Penmort Castle (58 page)

She knew this
because his hand squeezed hers painfully tight and he muttered,
“You definitely fucking owe me.”

Abby didn’t
have time to worry about Cash’s dire statement.

She had stairs
to climb.

She held her
breath through the first set of stairs then she let it go on the
landing only to hold it again on the second.

It wasn’t until
they hit the gallery that she allowed herself to relax.

Not
relax
relax, as in, putting your feet up with a book and a
nice, big glass of pinot noir at the end of a trying day. But just
kind of
relax, as in making it up a stairwell made dangerous
by a phantom yet the real battle still yawned ahead of you.

The gallery was
ablaze with lights and everyone was there when they entered.

“Maybe I should
go get some champagne,” Honor offered.

“Nobody fucking
leaves this room,” Cash returned immediately, dropping Abby’s hand
and cutting a scowl throughout the group.

Honor’s brows
went up and her eyes slid to Abby.

Abby gave her a
grimace of solidarity but shrewdly decided against speaking.

“Well I, for
one, think this is
very
interesting,” Suzanne remarked from
across the room.

She was
standing, arms crossed under her breasts, the cleavage bared by her
fuchsia gown that had a daring V which went nearly to her navel
became all the more pronounced with her stance. She had a foot out
and a hip jutted and her eyes were aimed at Alistair.

“Suzanne,
please,” Nicola begged, “now is not a good time.”

“Of course
you’re right, Mum,” Suzanne agreed. “Though, I will say, I
do
hope Anthony Beaumaris hangs around after Vivianna is
gone. I would just
love
to hear what
he
has to
say.”

“Shut your
goddamned mouth,” Alistair snapped.

“Make me,” she
snapped back and Alistair made as if to move but Cash’s voice
cracked through the room like a whiplash.

“You take one
step closer to her, Alistair, I’ll throw you out the fucking window
myself.”

Alistair’s body
froze but his hate filled eyes shot to Cash.

“I should never
have invited you to this house,” he clipped.

“No, you
shouldn’t have,” Cash concurred then Abby’s tense body went solid
when he spoke his next words. “I’ll not make the same mistake.”

“I wouldn’t
step foot in your home even if you paid me,” Alistair returned.

“You did five
minutes ago,” Cash retorted, Abby’s breath caught and the air in
the room went still as everyone’s eyes riveted on Cash.

Alistair’s face
paled, his lips parted in shock but he quickly recovered and slid
into bluster. “What are you on about?”

“I’m on about
the lien I have on Penmort,” Cash informed him. “The one I
purchased two months ago from a very grateful bank who hadn’t been
receiving payments for six months. Nor, I expect, did they want to
foreclose and be saddled with a castle they would likely never be
able to unload. I don’t share that reluctance, I’m foreclosing
now
.”

“I
knew
this would be interesting,” Suzanne commented happily.

At the same
time Fenella muttered, “Oh my.”

And at the same
time Honor let out an amused chuckle.

Alistair
ignored their onlookers, he only had eyes for Cash.

“You can’t be
serious,” he breathed.

“Deadly,” Cash
shot back.

Alistair’s
hands fisted at his sides as his face grew red and he declared,
“I’ll pay you.”

“You don’t have
the money to pay me,” Cash reminded him.

Alistair leaned
forward. “Then I’ll start selling. The Wedgewood collection alone
–”

Cash’s body
went visibly tight before he clipped out, “You sell one piece of my
legacy, I’ll see you in court, day in and day out, until the only
thing you have left is the clothes on your
fucking
back.”

Abby, already
close to Cash, got closer and her fingers curled around his.

His hand gave
hers a light squeeze right before Alistair grinned and scoffed,
“
Your
legacy? That’s damned funny. Penmort has never been
held outside the legitimate line.”

“That isn’t
exactly true,” Honor put in airily and everyone looked to her as
she continued, talking like she was a history teacher and they were
her class. “In 1697, Edward Beaumaris, never married, died without
a legitimate heir. However, being somewhat of a rake, he had five
illegitimate children, three boys and two girls. The first born
boy, Randall, assumed the Beaumaris name and took over as master of
the castle.”

“Edward
Beaumaris obviously didn’t have a brother,” Alistair retorted.

“Actually, he
had four,” Honor returned, a font of ready knowledge about the
Beaumaris family.

Clearly, Abby
thought, over the last twenty-five years Honor had spent a good
deal of time in the library.

Nicola let out
a soft laugh, Alistair’s gaze cut to her and his voice was hideous
when he hissed, “Shut your bloody mouth.”

At that Cash
dropped Abby’s hand and in three long strides he was in Alistair’s
space. Alistair, taken unawares, belatedly shuffled back but Cash
kept advancing until he had his uncle pinned against the wall.

Once there Cash
leaned threateningly closer but didn’t touch the older man.

“Your days of
malice toward the Fitzhugh women are over, starting now. I hear
you’ve even looked at one of them funny, tomorrow or twenty years
in the future, I swear to Christ you’ll wish you were never fucking
born. Do you get my meaning?”

“Back off,”
Alistair demanded but his voice held a betraying tremor.

Cash didn’t
move instead he repeated, “I asked, do you get my meaning?”

“Frankly, I’ll
be thrilled if I never see them again,” Alistair snapped, his voice
and words ugly.

“I’m sure they
feel the same,” Cash replied, stepped back and then moved away from
Alistair, his eyes going to Nicola. “You and your daughters are
free to stay at Penmort for as long as you wish.”

“You’re not
taking Penmort!” Alistair shouted and Cash stopped on his way back
to Abby and turned to his uncle.

“I am,” Cash
announced, “tomorrow, I’ve got six people coming to the castle to
do an inventory. You’ve got a week to find other accommodation,
gather together your clothes and other personal belongings, none of
which will have any attachment to the history this building, and
you’re getting the fuck out.”

Abby wanted to
clap her hands, jump up and down and shout, “Hurrah!” but Alistair
wasn’t finished.

“I pay on the
notes, you’ve got no –”

“You fight me,
I’ll drag your ass into court and demand a DNA test,” Cash returned
and Alistair’s mottled face became confused.

“A DNA test?”
he asked.

Cash for some
reason didn’t utter an immediate retort.

Abby watched as
his jaw grew tight and he stared at his uncle a moment before he
replied, “You don’t want to continue this conversation with an
audience.”

Alistair,
proving once again he wasn’t exactly the sharpest tack in the box,
queried snidely, “Are you insinuating I’m not a Beaumaris?”

“Trust me,
Alistair, you want to back down,” Cash advised.

“How bloody
dare
you make that accusation! Of all the bloody cheek,
you
,” he jeered, “claiming
I’m
not a blood
Beaumaris.”

“Look around
you,” Cash stated, indicating the portraits with a jerk of his
head, all the pictures of the past masters of the castle sharing a
strong resemblance with Cash. His voice had grown quiet when he
continued, “Now look at me. What do you see?”

Alistair didn’t
take his eyes off Cash. “I see a bloody upstart is what I see.”

“Back down,”
Cash warned.

Alistair wasn’t
smart enough to catch Cash’s hint. “Do what you will. I’ll see you
in court.”

Cash shrugged
and turned back around, moving toward Abby again while saying, “So
be it.”

Alistair’s gaze
swept the room and he snapped, “I don’t believe this. In my own
home –”

“It isn’t your
home, Alistair. After Richard Beaumaris died, it stopped being your
home,” Honor told him and Alistair’s eyes shot to her but he was
smart enough, after his last crack to Nicola and Cash’s reaction,
to clamp his mouth shut. Honor carried on. “Cash is being nice, I
don’t know why, he’s got no reason to be, but he is. I, however,
don’t feel like being nice after you manhandled my mother in front
of an audience.”

Cash had made
it to Abby and his arm curved around her shoulders, curling her
front to his side even as his eyes were on Honor.

Softly, he
murmured, “Honor, don’t.”

But Honor kept
going and announced flatly, “Your mother was raped by a gardener.
You’re the product of that rape.”

As if struck,
Alistair reeled back several paces at her words.

Nicola
whispered, “Oh my God.”

Suzanne watched
Alistair, a startled look on her face but it shifted quickly and
triumphantly to a satisfied smirk.

Honor was
relentless. “She wrote all about it in her diaries. I found them
and Cash has them now. They’re evidence enough but if you push him
and he demands a DNA test, the whole world will know you for what
you are.”

“I kind of hope
he does,” Mrs. Truman muttered loudly to Kieran and Abby pressed
her lips together to stop from smiling.

Instead she
turned to the older woman and whispered, “Mrs. Truman, please.”

Mrs. Truman
widened her eyes in faux innocence and asked, “What? Everyone can
see he’s not a very nice man,” then she declared as a finale,
“comeuppance.”

Abby heard
Jenny’s half-amused, half-embarrassed giggle and opened her mouth
to speak but Alistair got there before her.

“I fail to
see,” he started quietly, “what’s funny about my mother being
raped.”

“Nothing,” Mrs.
Truman returned tartly. “I’m sure everyone in this room agrees it’s
very sad about your poor mother. Tragic. What’s more tragic is that
you carried on your father’s legacy of cruelty rather than fighting
whatever wicked impulse you have that makes you behave the way you
behave and, instead, being a good husband and father to a widowed
family as it is
abundantly
clear you have not been.” She
leaned forward at the hips and declared, “You reap, good man, what
you sow.”

“That’ll be
enough, Mrs. Truman,” Cash murmured firmly.

Mrs. Truman
looked at Kieran and announced, “I was done anyway.”

Finally
everyone fell silent and Abby watched as Alistair visibly battled
with his new knowledge and she almost, but not quite, felt sorry
for him.

Cash’s fingers
squeezed her shoulder. Her eyes moved from Alistair and her head
tilted back to look at Cash.

“Are you okay?”
he asked softly.

“Yes,” she
lied. “Are you?”

He ignored her
question, his fingers tensed again at her shoulder and his voice
still soft, he warned, “Don’t lie to me Abby.”

She sighed and
replied, “Okay, well, I
was
just attacked again by a ghosty
she-bitch, so of course I’m a little –”

Cash cut her
off. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Abby blinked at
him, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking
about walking into the hall earlier and seeing you looking like
your whole world had come to an end.”

Abby felt her
heart start racing and she kicked herself for being, yet again, so
very,
annoyingly,
transparent.

She searched
her brain for a plausible story.

Luckily she
didn’t have to search far. “Cash, someone made an attempt on your
life today but I got in the way. Tonight we’re at war with a ghost.
You’ve just thrown your uncle out of his home. This is all going to
wear on me.”

He pushed in at
the same time his arm tightened around her shoulders bringing her
even closer.

When they were
front-to-front, his hand lifted to her neck and he accused quietly,
“You’re lying again.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“Am not!”

“When I came
back to the hall, you weren’t where I left you. You were standing
with Jenny in an out-of-the-way place. The kind of place you’d
engage in a private conversation,” Cash informed her and Abby
wished he wasn’t so damned clever because at times it was pretty
annoying. Then he pressed, “What did she say?”

“We were
getting ready for the toast,” Abby lied again.

Cash’s mouth
grew tight before he demanded, “Stop lying.”

“Cash.”

“Abby.”

They held a
brief staring contest before Abby looked away and muttered, “I’m
not talking about this now.”

Cash’s arm gave
her a shake and as he intended, her gaze went back to his.

His hand at her
neck moved to cup her jaw. “I hope to God whatever she told you,
you’re smart enough to come to me before you jump to any ridiculous
conclusions.”

“Cash –” Abby
began but he cut her off.

His brogue was
rough and dangerous when he finished. “Because, darling, if you
don’t and you go off half-cocked, it’s going to piss me right, the
fuck, off.”

All right
then.

Abby scratched
a chat with Cash on her mental to-do list.

After she
helped take down a centuries old spirit from beyond the grave that
was.

She decided to
give up. “Can we just focus on the matter at hand?”

“We can, after
you promise you’ll be in bed with me at the night’s end,” Cash
returned and Abby’s body gave a small jerk.

“Of course,”
she whispered and watched as the intensity faded from his eyes
before she went on, “if I’m not in a hospital bed wearing a full
body cast, that is.” And she watched as the intensity shot right
back.