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much resembled, she had always looked regal. The photogenic golden couple were seen at all the right places, did the Season, and were never out of the society and lifestyle magazines. Barton’s political career was racing ahead, his charm and good looks making him a regular TV face, and with Madeleine’s energy, design skills and capital, the Manor was inching nearer its former splendour. Life had become near perfect. Perfect, that was, until the twins arrived—both girls—and until the scandal...
    A software business had gone belly-up on him, forcing his company into receivership, and—thanks to his personal bank guarantees—Barton into bankruptcy. One more statistic from the twenty thousand cases a year. A suspended jail sentence for false accounting also followed. His ministerial career ended in a blaze of publicity as he was viciously hounded from office—by then at the FCO. Soon after, he resigned his Parliamentary seat. That had been four years earlier, and until his formal discharge, he had endured the humiliation heaped on all bankrupts: denied a bank account or credit card; prevented from retaining more than basic living costs from any earnings; and disbarred from taking a directorial role in any business. But despite all this, driving himself furiously and working closely with wunderkind consultant, the American Tom Bates, he had in just eighteen months generated enough cash to discharge the debts to his creditors through a reverse takeover—fronted by Bates—of a struggling, quoted biotech company. James Barton had lost none of his legendary ability to spot a rising sector early. Rumours of exciting new research soon had the shares rocketing and he had—through Bates—capitalised. Still bitter and angry, he bought his commercial freedom. Now he was back. And out for revenge.
    ‘ What time’s cook doing lunch?’ he asked, suddenly craving the first cigar of the day that she had just skilfully tried to deny him. ‘Tom’s running late with the weather.’
    ‘ It’s pretty bad on the M40, according to the radio,’ she replied. ‘Lots of accidents. Hope he’s OK. Lunch’ll be fine. Cook’s got some of her game soup simmering, and it’s just beef to follow. Nothing to spoil. Do you want me to make myself scarce once we’ve eaten?’ She was well used to semi-social, semi-business meals, and knew that she had little to contribute when he talked shop. It was not that she was just some vacuous, pretty-pretty wife, it was simply that what he did, his endless business ventures, bored her silly. It was all detail: spreadsheets, cash-flow forecasts and trial balances—and you either completely immersed yourself in it, or you didn’t.
    At first, she had badly missed all the pre-scandal social life, when London’s literary, arty types and politicians had joined the local county set to fill the Manor over dreamy, mischievous weekends. And of course the Season. But now she had learned to settle for less. Their usual guests now were pleasant enough scientific boffins, entrepreneurs and money men. Or of late the occasional South Americans, Europeans and Nigerians he sometimes lavishly entertained. The Arubans, as she had heard him call them in off-guard moments. These were from that secret and she assumed Masonic side to his life of which he never talked. But if there was now more talk of Mammon than Molière, whatever he was doing, along with the allowance from her own trust money, had kept the Grade One listed Georgian roof-tiles over their heads.
    The sound of a car drew them to the window, and they saw Tom Bates’s maroon Jeep Cherokee tearing up the long avenue of limes to the house. Barton’s mood immediately lightened and he went out to greet the American, his closest adviser and nearest thing to a friend he still had left. ‘Look at you in that thing. The Fulham farmer! I bet that’s the first time you’ve ever engaged four-wheel drive in your life.’
    Tom grinned from under his floppy felt