Penny Jordan - The Perfect Seduction

‘Well now, young Joss, and who exactly is this?’

Bobbie sympathised with Joss as she watched the tip of his ears burning a furious red at his brother’s deliberately condescending manner towards him.

‘Hi, I’m Bobbie,’ Bobbie introduced herself calmly.

The dark eyebrows lifted. ‘An American... Oh dear, Joss, you will be popular with the old man. Our grandfather, I’m afraid to say, has an aversion to Americans,’ he told Bobbie.

Joss, Bobbie could see, was looking miserably embarrassed.

‘That’s okay,’ she responded easily. ‘My grandfather feels exactly the same way about you British.’

Max gave her a narrow-eyed look. ‘Hopefully not an aberration you’ve inherited,’ he suggested softly.

‘Who says it’s an aberration?’ Bobbie replied and had the satisfaction of seeing the extraordinary effect of his amazing physical good looks dimmed by the unpleasant expression in his eyes.

No wonder Joss was so wary around him.

‘Oh, Max, there you are. I—’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Maddie, must you follow me around like an idiotic sheepdog?’ Max demanded irritably as he turned towards his wife.

Bobbie felt for her as the other woman’s face burned a painful dark red. Joss was chewing the side of his cheek and Bobbie herself had to suppress an urge to tell Max exactly what she thought of his arrogance and cruelty.

‘Your husband and I were just discussing our respective grandfathers,’ Bobbie informed Madeleine with a genuinely friendly smile.

‘Oh, I see.’ She had a shy, hesitant voice and a very uncertain manner, Bobbie noticed as Madeleine went on to tell her, ‘It’s a shame that Ben can’t be here tonight. He had a fall some years ago and it’s left him with a very painful and rheumaticky hip joint that the doctors say he should have replaced.’

Relief wiped the tense anxiety from Madeleine’s face. Poor soul, she obviously lived in fear and dread of losing her husband. She need not, Bobbie decided. Like the fancy icing on an otherwise repulsively unappealing cake, those good looks were all that there was to him.

She didn’t want to totally alienate Max, though, she acknowledged. He could prove to be a valuable source of information.

So his grandfather had an aversion to Americans, did he? He wasn’t the only member of the Crighton family who felt like that as she had good cause to know.

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