Passionate Scandal
Michelle Reid

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

SEATBELT securely fastened. Seat in its upright position. That distinctive humming sensation in the head that always happened when the cabin slowly depressurised along with their steady descent. And that other very familiar growling sound which said the huge Boeing was throttling back on its final approach into London’s Heathrow Airport at last. And suddenly panic erupted from nowhere, drying Madeline’s mouth, closing her eyes, catching at her breath and jerking her hands into white-knuckled fists on her trembling lap.

Was she really ready for this?

What a question! she chided herself angrily. What a useless, stupid question to ask herself now, of all times!

Of course she was ready. And even if she wasn’t, she would still have come!

Nothing—nothing would stop her from attending Nina’s wedding. Not even the reawakening of a sick panic she had thought she’d spent the last four years combating!

Four years, she thought painfully. Surely four years had been quite long enough to spend in exile for her sins, without her having to feel like this? Four years ago she had been just too young and ill-equipped to deal with the pain and humiliation of it all. She had been her own worst enemy then. But she was four years older now, she reminded herself sternly, four years the wiser, and she had gained four full years’ much needed maturity and sophistication to help armour herself against whatever waited for her down there beneath those familiar grey clouds of London.

‘All right, darling?’

Part of her armour, Madeline admitted as she forced a reassuring smile for her travelling companion. Perry had invited himself along on this trip, and she had hesitated only slightly before accepting his company—whether through conceit or cowardice she wasn’t sure. Conceit certainly played a part in her need to show them all at home just how well she could do for herself. And cowardice because she was uncomfortably aware that she was using Perry as an elegant prop for her new image.

An image that was the complete antithesis of her old one.

Perry, she supposed, could be called her latest beau! He was one of the Boston Linburghs. The eldest son and heir in fact to that highly influential and wealthy family. And looked it too, she noted fondly as she studied his smooth lean profile. Hair the colour of wood ash, worn fashionably short, styled to the good shape of his head. His eyes were a warm shade of hazelnut, and his smile the unaffected kind which made him so easy to like.

She and Perry had been a ‘thing’ for several months now. Their relationship—warmly platonic, she decided, described it best—was useful to both of them, because behind their friendly intimacy they were each nursing the wounds of a broken engagement.

So, when Nina’s letter had arrived begging Madeline to come to her wedding, Perry had immediately suggested he come with her.

‘I can combine the trip with some business my father needs attending to at our London office. That way, at least I’ll be able to to be with you at weekends.’ And give you any support you may find you’ll need, was his silent addition. She and Perry understood each other very well.

‘What’s this stepsister of yours like?’ he enquired now, turning teasing eyes on her. ‘Not one of the wicked kind, is she?’

‘Nina?’ Madeline gasped. ‘Good grief, no!’

If anything, she thought ruefully, she was the wicked stepsister; Nina was the angel.

Madeline was the only child from Edward Gilburn’s first marriage, a marriage that had lasted only six stormy years before ending up in a surprisingly amicable divorce considering her parents’ track record for doing nothing amicable for each other. The then five-year-old Madeline had remained in England with her father when her mother decided to return to the States to live. Dee, her Boston-born-and-bred mother, had possessed just enough sensitivity to see that parting Madeline from her father would have been nothing short of first-degree murder, since they both doted so much on each other. Dee had not been offended, just philosophical about the situation. Madeline and her father had needed each other more than they needed Dee. So she had packed her lorry loads of baggage and shipped herself back to Boston, where Madeline had commuted on a regular visiting basis ever since.

She had been just eight years old when her father announced his intention to remarry, and she could still remember how determined she had been to hate this unexpected competitor for her father’s affections. Then in walked Louise, a vision of fair and gentle loveliness. And by her side, with her small hand clinging to her mother’s, stood Nina, tiny will-o’-the-wisp Nina, with her mother’s anxious cornflower blue eyes and soft vulnerable mouth. And the very spoiled and wilful Madeline Gilburn had been captivated right there and then.

On looking that far back as the plane’s wheels touched smoothly down to earth, Madeline wondered why everyone had been so surprised by her immediate capitulation when over the years she and her father had proved time and time again how much in harmony were their thoughts and feelings. Where one loved, the other invariably loved also.

Which had made it doubly painful for both of them when she and Dominic broke up...

Dominic. Thoughts of Dominic Stanton brought her full circle and back to the very roots of her moment’s panic. It was because of him that she had run away to Boston four years ago. And, she acknowledged secretly, it was also because of him that she had decided to come back.

She needed to lay the ghosts of a love long dead.

Customs clearance took ages, but eventually she emerged into the mad crush of the arrivals lounge with her loaded luggage trolley, her blue eyes scanning the sea of faces she encountered, looking for the one she was expecting to see and completely oblivious to the interested glances she was receiving for herself alone.

She was tall and beautifully slender in her tailored suit of pure silk knit, its electric blue colour an exact match to her wide-spaced eyes. Her skin was a little pale after the long hours cooped up in an aeroplane, but nothing could dim its natural purity. Her long blue-black hair had been confined in a braided coronet for the journey, and had arrived at the end of it looking as sleek and sophisticated as it had when she’d set off more than twelve hours ago. She was the kind of woman who stood out in a crowd. Destined to belong to someone special. Exclusive.

The man walking at her side suited her. His air of high breeding and easy sophistication showed clearly. His smooth fairness complemented her dark sleekness. Two very sophisticated people.

‘Madeline!’

Her head twisted, blue eyes alighting on the tall distinguished figure of her father, and on a soft cry she moved eagerly into his arms.

‘You’re late,’ he complained after releasing her from a suffocating bear-hug of an embrace. ‘Over an hour late coming in, and another hour getting through those infernal Customs!’

Madeline smiled and kissed his cheek. ‘Don’t knock the tight security,’ she scolded him. ‘It’s all done for our own safety.’

‘Hmph,’ was his only answer to that as he held her out at arm’s length so he could look at her. ‘You’re looking good enough to eat,’ he decided, ‘though how you manage to after that lousy journey confounds me.’

‘Mummy comes in useful for some things, you know,’ she grinned. Expecting and getting another disparaging ‘Hmph’.

There was very little love lost between her parents. Her father saw Dee as a very beautiful but empty-headed social doll, and Dee saw her father as a brusque, insensitive tyrant. The only place they met in any harmony was where their daughter was concerned, and even there they begged to differ—over all points but her happiness.

‘Now, where’s this young man your mother’s been telling me so much about?’

Turning in her father’s arms, Madeline searched Perry out, to find he had been joined by a big dark-haired man who was greeting him like an old friend.

‘Forman!’ she cried in surprise.

The newcomer grinned and came over to kiss her cheek. She had met Forman Goulding several times in Boston. He was a big dark man with the kind of hard masculine looks she tended to shy away from these days. He was also Perry’s cousin and the member of the family who took care of their European interests.

It was with Forman that Perry was going to stay during his stay in London, coming to Madeline in Lambourn during the weekends only. By the time all the introductions had been made, her father had invited Forman down to Lambourn with Perry whenever he wished to join them, then they were all moving outside to her father’s Bentley, with Rogers his chauffeur standing by the boot waiting to receive her luggage, and in front of it a long low growling monster of a car which could only belong to Forman Goulding.

Perry took Madeline in his arms and kissed her gently, promising to be with her in Lambourn by Saturday lunchtime.

‘That was a fine show of affection,’ her father commented once they were seated in the car and on their way.

‘Was it?’ Madeline murmured, then subtly turned the conversation by demanding to know how everyone was, her eyes warm on him as she listened to all the latest news.

At fifty-five he was still a strikingly attractive man with his head of thick wavy hair which had gone prematurely white in his twenties. He was a man who carried the power he wielded around with him like a banner. Dominic had once described him as a man who totally lacked caution but possessed the luck of the devil to compensate. Reluctant though Madeline was to agree with anything Dominic Stanton said, she had to agree with that particular observation. Her father took risks in business guaranteed to rock the City back on its heels in horror. The fact that he invariably made the right move placed him high on the respect rating with people in the speculative business. Few scoffed at a Gilburn idea. Nobody dared underestimate him. He was just too sharp, too shrewd.

‘And what’s this Charles Waverley like?’ she asked when her father concluded the local news without mentioning Nina’s new fiancé. ‘I can’t imagine our own little Nina getting married and leaving the fold,’ she added drily. ‘She was always such a timid little home bird.’

‘Charles is perfect for Nina,’ her father assured her. ‘He possesses a natural desire to love and cherish, which is all we can ever ask of the man who wins our Nina. Their marriage will be a good one,’ he asserted confidently.

A weight pressing down on her heart kept Madeline silent while she diminished it. It was nothing new to her to feel this terrible burden constricting her chest whenever she thought of love and marriage. It was something she’d had to learn to live with—and control so no one else knew it was there. Love held only bitter memories for her, painful experiences she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy. Marriage meant commitment. An honest declaration of love undying. She had once known love, thought the offer of marriage gave her that commitment. But she had been wrong. And she never wanted Nina to know that same pain, that same anguished desolation.

‘And Louise—how is she?’ she asked next.

‘Very well,’ her father said positively. ‘Beautiful and well,’ he added with all the satisfaction of a man who adored his lovely wife to distraction. Louise suited the blustery Edward Gilburn far better than Madeline’s own mother had. With Louise he had a chance to utilise that softer side of his nature which otherwise would never be seen. No one would think of being cruel or tyrannical towards Louise. She was just too soft and vulnerable. ‘And eager to have you back home,’ he finished warmly.

Madeline didn’t doubt it. Louise had been a wonderful surrogate mother to her throughout her formative years. And she had done it without coming between daughter and father or outlawing Dee.

‘She had your rooms completely refurbished as a surprise for you—then sat down and worried herself silly that she should have left them as you remembered them, and had us all frantic in case she decided to change them back again in the hopes that you wouldn’t notice! Nina managed to stop her.’ He sounded heartily relieved. ‘She told her that the new Madeline I’ve been telling them all about would hate to sleep in a candy-pink room with frills and flounces!’

Would she? Madeline laughed dutifully, but felt a heavy sense of loss inside, as if the old Madeline had died, and this new one was just a stand-in. Would other people see her as a stranger now, someone they had to learn to know all over again? She shuddered at the thought. She had just grown up, that was all. Albeit late.

Watching her covertly, Edward Gilburn read more in his daughter’s studiously placid features than she would like. He had worried terribly about her when she first went to Boston four years ago. Dee had been marvellous with her, he had to admit. She’d refused to let their daughter mope, dragging her—literally sometimes—protesting miserably out to face the human race and learn to deal with it again. But he had feared what kind of person was going to emerge from the ashes of this brutal kind of therapy. He had been relieved to find Madeline slowly learning to cope during his regular visits to see her in Boston. But he could not say he was exactly happy with the final result of the four-year influence of her rather superficial mother.

Where had all that sparkling eagerness to meet life full on gone? he wondered in grim exasperation. That wild and wonderful love of life which made her the captivating creature she was at eighteen? Trust Dee to bleed it all out of her, he thought grimly.

And, not for the first time, he cursed Dominic Stanton for making it necessary for his baby to place herself in the hands of her mother.

‘Nina was worried you might not come,’ he put in quietly.

‘Because of Dominic, you mean?’ As usual, Madeline went directly for the point, and Edward smiled to himself. Dee obviously hadn’t managed to curb that natural habit. Then the smile went awry when he remembered how that painfully open honesty of hers had made her broken love affair with Dominic all the harder for her to bear. She had not been able to seek solace in lying to herself, and the truth had been so dreadfully hard to endure. ‘I didn’t know I’d given such a feeble impression of myself.’

‘You didn’t, darling, and you know it.’ Her father’s hand came out to take hers, squeezing it gently.

‘What Dominic did to me was cruel.’ Madeline said flatly. ‘But what I did to him was unforgivable. Neither of us came out of it well. It took me a whole year to acknowledge that,’ she admitted on a small smile. ‘And a bit of brutal talking from Mummy,’ she added drily. ‘She was brutal all around, when I come to think of it.’ She shrugged, slender shoulders moving up and down beneath the immaculate silk jacket. ‘Was that your doing?’ She looked enquiringly at her father. ‘Did you advise her not to let me wallow?’

His face gave him away, and Madeline smiled again. If anyone knew how best to deal with her, then it was this man. ‘Thank you,’ she leaned over to kiss his cheek. ‘Your instincts rarely let you down, do they?’

‘They did where Dominic was concerned,’ he muttered gruffly. He had liked and respected Dominic Stanton. So much so that he’d encouraged his love affair with Madeline from its conception. Everyone concerned had, the Stantons just as eagerly as the Gilburns. It had been a beautiful dream while it lasted. ‘I’ll never forgive myself for my part in encouraging you.’ He voiced his grim thoughts out loud.

‘You really had no say in what I did, you know,’ Madeline drily pointed out. And he grinned because he knew as well as she did that when Madeline wanted something badly enough she went all out to get it. And she had wanted Dominic, so badly that it still hurt just to remember. ‘We were simply wrong for each other,’ she stated flatly. ‘And we should perhaps be thankful that we found out soon enough. Does Charles Waverley run a successful racing stable?’ Once again, she deftly changed the subject.

‘Very. He trained last year’s Derby winner...’

There were going to be some surprised faces around Lambourn in the near future, Edward Gilburn ruefully judged as he watched the sleek mask of sophistication drop smoothly into place on his daughter’s face. And found himself yearning for a time when a black-haired, wicked-eyed gypsy had danced all over his peace of mind. A time when Nina had captivated, and Madeline shocked. While Nina had sat sewing her fine seam, filling his heart with a gentle gladness for being allowed to take the place of her dead father, Madeline would be off on some wild prank or other which would inevitably bring his wrath tumbling down on her unrepentant head—followed by his secret respect. She rode like the devil, played every sport there was going with panache. And later, when she grew into a wild and wilful young woman, she’d run rings around all the poor besotted young men who fell for a pair of wicked blue eyes and a mane of wild black hair.

Dee had despaired of ever taming her then, he recalled. She would send letters home with Madeline after one of her Boston visits, enquiring in her oh, so sarcastic way if Edward was raising their daughter as a delinquent for any specific reason. But even Dee had had to admit that Madeline drew the opposite sex to her like bees to honey, that she was exciting to be with. Madeline possessed a fierce will of her own, but she was also able to laugh at herself, and not many could do that.

Dominic hadn’t laughed, the damned fool! If he had—if only he had laughed that fateful night of the country club ball, then maybe Madeline wouldn’t have run away, and maybe she would not be sitting next to him now, talking with the bland aplomb of the well trained socialite.

He preferred the other girl, the one who would have been bouncing up and down beside him right now, brimming with excitement, plans, driving him demented with the pranks she intended pulling on her friends.

Or maybe she wouldn’t, he then revised thoughtfully. Maybe time alone would have taken the spirited child out of Madeline. Perhaps Dominic Stanton had only accelerated a natural progression—though he didn’t think so. He knew his daughter well, knew what kind of devil drove her, because the self-same one had driven him. It had taken him over forty years to learn to tame his own. He hadn’t expected Madeline to do it any quicker.

No, Dominic had done that, taught her how to think before she acted; hide instead of being her true exciting self!

* * *

They stood like a formal reception party, Madeline noted drily as the car slowed and stopped in front of the grey-stoned country manor house where Louise, Nina and a serious-faced man stood waiting for them at the bottom of the wide stone steps.

Louise looked no different than she had the last time Madeline had seen her four years ago now. Small, and neat-figured, she still had hair that shone that wonderful spun-gold colour, and her smile was still that infinitely gentle one Madeline had first encountered at the age of eight. Nina had altered, though, she noted with a small shock. Her stepsister had grown more beautiful in the four intervening years, her pale gold hair a short cap of enchanting curls around her angelic face. And that had to be Charles Waverley, she decided as she turned her attention to the only stranger in their midst. Tall, weatherbeaten, with the whipcord-lean frame of a working farmer, he stood head and shoulders above both women. There was an expression of solemn reserve about his chocolate-brown eyes.

And it was at him that she smiled first. Why, she wasn’t quite sure, except that she knew somehow that it was what Nina would want her to do, make this man she had fallen in love with know she welcomed him into their small family fold.

She saw the uncertain glance he sent Nina before he levelled his gaze back on her, and also saw the hint of relief, as if he’d just taken some terribly important test and was now glad it was over.

‘Maddie, darling!’ It was Louise who came forward to envelop her in her warm embrace. ‘Oh, it’s so wonderful to have you home!’ She pushed her to arm’s length in much the same way her father had done earlier at the airport, her smile rather watery. ‘And looking so different, too!’ she exclaimed. ‘So frightfully sophisticated!’

‘Nice to be back, Louise,’ she answered earnestly, somehow unable to return the effusive greeting. It’ll come back, she told herself firmly, frowning inwardly at her own reticence. It was only now as she stood here with these people she had spent so many years of her life with that she noticed the restraint she had learnt to apply on herself. ‘And you haven’t changed in the slightest,’ she made an effort to sound natural. ‘I hope Nina won’t mind if I tell you I had to take a second look to tell which of you was which!’

‘You’ve earned yourself a kiss for that,’ Nina said promptly, coming to replace her mother in Madeline’s arms. ‘I can’t think of a better compliment than to know I look like Mummy. Hello, Maddie,’ she added huskily, looking up at her with gentle, loving eyes. ‘Have you missed us?’

‘Every single day,’ she assured, unwilling to tell the truth and admit that she had found it necessary to her own survival to dismiss all that was even vaguely English from her mind for those first few years. ‘And you look wonderful. Would that have anything to do with this rather dishy man I see standing guard behind you?’ she teased.

Nina blushed, and turned to draw Charles Waverley closer. ‘This is Charles, Madeline,’ she gravely introduced. ‘And you have to like each other on sight, or I shall be miserable.’

Madeline found herself looking once again into those serious brown eyes, and held out her hand. ‘Well,’ she said frankly, ‘I shall promise to like you on sight, Charles, so long as you can promise me you’ll take precious care of Nina.’

‘A promise I won’t find it difficult to keep.’ He smiled, and took her outstretched hand.

‘Let’s get inside, shall we?’ Edward Gilburn’s gruff voice broke in. ‘Come on, Charles,’ he took his future son-in-law’s arm. ‘Women are notoriously silly when it comes to hellos and goodbyes. Let’s you and I go and find a nice glass of something while they talk each other’s tails off.’

With a laugh, the three women followed them indoors, and proceeded to do exactly what Edward Gilburn had predicted by chatting madly—or, more correctly, Nina and Louise did the chattering. Madeline simply smiled a lot and put the odd word in now and then when required. They didn’t seem to notice her reserve, though she did.

It will come, she repeated to herself on a small frown. It was only natural that she should feel strange with them after a four-year separation. The old natural camaraderie would return soon enough once she’d settled back in...

CHAPTER TWO

BUT it didn’t. And it was a relief to escape.

Madeline turned Minty, her chestnut mare, towards the river and cantered off. The clouds which had welcomed her home to England had all but cleared away now, leaving a bright full April moon shining in the night sky above her. It wasn’t late, barely nine o’clock, but it was cold, cold enough to warrant the big sheepskin jacket she had pulled on over her jeans and sweater.

Her decision to take a ride alone had been met with consternation, but they’d let her go. It wasn’t as if they were concerned for her safety. Madeline had been riding over this part of the countryside since she was old enough to climb on to the back of a horse. It was just that they were hurt by her need to get away from them so soon after her arrival home.

But she could not have taken any more tonight.

Within an hour of arriving she’d begun to feel like an invalid home on convalescence because of the way they all seemed to tiptoe around her, around subjects they’d obviously decided between them were strictly taboo, watching her with guarded if loving eyes. By the time another hour had gone by, she had been straining at the leash to escape. Dinner had been an ordeal, her tension and their uncertainty of her acting against each other to make conversation strained and stilted.

She’d blamed her restlessness on jet-lag when she saw their expressions. And they’d smiled, bright, false, tension-packed smiles. ‘Of course!’ her father had exclaimed—too heartily. ‘A ride is just what you need to make you feel at home again!’ Louise had agreed, while Nina just looked at her with huge eyes.

Madeline’s soft mouth tightened. So, she’d hurt them all, but she couldn’t do a single thing about it just yet. Four years was a long time. They all had adjustments to make—her family more than herself, because she was what she was, and nothing like the girl who had left here four years ago.

They were all exactly the same, though, she told herself heavily. They hadn’t changed at all.

Minty’s hoofs pounded on the frozen ground, and Madeline crouched down low on her back, giving herself up to the sheer exhilaration of the ride as they galloped across the dark countryside. The further she got away from the house, the more relaxed she began to feel, as if the distance weakened the family strings that had been busily trying to wrap themselves around her aching heart.

She didn’t know why she felt this way, only that she did. From the moment she’d stepped out of the car, she’d felt stifled, haunted almost, by memories none of them could even begin to contemplate.

A sharp bend in the river was marked by a thick clump of trees standing big and dark against a navy blue sky. She skirted the wood until she found the old path which led down to the river itself, allowing Minty to pick her own way to what was one of their old haunts: a small clearing among the trees, where the springy turf grew to the edge of the steep riverbank.

She loved this place, she thought with a sigh, sliding down from Minty’s back to stand, simply absorbing the peace and tranquillity of her surroundings. Especially at night, when the river ran dark and silent, and the trees stood like sentinels, big and brooding. Her father had used to call her a creature of the night. ‘An owl,’ he used to say, ‘while Nina is a lark.’

The full moon was blanching the colour out of everything, surrounding her in tones of black and grey, except for the river, where it formed slinky silver patterns on the silent mass as it moved with a ghostly kind of grace.

Letting the bridle fall so that Minty could put down her head to graze, Madeline shoved her hands into the pockets of her old sheepskin coat and sucked in a deep breath of sharp, crisp, clean air then let it out again slowly, feeling little by little the tension leave her body. It wasn’t fair—she knew she was being unfair. They were good, kind, loving people who only wanted the best for her and for her to be happy.

But how could she tell them that she’d forgotten what happiness was? Real happiness at any rate, the kind she had once embraced without really bothering to think about it.

Sighing, she moved towards the edge of the bank where she could hear the water softly lapping the pebbly ground several feet below her.

On the other side of the river, hidden behind another thick clump of trees, the old Courtney place stood dark and intimidating. She could just make out its crooked chimneystacks as the moon slid lazily over them. It was an old Elizabethan thing, let to go over the years until it had gained the reputation of being haunted. Its owner, Major Courtney, had done nothing to refute the claims. He was a recluse, an eccentric straight out of the Victorian era who had guarded his privacy so fiercely that in her mad youth Madeline had loved to torment him by creeping into his overgrown garden just so he would come running out with his shotgun at the ready.

Shocking creature! she scolded herself now, but with a smile which was pure ‘old’ Madeline.

The silence was acting like a balm, soothing away a bleakness she had been struggling with from the moment she had stepped into the house this afternoon. She knew exactly why it was there. Her problem was how to come to terms with it.

She had not expected Dominic’s presence to be so forcefully stamped into everything she rested her eyes upon.

‘Damn him,’ she whispered softly to the night, and huddled deeper into her coat.

‘Another step, and you’ll fall down the bank,’ a quiet voice warned from somewhere behind her.

The moon slid behind a lonely cloud. Blackness engulfed her suddenly, and Madeline let out a strangled cry, her heart leaping to her mouth as she jumped, almost doing exactly what that voice warned against and plunging down the riverbank in sheer fright.

Heart hammering, the breath stripped clean from her body, she spun around, eyes wide and frightened as they searched the inky blackness for a glimpse of a body to go with the voice.

Another horse stood calmly beside Minty. And Madeline realised that she had been so engrossed in her own thoughts that she hadn’t heard the other rider come up. But she could see no one, and a fine chilling thread of alarm began slinking along her spine while she stood there breathless and still, the sudden deathly silence filling her ears, drying her mouth while her eyes flicked anxiously around the dark clearing.

By legend, this was highwayman country. And she could conjure up at least three gruesome tales of ghostly sightings in these parts. She’d always laughed them off before—while secretly wishing she could witness something supernatural. Now, she was rueing that foolish wish.

The horses shifted, bridles jingling as they nudged against each other. Madeline blinked, her eyes stinging with the effort it took to pierce the pitch-blackness.

‘Who’s there?’ she demanded shakily.

‘Who do you think?’ drawled a mocking voice.

It was then, as she caught the lazy mockery, the dark velvet resonance of the voice, that the fear went flying as a new and far more disturbing emotion took over, making her hands clench in her pockets as she saw a movement over to the right of the horses.

A tall figure of a man detached itself from the shadow of a tree, looking more wicked than any highwayman could to Madeline’s agitated mind. She had known him to come upon her like this many times, using shock tactics to heighten her awareness of him. He was that kind of man. A man who thrived on others’ uncertainty.

‘So, the prodigal has returned at last.’

‘Hello, Dom,’ she said, forcing herself to sound cool and unaffected by his sudden presence, even as her nerve-ends scrambled desperately for something she refused to acknowledge. ‘What brings you out here tonight of all nights?’

The moon came out from behind its cloud, and his smile flashed white in his shadowed face. ‘The same thing as you, I should imagine,’ he answered, close enough for her to see the clean taut lines of his handsome face. ‘Hello, Maddie,’ he belatedly responded.

He seemed to loom like the trees, tall and dark, black jeans and a heavy black sweater exaggerating the muscled power of his body. Everything about Dominic Stanton was in general larger than life, she mused acidly. Including his vows of undying love.

Abruptly she turned away from him, a hard pang of pain twisting in her ribs. They had used to meet here often once. It had been their place—among several others along this eerie riverbank. She would always arrive first, the more eager, she bitterly recalled. And he would come out of the darkness to take her in his—

A hand touched her shoulder. She reacted violently, his unexpected touch coinciding so closely with her thoughts that she took a jerky step back, and felt the riverbank tilt dangerously beneath her feet.

‘You stupid fool!’ he growled, fingers digging into her shoulders as he yanked her on to safer ground. ‘What do you think I’m going to do—rape you?’

Rape? A noise left her throat like a hysterical choke. Since when had he had to resort to rape with her? Surely it had been the other way around.

‘Let go of me,’ she insisted, disgusted with herself because even now, after four long years, one look at him and everything she had in her was clamouring in hungry greeting, sending her pulses leaping wildly.

His eyes still looked down at her with that same passionate intensity; his mouth was still firm-lipped and sensual. He still stood eight inches above her, still exuded that same hardcore sexuality that had always driven her mad with wanting—and still had the ability to stir her wayward nature.

She hated him for that. Hated him for making it happen.

His hands left her instantly, and she almost sagged in groaning relief. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said tightly. ‘I want to touch you probably less than you want to feel my touch on you.’

‘W-what are you doing here?’ she demanded, wanting to rub her arms where his fingers had dug in—not because he’d hurt her, but because her flesh was stinging as if she’d just been burned.

‘To see you, what else?’ He moved back a step to thrust his own hands out of sight in the tight pockets of his jeans. ‘Four years is a long time not to set eyes on the woman who made a public spectacle of me.’

She had made a public spectacle of him? Madeline almost laughed out loud. ‘As I remember it,’ she smiled bitterly, ‘it was the other way around.’

‘Not from where I was standing, it wasn’t,’ he grunted. ‘Humiliated by a spoiled if beautiful black-haired brat who has never given a care for anyone but herself!’

‘Thank you,’ she drawled. ‘It’s so nice to know how fondly my then fiancé thought of me.’

‘As nice as it was for me to find out what a faithless fiancée you were to me?’

Madeline visibly flinched, guilt and shame four years in the nurturing holding the breath congealed inside her lungs. And she had to look away from him, unable to defend herself against that ruthless thrust. There was just too much truth in it.

Silence fell hard and tight between them, and they stood stiffly in the moonlit clearing, neither seeming to know what to say next to hurt the other. It was amazing how the antipathy was still there throbbing like a war drum between them. It should have dulled a little by now, at least withered into a mutual dislike maybe, but it hadn’t. And this meeting could be happening the night after the country club ball for the way they were reacting to one another, and the intervening years might as well as not have gone by.

The moon hung like a silver lantern above their heads, etching out each harshly handsome line of his smooth lean face: the silky black bars of his eyebrows, almost touching as he glowered down at her; his eyes glinting at her from beneath those dark thick lashes; his slender nose, long and arrogant, just like the man. And his mouth, she noted lastly. Just a thin taut line of contempt which even then could not disguise its in-built sensuality.

‘Four years,’ Dominic muttered suddenly. ‘And you still look the same bewitching child. Still more beautiful than any woman ought to be.’

Something inside her twisted in pained yearning, and she went to turn away from him, only to find her arms caught once again in his bruising grip. ‘Not yet,’ he bit out. ‘You’re not going to escape again just yet. Tell me, Madeline...’ He pushed his angry face closer to her own so that she could see the bitterness burning in his eyes, feel it pulsing right through him. ‘Did you do it just to punish me? Or was it that you simply did not care?’

‘Your desire to know comes four years too late,’ she threw back, lifting her chin to let her cool gaze clash with his angry one.

He looked ready to shake her out of her coolness, and certainly his fingers tightened their grip on her arms. Then he suddenly seemed to think better of it. ‘You’re right,’ he agreed. ‘Four years is a long time to await an answer which really does not interest me. But what does interest me, Madeline,’ he persisted harshly, ‘is whether Boston and those damned four years have managed to make a woman out of the wilful child I thought I loved!’

She should have expected it, Madeline realised a moment later. She should have read it in the sudden flash of those coldly burning eyes, seen it in the tension of his hard mouth just before it landed punishingly on top of her own. But she hadn’t, too shaken by her own disturbing reactions accurately to interpret his, and his warm breath rasped against her cold mouth as he went from the verbal attack to the physical in one swift angry movement.

Stunned into total stillness, she just stood in front of him, his fingers biting into her arms through the padded warmth of her sheepskin coat as he held her tight against him. And the angry pressure of his mouth crushed her lips back against her teeth, forcing them apart and drawing memories from her that she would far rather have left banished to the dark recesses of her mind.

And as each lonely sense began to stir inside her, awakening to the only source ever to bring them to life, she began to fight, fight like hell for release—aware of his angry passion, of her own reaching up to match it, and wanting neither.

Never again! she told herself desperately as she strained frantically away from him. Never again!

‘Home half a day,’ he muttered, lifting his head to glare at her through eyes shot silver with a strange mixture of rage and anguish. ‘And already I can’t—’

The words died, choked off by a thickened throat as his mouth came back to hers. He lifted a hand to bury his fingers in the silken softness of her hair, drawing her head back, forcing her face up to his own. His other arm was like steel around her waist, clamping her to him, and the helpless groan he gave against her mouth wrenched an answering one from herself.

The kiss went on and on, nothing kind or loving in the cruel assault, but slowly she felt her control slipping away from her, felt her senses begin to hum with a need to respond. And suddenly they were kissing frenziedly, straining against each other, lost in the turmoil which had always been an exciting part of their relationship four years ago. When Dominic had allowed it to happen, that was, which wasn’t often.

Reality came crashing back with the memory, and she dragged her mouth away from his, her own bitterness aimed entirely at herself because once again she had fallen for his easy passion—a passion she knew from experience he could switch on and off like a tap.

‘It’s funny how we should both end up on this particular spot by the river tonight of all nights,’ he murmured against the heated smoothness of her cheek. ‘I seem to still possess that special antenna where you’re concerned, Madeline. I think I knew the moment you stepped back on to British soil. What does that admission do to your quaking heart, I wonder?’ he taunted silkily. ‘Does it make it beat all the faster?’

The flat of his hand suddenly came out to press firmly against the heaving mound of her breast where her heart was racing madly beneath the thick padding of her sheepskin coat. And she gasped.

‘Stop it,’ she hissed, trying to push him away. ‘Stop it, Dominic—please!’

‘Why?’ he taunted. ‘You love it! You always did!’

His mouth crushed down on to hers again with one last angry kiss, then suddenly she was free, standing dazed and swaying in front of him as he pushed himself away from her as violently as he had taken hold.

‘The next plane to Boston leaves in the morning,’ she heard him say quite coldly. ‘If you aren’t on it, Madeline, I shall take it that you’re prepared to stay and fight this time, instead of running away like the coward I never thought you to be.’

Then he was gone, striding away and leaping on to his horse before she had a chance to absorb the full meaning of his words.

The dull throb of galloping hoofs kept time with the thud of her pounding heart as she remained standing there, staring blankly at the spot he had last been standing in, her confused mind half wondering if she had imagined the whole incredible scene!

God knew, she’d dreamed of confrontations similar to this one often enough in the last four years—struggled with the same emotions clamouring inside her now. But never had she thought of Dominic being the one throwing out ultimatums. It had always been the other way around, she the injured one and he the one to grovel and plead.

Was she going to run away again?

The idea certainly appealed to her as she forced her quivering body to move. Meeting him unexpectedly like this had shaken her to the very core. And the knowledge that she was no more invulnerable to him now than she had been four years ago frightened her into seriously considering going back to Boston before he could really manage to hurt her.

Revenge, she realised grimly as she climbed on to Minty’s back. Dominic had just warned her that he was out for revenge, for what he called her humiliation of him.

Surely he had to see that he’d already had his revenge on her? In her mind they were quits. And this angry meeting should never have taken place.

‘Damn you, Dominic Stanton,’ she whispered into the icy darkness, her heart aching in so many different ways. ‘Damn you to hell.’

* * *

Damn him, she was still cursing him over an hour later as she restlessly paced her bedroom floor, her hands dug into the pockets of her blue satin robe.

Louise had showed her usual good taste in the refurbishment of her rooms, she acknowledged on a defiant snub to her troubled thoughts. Gone were the hearts and flowers, and soft toning blues and greys had replaced childish pinks, with the occasional splash of deep violet in acknowledgement of her own love of passionate colours. The walls were plain-painted instead of pattern-papered, the furnishings either replaced or re-covered to reflect the more mature woman, yet the touch of femininity was here, in the dozens of lace-edged satin cushions scattered about the place. Her old single bed had been replaced by a grand-looking double one with a beautiful silver-grey satin quilt thrown over it, appliquéd in blue and lilac silks. The carpet was grey and thick beneath her bare feet, the drapes the palest blue with tie-backs to match the bedcover.

Madeline sat down on her dressing stool, absently picking up her brush to stroke it through the tangled mass of recently wind-blown hair. She looked tired; dark smudges were spoiling the soft skin around her eyes. Her body felt heavy with fatigue, yet her limbs refused to stay still, twitching and forcing her to keep moving when she really wanted to flop into a blissfully deep sleep.

She was experienced enough in the side-effects of long-distance travel to know it was going to take her several days to adjust. But it wasn’t jet-lag bothering her tonight, she admitted heavily to herself. It was Dominic.

He hadn’t changed, not one small inch of him, inside or out. He was still big and lean and powerfully attractive. He still possessed that strong sexual allure about him that had always drawn her to him.

Could still kiss like the devil.

Her body responded, curling up into a tight tingling coil then springing open to spray those tingles all over her, and she sucked in a sharp breath, half impatience, half desperation.

It would have been better if Dominic had never seen her as anything but his sister’s best friend; then he would not have become the bitter man she had met down by the river tonight, and she would not be suffering the same old calamity of emotions he had always managed to stir inside her from that first moment he had looked at her and seen Madeline the woman and not the aggravating child.

She had scampered in and out of his life for years before that, seeing him as nothing more than Vicky’s big brother whose ten-year age difference placed him on a different plane from that which she had existed on. He had been one of them—the grown-up set she so loved to torment. And Vicky had loved to watch her do it because she herself was so in awe of her big brother that she didn’t dare antagonise him as Maddie had no qualms about doing.

Then the change had come. Circumstances had meant that she and Dominic hadn’t seen each other for almost two years, Dom because he was busy at his father’s bank, travelling the world as high-stepping financiers did, and she because she was busy studying for exams or commuting more often to Boston. And they had just seemed to miss—like ships in the night, she thought now with bitter wryness.

It was during the month of her eighteenth birthday that they met for the first time as adults. It was one of those long, lazy June days when the sun blazed down from an unblemished sky and the air lay so hot and still that she and Vicky had decided to laze around the Stanton swimming-pool for the afternoon.

Madeline’s skin already glowed with the rich golden tan from a recent Florida holiday with her family—her American family, that was—her mother, Lincoln, her second husband, and his two teenage children from his first marriage. She enjoyed being with them all for the month she spent there, but, as always, was glad to come home to Lambourn, and had been back only a few days when she donned her black and white striped one-piece swimsuit which showed more flesh than it hid and made Vicky green with envy for her luscious tan.

‘That figure of yours should be censored,’ her friend complained, eyeing the way the fashionable suit moulded Madeline’s slender frame from the firm fullness of her breasts to the high cutaway sides which made an open statement about the long sleek length of her legs.

‘Pocket Venuses bring out the male instinct to protect,’ she answered soothingly, studying Vicky’s demure little frame with her own brand of envy. Next to Vicky—and Nina, come to that—Madeline had always felt a bit like an Amazon. She had what Louise called an exotic figure. It didn’t inure her much to the softly rounded curves she had, but, never the type to chew on her lip in yearning for what she saw as too much of everything, she accepted her lot and got on with life in her usual happy-go-lucky way.

She had just got up from her padded lounger and executed a neat dive into the pool, and was swimming lazily up and down when another splash alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone in the pool. She expected to see Vicky’s streaky brown head emerge beside her, and was therefore surprised when the dark, attractive features of Dominic grinned white-toothed at her instead, water streaming down his tanned body, muscles rippling everywhere, cording his strong neck where it met broad shoulders.

‘Now, what have we here?’ he murmured silkily, his warm grey eyes glinting with mischief. ‘A real live water nymph in our pool? Does she cast wicked spells, I wonder?’

For all Madeline had been the one to torment Dominic over the years, he wasn’t averse to giving her a taste of her own medicine when in the mood—and he was clearly in the mood that day.

‘Wicked ones,’ she grinned, surprised to feel so pleased to see him. ‘So watch it,’ she warned, wagging a lazy finger his way. ‘Or I may decide to turn you into a frog. And then what would all the lovely Lambourn ladies do without the rakish Dominic Stanton to send their poor hearts all a-flutter?’

He grinned and so did she—then with her usual impulsiveness she turned a somersault and dived beneath the water, grabbing at his foot as she went so that she could trail him down with her, watching the disconcertment on his face as he tried to tug his captured foot free, air bubbles escaping all around them.

He was a big man, but Madeline was strong and determined. In the end, he had to grab her wrist and make her release him, and they both came to the surface gasping for air.

‘God, you haven’t changed much, have you?’ he choked, flinging back his head to clear his soaked hair from his face.

Madeline saw the measuring glint in his eyes, squealed when she correctly interpreted its vengeful meaning, and made a flailing dive for the side of the pool. She didn’t make it. Dominic caught her by the waist and lifted her up high above him, laughing at her helplessness as water streamed down her sun-browned skin.

Then he wasn’t laughing but looking, those piercing grey eyes of his warm on her body, taking in its new maturity, the unconscious sensuality in the way she arched away from him in an attempt to free herself, her breasts thrusting up and outwards, the hard press of her extended nipples clearly etched against the fine Lycra material of her suit, her head thrown back so her hair turned into a thick curtain of wet black silk which trailed in the water behind her.

He muttered something beneath his breath, and Madeline stopped struggling to glance questioningly at him.

It was then that she saw it—the change from teasing big brother to sexually stimulated male. His eyes were narrowed and his body tense. And slowly—slowly he lowered her down the length of him, letting her feel—and feeling for himself—the electric response as their wet bodies brushed enticingly against each other.

Their faces came level, and Madeline stared in blushing confusion at him. His mouth twisted, a self-mockery masking out the sensual awareness. Yet he did not immediately release her, Instead his hands went on an outrageous exploration of her body beneath the surface of the water. Breathlessly, she let him, her eyes fixed on his face as awareness began to pulse between them.

‘When did you get back?’ Vicky’s sleep-slurred voice broke into their absorption in each other, breaking them apart with an abruptness that was a message in itself. They glanced up to find her yawning lazily, completely unaware of the sudden tension fizzing in her pool. She blinked at her brother, then repeated the question, adding, ‘Daddy said you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.’

He turned away from Madeline, and instantly she dived below the surface of the water, swimming quickly away until she had put the full width of the pool between them, her senses in turmoil, a confusion over what had just happened making her feel peculiarly dizzy.

‘I finished quicker than I thought I would, so I caught an earlier flight home.’ He answered his sister levelly enough. ‘How are you, pug-face?’ he enquired teasingly as he levered himself out of the pool.

Suddenly and disturbingly aware of her own body, Madeline found that it took all her courage to make her climb out of the pool. And the fact that she was actually blushing made Dominic’s eyes glint mockingly at her as he watched her fumble with her towelling wrap while seemingly totally engrossed in a conversation with his sister.

‘Have dinner with me tonight,’ he murmured later under cover of Vicky’s light chatter.

Feeling shy for perhaps the very first time in her life, she shook her head, not at all sure she wanted to continue what had begun in the pool. ‘I don’t—’

‘Please.’ His hand curled about her wrist, stopping her mid-refusal. His touch acted like a bee-sting to her system and she gasped as the blood began to burn in her veins. Even Vicky had gone silent, watching with growing comprehension what was happening between her best friend and her big brother.

‘Dinner, that’s all,’ he repeated, then added in a soft-voiced challenge, ‘Where’s that spirit of adventure you’re so famous for?’

Well, it was dead now, thought the four-years-older Madeline. Killed by the hand that had once loved to feed it. Ruthlessly crushed by a man who took his revenge on a stupid impulsive child in a way which had instantly cured her of a lot of things. But most of all it had cured her of her silly belief that love conquered all. And she no longer believed in love at all now—not the all-consuming passionate kind, anyway.

CHAPTER THREE

MADELINE rang Vicky the next day.

‘You’re back!’ came the excited proclamation.

‘I think so,’ she murmured drily, ‘although I’m not certain all of me is here, if you know what I mean.’

‘Jet-lag,’ Vicky recognised. ‘Are you too tired to meet me today?’

‘Do you mean you may manage to fit me in?’ Madeline teased. ‘I believe you have certain—commitments which curtail your freedom these days.’

‘You’ve heard,’ Vicky grunted. ‘Who told you—Nina?’

‘My father, actually,’ Madeline corrected, unaware of the sudden tension on the other end of the line. ‘He’s rather proud of you, Vicky,’ she went on oblivious. ‘Said you’re making quite a name for yourself at the bank.’

‘Against all the odds,’ Vicky added drily, knowing Madeline was aware of how determined she had been to join the family bank—and how equally determined her father had been to keep her out of it. ‘It took me three years’ hard graft at the uni and a lot of rows before he caved in. But even he couldn’t turn a blind eye to the distinctions I got with my degree. I have been an official Stanton bank employee for just over a year now,’ she proudly announced. ‘Dom says I...’ Her voice trailed off, silent horror singing down the line between them.

Madeline sighed inwardly, seeing the irony in the way everyone seemed determined to skirt around all mention of Dominic Stanton while the man himself felt no qualms in making his presence more than felt! ‘Dom says—what?’ she prompted gently.

‘He—he says it’s my sexy behind that draws in the new accounts,’ Vicky mumbled uncomfortably.

‘Why, do you wriggle it at every potential client?’ Madeline asked, damning the odd tightness she felt in her chest when she visualised Dominic’s flashing grin as he issued that small tease to his sister.

‘Only at the male ones,’ Vicky chuckled, the tension easing out of her voice again. ‘What about Saturday night on the town if you don’t fancy making the trip into London today?’

‘No can do, I’m afraid.’ Madeline apologised. ‘I have a friend coming to stay.’

‘Perry Linburgh?’ Vicky quizzed.

‘How did you find that out so quickly?’ Madeline gasped, fine brows arching above wide-spaced eyes so darkly circled by thick black lashes.

‘With a grapevine like we have here?’ her friend scoffed. ‘I could probably describe him better than you could do yourself! A Linburgh, no less,’ she went on mockingly. ‘The name legends are made of. You do move in exclusive circles these days, Madeline.

‘Don’t I just?’ she agreed, then added on a burst of inspiration. ‘Hey—why don’t you come to lunch here on Sunday! You could meet Perry yourself then, and maybe give your honest opinion of the real thing rather than the legend!’

The suggestion met with utter silence. A sudden tension buzzing so strongly down the line that it was impossible to miss it, though she did not understand the reason for it.

‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ she heard Vicky say coolly.

‘Why?’ She frowned. ‘Got a date?’

There was another small silence, then, ‘Don’t you know, Madeline?’ Vicky asked curiously.

‘Know what?’ Her tone alone said she had no idea what Vicky was referring to.

The other girl sighed, muttered something not very ladylike which had Madeline’s eyebrows arching all over again, then lowering into an incredulous frown as Vicky curtly explained, ‘The Gilburns and the Stantons no longer acknowledge each other, dear,’ she was informed with a shivering derision. ‘They haven’t since you and my brother split up.’

Louise walked into the room just as Madeline was slowly replacing the telephone receiver.

‘Your young man, dear?’ she enquired.

‘No.’ Madeline was still frowning. ‘Vicky,’ she said grimly, then looked up at Louise. ‘Is it true?’ she demanded. ‘Have our two families been involved in a feud for the last four years?’

‘Oh, dear,’ Louise sighed and sat down next to Madeline on the sofa. ‘I wondered how soon you would find out.’

Horrified, Madeline jerked to her feet. ‘I can’t believe it!’ she exclaimed.

‘No, neither could I when it first began,’ Louise agreed. ‘Men are such children sometimes, Madeline!’ she sighed. ‘And I’ve been warning your father for weeks that he ought to put a stop to it before you came home. But he refuses to listen. He blames James Stanton for starting it—after Dominic, of course, that is—and I can only assume that James blames your father—after you. Am I being too honest, Madeline?’ she broke off to ask anxiously when she saw Madeline’s face grow steadily more distressed as she went on. ‘I have no wish to upset you with all of this, but it is a problem which has to be taken note of simply because you will sense it the moment we all get together in the same room.’

‘Oh, so you do actually move in the same company,’ Madeline scowled. ‘I suppose that has to mean something.’

‘Not much,’ Louise grunted. ‘We may attend the same things but we never acknowledge one another.’

‘Good grief!’ Madeline exploded. ‘But that’s positively—archaic!’

‘I entirely agree with you, dear.’ Louise nodded. ‘But it’s there and has to be faced. And I wouldn’t like you to make some terrible gaffe by speaking to the Stantons this Saturday night at the Lassiters’ only to find yourself cut dead where you stand.’

‘Y-you mean, they would actually do that?’ Her blue eyes widened in pained disbelief. ‘No wonder Vicky was so damned touchy whenever we mentioned family! My God,’ she breathed, utterly appalled by it all.

‘Your father felt sure you would be able to cope,’ Louise was looking pensive at Madeline’s paste-white face, ‘but if you don’t feel you can face it all just yet, Madeline, we would understand if you preferred not to attend...’

‘Oh, I’m going,’ Madeline murmured ominously. ‘And don’t think for one moment that I shall be joining in your petty feud!’

‘I thought you might say that,’ Louise grimaced.

Another sudden thought brought Madeline’s gaze arrowing on to her stepmother. ‘Does this also mean that the Stantons have not been invited to Nina’s wedding?’ she demanded, saw the answer in Louise’s uncomfortable face and was furious. ‘Vicky is my best friend!’ she cried. ‘We—all three of us—Nina, Vicky and I planned to be bridesmaids at each other’s wedding! Are you now telling me that even poor Vicky has been made a pariah by this family?’

‘I’m so sorry, dear.’

‘I should hope you jolly well are!’ Madeline snapped, so angry her eyes were flashing in a way that they hadn’t done once since she’d returned home. ‘For the first time, I feel heartily glad that I’ve come back! It’s time it stopped, Louise,’ she stated grimly. ‘And you can tell Daddy that I’m going to see to it that it does!’

‘You can tell him that yourself, Madeline,’ Louise drily declined the offer as she came gracefully to her feet. ‘The subject has been made taboo between your father and me ever since we fell out over it for a whole month! I don’t ever intend to put myself through that kind of purgatory again.’ She shuddered at the mere memory of it. ‘No,’ she reached up to pat Madeline’s shoulder, ‘any sorting of this problem will have to come from you, darling, since you’re the one who is at the root of it.’

And Dominic, Madeline added crossly to herself as Louise left her to seethe alone. How could he have allowed things to deteriorate into this state? And how darned petty!

She needed to talk to Vicky, she decided. And urgently if something wasn’t to be done before Nina’s wedding-day. Grimly, she picked up the phone and dialled the Stanton home number, crossing her fingers that she would catch Vicky before she left for the day.

She did just. ‘I’ve changed my mind about today,’ she told her friend. ‘What time do you usually have lunch?’

* * *

Loath though she was to admit it, it was with great reluctance that Madeline rode the Stanton Bank lift to the executive floor later that morning.

On the face of it, meeting Vicky at her place of work had seemed logical since it was Madeline who was flexible with her time and Vicky restricted by what might require attention on her desk. But even with the assurance that both Vicky’s father and Dominic were to be out of the building all day today, she was still finding it difficult to be here, in the enemy camp so to speak, she thought with feudal dryness.

Still. At least she knew she looked good. Her taupe jacquard suit was elegant, and reacted well with the deep purple accessories she’d teamed with it. Her hair was plaited in a single thick braid down her back, and her newly acquired self-awareness—forced on her by her mother—helped her maintain an air of cool self-possession—even if it didn’t go more than skin-deep.

Four years ago she wouldn’t have given a second thought to how others might see her. She had used to wear what she enjoyed wearing rather than what was considered appropriate for the occasion—but then, she mused rather heavily, she had used to laugh infectiously when she thought something funny, cry real tears at the drop of a hat! The old Madeline had flitted her way through life on a restless ever-changing spirit. This new one tempered every move and gesture to suit the status quo.

Her composure was now inscrutable, her sophistication an indisputable fact. She walked, talked, behaved as the daughter of a prominent man of the City should do. She never revealed ruffled nerves, wouldn’t dream of putting on a show of temperament like the old Madeline had used to do often—and to her ruin, she reminded herself. Her dress sense was superb, her personal grooming impeccable, and her manner serene. And if those closest to her were surprised to the point of dismay in the change in her, they had to agree, surely, that this new Madeline was far more acceptable than the old one?

That wretched girl who had run away four years ago was now back, and determined to make a point. She had begun with her family, and intended continuing by facing the people who had hurt her the most. The Stantons mainly, bar Vicky, and really only one Stanton in particular who was going to be made to eat those bitter words he’d thrown at her four years ago—even if he had set her off balance slightly with their unexpected meeting last night.

And she intended to do it by calmly smoothing out the quarrel between their two families. How, she wasn’t sure yet. She only knew that she was going to do it, and show them all that Madeline Gilburn had matured into a cool sensible woman at last.

The lift doors slid open, and she stepped gracefully out into the luxurious foyer of the Stanton directors’ floor, pausing for only a moment to collect herself as old memories hit out at her senses.

Once upon a time, she had rode that lift and bounced out here like an inmate, blithely trotting past the disgruntled receptionist of the day to walk right into Dominic’s office without knocking—just so she could surprise him with a kiss before walking blithely out again!

Now she cringed at the very idea of doing such a thing. So gauche—so adolescent.

The walls of panelled walnut still looked the same, and the same deep-pile grey Wilton carpet still covered the floor. Everything, in fact, was just as she remembered it—except the smiling face of the receptionist already on her feet and waiting to greet her.

Madeline flicked a brief glance at the several closed doors she knew led to the plush offices of the individual Stanton Bank directors, James Stanton’s dead centre, Dominic to the right of his and the rest belonging to lesser members of powerful family. She had no idea which door belonged to Vicky. Four years ago, the family had been dismayed at their daughter’s desire to join the firm. Now things were different. Vicky would be different, Madeline reminded herself. She too was older, would be more self-assured now that she held a responsible position in the bank.

‘Miss Stanton is expecting me,’ Madeline informed the waiting receptionist. ‘I’m Madeline Gilburn.’

The woman’s smile warmed into rueful humour. ‘She’s been jumping about like a demented flea all morning because you were coming. If you’ll just take a seat for a moment, I’ll put her out of her misery and let her know you’ve arrived.’

But the receptionist didn’t get the chance to inform Vicky of anything, because just at that moment a door further along the row flew open and out bounced Victoria Stanton—who came to a jerking halt when she saw Madeline standing there.

Grey eyes so like her brother’s gazed at her transfixed, thickening Madeline’s throat with tears as she stared into the pretty diminutive face of her closest friend. She had been wrong about Vicky, she acknowledged tearfully. She hadn’t changed, not one single iota.

‘Maddie—!’ she cried, coming back to life with a stunned blinking of her eyes. ‘Good God,’ she gasped. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ then, before Madeline had a chance to say anything at all, Vicky was rushing across the room to fling herself into her arms. ‘Oh, you beautiful, beautiful creature! I have missed you so!’ She pressed a satisfying kiss on Madeline’s cheek, then leaned back to stare at her again. ‘Goodness me, but you’ve changed,’ she told her. ‘You look so—so...’

‘Grown-up?’ Madeline solemnly supplied when at last Vicky floundered. ‘You too,’ she smiled. ‘You look quite the hot-shot executive in that pin-striped suit!

‘It comes with the job,’ Vicky explained the severe tailoring of the suit which accentuated every nuance of her hour-glass figure. ‘Specially made for bottom-wiggling at the—’

‘Judith, have you heard from—?’

Silence fell like a stone. Vicky’s excitement switched off like a light as she spun round to stare in horror at her brother while he fixed his narrowed gaze on her best friend.

The very air in the foyer began to tingle. And so did Madeline’s senses as she stared at him without even managing to breathe.

Meeting Dominic on a dark moonlit night bore no resemblance to meeting him like this, in broad daylight, where there was nothing—nothing to help mute the effect he had upon her senses.

Four years, she thought desperately, four years of quelling the aches, sealing up the wounds, learning to come to terms with the public rejection and humiliation he had forced on her, and it had all been for nothing. She had suspected it last night when he had caught her so unawares. But it was only now, as she stood face to face with him in the cruel light of day, that she had to accept that no amount of self-discipline was ever going to erase the profound effect he’d always had on her. And all she could think, and bitterly at that, was—thank God for Boston! Because she knew that, whatever turmoil was wringing at her insides, her face remained supremely calm and composed.

‘Hello, Dominic,’ she greeted quietly, accepting that it was for her to break the silence since nobody else seemed capable of it. ‘You’re looking—well.’

‘Madeline,’ he acknowledged huskily, running his narrowed gaze over her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘And you,’ he returned equably. ‘Very different, in fact,’ he added on a note which told her he was talking about last night, not four years ago.

‘M-Maddie is taking me out to lunch!’ Vicky put in with a voice so high-pitched that it hovered just this side of hysterical. Then her poor friend began talking quickly, saying things that no one else listened to. Even Judith, the receptionist, was too busy flicking her eyes from Dominic’s face to Madeline’s in wide-eyed curiosity to hear a word Vicky said.

‘You’ve not returned to Boston yet, then,’ Dominic drawled across his sister’s nervous chatter.

Instantly recognising the dig, she moved her chin upwards in mild defiance. ‘Since I only arrived home yesterday, I’m not likely to be rushing straight back, am I? Though,’ she added exclusively for his benefit, ‘once England begins to pall, no doubt I shall go back—home.’

In his turn, Dominic did not miss her own subtle meaning in the final word. And his mouth tightened on it.

‘I th-thought you were out today,’ Vicky rushed in agitatedly. ‘Y-you said you were—all day—out at some meeting.’

‘I changed my mind,’ Dominic informed Vicky while not removing his eyes from Madeline. ‘And aren’t I glad I did?’ he added silkily. ‘A Gilburn in our bank again; quite a surprise, Vicky. How did you manage to do it?’

It was time to put a stop to this, Madeline decided angrily as she saw Vicky’s hands clench convulsively at her stomach. It was one thing him wishing to mock her, but quite another to use his sister as a tool to do it with.

With a slight lifting of her chin, she held Dominic’s gaze for a short second which felt more like an hour in the throbbing tension, then slowly closed her dark lashes over her eyes. When she opened them again, she was looking directly at Vicky. ‘We’ll lose our table if you don’t hurry,’ she reminded her friend softly.

With a silent ‘O’ formed by two Cupid’s bow lips and a pair of rounded eyes which showed a horrified appreciation of the way Madeline had just discarded her brother, Vicky turned and shot back into her office. She must have dived for her bag, because she was back with them before anyone had a chance to move.

With all the cool aplomb her mother had instilled into her, Madeline smiled pleasantly at the hovering receptionist, sent Dominic a cool nod, then was turning towards the lift, ignoring the hot needles of fury that impaled her as she went, chatting lightly to a wholly absorbed Vicky.

‘God in heaven!’ Vicky literally wilted against the panelled lift wall. ‘That was just awful!’

‘Not—pleasant,’ Madeline drily agreed.

‘He’s an arrogant swine!’ Dominic’s sister ground out. ‘Sometimes I—’

‘He was taken by surprise, that’s all,’ Madeline put in, surprised by her instant rise to Dominic’s defence.

‘Taken by surprise, my foot!’ scoffed Vicky. ‘He knew damned well that you were coming here today—I told him! Made him promise to stay out of the way! God,’ she choked, ‘I could kill him for doing that, the rotten devil!’

The lunch was not the resounding success it should have been. Madeline’s confrontation with Dominic had helped spoil it, but it was the feud between their two families which completely ruined the day.

‘It’s crazy,’ Vicky agreed. ‘They don’t seem to mind that you and I stay friends. But my father will have nothing to do with yours, and vice versa.’ She grimaced, ‘It’s made the last four years damned difficult for me if you must know. I daren’t speak to your family because it would upset my lot, but I can’t just snub people who have always been warm and caring towards me. So I stay out of the local social scene for most of the time. That way I don’t get pulled in two different directions.’

‘Is there no way you can think of that would put an end to it?’ Madeline asked anxiously.

Vicky lifted her face and smiled rather cynically. ‘Not unless you and Dominic fancy getting back together again— No,’ she then said quickly when Madeline stiffened up. ‘I didn’t mean that seriously. It’s just that...’ She sighed, frowning. ‘He was sorry afterwards you know. He tried to see you, but...’

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