She swept her hair up high on her head and secured it with two gold combs. At her ears she wore large gold loops which swung as she moved and a thick gold chain circled the base of her slender throat.
Perry pronounced her ravishing when he saw her, but she felt herself fade away into nothing when Dominic walked in with Diane Felton on his arm. She wore white, a frosted, shimmering white that skimmed her svelte slim figure as she moved. Flaxen-haired and milky-skinned, she made Madeline feel dark and heavy by comparison.
‘He certainly has taste, I’ll give him that,’ Perry murmured at her side, watching Madeline’s too-revealing face as she studied the other woman. ‘Would you like me to lure the Snow Queen away so you can move in?’ he suggested tauntingly.
‘Snow Queen just about says it,’ she gritted bitchily through stiffly smiling lips as she watched, with unwanted resentment, Dominic lower his dark head to murmur something in her shell-like ear, leaving Perry laughing softly behind her as she walked forward to greet her guests, aiming her attention at Vicky first.
‘You came.’ She smiled warmly at her friend and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘I did wonder if you would.’
‘It was touch and go for a time,’ Vicky admitted. ‘I’m afraid I turned coward and left Dom to do the arguing with Daddy.’
‘And why not?’ Madeline sent the listening Dominic a mocking glance. ‘He has to come in useful sometimes, I suppose. Hello, Dominic.’ She held out a hand to him. ‘How nice of you to come.’
His mouth twisted at the polite little greeting. ‘I just couldn’t resist,’ he drawled, taking her hand and holding on to it when she would have pulled away from his burning touch. ‘It’s been such a long time…’
‘Darling?’ Diane Felton’s voice was as light and as colourless as the rest of her. She turned superbly anxious eyes on her man. ‘Are you two going to be rude to each other?’ she enquired pensively.
She knew about their past relationship, Madeline made a dry note, then wondered acidly if there was anyone living in Lambourn who didn’t know.
‘We are never rude,’ she assured the other woman, smiling her best social smile. ‘You must be Diane.’ She wriggled her hand out of Dominic’s to offer it to the blonde, who took it with a perfectly cold smile.
‘Diane, this is Madeline,’ Dominic made the introductions. ‘Just back from Boston and ready to take Lambourn by storm.’
‘Already taken it,’ Perry appeared beside her, his arm going comfortably around Madeline’s waist. He turned a charmer’s smile on Diane Felton. ‘I’ve had to fight off more than one potential beau since we arrived,’ he explained.
‘You’re my beau,’ Madeline softly assured him. ‘Perry Linburgh,’ she informed Diane.
The wide-spaced eyes the colour of a summer storm suddenly came to life, and revealed a surprising intelligence. ‘I’ve heard of you, Mr Linburgh,’ she said. ‘I sit surrounded by your name every single day!’
‘You do?’ Perry drawled. ‘Tell me more!’ And true to his word, Perry deftly drew the Snow Queen away.
‘Diane is a computer expert,’ Dominic explained. ‘Her office is a minefield of electronic gadgetry, all with the Linburgh logo emblazoned on it.’
‘She’s—lovely,’ Madeline said as she watched them go, relieved that the little truth hadn’t stuck in her throat.
‘Just my type,’ Dominic agreed, then bent to murmur in her ear. ‘She really is very nice, you know. You might even find yourself liking her if you give her a chance.’
‘I never said I wouldn’t,’ she protested.
He was laughing at her. ‘Your expression gave you away, green eyes.’
‘I haven’t got green eyes.’ She frowned at him.
‘No?’ he mocked. ‘They certainly looked green to me a moment ago. But then,’ he added whimsically, ‘perhaps it was a trick of the light.
‘Don’t play games with me, Dom,’ she said impatiently, angry because he was right and she was seething with jealousy. ‘I thought I made it clear to you the other night that I don’t like it!’
Suddenly he was grim-faced. ‘And I don’t like the way Linburgh touches you all the time,’ he threw back.
‘If you two don’t get your act together,’ Vicky put in tightly, ‘you’ll be putting our families through another scandal—I can see it coming!’ With that she stalked away to join Forman, who had taken on the task of mixing cocktails.
‘She’s of the unshakeable belief that you and I have been meeting secretly every day since you arrived back,’ Dominic told Madeline, adding ruefully, ‘I’m not sure if she’s miffed because neither of us have confided in her, or worried for us both in case we make as big a mess of it this time around as we did the first.’
‘But that’s rubbish,’ Madeline dismissed. ‘Didn’t you tell her so?’
His eyes mocked her naïveté. ‘Do you honestly think she would believe a denial after the performance we put on the other day?’
‘That was all your fault,’ Madeline accused.