The Perfect Seduction. PENNY JORDAN

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      ‘Ah well, you know how hard Aunt Ruth has campaigned to raise funds for the town’s special new mother and baby home.’

      ‘Yes,’ Jenny agreed. ‘It’s a very innovative idea. Ruth is determined that it won’t be anything like the old unmarried mother and baby homes where girls used to be banished in disgrace if they were pregnant, and where the staff tried to persuade them to give their babies up for adoption.’

      ‘To be fair, in those days it was generally believed that such children were better off being adopted,’ Jon reminded her fair-mindedly.

      ‘Mmm ... I realise that. I suppose I just can’t help thinking that if you hadn’t married me when you did...’

      ‘I know,’ Jon told her gently, holding her tighter, ‘and I know, as well, that you are as dedicated to raising money for this home as Ruth is. I ought to—you’ve persuaded me to part with enough money to help fund it.’

      ‘Well, it is a good cause,’ Jenny protested. ‘We’ve bought the house and the land, and once it’s been converted into small, private bedsitting rooms, we can give both the girls and their babies a protected environment.’

      ‘Shall I take these cases down?’ Jon asked, reminding her. ‘You said you wanted to be at the Grosvenor early.’

      ‘Yes, I know.’ She glanced uncertainly at the telephone. ‘I haven’t rung Queensmead today, and—’

      ‘Dad will be fine,’ Jon assured her firmly. ‘He’s got Max and Madeleine with him, remember?’

      ‘I know,’ Jenny replied worriedly, ‘but you know how impatient Max can be.’

      ‘Yes, I do, but Madeleine will make sure that Dad’s all right. You know how fond of him she is.’

      ‘And him of her. It’s ironic, really, isn’t it, that the only woman he really approves of is one who isn’t related to him by blood?’

      ‘That’s because Madeleine is the perfect stereotype of what Dad believes a woman should be,’ Jon told her dryly.

      ‘She’s a lovely person,’ Jenny countered. ‘Kind, gentle, generous and...’

      ‘Vulnerable?’ Jon suggested.

      They looked at one another in silence.

      ‘I must admit I was surprised when we first met her after Max announced they were getting married.’

      ‘Mmm...me, too. I wonder if he’d have been as keen to marry her if her father hadn’t been who he is,’ Jon speculated cynically.

      ‘Oh, Jon, don’t say that,’ Jenny protested. ‘She loves him so much.’

      ‘Too much, perhaps?’ Jon asked her.

      ‘She seems so happy.’

      ‘She’s happy because Max is happy and Max is happy because at the moment he’s getting what he wanted. Whether or not he’ll continue to be happy is another matter.’

      Again they exchanged looks. Max might be their son but in temperament and outlook he was much closer and always had been to his uncle David than to either of them, although it hurt them both to admit it. Jenny knew that Max was a selfish and egotistical man who was ruthlessly determined in whatever he did.

      

      Half past seven. Bobbie glanced up from her secluded position in the hotel lobby. She had tucked herself away in a shadowy corner so that she could see everyone who came into the hotel without being noticed herself—not an easy feat given her height and the colour and luxurious vibrancy of her hair.

      She had already seen Joss arrive with another slightly older boy and a couple who must be his parents. Joss’s hair was slicked back and the formality of his clothes made him look younger rather than older. She had hidden a smile.

      Now the early arrivals for the party were beginning to gather in the lobby—a cheerful, happy crowd spanning the generations, who quite plainly all seemed to know one another from the greetings they were exchanging.

      Joss’s parents arrived back downstairs, his mother looking elegant in a dress that Bobbie’s judicious and expert inspection informed her was very probably an Armani. Nice, very nice, she acknowledged as she watched the way the cream crêpe moved elegantly with Jenny’s body.

      The diamonds in her ears and around her neck were quite obviously real, and to judge both from the venue they had chosen for their twin daughters’ birthday celebration and the appearance of their guests, financial hardship was not a problem that afflicted the Crighton family. But then, she had already known that, hadn’t she? Already known all about their pride and arrogance, their belief that they were somehow better than anyone else and most certainly better than... She frowned as a fresh batch of guests arrived, her attention caught, oddly enough, not by the imposing height of the man walking so purposefully into the hotel, but rather the air, the aura of tautly controlled energy and impatience he seemed to bring with him.

      ‘Luke,’ she heard Joss’s father exclaiming as he went forward to welcome him with a smile and a handshake, ‘and James,’ he added warmly as he turned to the man following behind him.

      Luke and James. She had known who he was immediately, of course, Bobbie acknowledged, unaware of the dangerous allocation and use of the word ‘he’ in the singular rather than ‘they’ in the plural.

      He was every bit as tall as Joss had told her, she admitted, and as for the rest...certainly he was an extremely physically powerful-looking and charismatically masculine-looking man, but she detected a certain hardness and hauteur...a coldness about him that in her view more than outweighed the appeal of his really too stunning good looks. There was, after all, such a thing as overkill, and rather like a strong perfume the effect of his physical magnetism was too overpowering to be attractive, a turn-off rather than a turn-on, she decided disparagingly.

      The tiny, fragile-looking little blonde clinging to his arm obviously didn’t share her view, though. She was gazing up at him adoringly and extremely possessively, Bobbie noticed as Luke turned to introduce her to Joss’s parents, and on closer inspection she was not quite so young as her girlishly feminine silk dress seemed to proclaim. In her thirties rather than her twenties, Bobbie guessed, and very adept at using her delicacy to create the impression of being somewhat younger. He would, of course, go for that type. Bobbie’s contempt for him grew.

      Luke was having a hard time keeping the impatience out of his voice as he introduced Fenella to Jon and Jenny. He was still infuriated at the way she’d managed to inveigle herself into being included in their party, tricking James into agreeing to pick her up by giving him the impression, deliberately so, Luke knew, that he had invited her as his partner, when in fact...

      ‘What is she doing here?’ he had demanded half an hour earlier when, as arranged, James had called round to collect him and he had seen Fenella sitting demurely in the back of James’s car.

      ‘She rang me up and asked me to collect her,’ James had informed him, looking both upset and uncomfortable when Luke had told him pithily that he had been deceived and that there was no way he had ever intended asking Fenella.

      ‘Oh, but she said—’ he began, but Luke cut him short.

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