placed a hand on Tom’s shoulder in a placatory gesture. ‘Come on, it’s a very beautiful place, and I know you will love the Presidential Suite.’
‘Get off me. We’re going to our cabin,’ snapped Tom, reaching for Serena’s arm again.
Michael stood back as Tom and Serena’s eyes locked. ‘Fine,’ said Tom finally, dropping his hand, ‘you go where you want.’
‘I think she wants to stay here,’ said Michael, interrupting the moment between them.
‘I don’t give a fuck what you think,’ said Tom, turning towards Michael, his voice full of anger.
‘I think you’d better come with me,’ said Michael, turning to lead Serena away to the bar.
Before he knew what he was doing, Tom turned and landed a stinging punch on the side of Michael’s face.
Michael stumbled back onto the deck, his glass smashing. Serena screamed. Instantly, a crowd gathered around them, mouths agape. The band had stopped playing and an embarrassed mutter rang around the crowd. Roman LeFey pushed his way through the crowd and crouched down to help Michael from the deck. He turned to look at Tom, his eyes full of disappointment.
‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Tom, rubbing his sore knuckles. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I think you’d better go,’ said Roman softly.
Tom looked at Serena desperately, but she refused to meet his gaze.
Feeling more alone than he had ever felt in his life, he turned and walked to the back of the boat. Grasping the rail and hoisting himself up, he looked back for Serena once more. Then he jumped into the waters of the Nile.
Camilla Balcon felt the enormous rush of orgasm wash over her and bit her lip to muffle her moans of desire. Even so, the sound of sexual climax still filled the room as Nat Montague thrust deep inside her one last time, shouting out with pleasure as he collapsed onto his girlfriend’s naked breast.
‘Will you please be quiet,’ hissed Camilla, pushing him away until his cock slid gently from inside her. She had felt a real illicit thrill when Nat had grabbed her on the four-poster bed as she had shown him around her old room in the east wing of Huntsford Castle, but now Camilla was annoyed that she’d allowed him to seduce her. It was the only time she ever lost her poise. Nat wasn’t to be so easily brushed off, however, lowering his head to seek out her hard, round, raisin-like nipple with his tongue.
‘Scared someone will hear us?’ he teased, kissing his way down her long slender body.
Nathaniel Montague, one of London’s most eligible bachelors, had bedded half the models and society girls in the capital, but Camilla Balcon was something else. Her honey-blonde hair, usually held up in a prim ballerina bun, was now spread wantonly across the pillow, surrounding an angular but striking face still flushed from her pleasure. He loved her contradictions, the way Camilla was outwardly a severe, upright career woman but in bed was bold, hungry and passionate. Many times he had met her after work in Lincoln’s Inn, just to seduce her in the close confines of her legal chambers, tearing off her starched suit and taking her across her wide desk, papers and files flying. He felt his groin stir at the thought and reached for Camilla again, a sly grin on his face, but Camilla slapped his hand away.
‘No, Nat. We’re supposed to be downstairs for dinner in ten minutes and I want to take a bath,’ she said, her lily-white buttocks perched on the end of the bed, ready to leave. ‘Do you want to use the shower room next door?’
Nat wrapped his chunky rugby player’s arm around her waist and pulled her back. ‘Why don’t we just go down reeking of sex?’ he whispered into her ear. She pulled away and threw a white fluffy robe at his head.
‘Go down smelling of sex?’ She laughed harshly at the suggestion. ‘Daddy would just love that!’
‘I thought you didn’t care what he thought,’ said Nat, his ardour finally cooled.
‘I don’t, but you know how the slightest thing can set him off.’
Sighing, Nat bounced off the bed, pulled on the robe and made for the door, rubbing himself against Camilla’s naked body as he passed her. ‘You’ll be begging me for it later, baby, you know you will,’ he smirked.
As Nat’s footsteps faded away down the polished wood of the hallway, Camilla walked over to the claw-foot bath and slid one leg into the water that had now gone cool. The bathroom was dark, lit only by two candles that sent an eerie shadow of her naked body dancing up the rich red paintwork.
I thought you didn’t care what he thought?
She sunk down into the tepid water and soaped her skin vigorously, irritated by Nat’s observation. If Nat was so right about her ambivalent feelings towards her father, why was she here? She was almost thirty, a strong, intelligent, independent woman, old and wise enough to recognize that she despised her father’s company. Unlike her sisters Venetia and Cate, who seemed to feel obliged to visit Huntsford no matter how bad Daddy’s behaviour became, Camilla Balcon was ambitious, ruthless, tough – that’s how she’d been described in a recent Legal Week article – and, as one of the most feared young barristers in London, the word ‘sentimental’ didn’t even enter into her vocabulary. As far as Camilla was concerned, the only positive thing her father had given her was a desire to get away from his crumbling castle and the drive to succeed in spite of what he had done to her – to all the girls – when they’d lived under this godforsaken roof.
So what did bring her back? And why was she feeling so on edge? Of course, deep down, Camilla knew the reason; she had spent years suppressing it, pushing it down into a corner of her mind where it couldn’t do her any harm. But here, where the memories were still so fresh … Suddenly a rush of dark images filled Camilla’s head and she squeezed her eyes tight, not allowing herself to think of the one thing that pulled her back to Huntsford. She rubbed soap into her face, blew the bubbles from her nose and submerged her head under the water before she could think about it any further.
Downstairs in Huntsford’s Great Hall, Lord Oswald Balcon, tenth baron of Huntsford, paced around irritably, glancing at his watch in the vain hope that there might be time to take one of the classic cars parked outside the house for a quick spin. Driving hell-for-leather through his Sussex estate, hood down on the car, the precision engine muffled by the wind in his ears was the only time he really felt happy these days. Certainly bombing through the grounds at top speed was far preferable to the pointless socializing he was about to subject himself to that evening.
For years Oswald had been the Great Entertainer, throwing open his doors for huge Christmas balls or shooting weekends – kings, dukes and celebrities had all visited Huntsford during those glittering decades. But of late playing host had been far more inconvenient than enjoyable for Oswald, not to mention expensive. His friend Philip Watchorn in particular had impeccable and gluttonous taste in wine, and Oswald knew that by Sunday his reserves of Dom Pérignon, Châteauneuf du Pape ′58 and vintage Rothschild would be gone.
He caught sight of himself in the long looking glass above the fire and allowed himself a smile. He was sixty-five but looked fifty. Still a handsome man, he thought, adjusting the collar of his Ede and Ravenscroft dinner shirt. His tall frame was still strong and
