The Unexpected Mistress

by Sara Wood

  ‘You have a house in Marrakesh?’ she asked, wide-eyed.

  Cassian perched on the table again. ‘No, I rented rooms. Tony hotbedded with Fee, a stripper, who I—’

  ‘What?’ Her eyes were even wider, her mouth now joining in the amazement. She was wonderfully transparent. ‘You…lived with a…stripper?!’

  ‘Two, actually.’ Before her jaw dropped any further and she did herself an injury, he added, ‘We weren’t cohabiting, I hasten to add. Same house, different rooms. Loads of space, no obligations to one another, come and go as you like…a perfect arrangement. No commitment, company when you want it, solitude when you don’t.’

  ‘But…strippers?’

  Disapproval came from every line of her body. He decided she needed to have her judgement shaken up.

  ‘Don’t let the job fool you. Fee’s a sweetie, with a very strict moral code. Comes from Islington. You’d like her. Runs a shelter for sick animals in her spare time.’

  ‘You’re kidding me!’ she scoffed.

  ‘No, word of honour. It’s partly why she let Tony stay. She has a warm heart.’

  ‘I bet. So…what does…“hot-bedded” mean, then?!’ she asked warily.

  He couldn’t help but smile again, seeing that he was stretching her knowledge of the world a little too fast, a little too far.

  ‘It’s not as interesting as it sounds. The strippers worked at night so Tony had the use of Fee’s bed in their room. During the day they slept, and he mooched about on the roof. It’s flat. A kind of garden,’ he explained.

  ‘Warm-hearted or not, I don’t see why they’d let a stranger invade their privacy.’

  ‘It was a favour to me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  It was a very meaningful and glacial Aunt Enid kind of ‘oh’, but he wasn’t going to explain how he’d got the girls out of trouble with the police, who’d been harassing them in the hope of some ‘action’.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I suggested an answer to his cash flow problem. He was relieved to sell up. I got the impression he felt nothing for the Dales.’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Laura admitted.

  ‘Last I heard, he was planning his escape to Gibraltar with what was left of the cash.’ He glanced at her sharply. ‘How soon can you go?’

  She bit her lip. ‘You’re heartless!’ she flung.

  He grunted. ‘Practical. I’m not good at living cheek-by-jowl with other people.’

  ‘I remember,’ she said caustically and he gave a lopsided grin. ‘Cassian…’ She paused, then seemed to pluck up courage. ‘Let me explain the difficulty of my situation.’

  He frowned. ‘You’ve done that already, at extraordinary length.’

  ‘Please! Give me a chance!’

  Her huge blue eyes transfixed him. He saw that she was close to tears and felt a pang of sympathy. Even though her plight had shaken him more than he would have liked, he could cope with this. He’d handled any number of awkward situations in his life.

  ‘All right. I’ll listen—briefly. But, I warn you, I won’t change my mind.’

  ‘Do you blame me for trying?’ she asked, her face wan.

  ‘Go on, then. Make your pitch if you think it’s worth fighting for. Tooth and nail, I think you said. And Sue will expect to see blood on the floor when she next calls in,’ he mocked, deliberately goading her.

  Rebellion flared in her eyes and brought a new strength to her trembling mouth.

  ‘She’s going to Hong Kong for two weeks. It’ll have dried by then,’ she said tartly.

  Cassian laughed. ‘Well give it a go,’ he encouraged, eyes crinkling in amusement.

  She took a moment to compose herself, knowing that she must be calm. Adam’s future depended on what she said and how she said it. This time, she must let Cassian know her son’s needs.

  ‘I want to tell you about Adam in a little more detail,’ she said gently. ‘The kind of person he is. Why I’m so anxious about him.’

  Cassian marvelled at the change that came over her. The expression on her face had became suffused with tenderness and he felt his heart soften. She could love, he thought, his pulses quickening.

  ‘Yes?’ he snapped.

  His curtness had no impact on her at all. She was totally absorbed in thinking of her beloved son. That’s pure love, he mused. And marvelled at the luminous quality of her eyes.

  ‘He was born prematurely. I think now,’ she said softly, ‘that when I was pregnant I did too much physical work around the house for too long.’

  ‘Sounds like Enid. Perhaps she wanted you to lose your baby,’ he muttered.

  She winced. ‘Perhaps. I can’t deny that’s a possibility. She made it clear that my pregnancy was all the more reason for me to pull my weight. Anyway, he was a sickly baby and cried a lot. I found myself protecting him, watching out for the slightest indication that he might be starting another chest infection. And then, one day, he—oh, Cassian, it was so awful!’ she whispered.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said softly.

  His heart went out to her. She’d been treated very badly. Someone ought to give her a good time, make her happy…

  ‘He had his first asthma attack. I thought he was dying! He was rushed into hospital and put in an oxygen tent. I knew then that he was more important to me than life itself. From that moment on, I’ve had to watch his health very carefully,’ she said, her voice low and so tender that he almost envied the child. ‘It’s important that he’s not stressed. If he’s badly upset then he gets an asthma attack. I’ve had to work around them, of course. It’s what mothers do.’

  He grunted. ‘Work at what?’

  ‘I did a computer course,’ she replied. ‘I did well, had a natural aptitude, but I had to abandon it. Adam was ill so often that I couldn’t take on anything full-time or permanent because I had to look after him.’

  ‘Tough,’ he conceded, his eyes narrowed as he studied her.

  She showed no signs of resentment that her son’s health had imprisoned her in a financial straitjacket. Pure love shone from her eyes. He wondered idly what it would be like to win the heart of a woman with such deep, hidden passions.

  Frightening, he decided. She’d expect total togetherness. His idea of hell.

  ‘It’s not tough,’ she said, her expression tender. ‘He’s so uncomplaining and I…like being with him,’ she added more briskly, as if reluctant to express affection for her son.

  ‘How did you survive? Social Services?’ he hazarded.

  ‘No!’ She looked shocked. ‘I worked for ages as a waitress in a Grassington hotel but the new owner has daughters who can do my job.’ She put on a bright smile. ‘They’re gorgeous blondes with big bosoms,’ she explained with a laugh of self-deprecation.

  He tried to stop himself, but he found his glance flicking down and the way she was hugging herself revealed more than she knew, the shirt pulling tightly over firm, high breasts, lusher than he could have imagined.

  He felt heat suffuse him and frowned with annoyance. He’d seen breasts before. He wasn’t a curious teenager any more.

  ‘Pulls in the trade, you must admit,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Oh, I can’t blame him for employing his family, or anyone who’s really attractive,’ she said without rancour. ‘I have no illusions about myself.’

  You should look in the damn mirror! he thought sourly in the pause that followed. How could she miss what he could see? And yet he dared not tell her. For a start, she’d never believe him—and he didn’t have time to convince her. Nor would it be in his interests.

  ‘And, as you have already said, you’re out of work again,’ he said flatly.

  ‘With a sickly child,’ she emphasised.

  She crossed and neatly arranged her eye-catching legs. Her face lifted to his earnestly. Cassian hardened his heart. The welfare state would provide.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I can’t just walk out and rent somewhere. I have no savings. But I am actively searching for a job an
d when I get it, I’ll pay you rent. You don’t want this house. You can’t want it. You bought it out of the goodness of your heart, to get Tony out of a hole—’

  ‘Huh! If he were in a hole, I’d hire an excavator to make it deeper,’ he drawled, moved by her situation despite himself. Yet common sense argued that it was still in her best interests to leave. ‘I’m not charitable where he’s concerned. I’m here because I want to be.’

  ‘But—!’

  ‘No buts. This has gone on long enough. I’ll make it easy for you, Laura. A compromise. Pack your stuff. When your son comes home I’ll drive you both to a hotel of your choice and I’ll pay for you to stay there till you find a job. Can’t say fairer than that.’

  He leaned back, pleased with his generous solution. Laura looked defeated. For some reason that didn’t give him the satisfaction he’d expected.

  The muscles in her heart-wrenchingly sweet face tightened as she struggled not to cry and he had a wild moment when he almost moved forwards to take her in his arms and soothe her panic with promises he couldn’t keep.

  The tears defied her, trickling from the corners of her eyes. Cassian gritted his teeth to stop himself from backtracking.

  ‘I couldn’t let you pay our hotel bill!’ she croaked shakily.

  ‘I couldn’t do otherwise,’ he found himself saying.

  ‘I have my pride.’

  ‘So has the entire population of Yorkshire.’

  ‘It’s your revenge, isn’t it?’ she mumbled.

  Cassian frowned. ‘What for?’

  She hung her head. ‘For what Enid and my f-father did to you,’ she sniffed.

  He was appalled. ‘No! I—’

  ‘Then why?’ she wailed.

  ‘That’s my business. I want you to go. Don’t you see that—’

  She wasn’t listening. Her head was angled in an attitude of listening. He heard the sound of feet: someone running—stumbling—up the path.

  ‘It’s Adam! Something’s wrong!’ she jerked out, with a mother’s inexplicable certainty.

  Hastily she rubbed her tear-stained face with her fists then jumped up and flung open the door. Past her rigidly held body, he saw a mud-splattered boy with dishevelled blond hair and a panic-stricken expression come skidding to a halt outside.

  ‘Adam!’ she whispered.

  Cassian frowned and rose to his feet. The child was obviously in distress, and by the looks of him he’d been in a fight, but neither he nor his mother were making any move towards one another.

  They both stood as if frozen to the ground, staring in consternation, some kind of signal going between them that prevented them from physical contact.

  A chill went down his spine. Enid’s tongue had removed something more crucial than defiance from Laura. It had killed Laura’s ability to show love.

  ‘I—I fell over!’ Adam claimed, trying to be brave. But his mouth was all over the place.

  ‘Oh, Adam…!’ Laura was evidently distressed. Her hands hovered in front of her as if she was desperate to cuddle her son but had been forbidden to do so. ‘I—you…! You—you should be at school—’

  Cassian could bear no more. He pushed Laura aside and placed a firm arm around the quivering child’s shoulders.

  ‘Cup of tea, I think,’ he declared cheerfully, easing him through the door. ‘Then a scrub down with the yard brush and a bit of TLC for those bruises. Falling over’s quite a shock, isn’t it?’ he chattered, getting the shaken child into a comfortable armchair in the kitchen and crouching down beside him. ‘I did it a lot as a child.’ He grinned. ‘I seemed to get in the way of other boys’ feet.’

  He tensed when Laura’s hand came past his ear and brushed the hair back from her son’s forehead to reveal the bruise which Cassian had already spotted. He was an expert on bruises. And bullying. Particularly from adults.

  ‘Poor Adam!’ Laura leaned forwards and hesitantly kissed the purple bruise and then briefly touched her son’s hot face. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said huskily, as if overcome.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  Adam bent to untie his shoe laces and Cassian knew he was trying to hide his tears. To be strong. To cultivate a stiff upper lip. Anything to stop real emotion from emerging. Emotion was a bad word at Thrushton Hall.

  He could hear George Morris’s voice now, echoing down the years.

  ‘Stop crying!’ Morris would beg the temperamental Bathsheba in horror. Or…‘Don’t laugh so loud!…’ ‘Don’t dance like that—it’s…unseemly, you’re a married woman!…’ Or maybe ‘Calm yourself!…Don’t yell…’

  Ridiculous. The man had married his mother because he’d adored her exuberance. And then had set about curbing it so that she fitted in with the silent and repressed household over which he’d presided.

  It wasn’t surprising that the deeply repressed Laura was afraid of expressing her real feelings.

  Cassian found the situation interesting. There seemed to be a kind of agreement between Laura and her child. A tacit acceptance, perhaps, that there should be the minimum of affection displayed, one or two small gestures sufficing for deep concern.

  Intriguingly, she had put her hand on the arm of the chair where Adam was sitting. Cassian had noticed that Adam had imperceptibly leaned in that direction so that his body was inches from his mother’s restless fingers.

  He couldn’t believe what was happening. This was a kind of distant comfort, practised by two people who didn’t dare to let go in case they betrayed their emotions.

  The situation struck deep at his heart and he was moved more than he would have liked. Wordlessly, hampered by no inhibitions, he reached out to hug the shaking child and to let him know what human warmth could be like. He rubbed the thin, bony back in sympathy.

  ‘Let’s get your muddy shoes and jumper off, shall we?’ he suggested gently.

  As the child complied with a worrying submissiveness, Cassian reflected that the relationship between Laura and Adam couldn’t be more different than the closeness between him and Jai. Laura would be shocked if she ever saw their mutual expressions of love. He and his son had no problems about expressing their emotions.

  A surge of longing careered unhindered through him. He wanted his child near him. Missed him like hell. In a reflex action, he clutched Adam more tightly.

  ‘Who…are you?’ Adam asked timidly.

  He smiled down mistily. ‘Cassian.’

  The trembling stopped. Tears were knuckled away in a gesture that mimicked Laura’s.

  ‘Gosh! I’ve heard of you!’

  He grimaced. ‘Don’t tell me!’ he said, pretending to groan. ‘I was surly and rude and ignored your mother while I was here!’

  Adam shook his head, his blue Laura-eyes bright with eagerness.

  ‘I dunno about that. But Mum said you knew every plant and insect and bird and you could find your way around the countryside blindfold!’

  Cassian glanced at Laura in amusement. ‘Your mother is very kind to concentrate on my few good points.’

  ‘Cassian’s come to stay,’ Laura said, putting a mug of tea by Adam’s elbow. Her eyes challenged Cassian to say anything further.

  ‘Oh, gosh, cool!’ enthused Adam.

  Cassian frowned at Laura. He’d deal with her later. He fixed Adam with a sober but friendly gaze.

  ‘So. Spill the beans,’ he said quietly. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I—’ Adam faltered, clearly unable to look into Cassian’s steady eyes and tell a lie. There was a long pause. It was the silence before a confession and Cassian waited patiently for the child to begin. ‘Well…at break-time they said my Mum was a stupid feeble wimp, like me, and—and that we’re silly drips with marshmallow instead of guts!’ he said with a huge, indignant sniff.

  There was another pause. Cassian prayed that Laura wouldn’t react or speak. The boy needed a silence to fill with words. Any interruption might make the kiddie clam up. To his utter relief, Laura didn’t even move and after fiddling with his finge
rs for a while, Adam began again.

  ‘I t-tried to ignore them, like Mum said, but they pushed me into the nettles then jumped on m-me and pinched my packed lunch!’

  Tears rolled down his cheeks again and Cassian felt his heart aching for the distressed child.

  ‘Here,’ he said huskily, grasping Adam’s hands strongly in his.

  ‘Oh, my darling!’ Laura sobbed.

  And to Cassian’s surprise, she pushed him aside and drew her son into an awkward embrace. She was crying too, utter misery on her face.

  Cassian rose, made two more mugs of tea and took the cake out of the oven. It pained him to see Laura rocking her child and trying to control her weeping.

  They needed love and support. Someone to give them confidence. Bullying made him feel sick. Even the thought of it disrupted his laid-back approach to life and made him irrational, his emotions churning chaotically as anger, resentment, pity and past terrors filled his head.

  He’d been secretly bullied by George Morris. Taunted, spat upon, and beaten by older kids at senior school. The sheer helplessness had made him seethe with rage and frustration.

  And he was seething now, hurting for Adam’s sake, loathing those who attacked anyone who didn’t conform to some imaginary ‘norm’.

  He couldn’t bear it. He wanted to crack heads together, yell, terrify…anything so that Laura and her child would never weep like this again. He wanted to hug them both, tell them he’d deal with the problem, see their tears dry up and their faces turn to him trustingly. To see them smile.

  He found himself shaking—whether from passion or fear at where his thoughts were leading, he wasn’t sure.

  At that moment, he knew that he couldn’t turn them out—not yet, anyway. And the cold certainty iced his spine with apprehension.

  He was walking into dangerous quicksand. He loathed living with other people. Found their pettiness and knee-jerk rules irritating. Yet the urge to offer a temporary respite for Laura and Adam was so overwhelming that it couldn’t be denied. It seemed he cared about them.

  He drew in a sharp breath. For a man who needed to be free that was extremely worrying.