met before?’
He frowned at this non sequitur. �Not that I can remember.’
�No,’ she said archly, �so what makes you an expert on how I think?’
It stopped him in his tracks for a moment and a cloud gathered over his high, handsome brow. Cass waited for it to descend on her but, though their eyes met and clashed, he surprised her with his reaction.
�You’re right. I was being presumptuous,’ he finally responded. �Perhaps you could clue me into how you really feel?’
Cass didn’t see that she could, and be loyal to her sister, so she dodged the question and said instead, �I don’t know how old your brother is—’
�Twenty-five—’ was supplied.
�But I imagine, like my sister, he’ll do what he wants, regardless,’ she ran on.
�Not necessarily,’ he countered. �Not if he considers who controls his trust fund.’
His tone was understated, but his meaning was obvious.
�You,’ she concluded.
�Me.’ He nodded.
The fact wasn’t of much importance to Cass but she wondered if her sister knew it.
�Possibly Tom has been reticent on the subject,’ Drayton Carlisle continued smoothly, �but I feel one should be straight about these things.’
He smiled as if they might have reached some understanding but the smile never reached those chilly blue eyes.
Cass checked she really had understood. �Let’s see if I have this right. You want me to toddle off home tonight and tell Pen who’s holding the purse-strings, while you sit back and hope she transfers her affections elsewhere. Is that straight enough for you?’
She raised challenging green eyes to his, but this time he surprised her with a dry laugh.
�Frighteningly accurate,’ he conceded with the slight inclination of his head, before drawling on, �I wonder if the expression too clever for your own good has ever been run past you.’
�Once or twice,’ she admitted, �but I don’t let it bother me…insecure men have never been my thing.’
He laughed again, any insult bouncing off him. It was hardly surprising. This handsome, he’d probably never had a moment’s self-doubt.
She was aware of his eyes doing a quick inventory, looking beyond her scraped-back hair and the shapeless nylon uniform she wore.
�So, what kind are?’ he asked, and this time his interest was personal.
�Why?’ Cass didn’t want to play these games.
�No reason.’ He shrugged. �I just wondered if there’s a man in your life.’
�Several,’ she claimed rather than tell the sad truth. �They’re queuing up, in fact.’
He followed her glance towards the crowded checkout tills inside and laughed in reply. �I’d better let you go, then. When are you finished?’
�Eight… Why?’
�I thought I’d take you for a drink.’
He smiled. It was slow and amused. Cass wondered how many women had fallen for just that smile.
For a mad moment she was tempted. Perhaps it would be fun, cutting him down to size.
Then she remembered. �I can’t.’
�Or won’t?’ he drawled back.
It really was �can’t’. After the supermarket Cass went on to a night shift at the Happy Hamburger.
But Cass was unwilling to explain herself and shrugged instead. �Whichever.’
He seemed unmoved, muttering, �Another time.’
Just words, Cass assumed, until their eyes met, trading silent messages, and she realised he meant it. There would be another time. He would make sure of that.
For a moment the promise—or threat—held her there, fascinated when she should have been repelled, then he was gone and only the scent of male power remained.
Too late for a clever put-down, even if she could have thought of one. She consoled herself with the thought that their paths were unlikely to cross again.
Of course she relayed their conversation to Pen, only Pen didn’t listen. Or didn’t appear to. Instead she looked like the cat that’d licked the cream and boasted that she could handle Dray. Although Cass repeated content and underlying meaning, Pen’s confidence remained. In fact, with breathtaking ego, she suggested that Drayton Carlisle’s objections were rooted in jealousy because he’d dated her first and was still interested.
Pen clearly believed this, and, worse, seemed excited by the prospect. Cass tried to talk sense to her, to say without actually saying it that a man like Drayton Carlisle—smart, mature, attractive—might want slightly more from a female companion than teenage youth. Pen, in turn, accused her of jealousy, too, of being piqued because he would never look at her.
Normally Cass quit arguments with Pen when they descended onto such a petty level but this time she fought back and admitted that Drayton Carlisle had done more than look—he’d asked her out.
It stopped Pen in her tracks and she just stared at Cass for a long moment, as if she were a stranger, before giving a caustic laugh and claiming Drayton Carlisle had been amusing himself.
Cass, who’d already worked out that possibility, didn’t feel like thanking Pen for underlining it, and, for once, was the one to walk out in temper.
Pen realised she’d gone too far and later issued quite a sweet apology. She hadn’t meant the comment personally. It was just that Drayton Carlisle had a bad reputation where women were concerned and she’d hate for Cass to be one of his victims. She sounded so sincere that Cass accepted this explanation and they made up.
They’d never really fallen out again but she’d still pretty much lost her sister from the day three years ago when she’d married Tom Carlisle. Sometimes they’d met up in London after Pen had spent the day shopping (it seemed that Tom’s allowance had not been stopped) and Cass had tried to make the right noises when Pen had shown her the latest bag or must-have shoes. It had been hard, however, as designer labels had been of minimal interest to Cass while the accompanying price tags could have brought tears to the eyes.
Cass had returned to her studies, by then, and had a mounting overdraft despite moonlighting at a pizza parlour. Of course she could have asked Pen for money. Once or twice Pen had offered. The trouble was Cass had never seen it as Pen’s money. It would always be Carlisle money and the idea of Drayton Carlisle discovering she’d accepted a handout had kept her from doing so. Not that Pen had ever mentioned her brother-in-law. She’d known it had been a taboo subject with Cass since the time…
Cass didn’t complete the thought but was dragged back into the present by the insistent ringing of the telephone. She guessed who it would be before she picked up the receiver but she was ready for him now. There was nothing like a trawl through the past to harden the heart and stiffen the spine.
�It’s Drayton,’ he announced briefly.
She was even briefer. �Yes.’
�The funeral has been rearranged for Thursday,’ he relayed. �Tom confirmed your sister’s preference for cremation.’
�Right.’ Cass remained noncommittal.
�You will go?’ he added in equally restrained tones.
If he’d issued a command, she might still have refused, but guilt and duty had been working on her since last night.
�Yes, I’ll go,’ she agreed simply.
�Good.’ He sounded satisfied.
�How’s Tom?’ she asked, genuinely concerned.
He hesitated, then admitted, �Distraught.’
It was more honest than he’d been last night. She wanted to ask more, to ask about the baby, but wouldn’t let herself.
�In fact, Tom’s very anxious to see you,’ Dray Carlisle continued in the same vein. �If you could stay after the funeral, I’d…I’d be grateful.’
Cass frowned down the phone line. Polite on the surface, it was clearly forced. For Tom’s sake. But why?
�I’m sorry. I’m on duty in the evening.’ It was the truth.
�I see,’ he accepted it, as he revealed, �Tom tells me you now work in a hospital as an orderly.’
An orderly? Six years’ slog and study dismissed in one word. Thank you, Pen. Why hadn’t she told them?
�Something like that,’ she replied because it was easier than explanations.
�Which hospital?’
�Why?’
Cass wondered whether he doubted that she worked in a hospital at all.
�I thought I could drive you back down after the funeral,’ he explained, �if you were prepared to stay and talk with Tom for a while.’
Cass frowned once more. Not at what he was saying, but what he wasn’t. If Tom wanted to talk, why hadn’t he called himself? And why had Big Brother volunteered, when it was obviously choking him to be conciliatory?
�I don’t know.’ She had very unsettling memories of North Dean Hall, country seat of the Carlisles. �I can’t be late.’
�On the day of your only sister’s funeral,’ he clipped back, �I don’t think anybody will be too critical of your timekeeping, do you?’
That was if she told them, which she hadn’t and didn’t plan to. Bad enough that this man thought she was unnatural. She couldn’t and wouldn’t expose her grief to the rest of the world.
�Well, that’s where you’re wrong.’ She thought of Hunter-Davies, the consultant for whom she currently slaved. He wouldn’t listen to excuses, tolerate mistakes or accept anything less than total commitment. �My boss wouldn’t care where I’d been, and, as I’m coming to the end of my contract, I need a decent reference.’
�Contract?’ he echoed with renewed suspicion. �What exactly is it you do?’
It was too direct a question to duck, and, anyway, wasn’t there a chance he’d discovered the truth?
�I’m a doctor.’ There was an element of pride in her voice.
She expected him to be at least mildly impressed. After all, he’d pretty much written her off as a no-hoper.
But he merely responded, �Okay, so don’t tell me,’ assuming she was being sarcastic.
Damn him. Was it so unlikely?
�I’ll make sure you’re back on time,’ he went on. �In fact, I can send a car to collect you in the morning.’
�There’s no need,’ she told him coldly. �I’ve said I’ll come.’
�I wasn’t doubting it,’ he replied heavily. �I was trying to be helpful, save you relying on the vagaries of public transport.’
It was possible, Cass supposed, but then she remembered the last time she’d let him help her. There was always a motive behind Dray Carlisle’s apparent kindness.
�Thanks all the same,’ she muttered back, �but I think I can cope with the train. I do, most days. In fact, it may come as a surprise to you, but a large section of the population rely on public transport.’
�Really!’ he feigned surprise, then exclaimed dryly, �Goodness, how the other half live!’
He wasn’t serious, of course. He was just trying to wrong-foot her, borrow her lines before she could use them.
�Well, far be it from me to relieve you of your hair shirt,’ he added in his deep drawl. �Would collecting you from the train be permitted?’
Oddly Cass didn’t mind his sarcasm. At least it was honest.
�Strain getting too much for you, Dray?’
�The strain?’
�Of being pleasant to me.’
A moment’s disconcerted silence followed, and then he actually laughed. �As a matter of fact, yes, it was. I see you still prefer plain talking, Cassie.’
Cassie. The name struck chords. Perhaps conjured up by her slip, calling him Dray. A reminder that for a brief moment in time they’d been close.
�What’s wrong with that?’ she threw back.
�Nothing at all,’ he conceded, before dropping his voice to a lower, more insidious tone. �In fact, why don’t we go the whole distance, Cassie, and stop pretending we’re strangers?’
Just words but they had their effect. Twenty-six years old and blushing like a schoolgirl. God, she was pathetic!
She took a deep, steadying breath and reminded herself he couldn’t see her blushes. He could only hear her voice, cold as ice as she responded, �Who’s pretending? You don’t imagine my sleeping with you makes you any less a stranger.’
There, she’d said it. It was out in the open. He had no power over her now.
A silence followed, as if she’d shocked him, but he came right back at her with, �Don’t worry, you and your sister shattered any illusions I might have had in that direction.’
The illusions had been hers as Cass remembered. She’d been a fool and Pen had wised her up.
�Still, I suppose I should be flattered you even recall our tryst—’ he used the word in a purely mocking vein �—considering the many that have undoubtedly followed.’
Many? Cass could have challenged with ample justification. There’d been only one. A student doctor and he’d been another unmitigated disaster. But did she want him knowing just how limited her private life was?
�I keep a record,’ she claimed instead. �You’re under D…for Disappointing.’
It was a put-down, so why did he laugh?
�Are you sure it wasn’t D for Devastating?’ he suggested with his usual drawling arrogance, then cut the ground from beneath her by murmuring, �That’s what I have you under.’
Cass’s face flamed once more, as a shutter flickered briefly open on a picture of two bodies intimately entwined, and she wondered why she’d ever started this game of truth.
She stopped it abruptly by saying, �Well, now we’ve completed that trip down memory lane, do you think we could get back to the matter in hand? Burying my sister, that is,’ she added for both their benefits.
�Of course.’ He didn’t argue with the change of subjects. Perhaps he regretted the deviation, too. �Phone me later with the train times and I’ll send a car to the station… I’m ordering the wreaths tomorrow. I can arrange one from you, if you wish.’
�No, I’ll do that.’ She didn’t want any favours from him.
�All right… Is there any song you wish to suggest for the service?’ he added with surprising generosity.
Cass knew her sister’s favourites but none was appropriate for the solemnity of the occasion and she said, �Not really. None you could play at a funeral.’
�Right, I’ll just pick a couple of traditional hymns,’ he concluded.
Dirges would have been Pen’s comment and Cass was prompted to say, �Why don’t you ask Tom if he can think of anything she’d have liked?’
There was some hesitation before he answered obliquely, �Tom’s attention is focused on the baby at the moment.’
The baby. Her niece. Cass could have asked how she was. It would have been the natural thing to do. But any details and the baby would begin to be real for her.
He was clearly waiting for her to ask. When she didn’t, he volunteered. �She’s out of the incubator and doing well.’
�Good.’ Cass sounded detached, and was determined to remain so.
He asked outright, �Would you wish to visit her while you’re up?’
�There won’t be time,’ she replied, avoiding point-blank refusal.
But he heard it in her tone, anyway, and remarked, �I’d forgotten. Pen said babies weren’t your thing.’
Cass frowned. Why had Pen said that? It wasn’t true at all.
�I don’t imagine they’re yours, either,’ she countered rather than deny it, then, feeling the conversation was becoming too personal once more, switched to saying, �That’s my pager just gone. I have to use the telephone, so if there’s nothing else…’
�Your pager?’ He was obviously wondering why she needed such a thing.
Cass, having found the article still clipped onto the waistband of her trousers, put it on to test, then held it against the receiver so he could have a quick blast in his eardrum.
�My pager,’ she repeated heavily, before muttering a terse, �Bye.’
She put the telephone back on its hook, then took it off again just in case he redialled. If he did, he’d get the busy signal, supporting her story.
Not her story, her lie, she corrected herself. Just one more to add to the series she’d told the Carlisles, if only tacitly. How she wished now she’d pressed Pen to be honest with Tom, to admit that she’d had that first baby. If she had, perhaps her sister might yet be alive.
But Pen had convinced Cass that, if she let her secret slip, there would be no marriage and, though, at a month short of eighteen, her sister had been ridiculously young to wed, it had seemed a better option than her vamping around on the nightclub scene. When Pen had finally brought Thomson Carlisle home to meet her, Cass had played her part beautifully, being warm and welcoming to a young man who had seemed naive compared to his brother, and doing her best to pretend along with Pen that she’d been the sweet innocent she’d appeared. It hadn’t been so hard because Cass had believed Pen had been at heart.
There had still been an eleventh-hour crisis. Her last night of freedom, Pen had spent with Cass in an exclusive hotel, courtesy of the Carlisles. At first Pen had been in high spirits but by bedtime she’d been tearful. She hadn’t been sure she’d loved Tom Carlisle the way she should have done. He’d been very good to her and kind and had bought her anything she’d wanted, but had that been enough?
Cass’s heart had plummeted. She’d almost come round to being pleased at the idea of the marriage and now this bombshell.
�No, it’s not enough,’ she had to agree with Pen.
But it wasn’t what Pen wanted to hear, as she wailed back, �What would you know? You’ve never been in my position. No one’s ever wanted to marry you!’
Typical of Pen in crisis; Cass was too used to such remarks to let them hurt.
�I’m not going to argue with you, Pen,’ she responded softly. �You’re right. I’m probably sitting on the shelf already, but I’d sooner be on my own than live, day in, day out, with a man I didn’t love or respect.’
�Who says I don’t love him?’ Pen protested mournfully. �Just what I expected—you’re trying to talk me out of it!’
�No, I’m not.’ Cass gazed steadily at her sister. �I want what’s best for you, that’s all. It’s what I’ve always wanted.’
Cass’s tone was so gentle Pen looked briefly ashamed. �I know that really. I suppose I’m being a cow.’
Cass pulled a face. �A little bit of one—a calf, maybe.’
It wasn’t much of a joke but they both laughed and it eased the tension slightly.
Then Pen said simply, �Tell me what to do, sis.’
But Cass had no magic answers. �I can’t, Pen. I wish I could. Only you know how you feel about Tom—’
�I do love him,’ Pen insisted, �but, well…next to Dray, he seems such a lightweight.’
�Oh, Pen,’ Cass groaned aloud. �You don’t really have your eye on his big brother, do you?’
�Of course not.’ The denial was slow in coming and didn’t quite ring true, especially when Pen ran on, �But he did fancy me at first. I know he did. If only I hadn’t told him I was sixteen—’
�Hold on,’ Cass cut in, calculating as she did so, �you must have been seventeen and a half by then.’
Pen nodded. �But I thought the younger, the better. Most older guys get off on that.’
Cass made no comment, but shuddered inwardly. What kind of men had Pen been dating?
�Not him,’ Pen continued, rolling her eyes, �You know what he said? “Come back when you’re twenty-one!” Then he kissed me on the forehead as if I were a three-year-old and sent me home in a taxi.’
�Awful man,’ Cass mused, straight-faced, while secretly applauding this show of decency.
�Bloody bossy, as well—’ Pen pouted in agreement �—and boring about work. He wouldn’t let Tom take more than three weeks for his honeymoon.’
�Really.’ Cass managed to sound sympathetic. Three weeks seemed more than generous but letting Pen run down Dray Carlisle had to be a good idea.
It was something of a setback when Pen added, �The trouble is he’s so sexy, too.’
Cass wasn’t about to argue. Dray Carlisle definitely fell into the sexy category. But should Pen be conscious of this fact when she was about to marry his younger brother the following afternoon? Cass thought not.
Pen caught her sister’s expression and quickly backtracked. �Don’t worry. I find lots of men sexy. It doesn’t mean I’d do anything about it.’
�Lots of men aren’t going to be your next door neighbours,’ Cass felt she should point out. �Dray Carlisle is.’
�So? It’s not me who’ll be sorry,’ Pen claimed, �but Dray, when he realises what he’s missing. I can just see him, growing old and wrinkly, carrying a torch for me until the day he dies.’
Cass wasn’t sure if Pen was entirely joking, but she laughed with her, anyway. It was becoming clear that, for all her doubts, Pen was going to become Mrs Tom Carlisle, regardless.
�Should I take it the wedding’s on?’ Cass enquired dryly.
�What do you think?’ Pen smirked back. �All that money— I’d be crazy not to go through with it.’
�Pen!’ reproved Cass, but Pen continued to grin as she slipped into bed and snuggled down.
It was Cass who was left to switch off the light and lie awake, long after Pen’s breathing told her she’d fallen asleep. But that was the nature of things. Pen had cleared her conscience by talking to Cass and now it was Cass’s job to do the worrying.
Meanwhile Pen slept like a log and woke bright and breezy the next morning, talking nineteen to the dozen about the wedding, her honeymoon and the house they would one day buy. And later she floated up the aisle of the fine old medieval church where the Carlisles worshipped, trailed by a coterie of attendants, all cousins of Tom’s apart from Pen’s best friend, Kelly.
Pen had asked Cass to be a bridesmaid, too, but had looked relieved when Cass had demurred, citing lilac as not her colour and flounces even less her style.
Cass was content to sit in one of the front pews, proud of her sister’s beauty, doubts quelled by the look of devotion on Tom Carlisle’s face when he turned to his future bride.
Even Dray Carlisle seemed to give the marriage his blessing. Dressed in morning coat and tails, he stood at his brother’s side, acting as best man, solemn until the ceremony was over, then, with a smile, embracing his brother and Pen in a circle.
Cass had mixed feelings at the gesture. She was pleased that Pen was to be accepted into the Carlisle fold but it surely meant a degree of loss for her. Pen was embarking on a new life and Cass already suspected from hints dropped that she wanted to keep it quite separate from her old one.
Cass understood why and was losing herself in the crowd outside the church when suddenly Dray Carlisle loomed in view, head and shoulders above most people, nodding acknowledgements to friends as he went, before coming to a halt in front of her.
�I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ he announced without preamble.
Considering they hadn’t spoken since the day they’d met, it was hardly the politest of greetings, so why had she felt it again, that sharp pull of attraction?
She hid the fact well, muttering back, �And it’s nice to see you again, too.’
His brow lifted, registering the sarcasm, then he took her arm and instructed briskly, �Come on.’
�Come on where?’ she echoed as he steered her through the crowd.
�Photographs.’
�Oh.’
Cass’s lack of enthusiasm was almost tangible.
He squinted her a curious look. �Don’t you want to be included in a record of the happy occasion?’
�Not especially. I’m a little camera shy,’ she excused lamely.
�It’s only a couple of group photographs,’ he assured her as they skirted round the corner of the church to find bride and groom posing against a backdrop of a blossoming cherry tree.
Pen was obviously loving every moment, flirting with the camera in a rather unbridal manner.
�Well, your reticence is clearly not a genetic condition,’ Dray Carlisle added in an undertone.
Cass took it as criticism and replied a little sharply, �Pen’s enjoying her day. What’s wrong with that?’
�Nothing, I suppose,’ he agreed, choosing to be conciliatory. �I was merely remarking on how different you are.’
�Well, I’m sure if I was drop-dead gorgeous,’ Cass stated dryly, �I’d be tempted to show off a little, too.’
Dray Carlisle might have taken the comment for envy, but he was too astute for that.
�Would you?’ He studied her openly for a moment: dark hair, green eyes, classic bone structure and a mouth that was wide and generous even as she tried to turn it into a disapproving line. �No, I don’t think so. Your looks may not be as obvious as your sister’s but many men would find you the more attractive. I suspect you know that. You just don’t care.’
He was right, in part. Cass had no interest in being rated on her looks. All the same, his analysis put her more on the defensive.
�And you’ve gathered all this from two minutes’ conversation?’ she returned in disparaging tones.
�Not quite,’ he admitted. �Pen has talked about you.’
�Oh, right.’ Cass could imagine the impression Pen had given of her.
Strait-laced. Inhibited. Repressed, even. Somewhere on that continuum, anyway.
She didn’t get a chance to enquire further, as the photographer called out, �Immediate family, please.’
�Our cue, I believe,’ he prompted, when she made no move to step forward.
�Doesn’t that mean parents?’ She nodded towards the couple already taking up stance beside Tom.
She’d seen them earlier in church, a tall straight-backed gentleman with grey hair and beard and a rather worldlier looking woman dressed in a lemon silk two-piece and an enormous hat.
�That’s our Uncle Charles,’ he identified the man with a slight smile, before adding with a grimace, �along with our stepmother, Monica, who is insisting on being in this photograph regardless of the fact she and Tom can barely tolerate each other. So, as you see, neither side can field the conventional line-up, and I’m sure Penelope will want you in it as closest family.’
Cass didn’t totally share his confidence but he was already making the decision for her, his hand suddenly clasping hers, pulling her behind him.
The contact was fleeting but her reaction was not. Long after he positioned her by Pen’s side and reminded her with gentle irony to smile—it wasn’t a funeral—she could feel the warmth and strength of his fingers.
It was then she should have run, of course. Had her photograph taken. Wished her sister well. Called a taxi and caught the first train back to town.
But fool that she was, she had to stay. Had to ignore every dictate of good sense just to find out if it was real, that rush of feeling she’d had when he’d touched her hand.
Real enough, she supposed, only now, three years on, she didn’t feel the need to give it a nice name. Maybe it still began with L and had four letters but that was all it had in common with love, that tortured, destructive feeling she’d had for Dray Carlisle.
She thanked God it had ended when it had, in a matter of a few short weeks. Thanked Pen for once having been the wiser sister when her own head had been in a state of mush and her body hurting more than her pride.
It had been like a fever, burning hot and fierce and sending her a little crazy. Then it had suddenly been over. But it had left her weak and fragile for a long time.
She was better now, of course, and immune. Only anger lingered and that was no bad thing. For angry, she was usually cold and detached, and, in that mood, she might just be able to get through another funeral without breaking down.
After it, she would grieve alone for her pretty little sister.
CHAPTER THREE
CASS didn’t call North Dean Hall to be picked up at the station. Instead she took a taxi and barely made the crematorium in time.
The Carlisles were en masse at the front. Drayton Carlisle saw her enter and indicated she should join them but she slipped into a chair at the back of the chapel. She wasn’t family, not really.
The service was a curiously sterile affair. The clergyman spoke of Pen as a devoted wife and homemaker and young mother-to-be, his eulogy full of platitudes and quite erroneous virtues, followed by a dirge of a hymn that Pen would have giggled through if she’d been there beside Cass.
It was thinking of the real Pen that made tears gather at the back of Cass’s eyes and she swallowed hard. If she started crying, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
There were others sniffing into handkerchiefs, perhaps friends of Pen from the exclusive country club she and Tom had frequented. Cass noticed two heavily pregnant women and wondered if Pen’s death had left them anxious.
Cass could have reassured them: few women died in childbirth these days. Just ones with conditions like Pen’s which took the medical profession by surprise. And Pen’s shouldn’t have.
Pen had known the facts. Cass had explained them again last autumn. Pen had lost her first baby due to a womb abnormality and stood a fair chance of losing any others—and her life. Pen had known and chosen to play Russian roulette.
Cass focused on that thought, and kept focusing on it as the priest gave the final blessing and the curtains opened and the coffin slid behind. But it didn’t help. She still wanted to shout out at the unfairness of it, cry for the loss of her pretty young sister, scarcely into adulthood.
She wasn’t sure if the service was over, but she needed air. She scraped back her chair and made for the door.
She didn’t plan it, but, once outside, she had a need to escape altogether. She almost made it—was in sight of the crematorium gates when pursuing footsteps caught up with her.
Drayton Carlisle dispensed with any greeting and went straight to demanding, �Where the hell do you think you’re going?’
Cass would have said it was obvious. �Back to London.’
�No, you’re not!’ He grabbed her arm. �Not yet, anyway. You promised to speak to Tom, remember?’
�I’m not sure what you expect,’ she countered. �I don’t know your brother well, and I’m not great at words of comfort.’
He laughed, a brief, harsh sound. �I can believe that…I don’t think it’s comfort Tom wants from you. He seems to think you’ll know why Pen died.’
Cass frowned. �Haven’t the doctors told him?’
�The medical terms, yes.’
�He wants me to explain those?’
He slid her a look that questioned if she was being deliberately absurd.
�I wouldn’t think so,’ he returned impatiently. �Whatever you do at St Wherever, I doubt you’re qualified for that.’
�How do you know?’ Cass threw back. �In fact, what do you really know about me? I’ll tell you what—’
�Nothing,’ he cut in, �I know nothing about you. I admit it. But this isn’t about you and me, it’s about Tom. He’s holding onto his sanity by a thread, and he seems to believe you’re his lifeline. So whatever you think of me, or I think of you, can keep,’ he continued, gripping her arm to stop her walking away. �For now, you come back to North Dean with me and speak to Tom and be damn sure you say the right thing!’
�You can’t make me!’ Cass protested, even as she found herself being frogmarched back up the drive.
�Can’t I?’ he muttered through clenched teeth and, as they rejoined the mourners, added in a hiss, �These people were your sister’s friends. At least, behave for her sake.’
Cass felt her face go a dull, angry red. He was treating her like a naughty schoolgirl. He made no allowance for her grief, her loss.
When he finally released her, she considered another escape bid but then she saw Tom standing with their Uncle Charles and she was too shocked by the sight of him to move. Deep lines were etched on his forehead, ageing him by ten years or more.
He stared at her dully for a moment, then his face contorted on recognition.
�Cass.’ He rushed towards her. �Thank God you came. I need to talk to you. I have to ask you things. You will come back to the house?’
His eyes pleaded with her and there was a desperation in them that had her saying, �Yes, if you want.’
�Thank you.’ He grasped her hands in gratitude. �And you’ll take her away, won’t you?’
�Sorry?’ Cass made no sense of his question. �What do you—?’
�Tom, we can’t talk about this here,’ Dray Carlisle cut in. �We’ll go back to the house…Uncle Charles, will you drive Cassandra?’
�Of course,’ his uncle agreed readily.
�You will come?’ Drayton directed at her.
She nodded slowly.
His expression remained distrustful, but he didn’t press her further. His priority was to get an agitated Tom out of public view.
Cass stared after them, still puzzling over Tom’s final words: You’ll take her away. The her, she assumed, was Pen—or, at least, Pen’s ashes. But why? Why would he want her to do that unless he’d discovered the truth? She hoped she was wrong.
Uncle Charles lightly touched her arm and she let him guide her towards an elderly grey saloon car. Eventually they joined the line of cars leaving.
�Good show of people,’ Charles remarked.
�Yes.’ There had certainly been more mourners than at their mother’s funeral.
�Not surprised,’ he added gruffly. �Lovely girl. Always thought so. Poor Tom.’
It came out in short bursts. Their uncle always talked like this. He’d been a naval man and accustomed to issuing information in bulletins.
�He seems very distressed,’ Cass concurred.
�Distressed, quite!’ Uncle Charles approved the word. �Still, when he talks to you…’ He trailed off on a hopeful note.
Cass said nothing. She couldn’t see what she could tell Tom that would make him feel any better.
�How are you?’ The sympathetic note in his voice recognised her bereaved state.
Cass realised his concern was genuine but her feelings were too complex to express. There was anger in amongst the grief, pity and self-pity, guilt and every other emotion Pen used to draw from her, good and bad. She just needed to bottle it all up so she could get through this bloody awful day.
�Bearing up.’ She used a phrase Uncle Charles would understand.
It drew a nod of approval. �That’s all one can do… You will stay overnight?’
Cass feigned polite regret, �I can’t, I’m afraid,’ before asking, �Are you still living in the lodge house?’
�Yes, still there,’ he confirmed. �Don’t think I’ll be moving now. Ideal for one person. Don’t envy Dray, rattling around in that big place on his own.’
�He’s not married yet?’ Cass had wondered because Pen might not necessarily have told her.
�No, nor likely to be,’ was said in fond exasperation. �Plays the field. Pretty wide one, too, I believe. Not that he tells me much.’
�No one serious, then,’ she concluded.
�There was someone a year or so ago,’ he relayed. �Sophie Palmer-Lyons. Grand girl. Good family. Seemed it might come to something.’
Cass told herself she wasn’t interested but still asked, �What happened?’
�Dragged his feet—’ his uncle sighed �—so she went off and married someone else… And you? Still seeing the same chap?’
�I—I…no, not now.’ Cass was thrown slightly. It was almost two years since her last relationship.
�Oh, well, plenty of time yet,’ Uncle Charles reassured her.
To catch a husband, Cass understood he meant, but let it pass. He was from a generation that believed marriage was a woman’s goal in life. Forget that his nephew was getting fairly dusty on his own shelf.
Still it was some shelf, Cass reflected as they turned into the gates of North Dean Hall and followed the long drive to the Carlisle country house which was even bigger than she remembered.
There were already several cars parked in the forecourt and people gathered round the doorway where Dray and Tom Carlisle stood.
�Dray’s arranged a light buffet for close friends and family,’ Uncle Charles relayed as they climbed out of his car.
Cass didn’t hide her dismay. Polite conversation and sympathy from people she didn’t know. �I’d rather just have that word with Tom, then go.’
�But surely…well, if that’s what you prefer…’ He was clearly in a quandary. �I’ll see what Dray says.’
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