Penmort Castle (25 page)

It was
contentment.

Even though
she’d appeared anxious, coming home to her still made a strange
ease settle over him.

And throughout
the weekend, this ease grew.

It grew when he
caught her eyes on him after her nap, her gaze soft and almost awed
as if he was a god not a man. It grew simply because she was
sleeping, exhausted by him, naked on his couch. It grew the next
day when he’d done something he’d never done before, spent most of
a day in bed with a woman. It grew as he discovered her body, was
stirred by her touch, pleased that she seemed just as happy to do
nothing but the same. And then she dozed while he held her and
sometimes he’d slide his hands along her skin, familiarising
himself with her even while she slept.

Lastly it grew
the night before, when he came home and turned her into his arms
and she’d muttered in sleepy relief that he was safe at home.

Cash knew it
was
him
that she was happy was safe. It was
him
she
looked at with awe. It was
him
on whose couch she slept
naked. It was
him
whose body she put her mouth on, smiling
against his skin when she made him groan.

It was
him
.

Not
Ben
.

And Cash began
to feel more than content.

He felt at
peace.

And he’d never,
not once, felt peace in his life.

Knowing as a
child does that something was not right with his mother, with his
father’s family, Cash had not even felt it when his grandfather was
alive.

Abby gave that
to him. He felt it, he understood it and he meant to keep it.

But that
morning, Abby had upset that peace.

And that
afternoon, when James had come to deliver Abby’s message, she’d
annihilated it.

James had
seemed surprised, confused and even concerned at the message he had
to deliver.

James had been
at Cash’s side on the pavement when Cash made the unprecedented
move to peer through a shop window and pause in his daily business
to buy a diamond bracelet for a woman.

Cash had never
done such a thing. Not for any woman.

James, for
years a colleague and a friend, had attempted to ask tactful
questions but Cash didn’t bite. James didn’t need the answers,
Cash’s actions told the story.

And Cash
couldn’t care less.

Abby was his.
She’d given herself freely. Not just the first time, every time,
all weekend, with her response to his touch, her reaction to the
cashmere dressing gown, her gaze on him while he was reading.

Everything.

And as he told
her, he took care of what was his.

And being
Cash’s meant she’d wear cashmere and diamonds.

That was simply
the way it was going to be.

But the message
she relayed to James said quite plainly she wanted to end
things.

And that idea,
Cash found, he could not tolerate.

It was so
intolerable it caused the slowly ebbing burn which had been
reducing all day to re-ignite.

He’d even felt
for a moment actual rage.

Therefore, by
the time he stood at Abby’s door, he planned to teach her a lesson.
He planned to make it perfectly clear the difference between being
his and being his whore. Spurred by fury, he’d carried out his
plan.

And after, at
the door when she’d looked at him with deeply wounded eyes, the
intensity of hurt in them caused Cash to feel a sharp pain in his
gut.

It was then he
realised that his plan had
not
been his most stellar.

He turned off
the motorway and navigated the winding roads of Devon, heading for
the coast.

He knew he was
going to have to do something else he’d never done and he had no
earthly idea how. And he was furious that he’d put himself in that
position. And he was even more furious that he’d been the cause of
her pain.

Over the
distance, Cash considered his options.

However before
he came to any conclusions, Penmort Castle loomed in front of them,
its lit towers and turrets a daunting vision against the dark
night.

Cash barely
registered the vague thrill he normally felt when he saw
Penmort.

He’d been there
only two times as a teen, when Nicola had invited him to stay. Both
times had been, despite her best efforts, unsatisfactory. He’d been
there relatively often since Alistair had offered his artificial
olive branch.

This time he
would be entering as its owner, a goal which he’d spent a year
doing all in his power to achieve.

It should have
been a triumph.

Cash didn’t
give it a thought.

He drove up the
steep hill at the side of the castle and stopped at the arched,
gated doorway set into the thick, stone wall that surrounded much
of the castle.

He pulled the
emergency brake, switched off the car and noted Abby’s hand was
already on her door handle.

In an effort to
forestall her, his own hand went to the area above her knee. But at
his touch, she instantly jerked away. Whether this was anger, hurt
or revulsion, he didn’t know.

He also didn’t
care.

“Abby,” he
called as she continued her efforts to exit the car, partially
opening the door.

They had only
moments before their arrival would be discovered. He had to get
this done now. He had no time to waste.

Swiftly, he
leaned across her, his fingers curling around the door handle, and
he slammed it closed.

Her head turned
to look at him. He could see her face dimly lit in the outside
lights of the gate.

She didn’t look
angry, hurt or revolted.

She looked
blank.

Fucking
hell,
he thought.

He lifted his
hand to her neck and held her there.

“Abby –” he
started softly.

“Yes?” she
asked, her voice as expressionless as her face and Cash wondered
how long it would take to achieve his new goal of winning Abby
back.

As usual, he
didn’t delay.

“James talked
to me this afternoon,” Cash told her.

She stayed
silent but he felt her body grow stiff.

“In future,” he
went on quietly, “if you have something to say to me, you contact
me yourself. Is that understood?”

Her body stayed
stiff but she gave a short nod. Her neck tugged against his hand,
trying to pull away and he gave her a gentle squeeze indicating he
wasn’t done.

She went
still.

“You made me
very angry today,” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle and she
sat silent, eyes on him. “Tonight, instead of simply being angry
at
you, I took that anger out
on
you.” He paused and
gave her neck another squeeze. “It won’t happen again.”

She remained
silent, her eyes on his and he waited for some sign she understood
but he didn’t get it.

Instead, all of
a sudden her eyes moved to the side.

Then,
surprising him, she leaned in, her hand coming to rest lightly on
his shoulder and she pressed her lips against his.

He thought for
a moment this was an act of forgiveness but before relief could
fully form, mouth still on his, she whispered, “We’re being
watched.”

Then her head
tilted, she pressed closer, her fingers curled into his shoulder,
and she opened her mouth under his, the tip of her tongue touching
his lips.

He knew it was
an act, a show for whatever audience they had.

And he didn’t
care about that either.

He accepted her
invitation and the opportunity it offered, opening his own mouth
and drawing her tongue inside. One arm went around her to haul her
soft body closer, his other hand fisted in the curls of her hair at
her back, gently tugging down to manoeuvre her mouth so his would
have better access.

Then he
deepened the kiss and, gratifyingly, her hand moved from his
shoulder, sliding up his neck and into his hair as her body yielded
to his.

He knew then he
had her.

Pressing his
advantage, he kissed her until he heard that low, sexy noise she
made in the back of her throat. A noise he discovered on Sunday
that corresponded with a rush of heat between her legs.

And when he
knew he could still reach her, his mouth broke from hers, slid down
to her neck and Cash breathed in her perfume.

He heard her
soft but heavy inhalations in his ear and he smiled against her
skin.

“We’ll finish
talking later,” he murmured.

She had no time
to reply, there was a sharp rap on the passenger side window and
Cash felt Abby’s body jolt in surprise.

“Is everything
okay?” his step-cousin, Fenella, shouted and Cash saw her small
face peering through the glass.

“Fuck,” he
muttered right before Abby pulled away.

With no other
choice (although he would have preferred to start his car, drive to
Abby’s, take her back to her bed and finish what they’d started in
the car, this time, with
both
of them finding release), Cash
began to exit the car but he was intercepted by Abby’s hand on his
arm.

He turned back
to her and her hand came up toward his face, it hesitated then
pulled back but stayed suspended and her finger circled.

“Lip gloss,”
she whispered and two intensely unpleasant sensations hit him at
once.

One was
loss.

The other was
remorse.

“Hello!”
Fenella called from outside.

“Take care of
it,” Cash demanded, ignoring his cousin, his brief sense of relief
fading back to irritation again directed at himself.

He may still be
able to reach her in one way but in another she was very far
away.

“What?” Abby
asked, her head turning from the direction of Fenella back to
Cash.

“Take care of
it,” he repeated and when she hesitated he continued with a note of
warning in his tone, “Abby –”

“Oh all right,”
she gave in, her voice soft but annoyed.

Cash was
illogically pleased to hear her exasperation. It wasn’t a good
reaction but it
was
a reaction and he felt that boded
well.

Therefore he
smiled when she leaned in, reached up, her hand resting on his
cheek as her thumb wiped the gloss from his mouth.

“Who is that?”
Abby whispered while her finger slid across his lips.

“My cousin,”
Cash’s mouth moved under her thumb.

“Are you two
okay?” Fenella yelled in the window.

Abby’s hand
fell and she gave him a look he couldn’t quite decipher before her
head twisted toward the window and she called, “We’re fine. Be out
in two seconds!”

With nothing
for it, Cash sighed his displeasure that the moment was lost before
he knifed out of the car and slammed his door. He rounded the
bonnet, his eyes on Abby who had extricated her lip gloss and was
fixing her lips in the mirror of the sun visor.

“I was worried
that you two were fighting,” Fenella announced as he arrived at
Abby’s door where Fenella was standing and Cash looked at his
cousin.

Fenella
Fitzhugh was Nicola’s first-born daughter and she looked like her
mother. Blonde, petite and pretty but, unlike her mother, it was in
a sharp, pointy-faced way. She was too short for Cash’s liking and
far too thin.

She was also,
as had been evidenced in the last few minutes, unbelievably
irritating in an obtuse, coy way.

How two people
who were kissing passionately in a car could appear to Fenella to
be fighting, Cash had no idea.

Instead of
commenting, he simply greeted, “Fenella,” and moved around her to
open Abby’s door.

He bent in and
took Abby’s elbow, guiding her out and firmly positioning her free
of the door before he slammed it.

“You must be
Abigail,” Fenella stated the obvious.

“Abby,” Abby
replied, her soft voice warm and friendly and her hand came out to
take Fenella’s as she leaned in to touch the other woman’s cheek
with her own.

When Abby
pulled away, Fenella exclaimed, “We’ve all been waiting with bated
breath to meet
you
. Cash has
never
brought a woman to
Penmort.”

Abby looked at
him from under her lashes as she murmured, “Really?”

“Really!”
Fenella nearly screeched and Cash winced at the shrill noise.
“Mummy is in a dither. An… actual…
dither,
” Fenella
declared.

“Um, is a
dither a good thing?” Abby joked.

Fenella waved
her hand in front of her face, Abby’s quip flying right by her.
“Oh, Mummy’s always in a dither about something or other.”

In all of his
memories of Nicola Beaumaris, Cash had never known her once to be
in anything close to a “dither”.

Cash, finished
with this ridiculous exchange, decided to intercede.

“Perhaps we can
move this conversation out of the negative three degree weather and
somewhere warmer?” he suggested drily.

“Oh yes! What
was I
thinking?
” Fenella cried and then motioned to them to
follow. “Come inside.”

Fenella led the
way and Cash and Abby trailed, Cash’s fingers curling idly around
hers, his thoughts on Abby as well as what that night would
bring.

Outside of
Nicola, who would give Abby a genuine warm welcome, Cash couldn’t
begin to guess how his uncle, and Nicola’s two remaining daughters,
Suzanne and Honor, would behave.

His thoughts
were not positive.

He was taken
out of them when he felt Abby’s step slow and his head turned to
her.

She was looking
up, her lips parted, her face registering wonder.

Cash’s gaze
followed hers and he noted they’d entered the gate, climbed the
steep path and up the steps into the common, turned left and were
headed straight toward the castle.

Brilliant beams
of light were shining from the ground up toward Penmort
illuminating it brightly against the night sky.