The Unexpected Mistress

by Sara Wood

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LAURA crossly banged pans about as she prepared a scrap lunch. How Cassian had persuaded Adam to go up for a bath without protest—and got him giggling as well in the process—she’d never know.

  But before she could think straight, Adam had come hurrying back downstairs in a holey old jumper and faded jeans, his face pink and shiny with eagerness as if something exciting awaited.

  She supposed it did. Cassian.

  Now Adam sat in smiling assent while Cassian gently and expertly smoothed the cuts and bruises with some cream he’d dug from his First Aid kit.

  Adam had spurned her usual stuff, beguiled by the promise that Cassian’s remedy was herbal and ‘brilliant, I use it all the time when I fall off mountains and things’.

  Huh! What was she suddenly? Redundant? The mince suffered a fierce pounding with the spoon. Cassian had made her look both callous and, now, hopelessly inadequate.

  When she’d seen Adam struggling desperately to be brave, she hadn’t known what to do. Should she respect his attempt or give in to her maternal instinct and comfort him?

  It had always been an unwritten rule between them that Adam should try to overcome the bullying on his own. He’d made that clear the first time she’d indignantly tried to interfere on his behalf.

  But now Cassian had changed the rule. And, even more infuriating, his tactics of firmness, humour and sympathy had worked, defusing Adam’s shock and making him feel better about himself.

  With vicious strokes, she grated some cheese and put it aside then flung carrots, onions and turnips into the mince to make it go further.

  Adam ought to be sitting with his shoulders hunched, chest heaving, clinging for dear life to his asthma inhaler. That’s what invariably happened after something like this.

  Instead, he was laughing at some improbable tale Cassian was relating about walking in the foothills of the Himalayas—Himarleeas he pretentiously called them—when he’d slid over fifty feet down a slope and ended up in a particularly magnificent heap of yak manure. Huh! As if!

  ‘We ought to let the school know you’re here, Adam,’ she said shortly, interrupting Cassian’s fairy stories.

  ‘Phone them after lunch,’ Cassian suggested with a languid stretch.

  ‘We don’t have a phone.’ Crossly she met his astonished eyes. ‘Too expensive. I’ll have to go to the school—’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ he protested. ‘It’s a four-mile round trip. Take off that hair shirt. You can use my mobile or take my car.’

  ‘I’ll phone. Thank you,’ she muttered.

  ‘Mum can’t drive,’ explained Adam.

  ‘Perhaps I should teach her,’ Cassian growled.

  There was a sudden silence. She looked at Cassian, startled and flustered by his remark. Though he looked more than a little startled too. Her heart thudded. Surely this meant she had a reprieve! Long enough for her to learn to drive!

  Adam looked impressed. She knew he dearly wanted her to join the human race and acquire a driving licence. But what was the point if she couldn’t afford to own a car? Yet that didn’t matter. The reprieve did.

  ‘You won’t tell them what happened, will you, Mum?’ Adam asked anxiously.

  ‘I can’t have you being hurt like this—’ she began fretfully.

  ‘Please!’ he begged, looking petrified. ‘You’ll make it worse!’

  She looked at him helplessly. What did you do? What was right, in the long run? Did she make her son a total outcast by complaining, or was he to be battered on a regular basis?

  Extraordinarily, she found herself searching out Cassian, wondering if he had an answer to the problem. She quivered. There was a melting tenderness in his eyes and it confused her.

  ‘You were bullied,’ she said to him in a low tone, remembering the torn clothes, and the cuts and bruises he’d often be sporting. He’d always told Aunt Enid that he’d been in a fight, but had never asked for help. And suddenly the bullying had stopped. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I didn’t want adult interference,’ he said quietly. ‘But that’s because I wanted to find my own way of dealing with the bullying. There isn’t one solution. Each person has a different need. Some don’t have the resources to cope alone. Adam, if you think you can change from being a victim to a winner, then go for it.’

  He was wise, she thought, seeing her son straighten as if he was growing in stature. Suddenly she saw that Cassian could help Adam so much. A tremor took her unawares, making her lips part at the thought of Cassian here, taking a part in their daily lives.

  ‘How long are you staying?’ Adam asked him.

  She winced at the wistful note. Her son was revelling in male company. Suddenly she felt isolated.

  ‘A while. Moving in tonight,’ came the easy reply. It was coupled with a dazzling smile.

  ‘Cool!’

  She shot a glance at Cassian and found that he was regarding her wryly. The odd sensations crept into her loins again. They were like small spasms, tugging and relaxing. Quite unnervingly enjoyable. She bit her lip and clenched all her muscles hard.

  ‘…yes, I was twelve when I first came to Thrushton,’ Cassian was saying.

  ‘Did you like it here?’ Adam asked eagerly.

  ‘Hated Aunt Enid, loved Thrushton,’ Cassian replied with blistering honesty.

  Adam giggled. ‘Why?’

  ‘I regret to say that Enid was a cow. A strict and humourless woman who thought children should be neither seen nor heard. I think she would have preferred them to have sprung from the womb as fully trained adults with a degree in silence and obedience.’

  ‘Cassian!’ Laura reproved, while Adam gazed in delighted shock.

  ‘I can hear her voice now,’ he said, looking pointedly at her and Laura blushed in bitter recognition because she’d caught herself reproving Adam’s small and rare misdemeanours with Enid’s sharp little voice. Cassian had the bit between his teeth and was galloping on. ‘Her favourite word was “don’t”,’ he said blithely. ‘And her tongue had been dipped in snake venom. She had a way of gnashing her teeth that makes me think now that she could have crushed Terminator I, II and III in her jaws.’

  Adam laughed, awe-struck by Cassian’s frankness. ‘But you liked Thrushton,’ he said, pleased.

  ‘Oh, yes. Out there…’ He paused. Laura gulped, her senses beguiled. His face had become soft, quite beautiful in its dreaminess. ‘It’s wild and free and open. Magnificent scenery. Takes you at once from your small, inward world and places your life in a greater context. Don’t you think?’

  Laura was stunned to learn how he’d felt. That was why he’d spent days at a time on the fells. It had been more than an escape from the confines of the house. He’d seen more than beauty in the Dales. Like her, he’d found something special, spiritual, uplifting.

  Thoughtfully she listened while Cassian continued to answer the hail of questions coming from Adam, speaking to her son as if he were an adult. It disturbed her that Adam was chattering—chattering! when he was usually so monosyllabic!—and it disturbed her that Cassian’s lazy, deep voice seemed to be soothing her own agitated mind and slowing her movements till she was wafting languidly about the kitchen and catching herself hanging on every improbable word.

  But her son was undeniably happy in Cassian’s company. And although she might resent Cassian for being the one who’d taken Adam’s mind off the bullying, she was grudgingly grateful.

  ‘Sometimes you must have got soaked to the skin, when you wandered off for days on end!’ Adam was saying. ‘Wasn’t that awful?’

  ‘Not often!’ laughed Cassian. ‘I checked the chickweed. Failing that, the spiders.’

  Adam grinned. ‘Chickweed?’ he scoffed.

  ‘Sure. It closes up if it’s going to rain. And spiders are only active in fine weather. If they remake a web around 6—7 p.m., you can be almost sure it’ll stay dry. If it’s raining and they’re altering their web, it’ll clear up. You have to read the signs
. For instance, a red sunset tells you that dry air is coming. A yellow one indicates it’ll be damp. You can read clouds too. I’ll show you sometime.’

  Sometime, she thought. Another indication that they wouldn’t be leaving soon. Her hopes rose.

  ‘Cool! But…what did you eat?’ asked Adam, wide-eyed with admiration.

  ‘Trout, usually. You start downstream, place a light close to the water, and the fish come to look. With care, you can flick one out. I’ll show you. There’s plenty of food if you know where to look. I can lend you a book about finding food in the wild. But make no mistake,’ he warned, ‘walking the Dales over a period of days is not something anyone can do—not even an adult. I took no risks, Adam. I learnt the lie of the land first, practised and learnt the art of survival till I could light a fire in a howling gale and tell by sound and smell and feel alone where I was.’

  ‘You mean…’ Laura eyed him in amazement. ‘You were so determined to escape Aunt Enid that you spent weeks preparing yourself?’

  ‘I think it took two years of concentrated effort before I was sure I knew what I was doing,’ he said quietly. Then he smiled. ‘I wanted to escape, not die! It was wonderful out there on a starlit night,’ he mused softly, his face radiating pleasure. ‘The silence was awesome.’

  Adam moved a little closer to his new hero. Laura watched, her gratitude towards Cassian a little eclipsed by a wary concern. Adam wasn’t tough. She didn’t want him trying to emulate Cassian.

  ‘Weren’t you horribly afraid?’ he asked timidly.

  Cassian’s eyes liquefied with warmth. ‘Sometimes. Especially when the night was black and I hadn’t reached the shelter I’d chosen. But I always knew where I was heading, and never left anything to chance. I started with small trips, graduated to longer ones. And each success made me stronger, more confident.’

  ‘And…er…’ Adam persisted, ‘you weren’t popular at school.’

  Laura held her breath. He’d slipped the question in as if it were casual. Would Cassian see that her son wanted some reassurance about popularity—and help with the bullying?

  ‘No. Because I was different,’ Cassian answered gently, and she felt the air slowly sift from her lungs. He’d be kind to Adam, she felt sure. ‘Kids don’t like people who stand apart. I was categorised along with the boys with National Health glasses and too much weight. We were bullied as a matter of course. It’s a very primitive thing, Adam, a caveman attitude. Part of what they call the biological imperative. That means that it’s part of our survival instincts. Oddities are rejected to allow survival of the fittest. The world has moved on since Neolithic times, but unfortunately civilisation hasn’t always impacted on some primeval brains!’ he finished with a grin.

  Adam laughed too. ‘What did you do when you were bullied? Actually do?’ he asked with an exaggeratedly nonchalant tone which fooled nobody.

  Laura stiffened, turning to face the two of them where they were sitting with cosy familiarity on the old sofa. He’d never talked so openly before. He trusted Cassian, she thought in shock. More than she’d ever been trusted. Or were mothers naturally ruled out as confidantes?

  ‘I learnt about pain,’ Cassian replied ruefully. He smiled down at Adam, his manner relaxed and inviting.

  ‘Nothing else?’ her son asked in disappointment.

  ‘Plenty!’

  ‘What?!’

  Eagerly, Adam tucked his legs up on the sofa, his body curled against Cassian’s. Laura felt her heart lurch. Her son was looking at Cassian as if he held the Holy Grail in the palm of his hands.

  ‘Well, obviously you know that my solutions won’t necessarily be yours,’ Cassian flattered, and Adam nodded in sage agreement. ‘You’ll know that you have to decide how to deal with your problem and work out what you want—’

  ‘To be tough!’ Adam blurted out.

  Cassian’s arm came about Adam’s shoulders and he was nodding as if they both had much in common. To Laura’s astonishment, Adam reached up a puny arm and boldly felt Cassian’s biceps. She couldn’t believe what her reserved and shy son was doing. For the life of her, she couldn’t recall him ever touching anyone.

  But Cassian was incredibly seductive and…touchable. She went pink, thinking how close she had come to breaking her own rules about personal space.

  ‘My decision exactly.’

  ‘Did you, uh…have the same plan as me?’ asked Adam tentatively.

  Laura could have wept. Her son desperately needed help and she hadn’t seen that. All his stubborn insistence that he was fine had been a cover-up. She couldn’t bear it.

  ‘You tell me! I chopped wood,’ Cassian confided, perhaps deliberately emphasising the muscle definition of his chest by leaning back, his arms behind his head. Shocked to be distracted, Laura found herself mesmerised by his physique, her throat drying in an instant recognition of his visceral appeal. ‘I walked miles too,’ he reminisced. ‘Climbed hills. At first, I puffed like an old steam train, then I graduated to running up them. I heaved rocks about, making dams on the fells where no one could see me fall or fail or yell in frustration. I suppose that’s the kind of thing you’ve decided to do.’

  ‘Yes!’ Adam cried with shining eyes.

  Laura felt a shaft of pain that her son had seen a glimmer of hope on the horizon. And she hadn’t been the one who’d put it there. She felt a tug of admiration for Cassian’s technique.

  ‘Thought so.’ Cassian yawned. ‘Lucky that everything you need is on the doorstep, isn’t it? Logs, hills, rocks. Makes getting fit a piece of cake.’ He looked up, saw Laura stupidly holding the saucepan as if she’d been welded to the floor, and smiled. ‘No time like the present, Adam,’ he said briskly, leaping from the sofa. ‘You can start flexing those muscles by mashing the potatoes while I fetch something for pudding.’

  ‘Me?’ her son’s mouth dropped open and Laura was just about to say that she did all the cooking and housework while Adam studied or rested, when he scrambled up and rushed to her side. ‘Right. Er…what do I do, Mum?’

  ‘Bash.”

  Tight-lipped, she handed him the masher, wordlessly dropped a knob of marge into the pan and added seasoning. Out of the corner of her eye, while Adam pounded the potatoes with messianic concentration, she saw Cassian tipping fresh raspberries into a dish which he’d hauled from the cupboard.

  ‘Make yourself at home,’ she said tartly.

  ‘I am, aren’t I?’ he murmured.

  She gave him a scathing look and inspected the potatoes. Her brows knitted in a frown at the lumps but before she could say anything to Adam, Cassian squeezed himself between them.

  ‘You’re doing great,’ he enthused, praising her son where she would have criticised. ‘Nearly got all the lumps smashed, I see.’

  Adam’s eyes rounded in dismay. Hastily he pulled the pan towards him and set about reducing the potato to a creamy consistency.

  Laura stood transfixed. Cassian had achieved the required result with consummate skill, craftily ensuring that it was Adam himself who’d decided the mash wasn’t up to standard.

  ‘Penny?’ Cassian murmured, his palm touching the small of her back.

  She felt she’d been set on fire. It had been a mere enquiring touch and yet her body had reacted so violently that it seemed her heart might leap from her breast.

  And all the while her mind was teeming with new thoughts, excitement mounting as she examined the idea of praise and suggestion as a replacement for criticism—which up to now had been the only method of shaping a child’s behaviour that she’d ever known.

  It was as if she’d stumbled on treasure. In a way, she had.

  Half-turning, her face now inches from Cassian’s, she smiled delightedly into his dark, pooling eyes and instantly became light-headed. Joy was unsettling, she thought warily. Then decided to succumb. What the hell.

  ‘My thoughts are worth more than that,’ she said happily. She could have danced. Almost did. Her toes wriggled. She grinned. ‘Thank you.’
>
  He raised a heavy eyebrow. ‘For what?’

  Close up, his mouth looked devastatingly sensual. Again she felt the light pressure of his hand on her spine and she had to struggle to remember what they’d been talking about.

  With solemn delight, she met his bone-melting stare. It was the revelation that was making her so delirious. And she wanted to keep her new-found knowledge to herself.

  ‘For showing Adam how to make the perfect mash,’ she breathed.

  ‘My pleasure.’

  There was a brief pressure on her tingling back and then Cassian had moved away, leaving a cold gap she wanted immediately to fill. With him. To have him close, touching her, gazing into her eyes…

  ‘Inspection!’ ordered Adam excitedly, banging the pan in front of her.

  She was jerked back to reality. ‘Wow!’ she marvelled. ‘Totally smashed mash! Eat your heart out, celebrity cooks of the world!’

  ‘Bread smells fabulous. Fancy some wine?’ Cassian enquired, waving a bottle of red at her.

  She beamed, feeling suddenly hedonistic. Wine was a luxury. And a wicked indulgence at lunchtime! ‘Yes, please!’ she said recklessly, knowing she was being silly, but unable to stop herself. After lifting out the golden brown bread, she picked up a serving spoon—and then on an impulse she handed it to the glowing Adam. ‘There you go. Pile the potato on top of the mince, add the cheese, grab the oven gloves and push the dish into the oven. It’s ready when the cheese is brown and sizzling. I’m going to put my feet up and luxuriate in the high life.’

  Flushed and happy, she sat neatly in the armchair while Cassian opened the bottle. The sunlight danced on the planes of his face. He looked relaxed and at ease and she felt her entire body responding to his mood, softening and slowing down as if she too were laid back and uninhibited.

  Her fortunes had changed. Cassian had now met Adam and seen his needs. Instinctively she knew they’d be staying for a while—and perhaps she could even come up with some means of sharing the house till he grew tired of such a narrow world and drifted off to pastures new.