The Perfect Sinner. PENNY JORDAN

doing looking at Jon as though … Ignoring the pretty teacher’s mock shy response to his sexual innuendo, Max strode across the room, firmly taking hold of Leo and swinging him down to the floor as he commanded curtly, ‘Leo, stop acting like a baby.’

      The combination of being wrenched away from Jon and the frightening presence of his father caused Leo to tense and scream protestingly in Max’s hold.

      ‘Go away, I don’t like you,’ he told Max loudly, causing one or two nearby parents to stare.

      Max looked coldly at his son. No one was allowed to tell Max that they didn’t like him.

      ‘It’s time Leo went home,’ Max instructed Maddy coldly over his shoulder. ‘He’s behaving badly.’

      Maddy shook her head urgently at Leo. There was to be a celebration tea for the children served in the hall just as soon as she and the other hard-working helpers had got everything ready, and Maddy knew how much Leo had been looking forward to this treat. He had talked of it for days, and only yesterday he and Maddy had made special little cakes for the party while he practised the three short sentences he had to say in the play.

      Maddy’s heart ached for him as she saw the expression in his eyes as he watched his father.

      Another mother, another woman, would no doubt have coaxed and protested ‘Max … no … you know how much he’s been looking forward to the party,’ but Maddy knew that anything she might try to say or do to alleviate the situation would only make things worse. She could see from Max’s expression that there was no way he was going to back down, and she knew, too, that there was something in Max that would give him pleasure in denying his child his enjoyment. She had no idea what it was that had warped Max’s character so badly and made him the man he was, nor, she suspected, did anyone else. He could not have had better or more loving parents … but Jenny had intimated to her that Max had always been a difficult child … some children were.