Jilly Cooper - Score!

‘But what about Maxim?’

‘I always suspected’, Hortense lowered her voice conspiratorially, ‘that he wasn’t Delphine’s father. Her mother had an affaire with some actor called Sammy somebody. They were all Bohemians,’ she added with a sniff. ‘Maxim certainly doted on Delphine and immediately recognized Rannaldini as a rotter. He was even more distraught when she married Étienne, a notorious womanizer, even older than himself.’

‘So he wasn’t sectioned as a mad psychopath?’

‘Certainly not, he went a bit dotty at the end, as we all do, and died in a perfectly respectable nursing home.’

Thank goodness Wolfie was downstairs, not hearing more evidence of his father’s fearful lies.

‘What happened to Laurent’s mother?’

Hortense stroked her little greyhound reflectively.

‘She was Étienne’s third or fourth wife. Played bridge all day and, when Étienne pushed off, graduated to gin. Tripped over a black Labrador coming out of her bedroom in the dark one night and broke her neck falling down the stairs. Wonderful way to go.’

‘So that disposed of one granny,’ giggled Lucy. ‘I don’t mean to laugh, the whole thing must have been terrible.’

‘Terrible. Étienne was so excited about his new baby, then a fortnight later we heard Laurent had died in some explosion — friendly fire, it’s called. Étienne was inconsolable, so was Delphine, naturally, which touched Étienne because he felt she was sharing his unhappiness and at least they had a new life to look forward to together.

‘Then Laurent’s things were sent home, with all Delphine’s letters and, cruellest of all, Étienne’s little drawing. Étienne went on the rampage, found all Laurent’s letters locked in her jewel case, and nearly killed her. Next day she took an overdose, sent me a note begging my forgiveness and asking me to bring up Tristan.’

A farm dog bayed down in the valley. The little greyhound pricked up its velvet ears and stretched.

‘Everything was locked in Laurent’s room just as it was when he went off to Chad. Everyone thought Étienne was heartbroken, but it was the far more painful heartbreak of betrayal.’ Hortense lay back exhausted, her face very grey. ‘I probably shouldn’t have told you.’

‘You should. Tristan has to know, so he can understand Étienne and forgive him.’ Then, as she heard wheels on the gravel, banging doors and voices outside, ‘I must go.’

‘Dupont et cetera must be here,’ grumbled Hortense. ‘They’ll be devastated I’m not worse. You’d better escape out the back.’

‘I’ve been doing that all day. Look,’ Lucy plumped up Hortense’s pillows, ‘I wish I didn’t have to go. It’s been a privilege…’

‘Don’t go all sentimental on me,’ snapped Hortense. ‘Look after my boy.’ She handed Lucy a square package that felt like a picture. ‘Give this to him. You’ve got all the letters, haven’t you? Show them to him when the time is right, but don’t let them fall into other hands.’

‘You’ll see him again,’ said Lucy reassuringly.

‘Hurry,’ gasped Hortense. ‘The others will try to stop you.’

Still Lucy lingered, then tugging off her gold locket, she hung it round Hortense’s neck.

‘There’s a lovely dog inside,’ she stammered. ‘He’ll bring you luck.’

‘I’ll need it where I’m going,’ said Hortense wryly. ‘There’s no return ticket.’

‘D’you think Tristan will fire us?’ asked a worried Lucy as Wolfie considerably shortened the hired car’s life, jolting it over dusty cart-tracks.

‘Hardly, he’s still in prison.’ Wolfie swung into the road to the airport. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be home by the tea break.’ Then, seeing the crowd of gendarmes round the Gulf, ‘On second thoughts perhaps we won’t. I’d better drive.’ He swung the car round again.

‘We can’t leave the Gulf,’ said Lucy aghast.

‘It’s Cecilia’s now. At least I’ve flown it over half-way to Rome for her.’

‘But it’s nearly lunchtime, we won’t get home until early tomorrow morning.’

‘Or until tomorrow midday, if we stop somewhere nice for the night. You’ve pulled off a miracle and we’re going to celebrate.’

The moment he was released on Monday morning, Tristan showered away every speck of prison dirt and drenched himself in Eau Sauvage. To match his mood, he then selected black jeans, a black shirt and, because the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees, a dark brown cashmere jersey he’d never worn before.

Pale and more shadowed than ever under the eyes, he had shed another half-stone in prison, and looked as dramatically elongated and demon-haunted as an El Greco saint.

To forget the horrors of prison and to blot out the even more nightmarish prospect of the Mail outing him and Claudine tomorrow, Tristan, as was his custom, plunged into work. But as he hurtled the Aston towards George’s house, his dreams of using a polo match under a burning sun as a ritualized symbol of conflict were shattered. After a night of torrential rain, George’s polo field was as full of lakes and as green as Ireland. His only compensation was driving through a huge puddle and drenching the paparazzi hanging around outside George’s massive electric gates.

Inside, it was difficult to distinguish the massive police and press presence from George’s heavies and the fleet of extras who’d been bussed in to act as policemen, paparazzi and Philip’s bodyguards.

Behind the house, which crouched ox-blood red and elephantine on a hill, a stretch of park had been levelled into a polo field surrounded by huge bell-shaped trees now dark and swollen with rain. Overhead, like a flotilla of battleships, hung charcoal-grey clouds.

On the edge of the field, outside a yellow and white striped tent, whose roof was buckling under the downpour, a small band in red uniforms was dispiritedly wringing out their instruments. Seeing his arrival, the commentator stopped telling the shivering extras in their flowery dresses and pale suits that the gallant Marquis of Posa had just scored a goal, and welcomed back ‘our director’, Tristan de Montigny.

Tristan was in no mood for pleasantries. Ignoring the ripple of applause and the large ‘Bienvenu, Tristan’ banner, he drove over to the unit, where the place was under water and in uproar, because neither Lucy nor Wolfie had turned up. Tristan was appalled. It was like coming home on a bleak winter night to find the pipes frozen and the central heating kaput. No-one had seen them since Saturday morning.

‘I know they’ll be found face down in a field,’ sobbed Simone.

‘Don’t be fatuous,’ snapped Tristan, who’d gone cold at the same thought.

All around him singers, who’d been soothed and flattered by Lucy for the past three months, were having tantrums and making fearful fusses about catching cold. A fleet of make-up artists had been bussed in anyway to handle all the extras. The most experienced, hijacked to look after the stars, must have graduated from the set of the Hammer House of Horror.

Granny looked about as menacing as a Brylcreemed Barbara Cartland. Tab, Pushy and Chloe had vermilion lips and black-ringed eyes like Brides of Dracula. Mikhail’s drink-reddened face clashed horribly with his crimson polo shirt.

‘Why isn’t Lucy here to sort out my bags and my double chin?’ grumbled Baby, who, having played polo until the stars came out with Rupert’s cronies then pigged out on Taggie’s sea trout, three helpings of loganberry torte and copious glasses of wine, was now trying to alleviate his hangover with a massive gin and tonic.

Alpheus was so furious that Griselda had hidden his noble brow and chestnut locks under a straw hat with a Blues and Royals ribbon that he’d surreptitiously fed the offending headgear to Sharon and Trevor, who’d rushed on to the field noisily tearing it to shreds.