Prudence

The trouble with the Mulholland family, Prudence decided, was that they were all in love with the wrong people. She'd been overjoyed when Pendle, her super-cool barrister boyfriend, invited her home for the weekend to meet his family.

But home turned out to be a decaying mansion in the Lake District, and family were his glamorous, scatty mother who forgot the mounting bills by throwing wild parties, and brothers, Ace, dark and forbidding, and Jack, handsome, married and only too ready to take over with Pru if Pendle didn't get a move on.

It was only when she noticed the way Pendle looked at Jack's wife Maggie that it began to dawn on Pru that there was more to this weekend than met the eye.

It looked like a non-stop game of changing partners . . .