Her Sister's Baby

by Alison Fraser

  ‘I can’t believe you did that.’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘Told Tom you’d take the baby away.’

  Cass shook her head. She was tired of being misjudged by this family.

  ‘I didn’t,’ she responded.

  ‘He says you did,’ he countered.

  And, of course, it was plain whom he preferred to believe.

  ‘I said nothing,’ she repeated. ‘Tom heard what he wanted to hear.’

  He considered this for a moment, blue eyes hooded, before he gave a negligent shrug.

  ‘Whichever,’ he dismissed, ‘I assume you have no intention of doing so.’

  Cass pulled a face in reply. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she resented being put on the spot like this.

  ‘Did you imagine I would? Was that the plan? Get me here for the funeral, then hand her over. Problem solved.’

  ‘Hardly.’ He laughed, a harsh sound. ‘You’re not exactly the maternal type, are you?’

  ‘What do you know? You don’t know me!’ she threw back.

  His lips thinned. ‘Other than in the biblical sense, you mean?’

  A dull flush hit Cass’s cheeks but she reacted with anger rather than embarrassment.

  ‘That’s history,’ she seethed. ‘Do we have to keep raking it up?’

  ‘Funny, it seemed more current down at the river.’ He arched a brow, mocking her. ‘Still, you’re right. Let’s not confuse the issue. Some decisions have to be made concerning your sister’s baby. As you’ll have gathered, Tom is convinced it’s not his—’

  ‘It is a she,’ Cass put in. ‘At least call her that.’

  His eyes widened a little at the interruption. ‘All right, she, although the baby’s gender is scarcely relevant. Tom’s rejection hinges solely on his belief that it…sorry, she…was fathered by someone else. The problem is where we proceed from here.’

  Was he asking her opinion? He appeared to be. But Cass hadn’t had time to form one.

  ‘Tom seems to want her adopted.’

  ‘Yes, and that’s probably the best option if she isn’t his.’

  ‘If,’ Cass echoed. ‘You don’t share his conviction?’

  ‘Not totally,’ he admitted to her surprise, ‘which is why I’d prefer to wait for the result of blood tests.’

  She frowned in recollection. ‘Tom said he hadn’t had any blood tests done.’

  He hesitated, before confiding, ‘No, but I did. My DNA should be close enough to Tom’s to prove or disprove a genetic connection.’

  Cass did not dispute it, quizzing instead, ‘Tom agreed to this?’

  ‘He signed the necessary documentation, yes,’ Dray responded.

  A straight enough answer but something in his expression made her wonder.

  ‘He just didn’t read it first, perhaps?’ she suggested.

  A brief smile flickered, acknowledging her astuteness, before he ran on, ‘Does it matter? The important thing is to establish paternity.’

  ‘Your test won’t do that,’ she pointed out, ‘unless she is Tom’s.’

  ‘True,’ he conceded. ‘Tom says you have no idea of the other candidate.’

  ‘No,’ she stated flatly, while her eyes dared him to challenge it.

  But he didn’t—a fact she would remember later.

  ‘Well, I’ll take it from here.’ He gripped the door handle, ready to open it.

  It took Cass a moment to realise she was being dismissed. ‘I can go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Just like that? He really did think she was devoid of feelings.

  ‘Look, if the baby turns out not to be Tom’s—’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t call on you.’

  Cass should have been relieved. Caring for a baby would seriously disrupt the career which she’d worked so hard to re-establish. But it still hurt that he saw her incapable of doing it.

  ‘Why did you insist I come back to the house?’

  ‘Tom wanted to talk to you. I didn’t realise exactly why, otherwise I would have thought twice about it… Still, he seems calmer.’

  ‘Only because he thinks I’ll take the baby.’

  ‘Yes, well…if we can leave him thinking it, until alternative arrangements can be made?’ He raised a brow, turning it into a request.

  She nodded. She had no wish to upset Tom further.

  ‘Thanks,’ he murmured briefly. ‘We’ll go out a side door.’

  She followed willingly as he walked her round the far side of the house. They emerged by the garage block where his car stood.

  ‘Richard will take you where you want to go,’ he said of the driver who was seated, waiting and ready, in the car.

  ‘Fine.’ She wasn’t about to argue.

  In fact, she would have walked away but he added, ‘I imagine this is goodbye.’

  ‘I imagine so,’ Cass echoed, keeping her feelings in rigid check.

  ‘Probably wise, considering the effect we have on each other.’ His tone was level, as if he were merely stating a fact.

  Cass wanted to deny it, to say, You have no effect on me, but her memory wasn’t that short, and he was looking at her in a way which recalled all too vividly their encounter in the garden.

  It made little sense. To dislike someone this much and still feel such a powerful attraction.

  ‘I have to go.’

  Have to run, more like.

  He didn’t stop her. He wanted her gone, too.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THERE were good days and bad days. Today was decidedly in the bad category. Assigned to a surgical ward, Cass had been on call from the previous evening and had been paged three times between midnight and seven, before she started her day shift.

  Working on so little sleep, she found everything took that much longer because she felt the need to double-check every dosage she wrote on a chart. She was hardly up to speed, when the surgeon, Mr Hunter-Davies, descended to do his round. Always critical, he seemed to take pleasure in asking her opinion on various patients, then ridiculing it.

  She was beyond tired by the end of her shift and in need of light relief when she met Chris Wyatt, one of the young male doctors, in the exit lobby.

  ‘The lovely Dr Barker,’ he greeted, tongue-in-cheek, as he followed her outside, ‘all set for a weekend of high living?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Well, if you need company, I may be available.’

  ‘Really?’ She arched a brow. ‘No new nurses to seduce, Dr Wyatt?’

  The suggestion drew a mock offended look, before he disclaimed, ‘You shouldn’t always believe hospital gossip, Dr Barker. Perhaps I just haven’t met the right woman yet.’ He let his eyes rest on her, as if she might be the one.

  Cass laughed aloud. ‘Does this chat-up line usually work for you?’

  He grinned incorrigibly. ‘You’d be surprised… However, if you require something more original—’

  ‘Thanks, but no, thanks.’ Cass had had enough of male doctors and their egos for today, and began to walk towards the hospital gates.

  He fell in step beside her. ‘I’ll walk you to the tube station.’

  ‘Aren’t you on duty?’ She looked at the white coat he was wearing.

  ‘Meal break,’ he explained, taking it off and slinging it over his shoulder. ‘I could do with some fresh air.’

  ‘All right.’ Cass didn’t argue.

  They nodded towards the porter at the entrance, before walking uphill towards the main road. They’d gone about thirty yards when a figure appeared in their path.

  Cass stopped dead and fought a desire to turn tail and run.

  It had been more than a month since Pen had died and there had been no further word from the Carlisles. Now here was Dray Carlisle, unannounced.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he stated without preamble.

  His voice was taut and there was no mistaking the anger in his eyes. What had she done now?

  ‘Well, I don’t need to tal
k to you.’ She moved to step past him.

  He blocked her way. ‘Five minutes, that’s all it will take. Is that unreasonable? I’ve already waited two hours.’

  She pulled a face, saying that wasn’t her problem.

  ‘Look, if she doesn’t want to talk to you—’ began Chris Wyatt, only to be silenced by a glare from Drayton Carlisle.

  The young doctor mouthed the word, ‘Patient?’ at Cass.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, impatient,’ Dray Carlisle interjected, ‘so, do everyone a favour, and disappear.’

  ‘Hey, cool it!’ Chris raised his hands and backed off slightly. ‘I’m a lover not a fighter…Cass?’

  He waited his cue from her.

  Cass frowned, wishing he’d used a different expression.

  Dray Carlisle’s scowl blackened, suggesting imminent loss of temper.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said with more confidence than she felt.

  ‘Okay.’ Chris gave her no argument but turned back towards the hospital.

  ‘So is he?’ Dray demanded the moment they were alone.

  ‘Is he?’ she echoed. ‘Is he what?’

  ‘One of your lovers?’ Contempt laced his words.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she dismissed. ‘He’s a colleague. Nothing more.’

  ‘A fellow doctor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She caught up with what he’d said. He now knew she was a doctor?

  His mouth twisted slightly before he switched to asking, ‘Is there a pub around here?’

  ‘At the top of the road. Why?’

  ‘We could go for a drink.’

  ‘What?’

  Did he really think she’d want to go anywhere with him after the way he’d just talked to her?

  ‘Or alternatively,’ he went on, ‘we could stand here and wash our dirty linen in public. It’s up to you.’

  He glanced down the road to the hospital. A group of nurses was gathered at the gates. Cass recognised a couple from her ward.

  ‘Yes, all right.’ She didn’t want to be the focus of hospital gossip.

  She started up the hill, leaving him to fall in step beside her. They passed his car where he must have been sitting, watching for her, and walked to the top of the road in silence. She thought of losing him before they reached the pub but there wasn’t much chance of it.

  Though the Star and Garter was the nearest pub to the hospital, Cass had never actually been inside. It was cool, dimly lit and the background music not too intrusive. At six in the evening it was also half empty. She saw a couple of student doctors at a table near the door and opted to sit at a more private booth in the rear while Dray Carlisle went to order drinks.

  He came back with what looked like lager in a tall glass and the dry white wine she’d requested.

  She waited for him to break the silence but he seemed in no hurry. She glanced up and caught him staring. He continued to do so until she looked away again.

  ‘So why are you here?’ She forced the issue.

  ‘I need to speak to you,’ he repeated what he’d said earlier, ‘and, as you haven’t returned any of my calls, you gave me little choice.’

  ‘Calls? What calls?’

  ‘I’ve left at least three messages on your answering service in the last forty-eight hours.’

  ‘I’ve been on duty.’

  He looked sceptical. ‘I also phoned the hospital and was informed there was no auxiliary called Cassandra Barker, only a junior doctor, and the said doctor could be paged if I knew her number but not otherwise…I assume that is you.’

  She nodded and couldn’t resist a dry, ‘Amazing, isn’t it, what us lower orders can achieve, given half a chance?’

  ‘Isn’t it just?’ he drawled back. ‘I would say congratulations, but you’d no doubt interpret it as patronising. What I find even more amazing is the fact that your sister never mentioned your new profession.’

  Cass shrugged. Pen wouldn’t have wanted Cass upstaging her in any respect.

  ‘I don’t imagine you ever showed much interest, did you?’ She tried to make it his negligence, not Pen’s.

  But he took her aback by saying, ‘As a matter of fact, I did ask about you from time to time. She’d say you were working in some hamburger place or allude to whichever man you were currently dating, but I don’t remember any reference to medical school. When did you graduate?’

  ‘A year ago.’

  ‘Then you must have been at university at the time we first met.’

  ‘No, I was a checkout girl then, remember?’ She deliberately brought up her past so he’d know she wasn’t ashamed of it.

  His brow creased and Cass guessed that he was now wondering whether she really was a bona fide doctor, and not some lunatic posing as one.

  ‘I went straight from school to university to study medicine,’ she explained, ‘but took a couple of years out, midway through, before returning to qualify.’

  She wasn’t going to admit that he’d acted as her incentive in some convoluted way.

  ‘Why did you leave in the first place?’ He still sounded suspicious.

  ‘Circumstances.’

  ‘Which were?’

  That, she couldn’t tell him and keep her promise to Tom concerning Pen’s first pregnancy.

  ‘What is this—the Spanish Inquisition?’

  His mouth thinned. ‘I’m just trying to square your past with your present. I don’t recall your even hinting at any of this during our brief relationship.’

  She hadn’t. A sense of failure had left her reluctant to discuss her apparently aborted medical course.

  ‘Unsettle you, does it,’ she said now, ‘shop assistants getting above their station?’

  He shook his head. It was a gesture of exasperation rather than denial.

  ‘Still fighting the class war, Cass? And long after the rest of us have given up and gone home. Don’t you ever get bored with it?’

  He clearly was, as his voice slowed to a languid drawl.

  Cass, who had been spoiling for a fight, was disarmed.

  ‘Well, I’m certainly bored with this meeting, so if we could get to the point—’

  ‘Fine.’

  He reached into his jacket pocket, drew out a white envelope and laid it in front of her.

  Cass’s name and address was scrawled on the front, but no stamp or postmark. It took her a moment to recognise the handwriting. She made no move to pick it up.

  ‘This was found among your sister’s things,’ he continued at length. ‘It didn’t seem appropriate to post it.’

  Cass nodded. It was a big enough shock like this. ‘Have you read what’s in it?’

  His mouth tightened with annoyance. ‘I do have some scruples.’

  ‘Has Tom?’ she added.

  He shook his head. ‘Tom asked my housekeeper, Mrs Henderson, to clear out your sister’s drawers and wardrobes. She brought the letter to me, worried it might upset Tom further.’

  ‘How is Tom?’ Her concern was genuine.

  He hesitated before admitting, ‘Somewhat irrational.’

  Cass’s eyes narrowed, wondering what irrational covered, but he didn’t expand on it. Instead he added, ‘Do you want to know about the baby?’

  Her heart and her head went their separate ways on this, one screaming yes, the other no. Her face remained expressionless.

  He assumed indifference and continued abruptly, ‘Well, I’ll tell you, anyway. The DNA testing proved a genetic link between Tom and the baby.’

  ‘So he accepts he’s the father,’ Cass surmised with relief.

  ‘Not quite.’ He didn’t look at her this time, but nursed his glass as he relayed, ‘Tom accepts the baby was fathered by a Carlisle, just not by him.’

  ‘But who else could—?’ Cass broke off, and her eyes fixed on the man opposite her.

  ‘I see you’ve reached the same conclusion as my brother.’ His drawl suggested it didn’t bother him.

  Because it wasn�
�t true? Or because it was?

  He returned her questioning gaze with a mocking look.

  No, it couldn’t be true. Whatever she thought of Dray Carlisle, he wouldn’t have done that to his brother.

  ‘Why don’t you open the letter? Who knows, all may be revealed.’

  It was a challenge. She wondered if he knew, without reading it, what was in this letter. Had her sister confided in him?

  She finally picked it up and turned it round. She froze for a moment when she saw the back of the envelope. Where the V had been pasted down, her sister had stuck a label and written across in neat, printed letters, ‘TO BE SENT SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN TO ME’. She had done it in such a way that the letter couldn’t be opened, read and resealed.

  Cass inserted a fingernail under a corner flap and ripped the top across. She took out the pages inside and unfolded them with a feeling of dread, made worse by Dray Carlisle’s presence.

  She read a couple of lines. ‘Dear Cass, If you’re reading this, then I guess things haven’t worked out too well for me,’ and then crumpled the letter in her hand.

  ‘Excuse me.’ She stood up and he rose with her, perhaps meaning to block her way again. ‘I have to go to the loo.’

  He looked suspicious but he glanced at her bag, still sitting in the corner of the booth, and didn’t try to stop her.

  She didn’t really need the loo, of course. It was privacy she was seeking as she locked herself in one of two cubicles in the dingy pub toilet.

  She read the letter slowly, tears threatening. It sounded so like Pen. Though it was patently a ‘in the event of my demise’ letter, it was surprisingly upbeat, as if by writing it Pen had thought somehow it would ward off death.

  In it Pen explained that she had, indeed, been pregnant when she’d sought out advice from Cass and, despite Cass’s negative reaction, had wanted to go through with it, especially once Tom had found out. ‘He was over the moon about the baby.’ She’d considered telling him the whole truth but it would have spoiled things. He’d taken ages to forgive and forget last year’s indiscretion. ‘So why hurt him more by dredging up the past?’

  She was attending a hospital in London for her antenatal care and, with any luck, could keep Tom in the dark about dates and other specifics—at least until the baby was born. After that, she was confident he’d forgive her anything.