Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

of Southern charm he has to coax the family around.’ Her father chuckled. ‘It was certainly the first time I’ve ever seen Great-Aunt Emma actually flirting.’

      ‘Great-Aunt Emma flirted with Grandpa...?’ She stood wide-eyed.

      ‘She certainly did, and then, of course, when they realised that he was connected through his mother’s side to an influential and wealthy family...’

      ‘They still didn’t really want you to marry Mom, though, did they, Dad, even though Grandpa is very rich and Mom his only child...?’

      ‘No, they didn’t,’ her father affirmed honestly. ‘But I can tell you this, when you love someone as much as I love your mother, no power on earth can stop you from being together. The reason I wanted my family to accept and value her was because I knew it was what she wanted. As far as I was concerned, I’d have gladly turned my back on the whole pack of them rather than lose your mother.’

      ‘Even your parents?’ Bobbie asked him quietly.

      ‘Even my folks,’ her father agreed. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, Bobbie. I loved them very much and I had a great deal of respect for them. I still do. But I love your mom more...much, much more. You see, honey, the kind of love you have for that one special person in your life is just so different from any other kind of love that once you’ve experienced it... Well, you just wait and see.’

      ‘I wouldn’t want to fall in love with someone you and Mom didn’t like,’ Bobbie had protested.

      Prophetic words. She could just imagine how her parents, especially her mother, would feel if she were to announce that she had fallen in love with a Crighton. Fallen in love with? Bobbie tensed.

      Restlessly she paced the room. She wasn’t in love with Luke....

      She wasn’t silly enough to let herself fall in love with someone like Luke. She had far too much regard for her own emotional well-being, too strong a sense of self-esteem, too much awareness of the pain that lay ahead of her in loving a man who not only most assuredly did not return her feelings but who, even if he had, was quite simply someone she could never share her life with.

      Yet, perversely, instead of looking forward to Sunday in the knowledge that once it was over, once she had carried out the task that had originally brought her to Cheshire, she would be free to leave and return home, safe from any more heart-searching over Luke who surely, with the Atlantic safely between them, would quickly become nothing more than a distant—a very distant—memory, Bobbie acknowledged that she was actually dreading it.

      But of course, there was nothing that she could do to stop Sunday coming. Nothing at all!

       CHAPTER SIX

      QUEENSMEAD was very much as she had pictured it, Bobbie realised: a large, gracious house set in its own grounds reached via a traditional sweeping drive, its seventeenth-century stone façade draped in the soft tendrils of a huge wisteria.

      Although ostensibly Bobbie was merely attending the family get-together as Amelia’s temporary nanny, virtually as soon as they had entered the house, Olivia had deftly removed Amelia from her arms and told Bobbie firmly that she was to make sure she enjoyed herself and that she was certainly going to enjoy showing her daughter off to her relatives.

      Despite its generous proportions, the large drawing room was very crowded. Jon and Jenny, who had arrived ahead of them with the twins, Joss and Olivia’s younger brother, claimed her attention whilst Louise and Katie thanked her for the small antique brooches she had given them as their eighteenth-birthday presents.

      ‘I’ll have to take you over to introduce you to Gramps,’ Olivia told her as she handed Amelia over to an admiring Jenny.

      ‘Ben’s not in a very good mood, I’m afraid,’ Jenny warned them ruefully, adding quietly, ‘I think having Max here reminds him of your father, Olivia. I rather think he feels that Jon isn’t doing as much as he could to try to track David down.’

      ‘Dad won’t be found unless he wants to be found,’ Olivia responded tersely. ‘I just wish that Gramps could see that, but then he’s always had a blind spot where Dad is concerned. I wish sometimes I could tell him the truth,’ she declared fiercely.

      ‘I doubt that he would believe you if you did. He needs to cling on to his faith in David, his belief in him,’ Jenny told her wisely. ‘I’m sorry, Bobbie,’ Jenny apologised. ‘We’re being very rude, talking about family matters and ignoring you.’

      ‘Bobbie is almost a member of the family,’ Olivia insisted and then added slyly, ‘and very soon she might become one officially, as well.’

      Whilst Bobbie protested, her cheeks burning hotly, Jenny gave her an interested look but didn’t press the matter, leaving it to Olivia to explain.

      ‘Luke’s pretty smitten with Bobbie,’ she elaborated whilst teasingly shaking her head as Bobbie tried to contradict what she was saying. ‘It’s no good,’ Olivia said, laughing. ‘The pair of you have given yourselves away too clearly to start denying it now.’

      ‘Hello there. I was hoping we might get to meet again.’

      Bobbie turned thankfully towards Max as he strolled over to join them, his arrival a welcome interruption, although it was obvious that Olivia didn’t think so because almost immediately she announced, ‘I was just about to take Bobbie to introduce her to Gramps, Max, so I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse us.’

      ‘You haven’t met my grandfather yet?’ Max asked Bobbie, pointedly ignoring his cousin as he turned his back to her, effectively blocking her out of the conversation. Instead, he concentrated on Bobbie, giving her the benefit of his heated crocodile smile and a look that slid slowly from the top of her head all the way down to her toes. It lingered appreciatively on her body in a manner that was both extremely practised and, so far as Bobbie was concerned, extremely unappealing, but she kept her thoughts to herself, waiting politely whilst Max reached out and tucked her hand through his arm as he told her, ‘Come with me, but let me warn you that he—’

      ‘Doesn’t like Americans,’ Bobbie supplied dryly for him. ‘Yes, so I’ve been told.’

      ‘It isn’t an aversion I share,’ Max assured her softly with another appreciative look. ‘Far from it.’

      ‘But your wife, I believe, is British,’ Bobbie pointed out sweetly, just ever so slightly emphasising the words ‘your wife’.

      ‘Very much so,’ Max agreed suavely, looking more amused than concerned that she should have reminded him that he was a married man, confirming her inward assessment of him when he continued, ‘My wife is also small, plump and, I’m afraid, rather plain and a brunette, while I, I must admit, have a penchant for long-legged blondes, especially when they’re as beautiful as you are.’

      His audacity was unbelievable, Bobbie decided as she replied with cool firmness, ‘Really. Unfortunately I do not have a penchant for married men, especially those as unkind about the woman they’ve chosen to marry as you have just been. Please excuse me,’ she added as she detached herself from him and started to move away.

      Only she didn’t get very far because as she turned round, to her consternation, she found her way blocked by Luke. When had he arrived and why was he looking at her like that?

      ‘Er...Luke,’ she faltered as guiltily as a child caught with her fingers in the cookie jar, as she later angrily told herself.

      ‘Luke,’ she heard Max drawling in a far more composed voice, ‘I was just taking Bobbie over to introduce her to Grandfather.’

      ‘Really. Via a rather long detour I can only presume,’ Luke returned coldly as Max looked innocently round the empty room he had brought her to and told him, ‘Your grandfather is in the library with your wife.’

      ‘Oh, is he? That’s obviously why we couldn’t find him, then,’ Max replied cheerfully, but