Jilly Cooper - Score!

In moved the paparazzi like a firing squad, their long lenses trained on the heretics. Swiftly the executioners chucked petrol cans of water on the shredded Scorpion s, then flicking on their lighters pretended to set fire to the damp newsprint.

‘Cue for smoke,’ yelled Tristan, and a white cloud engulfed the heretics. ‘Excellent, let it clear,’ he shouted, ‘and we’ll go for a take.’

Adjusting his director’s cap to a more military angle, Tristan felt a surge of power as he looked down at the huge crowd. He was a general commanding a mighty army. The landscape shimmered with heat-haze, a hot breeze ruffled the red-tipped barley into flickering flames. He was just shuddering at the thought of Tab’s body being burnt to death when he was roused by a dreadful screaming. And fantasy became reality as the shredded newspaper beneath her stake burst into flames, and flared up around her. For a moment, everyone was motionless with horror. Then, as the screaming grew more terrified, Tristan leapt straight down into the smoke, miraculously landing safely on the stony courtyard.

‘It’s all right, chérie .’

Diving for the rope tying her to the stake, aware of flame caressing his chest, his long fingers somehow managed to untie the knot without fumbling. A moment later he had dragged Tab to safety.

Beating out the flames snaking up her yellow heretic’s robe, feeling no pain except that of frantic worry, he dragged the peer’s robes off a horrified extra and rolled Tab in them. It was over in thirty seconds.

Next moment, Wolfie, who’d been watching from a second-floor window, hurtled into the courtyard, yelling, ‘Is she OK? Get the paramedics, for Christ’s sake.’

The front of Tab’s hair, her long blonde eyelashes and her eyebrows were singed, there was a terrible stench of burning, but she didn’t appear hurt, only dazed and terrified as she collapsed sobbing wildly into Tristan’s arms. As Tristan clutched her to his sweat-drenched shirt, examining her face for burns, kissing her frizzled hair, crooning in rapid French that she mustn’t be frightened, the extras, thinking it was part of the plot, led a round of applause. As he ran into the courtyard, and sized up the situation, Rannaldini’s face was shrivelled into a mask of evil.

‘Who left petrol in that can?’ he screamed. ‘Someone has tried to murder my daughter.’

‘They were all filled with water,’ stammered an aghast Wolfie, ‘I checked them.’

‘Well, heads will roll.’ Everyone retreated as Rannaldini glared round.

Tristan promptly called a wrap for the day. ‘I’m taking Tabitha home.’

‘You can’t,’ muttered an appalled Bernard. ‘All these extras, a full cast, we’ve got hours of light left.’

‘I don’t geeve a fuck. Oscar can take over.’

‘Tabitha will stay at Valhalla. Her mother will look after her,’ snarled Rannaldini, ‘and you can carry on.’

‘No!’ Tab was hysterical. ‘I want to go home with Tristan.’

Even Griselda was roused from her despondency over Hermione’s wrecked dress. ‘I always said those two would end up together,’ she hissed to a boot-faced Alpheus. ‘At least they’re the same class. Here you are, darling.’ She slipped Tab’s short red shift over her head, sliding it down her body as she removed the heretic’s robe. ‘Go home and have a heavenly tryst with triste Tristan, and boo sucks to sodding Rannaldini.’

‘That little madam gets everyone nice,’ said Baby sulkily.

A stricken Lucy fled to her caravan. A stunned Wolfie kept repeating that there had been no petrol in the cans. Rozzy had mindlessly collapsed into Rannaldini’s executive producer’s chair, tears streaking down her face.

‘Tristan could have been killed.’

‘You’re so wet, my dear Rozzy,’ sneered Rannaldini, ‘you could have put the fire out yourself. Clive?’ He clicked his fingers for his shadow, then dropping his voice: ‘Follow the two of them, see what they get up to.’

At Magpie Cottage, Sharon the Labrador, singing in delight, welcomed Tristan by bringing him a pair of Tab’s knickers.

‘You sing better than Hermione.’ Tristan stooped to pat her.

Tab laughed, then gave a sob and fled upstairs to examine her naked lashless face in the bathroom mirror. Five minutes later Tristan found her shaking uncontrollably, rubbing toothpaste into her blanched cheeks. He was amazed, then touched when she refused a glass of brandy. ‘I promised God I wouldn’t and He — admittedly helped by you — has just saved my life.’

On the bed, Snoopy gazed up from one of her pillowcases, dinosaurs from the other. Tristan had just persuaded her to lie down on the Peter Rabbit duvet when the doorbell rang.

‘Tell it to go away,’ pleaded Tab. ‘Don’t bang your head on the beam going down.’

It was James Benson, the smooth family doctor who had been summoned to so many Campbell-Black and Rannaldini crises in the past. Agreeing with the paramedics that Tab was unhurt but deeply shocked, he gave her a shot.

‘You’ll be fine, sweetie. You’re a lucky girl. It would have been a tragedy if that lovely face had been spoilt. Where’s your husband?’

‘In Australia. Tristan saved my life. Will you see he’s OK?’

Downstairs James Benson produced some very strong painkillers. ‘You’ve come off worse than she has,’ he said, as he accepted a large brandy. ‘Thank God she’s off the booze, but she’s not in good shape. She was clinically depressed after she lost the baby in March, and she burst into tears when I said I’d seen Rupert last week. I’d give the old bastard a ring — I’m convinced he’s missing her as much as she’s missing him.’

‘It’s all Helen’s fault,’ exploded Tristan. ‘Bloody woman doesn’t give a stuff about Tab.’

‘That’s not fair,’ said James Benson sharply. ‘I first treated Helen when she wasn’t much older than Tab. She was the loveliest thing I ever saw, and sweet too. If she hadn’t been a patient, I’d have made a serious play. Rupert was away when she nearly died having Marcus, he was even more humiliatingly unfaithful to her than Rannaldini, if that’s possible. Between them, they’ve done for her.’

Tristan was amazed by the venom in James’s voice, but Tabitha was his only interest. ‘What about Isa?’

‘Cold fish, corroded with moral outrage against the Campbell-Blacks. He’ll never forgive Tab. Sooner she’s out of this marriage the better.’

Tristan was pacing the room, clearly desperate to be left alone with Tab. Leggy and effortlessly elegant, despite his dusty espadrilles and dirty frayed white shorts, he reminded James of a heart-throb admired by his own generation: Gérard Philippe.

‘I know it’s none of my business,’ he drained his brandy, ‘but she’s very vulnerable.’

Having let the doctor out, Tristan noticed a framed photograph on the desk of Isa smugly riding in the winner of last year’s Gold Cup. Parking his green chewing-gum on his rival’s face, he belted back upstairs.

‘I’m going to make you a cup of tea.’

‘Hot sweet tea!’ mocked Tab. ‘I’d rather have hot sweet Montigny. Please don’t leave me.’

‘I won’t.’

He was touched to see Schiller’s Don Carlos beside Dick Francis on the bedside table.

‘I’m trying to educate myself,’ she muttered.

‘Are you sure you’re not hungry?’

Tab shook her head. ‘Sharon probably is.’

‘I feed her. I give her sheep chops I find in fridge.’

Tab giggled. ‘Flora and Baby call Griselda: Lady Caroline Sheep. I’m sorry I’m holding up your film, but it was so cool you telling Bernard and Rannaldini to fuck off, and leaving three hundred and fifty extras and Dim Hermione all cooling their heels because of me.’