Her Sister's Baby. Alison Fraser

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.’