Penmort Castle (36 page)

His mouth
touched hers, his eyes open then he said, “I just did.”

He moved away,
pulled her properly into the bed, covering her with the sheet.

She watched,
mind again blank, as he dressed and came back to her.

He didn’t say
a word as he slid the hair off her neck, leaned in and kissed her
there.

But instead of
leaving, like he normally did, his fingers curled around her neck,
his eyes caught hers and held them.

He looked at
her, silent, for what seemed like years but was only moments before
his fingers gave a gentle squeeze.

He turned out
the light and then he was gone.

The Warriors
Assemble

Abby parked on
the street across from her house.

She couldn’t
park in her drive, there were three white vans parked there.

And she
couldn’t park in front of her house, a skip containing a
distressing amount of debris was sitting there.

As she got out
of her car, a man walked out her front door carrying a toilet. She
watched as he went straight to the skip and hefted it over the
side.

She winced when
she heard the toilet crash into the skip.

“All right?” he
called and her eyes went from her toilet, which she hadn’t realised
until that moment held sentimental value, to the man.

“All right,”
she called back.

Then, before
she could witness more, she hightailed it to Mrs. Truman’s.

Mrs. Truman had
the door open before Abby’s foot hit the first step on her
stoop.

“Bang bang,
crash,
” Mrs. Truman snapped irately as Abby ascended the
steps. “All day yesterday, all day today. Those workmen are
loud
. My dogs are in a state!” She stepped out of the way
for Abby to precede her into the entry, all three dogs moving
around Abby’s calves calling for attention. Then Mrs. Truman
continued as she slammed the door, “I want a word with Fraser. You
give me his phone number the minute you take off your coat.”

Abby considered
the emotional turmoil Cash put her through that morning (she was
blaming him as it was far easier on her peace of mind then to blame
herself or the unthinkable,
give in
to her current dilemma).
Then, once she handed her coat to the older woman, Abby very
unkindly pulled her mobile out and gave Mrs. Truman the number.

“Hang on, hang
on,” Mrs. Truman chanted, her arm up, hand waving in the air, “let
me get my phone.”

She led Abby
and the three dogs (who appeared to be happy and excited, not in a
“state”) down her hall into the sitting room where Fenella and
Cassandra were both seated. Fenella was biting into an enormous
scone filled with clotted cream and jam. Cassandra was holding a
saucer in one hand and daintily sipping from a delicate china
teacup in the other.

Abby greeted
them both with a wave and all three dogs jumped up on the sofa
beside Fenella and her scone.

Abby, at Mrs.
Truman’s orders, was there to have tea with Fenella and Cassandra
in order to devise a strategy to defeat a ghost.

Bearing in mind
that Abby’s move from being Cash’s pretend girlfriend to his real
girlfriend (or possible mistress, depending how you looked at it,
and Abby was trying not to look at it
at all
) was
approximately nine hours old, it was likely not good that she was
already withholding something from him.

Trust was
important in a relationship.

Then again,
Cash would probably, first, flip out that she was going to sit down
with his cousin, a witch-cum-clairvoyant and Mrs. Truman and decide
a plan of action to conquer a ghost.

Then he’d have
her committed.

So Abby thought
it her best option to enter the part of her life’s journey that
included Cash by, essentially, lying to him.

She was, she
found, totally okay with that.

“Abigail, I’m
ready, give me his number,” Mrs. Truman demanded as Abby seated
herself in an armchair next to Cassandra and across from
Fenella.

Mrs. Truman was
standing with hand on hip, other hand curled around a phone, thumb
at the ready.

Perhaps at this
juncture calling Cash wasn’t such a good idea.

“Maybe you can
call him
after
we have our chat,” Abby suggested.

“But I’m angry
now
. I might cool off after I eat a scone. I baked those
scones myself and I bake the best scones of anyone I know,” she
bragged with not a shred of humility. “If I eat a scone, I might
want to take a nap instead of have my word with Fraser.”

Abby came up
with a better idea. Not only was it her turn, it would mean Cash’s
torture would last a whole lot longer (and he couldn’t hang
up).

Therefore she
suggested, “We’ll have you to dinner.”

“When?” Mrs.
Truman snapped.

“Tomorrow?”
Abby asked.

Mrs. Truman
immediately dropped the phone into its receiver, accepting Abby’s
invitation by announcing, “I don’t eat celery,” she sat down beside
Fenella and reached for the teapot, “or peppers. They give me
wind.”

Abby heard
Cassandra chuckle and Fenella raised her eyebrows, her lips
pressing together in an effort not to laugh.

Mrs. Truman
poured Abby a cup of tea and splashed a dash of milk in it while
going on, “And if you make beef, I won’t eat it unless it’s well
done. I’m English. We cook our beef through. That’s the way we’ve
always done it, that’s the way we’ll always do it. No one does
tradition like the English.”

“I bet the
Italians would have something to say about that,” Cassandra put
in.

“Pah!” Mrs.
Truman retorted.

“And the
Spanish,” Fenella added timidly.

“And
practically everyone else, but the Americans,” Cassandra finished
with a cheerful wink in Abby’s direction and Abby decided instantly
she liked her.

Mrs. Truman
handed Abby her tea. “Are we here to talk tradition or are we here
to talk ghosts?” Once she’d divested herself of Abby’s tea, she
turned to Fenella and pointed at her. “You! Start!”

Fenella’s eyes
moved to Abby and she began, “Well –” but Mrs. Truman cut her
off.

“And don’t be
all mealy-mouthed about it. Spit it out!”

As ordered,
Fenella rushed on.

Eyes on Abby,
she asked, “You didn’t slip when you were in the bathroom, did
you?”

Abby blinked in
surprise and then looked at Mrs. Truman. “Did you tell her?”

“No. I. Did.
Not,” Mrs. Truman stated clearly. “Abigail Butler, how many
strangers do I ask in for tea?” Abby didn’t have time to respond,
Mrs. Truman went on talking. “I heard her banging on your door and
I went out to see what the all racket was about. She told me who
she was and I decided to ask her over and pump her for information.
She
told
me
about Vivianna Wainwright and how she
thought you’d been injured by a ghost.
I
told
her
I
knew all about it and we were going to figure out a plan to defeat
the ghost and she said she wanted to be involved.”

Abby’s
surprised eyes went to Fenella. “Are you sure?”

“Well, no,”
Fenella replied hesitantly then swallowed, “Vivianna’s scary and
she’s mean. She never hurt any of us, not us girls, but she doesn’t
like Alistair and she’s always doing stuff to him. And the
servants. I don’t want to be on her bad side.”

“Then maybe you
shouldn’t be involved,” Cassandra said gently and Fenella’s eyes
moved to her.

“I also don’t
want her around anymore,” Fenella looked at Abby. “I don’t want her
to hurt anyone else and especially not someone like you.”

“Like me?” Abby
asked, confused.

“Like you,”
Fenella answered.

“What does that
mean, like me?” Abby pushed when Fenella’s answer didn’t contain
any further information.

“The love of
Cash’s life!” Fenella announced way-too-loudly, almost in a
screech.

Abby felt her
heart stutter to a stop.

Then she
whispered, “I’m not the love of Cash’s life.”

“You are,”
Fenella returned.

“Honestly,
Fenella, I’m not. We’re –” Abby began.

“You are,”
Fenella interrupted, “even if it wasn’t obvious to everyone around,
she knows. She
knows
. Vivianna knows exactly who Penmort’s
master loves best and dearest. True love. Complete, devoted and
unconditional. Only those loves does she kill.”

Abby’s eyes
skipped around the room to Mrs. Truman then to Cassandra and back
to rest on Fenella.

They all were
watching her.

“Fenella,
honestly, Cash and I are –”

“In love,”
Fenella finished.

“No, we
aren’t,” Abby insisted, her voice getting stronger.

“Okay, well, I
haven’t known Cash all that long but I do know some stuff. First, I
know he never brought a woman to Penmort and he’s had loads. Loads
and loads and
loads,
” Fenella stated.

“We get it,
loads, move on,” Mrs. Truman demanded, circling her hand.

“Second, every
time he comes, he acts like the minute he enters he wants to leave.
He doesn’t like Suzanne and he
hates
Alistair. The only one
he really likes is Mummy. When you were there, it was different. He
was different. I’ve never seen him that way with anyone. None of us
had. Mummy, Honor and I were in a lather about it for
days!
”
Fenella went on.

“I still don’t
–” Abby started to protest, even though everything Fenella was
saying was
freaking her out
, but Fenella talked over
her.

“And everyone
knows Vivianna’s spell. She not only cast a spell over her immortal
soul so she’d forever haunt Penmort, she also cast a spell so she
would know, without doubt, the one, true love of its master, for
eternity, so she could make every ancestor pay for her spurned
love. Only the true loves were put to death. The other ones, well,
I reckon she just annoyed them,” Fenella’s eyes went to Cassandra
and she informed her as an aside, “She can be annoying too, not
just scary.”

Abby felt the
need to point out the obvious, “Cash isn’t even Penmort’s
master.”

At that,
Fenella made a weird, squeaky noise in the back of her throat.

“What?”
Cassandra asked, leaning forward.

Fenella’s gaze
darted around the room not landing on any of them and finally, eyes
on her knees, she said softly, “Everyone knows Cash should own that
house. Everyone knows he was the true heir. Everyone knows Anthony
Beaumaris loved Myra Fraser. He just didn’t marry her because she
was a loon.”

Abby bit her
lip in order not to laugh, or yell, at Fenella describing Cash’s
mother as “a loon”.

“That doesn’t
change the fact that he doesn’t own the house,” Mrs. Truman put in
and Fenella looked at her.

“That’s true.
But he
should,
” Fenella replied. “The line has never gone
from brother-to-brother. It’s always gone from father-to-son.
Always
.”

“He still
doesn’t own Penmort,” Cassandra pressed.

“But he
should,
” Fenella returned firmly. “And Anthony died while
making provisions to the castle’s covenant that would transfer
title to his son, even if born out of wedlock.”

Cassandra’s
eyebrows went up and she murmured, “That’s interesting.”

“It is,”
Fenella murmured back, “especially when you know that Anthony died
in a car accident.”

Abby’s breath
caught at this news and she stared at Cash’s cousin.

“A car
accident?” Abby whispered.

Fenella nodded.
“Something was wrong with the brakes.”

“That’s
terrible,” Mrs. Truman remarked.

Fenella pulled
in a breath. “When I say something was wrong with the brakes, I
mean something
weird
was wrong with the brakes. The police
reckoned they’d been tampered with but they could never prove
anything.”

“Oh my Lord,”
Abby breathed.

“
Very
interesting,” Cassandra muttered while sitting back.

Mrs. Truman’s
gaze snapped to Cassandra. “Why? Outside of the fact that Fraser’s
father was likely murdered, of course.”

Cassandra took
a sip of tea and put the cup back in her saucer. “It’s interesting
because, if that’s so, Cash Fraser is, rightly, Penmort’s master.
And Vivianna likely knows that or senses it. Which means Vivianna’s
actions last week weren’t simply meant to be a warning or simple
malice. It means Abby is genuinely in the line-of-fire.”

“Listen to me
people,” Abby cut in with frustration (and maybe a hint of fear).
“I’m not Cash’s true love. Okay? Seriously. Not. His. True. Love.
Therefore, I don’t fit the profile of the victims.”

Everyone stared
at her.

Finally, Mrs.
Truman spoke, “He does seem rather fond of you.”

Cassandra’s
eyes locked on her. “For a bloke who doesn’t feel strongly for you,
he seemed pretty outrageously pissed off on your behalf the other
night.”

Fenella added
on a mini-shriek, “I think it’s love. Mummy does too!”

Abby threw a
hand up and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, muttering a defeated,
“Bloody hell.”

Mrs. Truman
made a “humph” sound before commanding, “Let’s move on. Cassandra,
what have you got?”

Cassandra
leaned forward and put her cup and saucer on the table, sat back
and stated, “Not much that’s good.”

“Explain,” Mrs.
Truman demanded.

Cassandra drew
in a breath and looked at Abby. “As a mortal, you can’t fight a
ghost. They’ve got paranormal powers, you don’t. Most ghosts just
hang out and haunt. Some ghosts, the not-so-good variety, cause
havoc. Others, like Vivianna, who was a witch and a pretty good one
as far as I can tell, can be pretty powerful.”

“This is not
sounding good,” Abby mumbled.

“If you want to
defeat a ghost you have four options,” Cassandra continued.