Her Sister's Baby

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.