A friend tipped me off. Apparently you’ve got quite a reputation for bedding your female clients….’
Max gave a small shrug. ‘When a marriage is breaking down, people become emotionally—’
‘Vulnerable,’ Robert Burton supplied darkly before Max could finish. ‘But it’s hardly professional behaviour to use that vulnerability against them, is it, and I should have thought that a man in your position would have to be very careful about guarding his professional reputation. After all, that’s really what a barrister has to sell, isn’t it? His reputation is his product. Unless, of course, you’ve decided that it’s more financially profitable for you to trade on your reputation in the bedroom rather than in the courtroom. Rumour does have it, of course, that it wasn’t so much your legal skills or qualifications that got you into your chambers in the first place. Does your wife know that you regularly bed your female clients?’
‘It’s a very pleasant bonus to my work,’ Max acknowledged with a taunting smile and a small shrug, ‘and I can’t deny that it is a perk that I do find very enjoyable … after all, what normal heterosexual man would not?’
It was one of Max’s greatest assets that he possessed a remarkable gift for turning the tables on his opponents and sending back the arrows they fired at him with devastating speed and accuracy, and he could see from the betraying narrowing of Robert Burton’s eyes and the hard edge of colour seeping up under his skin that he had succeeded in getting him off guard.
‘In your shoes, I’d be rather careful about what I admit to,’ he warned Max. ‘I doubt very much you’d enjoy being on the other side of a lawsuit….’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Max agreed, and added urbanely, ‘but then I doubt that very many men would like to stand up in court and admit that their wives preferred me as a lover. Which reminds me, since I am acting for your wife in the subject of her divorce, I really should advise you that it is quite unethical for you to approach me….’
‘There isn’t going to be a divorce.’
Max stared at him in disbelief.
‘Justine and I have had a little talk,’ Robert Burton told him with heavy irony, ‘and we’ve decided that we’re going to give our marriage a second chance. I think that what Justine really needs is to be a mother. A woman needs a child, children, and they do say, don’t they, that the conception and birth of a child cement a couple more closely together than anything else. You’ve got children, haven’t you?’
He gave Max a challenging look.
‘Divorce can be an extremely expensive and messy business, and as Justine now agrees, it makes sense for the two of us to stay together. Oh, and by the way, there’s no point in you trying to get in touch with her. She flew out to New York on Concorde this morning.
‘I hope I’ve made myself understood,’ he told Max as he turned round and opened the door, ‘but then, I know you’ll have got my drift, won’t you, Crighton.’
As Max automatically followed him to the front door, the older man continued with obvious enjoyment, ‘Oh, and by the way, perhaps I’d better warn you, I’ve had a word with the senior partner in your chambers, alerting him to certain facts I felt he ought to know. After all, a chambers like yours trades on its reputation, and anything that might damage that reputation has to be very swiftly and mercilessly dealt with, doesn’t it … rather like anything that might threaten a man’s marriage or his financial status.
‘It’s the mark of an intelligent man, I believe, to act quickly and decisively to protect what he values.’
Max said nothing. He didn’t need to. He knew exactly what Robert Burton was saying to him. He had somehow or other persuaded Justine not to go ahead with her divorce because he had no intention of allowing her to profit financially from her marriage to him. Simpler and far more financially expeditious to remain married to her. But it was his remark about his own professional status that had alarmed Max the most, especially that comment he had made about speaking with the head of his chambers.
Although technically Max was his own boss and none of the other members had any kind of jurisdiction over his actions or his morals—in practice … Well, he would soon find out, since no doubt the subject would be raised at this afternoon’s meeting, if it was going to be raised.
‘Hell and damnation,’ he muttered grimly as he consigned Justine to the past and the long list of his ex-lovers an hour later as he left his mews house en route to the old-fashioned set of chambers in the Inns of Court where the high status of their address more than compensated for the cramped office that Max occupied.
The senior partner’s office was, quite naturally, the most luxurious: large, elegantly furnished, reeking of that unmistakable indefinable aura of old money, class and power, and Max could never walk into it without coveting it and everything that went with it. Already he had promised himself that one day it would be his.
‘Ah, Max, there you are….’
As Harold Cavendish, the senior partner, gave him his benign smile and waved him into a chair, Max stiffened warily when he realized that he was the last to join the meeting.
As the meeting followed its normal and predictable course, Max allowed himself to relax a little and mentally began to run over in his mind who would make the most suitable replacement in his bed.
When the meeting was over, Max got up to leave, then froze as the senior partner placed a restraining hand on his arm and told him quietly, ‘Er, no, Max. I’d like you to stay. There’s something we need to discuss.’
Harold Cavendish waited until the others had gone before beginning to speak. Max might not be very popular in chambers and Madeleine’s father might have had to put pressure on them to take Max on, but there was no doubt whatsoever about the effect he, and his brand of dark, smooth good looks, had on their female clientele. It wasn’t just his own business that Max had increased while he had been with them, as Harold himself was keenly aware.
Max always reminded him of a particular breed of German dog, all sleek good looks and power on the outside, but inwardly possessed of an unreliably vicious streak that, when provoked, could be extremely dangerous. His wife had once told him wryly that it was the thought of harnessing and controlling all the sexual power and uncertainty that was Max that made women behave so foolishly over him.
‘It’s the knowledge that they’re never quite totally in control of him that is so alluring,’ she had told him. ‘Max represents the dark and dangerously exciting side of sexual attraction.’
‘Chap’s a bounder,’ he had objected gruffly. ‘Look at the way he treats poor Madeleine.’
‘Yes, I know,’ his wife had agreed ruefully, ‘and I’m afraid that that just makes him all the more potently alluring.’
Harold had shaken his head, not really understanding what she meant, and he was no closer to understanding now just why so many pretty women were foolish enough to get involved with Max.
Harold waited until Max had closed the door before telling him uncomfortably, ‘Had a chat with Robert Burton. He, er … seemed to think there could be something unprofessional going on between you and his wife….’
Max
