“I married too young.” Sophie was still talking. “I didn’t feel the same about Pierre as he felt about me. We had our differences, but he always said his family was everything to him—me and Tom. He said he would die before he gave the two of us up.” She looked at Judy shyly. “Now I wonder if I felt the same.”

Her words were ice water, drenching all the warm hope that had been there a second ago. My family is everything. Pierre had said that to Judy, also, once. And she had tried to ignore it.

Judy tried to say something, but the words would not come out. She was saved by the waiter, bringing their main course.

“Well,” she managed when he had gone. “I’m sure that your family troubles will be over by next week. After the party, we only have three months till the shareholder vote. And then you can relax.”

“Yes.” Sophie shook herself, shook away the memories that clung to her like cobwebs. “I will have saved my husband’s company. It’s what he wanted. And it’s for our son.”

She smiled bravely at Judy.

“I can’t bring him back. But I can save his company. House Massot feels like more than a business, Judy. It feels like our legacy—that saving it is saving the Massot family.”

Judy calmed herself—all the jealousy, all the anger. She nodded at Sophie, her eyes bright.

“Oh, sure,” she said.

And she knew what she had to do.

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

There was no way he could not go, of course. For one thing, he had accepted, and Hugh was old-fashioned; his word was his bond.

For another, it promised to be the most important event of his business career. Sophie Massot’s party would eclipse even the Oscars in that respect.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Montfort’s black tie was always the same; he merely checked, briefly, to see that everything was as it should be: no creases in his jacket, his tie angled correctly.

He picked up the small package sitting on his dressing table and weighed it in his hand. It had taken Hugh a little while to select the perfect gift. It was a difficult case. He invariably brought his hostess a present, and it was usually jewellery—one of the more tasteful pieces in the Mayberry line.

Obviously, he could not give this hostess Mayberry jewels. And even without their battle over the multimillion dollar company, he would never have offered Sophie Massot a Mayberry piece anyway. Her background was solidly middle class, but her bearing, her intelligence, her grace, all made him think of her as more noble than many stuffy duchesses or contessas. Montfort would have found an antique for Sophie, something not necessarily of huge value but definitely lovely.