Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

‘I know that you’re an honest man, Jon, and that’s all I need to know. I’m going home now to speak to my brokers and I want you to get in touch with the bank and the accountants and explain the position with regard to David’s loans as you feel that your professional code of conduct requires you to do. You will, of course, also tell them that arrangements have been made within the family to repay the loans even though there is no legal recourse or obligation to cover their repayment. I think you will find that both the accountants and the bank will be so relieved at having been spared the necessity of investigating the matter and escaping all the attendant publicity that they will be only too happy to accept your version of events, publicly at least. And as for David … Well, it goes without saying, he can never be allowed to work again either here or anywhere else. I think it would be best if he decided that in view of his heart attack it would be wiser for him to take early retirement.’

Jon looked at her sombrely. ‘Ruth, I just don’t know what to say….’

‘Then don’t say anything. I generally find it is the wisest course,’ Ruth told him with a smile.

Olivia closed her eyes and gripped the telephone receiver hard. She had rung the number she had for Caspar and asked for him. What would he say when he heard her voice? What would he do? Would he speak to her or simply hang up? Was she now just a part of his past life, one he only wanted to forget?

She heard a voice at the other end of the line but it wasn’t Caspar’s.

‘I’m sorry,’ she was advised, ‘but I’m afraid he isn’t available.’ Olivia’s heart sank.

‘Is he …? Could I …? When will he be available?’ she asked desperately.

‘I really couldn’t say. He’s away at the moment on private business and I have no idea when he’s going to come back.’

‘I … I see…. You don’t … you don’t have a number where I could reach him, I suppose?’ Olivia asked.

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’

Quietly she replaced the receiver.

Well, at least she had tried. Oh, Caspar, where are you? She could feel the hurt building up inside her in a low, slow surge of agony. Whoever had said that time and distance healed all wounds was wrong. They didn’t. They just made it worse.

‘Oh, Max … I didn’t think you’d be here. The clerk said something about your being in court this morning.’

‘The case was cancelled,’ Max told the senior member of chambers as he stood awkwardly in the doorway of Max’s office looking both irritated and self-conscious. Someone was standing behind him, and when he moved slightly out of the way, Max saw who it was. He frowned. What the hell was Madeleine’s housemate doing here?

‘Well, since you are here,’ the senior member began saying fuzzily, ‘I suppose I’d better introduce you. Claudine, this is Max Crighton. Max did his pupillage here and he’s currently waiting to find a vacant tenancy.’

‘Yes … so I’ve heard.’

She was smiling as she extended her hand towards Max. He took it reluctantly. He hadn’t liked her the first time he met her and he still didn’t. He also had a suspicion that she had tried to warn Madeleine about him, which made him like her even less.

‘Max—’ the senior member’s voice was just a shade too hearty, his smile just a touch forced ‘—Claudine Chatterton will shortly be joining us as a junior barrister. She’ll be taking over Clive Benson’s place when he retires.’ He turned to smile at her, but she wasn’t looking at him; she was watching Max, her mouth curling into a smile of knowing amusement.

For once in his life, Max knew that he was in a situation over which he had no control and no power. It hadn’t been Madeleine who was his rival, he recognised in a surge of white-hot fury; it had been this woman, this woman who was standing there smiling mockingly … tauntingly at him. Knowing …

And Madeleine must have known. The stupid little bitch, why the hell hadn’t she said something? He stood up, ignoring the nervous look of mingled dislike and distaste the senior member was giving him, then shouldered his way past both him and Claudine, almost pushing them out of his way as he made for the door.

‘Oh dear,’ he heard Claudine saying smilingly as he grimly left the office, ‘have we done something to upset him?’

Something to upset him? She knew perfectly well, the bitch…. The bitch! Charlotte had been grossly mistaken in her information. Well, someone was going to pay for making a complete fool of him, for lying to him … cheating him out of what was rightfully his. And he knew exactly who that someone was going to be.

Madeleine looked startled as she opened the door to him, her surprise turning quickly to dismay as she saw his face. ‘Max, what is it, what’s wrong …?’

‘You know damn well what’s wrong!’ he shouted, hurling the words at her like blows. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me that Claudine was up for the tenancy?’

‘I … I thought you knew….’ Madeleine replied nervously, adding pleadingly, ‘Oh, Max, please don’t be angry. I know how disappointed you must be … how much you wanted to … to prove yourself by your own efforts, but even Daddy admits that to get into the really top sets of chambers, it isn’t enough simply … well, you just have to have the right connections and that’s why—’

‘The right connections! And just where the hell are her right connections, or can I guess? Did Daddy put in a good word for her? Why? He’s fucking her, is he?’

‘Max …’ Madeleine’s face had gone white with shock. ‘Please, I know how you must feel.’

‘Do you … do you …?’

Max grabbed hold of her wrists and began shaking her like a rag doll, ignoring her frantic pleas to let her go. God, when he thought of the time he’d wasted to no purpose, when all along …

‘I suppose you thought it was funny, did you, the pair of you?’ he demanded as he released Madeleine so forcefully that she almost fell against the wall.

As she struggled to keep her balance, she tried surreptitiously to ease the soreness out of her bruised wrists.

‘Max, it wasn’t like that…. I know you’re upset, but please, please listen to me….’

‘Listen to you … listen to you!’

‘I’ve spoken to Daddy,’ Madeleine desperately tried to tell him, ignoring the searing contempt she could hear in his voice, avoiding looking directly at him and frantically trying to pretend that everything was really all right, that this wasn’t really her Max…. Maybe once he had calmed down, things would be different and she would forget that he had ever been like this … frightened her like this….

‘I … he … he wants us to have dinner with him and Mummy tonight. He … he says there may be a vacancy coming up at another set of chambers.’

She told him the name and Max stared at her in furious disbelief. It was one of the most exclusive sets of chambers in the Inn and he had as much chance of being considered for a vacancy there as he had of flying to the moon.

‘Daddy knows the senior member there … he’s had a word with him and … well, Daddy said, since he doesn’t have a son, it would be rather nice if he could have a son-in-law to follow in his shoes….’

Madeleine swallowed … and then added miserably, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Claudine but, well, she begged me not to. Oh, Max …’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘It’s been so horrid listening to you talking about it, knowing how much it meant to you and not being able to say anything, but I promised, and … please don’t be cross with me … I know you didn’t want me to say anything to Daddy … that you wanted to do it on your own but …’

Max’s head was spinning. A place in one of London’s top chambers … the patronage of one of the country’s most senior judges … He looked consideringly at Madeleine, her head bent low, her eyes down-cast. It was all there for the taking … with one proviso.

Son-in-law … That meant marriage. Marriage to Madeleine. Last night he had been anticipating the moment when he would tell her just exactly what he thought about her, the moment when he would walk away from her, and now …

‘Stop crying, Maddy, my sweet, devious, wonderful Maddy,’ he crooned as he took her in his arms. ‘Of course I’m not cross with you. Well, not very much,’ he amended lightly. ‘It was naughty of you to go to your father.’

‘I did it for you … for us,’ Madeleine whispered, her mouth trembling. ‘So that we could be together….’

‘Yes, I know,’ Max agreed, gentling his tone. ‘But I wanted to earn the right to tell your father I want to marry you … not to feel—’

‘Oh, Max, don’t,’ Madeleine pleaded. ‘I was just trying to help. I just wanted—’

‘I know exactly what you wanted,’ Max began murmuring silkily, his voice changing, ‘and I know exactly what I want, too….’

‘Oh, Max, we can’t,’ Madeleine whispered breathlessly, ‘not now. It isn’t even lunch-time and … Oh, Max …’

‘What time are we having dinner with your parents?’ he asked as he slid his hands under her top to caress her breasts.

His mind was working overtime, racing ahead…. He would get his place in chambers and his grandfather’s money and if the price he had to pay was a few years of marriage to Madeleine, then so what? In three and even four years’ time he would still only be in his late twenties. He would have to secure his position financially, of course. Make sure that when they did divorce he didn’t lose out and he would have to make sure, as well, that there were no children. There was no way he was going to be forced to support a couple of brats he had never even wanted.

‘I’ll have to take you home to meet my family,’ Max was promising her as he guided Madeleine upstairs. ‘They’re going to love you.’ But as he took her in his arms and started to kiss her, it wasn’t Madeleine’s small round face he could see, but the amused, mocking expression in Claudine Chatterton’s eyes as she stood in the doorway of his office.

It wasn’t over … not yet … not by a long shot …