Her father had lost weight since his heart attack. Had been taking exercise, watching his diet. He looked fitter than he had done in a long time, she thought.

Fitter and angrier.

He was carrying a folded newspaper and, ignoring her, he walked up to Max and slapped it against his chest.

‘Do you want to tell me what’s going on?’

‘John…’

John Valentine silenced his brother with a look. ‘He’s a man. Let him speak for himself. Well?’ he demanded.

Max had caught the paper before it fell and, without answering, looked at it. Said one brief word.

‘“Kissing Cousins?”’ John Valentine demanded as Max offered the paper to Louise so that she could see for herself.

It was just a single paragraph in the diary column of the London Courier.

Headed, Kissing Cousins? it said:

We are delighted to learn that our favourite PR consultant, Louise Valentine, is back in the family fold. Relations have been somewhat strained, apparently, since the disclosure that Louise was adopted. All is now peace and harmony, however, and she’s putting her talents to good use, working with her cousin Max Valentine to promote the family’s exclusive Bella Lucia restaurants.

Louise, who was once a regular girl-about-town and closely linked with the Hon James Cadogan-soon to be married to former model Charlotte Berkeley-has, in recent years, devoted all her energies to building her own business.

Max, rarely without a beauty on his arm and frequently seen playing in the Sultan of Qu’Arim’s polo team, has also dropped out of the social scene to concentrate on ambitious expansion plans overseas.

The couple, who were recently spotted dining together with Louise’s birth mother, the lively Patsy Simpson Harcourt and her new husband, are said to be inseparable, although they’re keeping their romance low-key at the moment. We wish them both well.

‘Said?’ she demanded. ‘Who said? No one…’

Louise barely stopped herself from letting slip her own version of Max’s expletive, but it was too late. She’d already confirmed her father’s worst fears.

‘Well, I don’t have to ask if it’s true. I’ve only got to look at you.’

‘Daddy…’ The childish word slipped out, maybe because that was exactly how she felt. Like a child who’d disappointed her father.

‘I’m not blaming you, Louise.’

Blaming her!

‘I realise you’ve been knocked for six by everything that’s happened and he’s clearly taken advantage of you when you’re in a vulnerable-’

‘Would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on?’ Robert demanded.

Louise handed the paper to her uncle without a word, but he didn’t get a chance to read for himself before his brother rounded on him.

‘What’s going on?’ John demanded. He took a step closer. ‘What’s going on? You have to ask? He’s your son,’ he said, pointing at Max, ‘and the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. Ask him what’s going on!’

‘Dad! Please.’ Louise reached for her father’s arm, concerned for him. ‘Did you travel into town on your own?’

‘Of course I travelled on my own. I’ve been commuting between Richmond and Mayfair all my working life. I don’t need a minder to hold my hand.’

‘You haven’t been well. Maybe I should call Mum…’

But before she could reach her cell phone, he took the hand she’d laid on his arm and tucked it firmly against him, pulling her close, as if to protect her.

‘Like father, like son,’ he said, still looking at his brother. ‘Max will play with Louise’s feelings, destroy her. William Valentine all over again. You’re just like your father, Robert-’

‘William Valentine was your father, too.’

‘Just like your father,’ John Valentine repeated. ‘And your son is just like you. You can’t be trusted around a decent woman, any of you.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Robert drawled. ‘I’ll admit to having had more than my fair share of wives, but I’m not a hypocrite. At least I married the mothers of my children, all of them, and while I may not have been the best father in the world, I never lied to them. They knew who their parents were.’

John released Louise and lunged at his brother, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket, holding him as if he wanted to shake him.

‘Dad!’

Max and Louise said the word in unison. Neither of them took the slightest notice, but as Louise leapt in to separate them Max caught her, held her back.

‘Leave them,’ he said as she tried to shake him off. ‘It’s time they settled it.’

‘Well, what are you waiting for, big brother?’ Robert sneered, provocatively, before she could answer. ‘Go on, hit me. Heaven alone knows you’ve wanted to do it for long enough. Why don’t you relax that stiff upper lip for once in your life and take a swing at me?’

CHAPTER NINE

FOR a moment nothing happened. Then, as his brother shuddered, eased the vice-like grip on his jacket, Robert said, ‘Let it go, John. Let it go.’

‘How can I? Our father stole my sons from me! Bought off their mother, kept me in ignorance to save a scandal.’

‘He acted from the best of motives. You’d just married Ivy. He was so proud…’ Robert shook his head. ‘He was always so proud of you. You were the good son, the one who made a good marriage, brought honour to his house with your rich, well-connected bride-’

‘I married for love.’

‘The rest was just a bonus?’

For a moment Louise thought her father would take up his brother’s invitation and hit him.

‘No!’ she cried.

For a moment John seemed beyond hearing, but then he almost visibly pulled himself together and taking a step back from the brink, released his grip on his brother’s jacket. ‘Ivy…’ His face softened. ‘In my marriage, I’ve been the most fortunate of men.’

‘Ivy has been the most fortunate of women, John.’ For a moment Robert’s devil-may-care features were haunted by something very like regret, then, brushing it aside, he said, ‘Dad didn’t want anything to spoil that for you. Your boys never went without. He didn’t abandon them, the way he abandoned you.’

‘But I did,’ John replied. ‘I did…’

As Louise let out a small sound that echoed her father’s anguish Max drew her close and she didn’t hesitate as she turned her face into his shoulder, knowing that his only concern was for her.

‘I didn’t know…’ her father said.

‘Blame their mother for that if you must blame someone,’ Robert told him, unmoved. ‘She didn’t want you in her life. Made the decision not to tell you about the twins. Face it, John, if her singing career hadn’t flopped, if she hadn’t decided that marriage to you was the soft option, no one would ever have known about your boys.’

‘She was in trouble. She had a right to my help. He should have told me, Robert. He got it wrong,’ John said, finally letting go. ‘But then he didn’t ever really know me. He didn’t want to. You were his joy. The one with a true flair for the business he loved, while I was just a glorified accountant. The truth is, I made him feel guilty.’

Robert didn’t dispute it and Louise saw her father’s shoulders sag a little. Felt an ache for the boy he’d been, the man he’d become. Family, but always just a little bit on the outside. Like Max, she thought. And like Max, needing to be in control of everything, refusing to allow anything to deflect them, disturb the even tenor of their lives. And it was Max, regarding his father, his uncle, with something like despair, whom she turned to, reached out to.

‘And because he didn’t learn from his own mistakes,’ she heard her father say, ‘I’ve been put through the same wringer.’

‘I’m not excusing him-’

John and Robert Valentine, still fighting a sixty-year-old battle, did not even notice them as Max took her hand, held it, drew her closer, put his arm around her.

‘No?’ John glared at him. ‘It sounds very much like it.’

‘Well, maybe. You’re right about a lot of things. He was uncomfortable with you and I can understand why you resented me. But what happened in the past, to you, to your mother, was not my fault.’

‘You had it so easy. You were so spoiled…’

‘Maybe that’s why I’m not the man you are, John.’

John didn’t appear to hear him. ‘My mother suffered so much. I sat and watched her die and I couldn’t do anything.’

‘It was a terrible thing for a boy to go through.’

For a moment Louise thought Robert was going to put his arm around his brother in a gesture of comfort.

‘Yes…’ she whispered, urging him to do it, for the two men to forgive each other so that they could move on. In response, Max pulled her a little closer.

Forgiveness.

John and Robert weren’t the only ones who needed to find that in their hearts. As she felt all the hurt, that terrible sense of betrayal fell away from her. Her father loved her. Why else would he be angry with Max? Nothing else mattered…She had to tell him that so that they could all move on.

Robert clearly thought better of such an unrestrained gesture, but put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘A terrible thing,’ he repeated. ‘But it wasn’t anyone’s fault that your mother died, John. Everyone was short of food. There was no penicillin. Even if he’d been there, instead of away fighting, Dad couldn’t have done anything to save her. You must know that.’

‘He shouldn’t have stopped loving her.’ Her father looked desperate.

‘People can’t help their feelings, John.’ And he looked across at Max, as if he, too, was asking for something, some understanding.

‘She was his wife!’ He shook off his brother’s hand. ‘What would you know about fidelity?’ And he took a step back, turned to her. ‘Don’t you see, Louise?’ he said, pointing at Max. ‘It’s what Valentine men do. William, Robert with an endless succession of wives, Max with his string of girlfriends.’ Then, letting his hand fall, ‘And me, too.’ The fire went out of him. ‘Robert’s right. I’m no different.’