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‘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?’
