Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

covering her breast, pushing aside her clothes with savage urgency to reach the soft warmth of her flesh, she moaned a sharp protest beneath her breath, but the protest wasn’t because he was touching her. She was trembling from head to foot, the sheer force of the desire that had erupted inside her from out of nowhere making her body ache with something approaching an actual physical pain.

      She had never dreamt that physical desire could generate such an intense and immediate reaction, such a sense of urgency and aching, teeth-grinding immediacy.

      ‘Luke...’ She neither knew nor cared what she might be betraying as she dragged her mouth from his to whisper his name in female need, the look in her eyes as they met his, his flashing a message of intense pride and equally intense desire.

      She could see Luke’s response in the way his pupils dilated, feel it in the unexpected tremor that passed through his body as he responded as though by telepathy to the need conveyed in her husky moaning of his name to run the hard pad of his thumb over the soft curve of her breast until he found her nipple and then to circle it and go on circling it as Bobbie gasped her physical pleasure in his touch and instinctively pressed herself even closer to him. And she could hear it in the harsh sound of the air escaping from his lungs as he muttered something unintelligible under his breath and then, leaning back against the wall, urged her between his parted thighs. Then, under the protective shadows, he dragged her clothes completely free of her breast so that he could satisfy the need pounding through both their tormented bodies by fastening his mouth over the swollen point of her nipple and sucking rhythmically on it.

      It was the sound of a child crying in the hallway outside that broke the dark spell that was binding them together, causing them to spring apart and watch one another breathing harshly, confronting one another not as lovers but as warriors, foes, enemies, Bobbie recognised sickly as she tried to come to terms with what had happened, what she had done.

      Denied the physical protection of the warmth of Luke’s body and the emotional and mental protection of the sheer heat of the need that had possessed her, Bobbie started to shiver.

      Luke’s face was hidden from her by the shadows, not that she wanted to look at him, to see the contemptuous triumph she was sure must be in his eyes. No matter how much one might deplore it, there was still this unspoken belief that whilst it was still just acceptable for a man to be motivated by and give in to sexual desire, where a woman was concerned the waters were far more muddied and dangerous. Bobbie wasn’t even sure herself which side of the fence she stood on. Certainly she would never condemn another woman for admitting that she felt only physical desire and lust for a man, but when that woman was herself... She pushed away the idea that love could be tangled up in her emotions.

      ‘I hate you, do you know that?’ she told Luke huskily, adjusting her top before she opened the door and walked shakily through it—and away from him—moving down the hallway blindly to mingle with the other guests, her fists clenched as she fought to suppress her emotions, coming only to a halt when she realised she had reached the far side of the drawing room and could go no farther.

      ‘So you’re the American I’ve been hearing so much about.’

      As Bobbie turned her head, she saw that there was someone seated in the wing-chair next to the window, a man in his seventies whom she had no difficulty whatsoever in guessing to be Ben Crighton.

      ‘I imagine so,’ she concurred warily.

      ‘Hah. Been telling you about me, have they? Warning you!’ he exclaimed with a dry laugh.

      ‘It has been mentioned that you don’t particularly care for my countrymen,’ Bobbie agreed calmly.

      ‘They were over here during the war. Caused a lot of trouble, a lot of resentment, turning women’s heads whilst their own men were away fighting.’

      Bobbie forced herself not to make any kind of response, instead simply listening.

      ‘You’re looking after young Amelia, so I hear,’ Ben commented gruffly.

      ‘For the time being,’ Bobbie returned.

      ‘Joss said he met you in the churchyard looking at the gravestones, our gravestones.... Interested in us, are you?’

      ‘You’re a very...interesting family,’ was all Bobbie allowed herself to be provoked into saying.

      ‘Saw you talking to young Max earlier.’

      Bobbie waited, expecting to be told once again that Max was a married man, but to her surprise, Ben didn’t refer to Max’s marriage at all.

      ‘He’s the image of my son, David...always was,’ he related instead. ‘Much more like him than his own father. Same character...’

      Bobbie said nothing. From what she had heard about David, Olivia’s father, she doubted that she would have liked him very much.

      ‘He’s abroad at the moment....’

      Bobbie had no idea why she should be swept by compassion for a man she barely knew and who, from what she had heard, was as obstinate, narrow-minded and bigoted as any man could be. But whatever the reason, instead of pointing out that his son David was abroad—period—having simply disappeared in the night, leaving his family to deal with the havoc his disappearance had caused, she continued to say nothing.

      The silence between them was only broken when Jenny suddenly appeared at her side, announcing, ‘Bobbie, there’s a telephone call for you...your sister... she sounded...’ She touched Bobbie’s arm gently. ‘She said she needed to speak with you urgently. You can take the call in the study. You’ll be private in there.’

      Her mouth dry with apprehension, Bobbie followed Jenny as she weaved her way through the throng, her heart thudding nervously as Jenny guided her across the hallway and pushed open the door to a small, cosy room almost filled by a huge desk.

      As Jenny gently closed the door and left, Bobbie walked over to the desk and picked up the telephone receiver, saying uncertainly, ‘Sam...?’

      ‘Bobbie. Thank the Lord. Listen, have you said anything yet?’

      ‘No...no, not yet. Sam, why are you calling me here? Is it Mom?’

      ‘No, or at least not in the way you mean. She’s okay. Look, Bobbie, you’ve got to do it today, confront her, show her, show them.’

      ‘Sam,’ Bobbie protested, ‘it isn’t that easy...I...’

      ‘Bobbie, you’ve got to, that’s why I’m ringing. Dad’s on to us and—’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Now don’t panic. Just listen up, will you? He found out I’d been ringing you in Chester, and you know Dad. He put two and two together and came up with four. He grilled me like he was one of his own Secret Service gorillas,’ she told Bobbie indignantly.

      ‘Oh, Sam, no...’ Bobbie had to sit down. Her legs, her whole body, had gone weak with shock and stress. She sank into the comfortable leather swivel chair behind the desk and clutched the receiver. ‘What did he say?’

      ‘Oh, you know Pop. There was a lot of idealistic stuff about how we should be above wanting to make others pay for their errors. How it should be simply enough for us to be aware of them and to feel sorry for them because of the way they are. He said that nothing we would do could make things any easier for Mom, and then Grandpa had to get in on the act and he said—’

      ‘Grandpa!’ Bobbie interrupted her twin on a stifled gasp. ‘Oh, Sam, no... How did Grandpa find out?’

      ‘He came in while Dad was reading me the Riot Act,’ Samantha confessed, ‘and of course, he had to hear the whole thing. Anyway, I told them it was too late to do anything now and I told them what you were going to do and—’

      There was a sharp click on the telephone line as though someone had picked up another handset.

      Nervously Bobbie asked her sister, ‘What was that? . Has someone come in...Dad or...?’

      ‘No.