He watched as she blinked adorably, her eyes adjusting to the light then they focused on him.
She further surprised him by keeping her position; her torso on his, her forearm came to rest on his chest, holding herself elevated but still close.
Her face was drowsy but the look in her eyes was serious.
Cash mentally braced.
With Abby, it could be anything. She could say something that would lead to a heated row. She could suffer an emotional breakdown. She could do something outrageous to make him laugh. Or she could put her mouth on him and make him come.
He had to be prepared.
However nothing he could do would prepare him for what came next.
“Something’s happened,” she told him.
“What?” he asked.
She looked away and bit her lip then sighed and looked back to him. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
His hands stole around her hips. “Darling, just start at the beginning. Whatever it is, it’ll be all right.”
Then she did something that so surprised him, his entire body reacted to it, tensing along his length as her hand came up to rest on his cheek.
And, with a soft voice, her eyes on his, she said, “I met this man yesterday at Mrs. Truman’s. I wasn’t going to say anything about him until the time was right but then Honor talked to me tonight.”
The tension in Cash’s body increased and she felt it, her thumb moved to his temple and circled there soothingly.
“Cash,” she whispered, “Penmort is yours.”
His body froze solid.
“I’m sorry?” he growled.
“Honor told me,” she said.
He felt his eyes narrow. “Honor told you what? Exactly.”
She licked her lips and took in a breath, “She told me she found your grandmother, Lorna’s, diaries.”
Cash’s eyes stayed narrow but now in confusion. “Keep talking.”
Abby nodded and went on. “She says she thinks no one knows about them. She’s read them. Cash,” she hesitated then in a soft explosion, she burst out, “God! I don’t know how to tell you this.”
Losing patience, Cash rolled her to her back, positioned his body on his elbow and loomed over her. “Just say it.”
She stared at him a moment then said swiftly, “Your grandmother was raped.”
Cash’s body jerked and instantly both her hands came up to frame his face.
“Cash, look at me, please, honey, look at me.” When the shock from her announcement receded, Cash’s eyes focused on Abby’s face. She was staring at him with a look that was immensely gentle and she whispered, “Alistair was the product of that rape.”
Cash blinked slowly.
Abby kept talking. “Honor says all you need to do is ask for a DNA test and Penmort is yours. She says she’s had a friend examine Penmort’s covenant and the castle can’t be held outside of the bloodline. Alistair isn’t of the line. Honor says the castle, and everything, is yours.” One of her hands moved away from his face and she went up on one elbow, getting closer as her other hand drifted down to his shoulder. “Honey, the castle has always been yours.”
His eyes never left her concerned face as sensations tore through him, some of them exultant, some of them toxic.
When his father had died, Penmort and its holdings were vast. They had to be for anyone to maintain such a huge property. There was land. There were lettings in the local town, both commercial and residential. There were investments. His father owned the controlling share of several lucrative businesses and kept a domineering hand in all of them earning a reputation as a clever but ruthless mogul.
At the time, it had been worth multiple millions, translated into today’s money, it would have been billions.
Alistair had dwindled that down to nothing. Almost as if he was doing it intentionally, he pulled out of good investments and threw money at bad ones. He sold the controlling shares, the properties, the lands and he lived high. Travelled widely. Spent freely. Until there was nothing coming in and thousands going out, monthly.
“That f**king bastard,” Cash exploded and then pushed away, hurling the covers wide, he knifed out of bed and looked for something to throw.
Instead, his eyes fell on Abby, who’d sat up in the bed and was watching him.
She was wearing an espresso-brown, silk nightgown edged in delicate ecru lace. A nightgown he’d bought for her. A nightgown that cost more than many people spent on clothes in a year. A nightgown the likes of which he’d worked since he was twelve years old, scratching his way up from nothing, so he could afford. And still he was working fourteen hour days so he wouldn’t blink at such a purchase.
“Fuck!” Cash roared, his arm shot out, his fist closed around the lamp and he yanked it out of the wall, the light going dead, and he threw it across the room.
He heard its glass base shatter against the wall then he heard Abby shoot out of bed.
Cash was pacing, the whole time Abby at his side, her hands on him. She tried to get in his way but he either abruptly turned and headed the other way or walked around her.
“Cash, please, stop, look at me,” she begged.
“We had nothing. My grandfather worked driving a f**king taxi. And we still had nothing,” Cash growled, his hand had shot through his hair, his fingers closing around the back of his neck and he kept them there as he paced. “Then he died, Mum couldn’t hold down a job for more than a few months, eventually no one would hire her, and we really had f**king nothing.”
Abby planted herself in front of him and threw her arms around him, crushing her body against his and she held on finally effectively halting him.
“Please, honey, stop walking,” she pleaded. “You might cut yourself. Let me clean up the lamp.”
At her words, something inside him imploded. He pulled viciously out of her arms but bent low, put one arm behind her knees and one at her waist. He lifted her and carried her to the bed. Tossing her on it, he came down on top of her.
“You’re not going to clean up the lamp, Abby,” he clipped. “You’re never going to clean anything again. Aileen’s going to clean up the f**king lamp. That’s what I f**king pay her for. That’s why I f**king work so goddamned hard.”
Her hands were on him, stroking his back slowly, soothingly, and she whispered, “Okay Cash.”
Cash felt Abby’s hands moving on him, her soft body under his, the silk of her nightgown against his skin and he sucked in breath.
On his exhale, he shared, “My father left the money, the holdings, everything, to my mother but Alistair took her to court. It was years, battle after battle, appeal after appeal. And he got it back.”