Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

then he leaned forward and gave her a determinedly cousinly peck on the cheek before saying briskly, ‘Now, just where did I put those photographs?’

      ‘Oh, Max …’

      Max grimaced in impatience as he heard the emotion in Madeleine’s voice and felt the warmth of her tears on his skin. If there was one thing he particularly loathed, it was women who cried in the aftermath of their orgasm. He might have known that Madeleine would be that type, just as he had known that she would be awkward and inexperienced, fortunately too inexperienced to realise just how manufactured his forced ‘desire’ for her actually was. Unlike her housemate, Claudine … She would have known and she would most definitely not have cried.

      Irritably he suppressed the thought. He had never been attracted to brunettes and certainly not ones like her. She was far too assertive and self-assured, far too—

      ‘Oh, Max! I wish we could always be together….’

      Max tensed; this was his cue, the opening he had been angling for, carefully manoeuvring towards. ‘So do I,’ he lied adroitly, reaching to brush away her tears in a gesture of faked tenderness whilst he smiled his crocodile smile down into her tear-wet eyes. ‘But you know the situation. I’m not … I can barely support myself … never mind anyone else….’

      He could feel her pulse jump betrayingly beneath his fingers and felt his body start to ease into relaxation and triumph. It had all been so simple. Much, much simpler than even he had anticipated. Madeleine had proved boringly easy to charm and deceive, swallowing every one of the lies he had so cynically told her, gazing at him wide-eyed and adoringly as he relentlessly and ruthlessly manoeuvred his way into her life and her heart.

      Prior to meeting her, he had had no clear idea of how best to accomplish his objective, but once he had met her … She was almost too persuadable and malleable, and the contempt he felt for her had now spread to include her parents, especially her father. Did he really believe that she had what it took to make a barrister? Oh, she might have the academic qualifications, but the thought of her ever appearing in a courtroom, even defending a case, never mind prosecuting one … And yet, just because of who she was, or rather who her father was, she still had the power to take that vacancy from him, or rather she thought she could.

      Cleverly Max had given her no indication that he knew that she was his rival for the tenancy whilst at the same time apparently openly and disarmingly admitting to her how important getting it was to him. Predictably she had flushed bright red and become self-conscious and flustered, and she had even asked him if he couldn’t find a vacancy with another set of chambers.

      He had been tempted then to tell her crudely and bluntly what he really thought and felt, but he had restrained himself. He would get his opportunity to tell her once she had—as he was quite determined that she would—relinquished her claim on the vacancy in favour of him.

      ‘Oh, there’ll always be a vacancy for me in Chester,’ he had told her carelessly and untruthfully.

      In reality, the old man’s pride would never allow him to accept any favours from the Chester branch of the family, even for his favourite grandson. Oh no! It could never be good enough for Max to match the achievements of his Chester cousins. He must supersede them. But Maddy, of course, knew nothing about any of that or about a good many other aspects of his life—and indeed she would never know.

      ‘Chester?’ Maddy had demurred anxiously. ‘But that would mean you’d have to move there and—’

      ‘And what?’ Max had teased her, starting to kiss her and keeping on kissing her until her half-hearted protests had subsided.

      Oh yes, he had baited his hook very carefully indeed and now tonight he had caught his prize and was starting to reel it—her—in.

      Nothing had been left to chance, from the champagne he had left chilling on ice before he had picked her up for their dinner date, to the new bedding he had left instructions for the maid to put on his bed and the flowers he had told her to arrange.

      ‘Mmm …’ Max murmured, gently nibbling her ear. ‘I’m not really looking forward to meeting your father. He isn’t exactly going to approve of me as prospective son-in-law material, is he? Not when I haven’t even got a proper job …’

      He could feel her body going stiff in his arms, and as he raised his head to look down into her eyes, the look of mingled hope, disbelief and adoration he could see so clearly there made him smile in cynical satisfaction.

      ‘Oh, Max …’ Madeleine whispered. ‘I didn’t know … I didn’t think … Oh, Max, I love you so much.’ She flung her arms around him, holding him tightly as she whispered shakily, ‘Daddy is going to love you … just like I do, and as for your not having a job …’

      ‘Mmm …’ Max prodded between kisses. ‘As for me not having a job … we can live on love, is that it?’

      Madeleine laughed. ‘Well … I … I have some money,’ she told him shyly, ‘and—’

      ‘No,’ Max countered fiercely, softening his voice and his grip on her arms when he saw her shock. ‘No, my darling, I’m not the kind of man who could ever live off a woman. I know it’s chauvinistic and old-fashioned of me, but, well, that’s just the way I am.’

      ‘Oh, Max … I do love you,’ Madeleine sighed ecstatically. ‘Don’t worry about the vacancy,’ she urged, giving him a happy, secretive smile. ‘I just know that everything will work out all right….’

      Her eyes shone with happiness as she lifted her face up towards his. ‘So please, please stop worrying about it and kiss me instead.’

      ‘Jack, what is it, what’s wrong, where’s your mother?’ Jon demanded anxiously as his nephew opened the door for him. He had driven straight over to the house after Jack’s phone call, his stomach churning with anxiety and guilt.

      ‘She’s … she’s in the kitchen,’ Jack replied unhappily, but as Jon headed towards the closed kitchen door he noticed that Jack was hanging back and that he was obviously reluctant to go with him.

      As he pushed the kitchen door open, he had no clear idea of what he expected to find, but it certainly wasn’t the sight that greeted him.

      Tiggy was squatting in the middle of the kitchen floor surrounded by what looked like the contents of a rubbish bin. She was wearing a thin diaphanous robe through which he should have been able to see her body but couldn’t because of the way it was smeared with food. At some stage in the evening she had clearly been sick; he could smell the sour, rank stench of it and his own stomach heaved at its foulness.

      ‘Tiggy …’

      As he said her name she focused on him but gave no sign of having recognised him. Her eyes were wild like those of an animal. As Jon studied her more closely, he realised in shocked distaste that it wasn’t just her gown that was smeared with food but her hair and face, as well. Food and what he suspected must be traces of dried vomit.

      His stomach curdled and he had to grit his teeth against his own nausea. As he watched her, almost unable to comprehend what he saw, she started to crawl away from him, scuttling into a corner like a … scared animal, her eyes never leaving his face as she reached a clawlike hand towards him with what looked like a half-eaten wedge of cake. To his shock, she started to ram it into her mouth, the whole time peering at him like some kind of feral creature.

      Dear God … What was happening? What was she doing to herself? Instinctively, with a feeling of certainty, Jon knew that this was no isolated incident, no single abberation or reaction to outside pressures and the stress of David’s heart attack and everything that had happened since. For the second time in his life, he knew what it was to feel pity for his brother.

      The first time had been the night of baby Harry’s birth when he had experienced the privilege and emotional intensity of witnessing the miracle of birth, of feeling his whole being flooding with love for the small, helpless life he had just seen born, of sharing