Her Sister's Baby

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.