Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

just how nervous and guilty he was making her feel.

      ‘Nothing,’ he replied, but before she could draw a shaky breath of relief, he added warningly, ‘as yet. Let’s just say that I’m holding a watching brief.’

      ‘It’s Fenella you should be watching and not me,’ Bobbie advised as she quickly stepped away from him and darted into the lift. She reached out to press the button and then tensed as he followed her and placed his hand against the door, preventing it from closing.

      ‘I rather suspect that in comparison to you, any element of danger that Fenella might represent would be minimal indeed,’ he parried.

      ‘That’s your expert opinion as a barrister, is it?’ Bobbie quipped flippantly.

      ‘No, that’s my gut instinct as a man,’ he told her cynically.

      She removed his hand from the door and it slid shut before Bobbie could come up with any suitable reply.

      Once she had gained the relative sanctuary of her room and double bolted the door, Bobbie picked up the telephone receiver and punched in her parents’ New England home number, keeping her fingers crossed that it would be her sister who answered her call and not her mother.

      Fortunately it was. ‘Sam...?’

      ‘Yes, it’s me,’ her twin affirmed unnecessarily, adding, ‘You sound a mite out of breath. Anything wrong?’

      ‘Nooo...’ Bobbie denied unconvincingly, then asked anxiously, ‘How are things back there?’

      Their mother had been advised by her gynaecologist to have a hysterectomy some time ago, and whether as a result of this or because of her having hit fifty, in the months since the operation she had suffered from uncharacteristic bouts of a troubling depression.

      She was over the worst now and they were not to worry, nor were they to pamper her or indulge her foolishness, she had insisted to both her daughters and her husband, but all three of them were very much aware of the shadowed sadness in her eyes and the unfamiliar droop of her mouth when she thought that no one was watching her.

      ‘So so,’ Samantha replied guardedly. ‘The folks are still down in Washington but they’re due back tomorrow. I spoke to Dad last night and he said they’d both be glad to get home. I guess he’s thinking that he may not run for office next time around. He thinks it might be too stressful for Mom.’

      ‘Oh, Sam,’ Bobbie protested.

      ‘I know,’ her elder twin sympathised, asking her, ‘How are you getting on?’

      ‘I...I’m not sure,’ Bobbie told her hesitantly. ‘You remember I told you about the party I was invited to? Well, one of the other guests, a member of the family, invited me out to lunch today to ask me if I’d like a temporary job with them, looking after their baby, but—’

      She stopped speaking as her sister interrupted her excitedly, saying, ‘Wow, that’s wonderful, just the kind of break we needed. You’ll be able to—’

      ‘Sam. I’m not so sure that I ... I like Olivia,’ she tried to explain hesitantly to her sister, who had suddenly gone ominously quiet, wishing as she had wished so often over these past few days that Samantha were here with her. ‘She’s so genuine ... so kind, and I feel—’

      ‘You like her?’ Samantha questioned fiercely. ‘Bobbie—Roberta—have you forgotten who she is ... who they are,’ she demanded insistently, ‘what they did?’

      ‘No...of course I haven’t. It’s just...I hate to be deceitful like this, Sam, and—’

      ‘This is no time to go all soft-hearted,’ Samantha told her sister assertively. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. Ring me tomorrow.’

      After she had replaced the receiver, Samantha stood staring out of the window of her parents’ handsome drawing room at the empty drive outside. The creeperclad, solidly built New England mansion was one of the finest examples of late eighteenth-century buildings in the area. It had originally been built by one of their father’s ancestors and in due course would pass on into the ownership of their brother Tom, now presently at Harvard, but it was not the thought of her younger brother ultimately inheriting the house in which both she and Bobbie had grown up that was causing a deep frown to crease her forehead.

      ‘I knew I should have gone to England,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Bobbie never did have much of a stomach for fighting dirty.’

      It was she who had masterminded the plan they were now putting into action, she who had been the driving force behind it, and unlike Bobbie, she who knew she would never have fallen into the trap of ‘liking’ those cussed and accursed Crightons, as the twins had grown into the habit of calling them when they had inadvertently stumbled on the secret that their mother had found so shameful that she hadn’t wanted them to know about.

      It had been their grandfather in the end who had answered their questions. And even now, although they were adult and had known the story for many years, their mother still did not like to talk about it or hear it mentioned because it still hurt her so much, all the more so, Samantha suspected, because of their father’s very distinguished and strait-laced Puritan ancestry.

      Not that knowing the truth made their father love their mother any the less, nor did they, but it still hurt to see her vulnerable.

      ‘It’s not fair. Why should Mom be the only one to suffer?’ Samantha had demanded of Bobbie. ‘It wasn’t her fault. We should make them pay.’

      ‘But how can we?’ Bobbie had asked her.

      ‘I’ll think of a way,’ Samantha had promised.

      And so she had ... or rather she had thought she had until Bobbie started to turn chicken-hearted.

      If only she wasn’t committed to her college classes and her vow to make up for the time she had taken off to travel. Still, there was no point in regretting that now; she would just have to make sure that Bobbie didn’t weaken still further.

      

      In Chester, Bobbie paced her bedroom unhappily. She just didn’t possess Sam’s fiercely stubborn determination and adherence to any cause she took on; she lacked her sister’s strength, she knew that. It wasn’t that she cared any the less about their mother. It was just...

      Face it, she told herself sternly, you’re a coward. You just can’t abide any kind of fighting or confrontation. You’re a real scaredy-cat, she taunted herself.

      But what was she so afraid of? Seeing the friendship and warmth in Olivia’s and Joss’s eyes turn to dislike and contempt when they discovered how devious and underhand she had been, or seeing the triumph in Luke’s when all his suspicions of her were confirmed?

       CHAPTER FIVE

      WHEN Olivia rang later in the day as she had promised she would, Bobbie took a deep breath and made a fervent mental plea that she was making the right decision as she confirmed that she wanted to accept her offer of a job.

      ‘You’ll do it! Oh, that’s wonderful!’ Olivia enthused, adding, ‘I was so afraid that you were going to say no.’

      Bobbie bit her lip as she prayed that Olivia would never have cause to wish that she had refused whilst she listened to her explain the finer details of their arrangement.

      ‘Oh, and don’t worry about transport,’ she told Bobbie. ‘We’ll provide you with a car. You’ll certainly need one because we are rather isolated, I’m afraid.’

      Well, at least that solved the problem of how she was going to explain away being able to afford the cost of a hire-car, Bobbie acknowledged as Olivia went on to detail the generous amount of time off she would be given plus the use of the car for her personal needs.

      It was agreed that Olivia would pick her up at the hotel in the morning, but despite the other