Jilly Cooper - Score!

You wait, vowed Rannaldini, as the roars of laughter subsided. I’ll cook your goose before you’ve had time to stuff your gross belly with it.

At the announcement that Chloe had won the People’s Award, the entire room rose cheering to its feet, except Hermione.

‘I am clapped so often that I am not used to clapping,’ she told Alpheus, as he returned, brandishing his award.

As Chloe, in her discreet dove-grey suit, reached the platform, a huge blow-up of her naked on the sleeve of her prize-winning record appeared, to even louder roars of applause, on the monitor.

As Serena put her hand on Giuseppe’s crotch, he fell into the petit fours.

‘Best place for him — young people need their sleep,’ said Granny, who was feeling much happier after a long chat with Tristan. The boy was too sweet for words and had wonderfully revolutionary views on playing the Grand Inquisitor.

‘Are you ready, Dame Hermione?’ asked one of the Identikit press officers, as vast illuminated olive-green letters announced the Opera Award of the Year.

‘This is the big one,’ said Hermione, whipping out her powder compact.

Meanwhile, losing no time for revenge — after all, Franco wasn’t a Shepherd Denston artist so they wouldn’t lose 20 per cent of his massive fee — Rannaldini was talking in an undertone to Howie Denston. ‘Do you know anything about a tenor called Baby Spinosissimo?’

‘Making waves in Australia, heartbreaking looks, I’ll check out his availability. And by the way,’ Howie lowered his voice, ‘we’ve got to watch Alpheus. He tried to get Liberty Productions, American Bravo and Shepherd Denston each to pick up the tab…’

‘You will ensure cash settlements for Dame Hermione,’ interrupted Rannaldini, as his mistress mounted the rostrum.

‘Good people,’ began Hermione, but alas, Rannaldini’s mobile had rung.

‘Tabitha is home, Maestro,’ said Clive, his leather-clad bodyguard, silkily.

Rannaldini leapt to his feet. ‘I ’ave to go,’ he told the astounded table.

‘But what about your award?’ cried an aghast Howie.

‘You accept eet,’ said Rannaldini blithely. ‘A family problem come up. I call you,’ he shouted to Tristan.

‘Most of all I would like to thank Maestro Rannaldini.’ Hermione wiped away a tear.

But she had lost her audience, as every eye followed Rannaldini out of the room.

Rannaldini could hardly fly his helicopter home for excitement. Would days of riding out in all weather have coarsened Tabitha’s amazing beauty? Would being fired so ignominiously have tempered her extraordinary arrogance, her capacity for rage?

Evidently not. Rannaldini entered the west courtyard through ancient gates, optimistically crowned with rusty iron letters spelling the words omnia vincit amor . Sprinting up a mossy, paved path, flanked by lavender bushes, and pushing open the heavy oak door he found Helen spitting with fury. Tabitha was showing no contrition at all. Halting her mother in mid-lecture, she had snapped that she hadn’t flown five thousand miles for an earful and sloped off to the yard to settle The Engineer for the night.

‘Now she’s attacking the vodka,’ spluttered Helen. ‘We’ve clearly got a lush on our hands — Rupert always drank too much. And after over a year away she didn’t even peck me on the cheek.’

‘Where is she?’ demanded Rannaldini.

‘In the Blue Living Room.’

The Blue Living Room, an upstairs drawing room, which everyone else at Valhalla still called the Red Morning Room, had just been redecorated by Helen at vast expense in soft blues and rusts to complement her own hazel-eyed, red-headed beauty. The orange flames dancing merrily in the grate and the last tawny leaves on the beech outside enhanced the effect. Rannaldini’s Étienne de Montignys and Russell Flints had been banished in favour of an autumnal watermill by Samuel Palmer, and a Canaletto of sea-blue Venice. An embracing Cupid and Psyche by Canova provided the only erotic note.

Tabitha sat slumped in a carved brown chair, which was Rannaldini’s only contribution to the room, watching Wallace and Gromit on television. She was wearing frayed jeans and a Stop Puppy Farming T-shirt. A green toggle clung to her wrist like mistletoe. She was very thin — probably from taking those mad mood-inducing slimming pills to keep her weight down.

Her face was deathly pale, the long turquoise eyes bloodshot and heavily shadowed, the long nose reddened, the mouth clamped round clenched teeth in an attempt not to cry. White-blonde hair, used to being washed every day, hung lank and greasy to her collarbone. She was clutching a yellow Labrador puppy as though it were a hot-water bottle.

‘Where d’you get that animal?’ asked Rannaldini sternly.

‘Sharon? She was a stray, wandering round the docks.’

Rannaldini clicked his tongue. ‘Have you alerted the quarantine authorities?’

Tab’s eyes darkened in terror.

‘Please don’t betray me. I couldn’t leave her in Kentucky.’

Rannaldini, who was never too hot, put a log on the fire.

‘How d’you fiddle it?’

‘I came through France. There’s a boat smuggling in thirty dogs a day. The Engineer and I had to wait as it only sails when there’s no moon.’

‘How long have you been travelling?’

‘Four or five days.’

Rannaldini filled up her glass.

‘Naughty little girl,’ he said softly, taking Sharon and examining her. ‘Certainly she doesn’t look rabid.’

He dropped the puppy gently on the floor.

‘How can we punish you?’ he purred.

‘The American Horse Show Association’s done that already, for Christ’s sake.’

‘So they should have done. Risking the life of that beautiful horse I gave you.’

‘Engie’s fine, I promise you.’

Tab’s light, clipped drawl was so like her father’s. Every time he heard it, Rannaldini was excited by how much he could hurt Rupert by controlling and manipulating her. Moving round the room, only pausing to run an admiring hand over Psyche’s marble bottom, he pressed a button on the back of Tab’s chair. She gasped then screamed, as its wings suddenly clamped round her waist, trapping her.

‘What the fuck — lemme go!’ Fighting tears, she clawed fruitlessly at the imprisoning wooden arms, until she nearly pulled the chair over.

‘It’s a debtor’s chair,’ mocked Rannaldini, as he closed in on her. ‘Eighteenth century. Used to trap debtors like you. I’ve been looking for one for ages. You owe me two grand for your journey home, remember.’

‘I’ll pay you back.’ Tabitha flinched away.

When she could retreat no further, she allowed his fingers to caress her cheek for a second, then dropped her head like a snowdrop.

‘My father’s such a bastard.’

Rannaldini shrugged.

‘Maybe he’s pleased Marcus is gay. Probably never wanted a son competing with him.’

Having left pawmarks all over Helen’s pale blue Regency sofa, Sharon was now attacking a cushion Helen had embroidered of a virgin and a unicorn. Neither Tab nor Rannaldini took any notice.

Rupert’s remark about gaining a daughter when Marcus had shacked up with Nemerovsky had been the one that had hurt her most, confessed Tab.

‘He’s got a daughter, for Christ’s sake.’

‘And what a daughter,’ said Rannaldini lovingly.

‘I want to make him madder than he’s ever been before.’

‘Let’s find something really to worry him.’

Rannaldini moved fast. With his Polaroid memory, he had not forgotten four and a half years ago, his leading jockey, Isaac Lovell, and Tabitha exchanging an impassioned eye-meet in the paddock before the Rutminster Cup. Isaac had been riding Rannaldini’s vicious but generally victorious horse The Prince of Darkness, who’d fallen at the last fence. Tabitha had been the groom looking after Arthur, a big grey gelding, trained by her father, Rupert.