The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous trc-4

by Jilly Cooper

  The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

  ( The Rutshire Chronicles - 4 )

  Jilly Cooper

  Lysander Hawkley combined breathtaking good looks with the kindest of hearts. He couldn't pass a stray dog, an ill-treated horse or a neglected wife without rushing to the rescue. And with neglected wives the rescue invariably led to ecstatic bonking, which didn't please their erring husbands one bit.

  Lysander's mid-life crisis had begun at twenty-two. Reeling from the death of his beautiful mother, he was out of work, drinking too much and desperately in debt. The solution came from Ferdie, his fat friend: if Lysander was so good at making husbands jealous, why shouldn't he get paid for it?

  Let loose among the neglected wives of the ritzy county of Rutshire, Lysander causes absolute havoc. But it is only when he meets Rannaldini, Rutshire's King Rat and a temperamental, fiendishly promiscuous international conductor, that the trouble really starts. The only unglamorous woman around Rannaldini was Kitty, his plump young wife who ran his life like clockwork. Soon Lysander was convinced that Kitty must be rescued from Rannaldini at all costs, even if it means enlisting the help of the old blue-eyed havoc-maker: Rupert Campbell-Black.

  Jilly Cooper

  THE MAN WHO MADE HUSBANDS JEALOUS

  To Emily

  with love and gratitude

  for so much happiness

  Acknowledgements

  One of the delights of writing The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous has been the kindness and enthusiasm of the people who helped me. These include in particular John Lodge, Managing Director of Lodge Securities, who initiated me into the mysteries of highly sophisticated security systems; trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies and his wife Cathy, who took me racing and allowed me to spend several days at their yard; Emily Gardiner and Alicia Winter who advised me on the pop music front; and Ian Maclay, the former Managing Director of The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the orchestra themselves, who provided me with much joy and enlightenment, both at rehearsal and concerts.

  I should also like to thank Martin Stephen for telling me about headmasters; composer Geoffrey Burgon and master cellist Bobby Kok for talking to me about music; Andrew Parker-Bowles and John Oaksey for being brilliant about racing; Shirley Bevan for advising me on the illnesses of horses; Simon Cowley for walking the Cheltenham course with me in a deluge; and Raymond and Jenny Mould for inviting me into their box to see Tipping Tim win gloriously at Cheltenham. Peter and Alexandra Hunter and Sally Reygate also told me wonderful stories about their horses Esperanta and Regal, both now sadly departed.

  Many other people helped me. Like those referred to above, they are all skilled in their own fields, but as I was writing fiction, I only followed their advice as far as it fitted my own story, and their expertise is in no way reflected by the accuracy of this book. They include:

  Anthony and Mary Abrahams, Richard Bell, Sebastian Birkhead, John Bowes-Lyon, Charlie Brooks, Peter Cadbury, Edith and Jack Clarkson, Peter Clarkson, Father Damian of Prinknash Abbey, Jim Davidson, Herbert Despard, Fiona Feeley, Dennis Foot, Miriam Francombe, Susannah and William Franklyn, Judy Gaselee, E. W. Gillespie, Managing Director, Cheltenham Racecourse, Tony Hoskins, George and Huw Humphreys, John Irvin, Geoffrey and Jorie Kent, Carl Llewellyn, Roger and Rowena Luard, David Marchwood, Managing Director, Moët & Chandon (London) Ltd., Pussy Minchin, Sharon Morgan, Lana Myers, Peter Norman, Managing Director, Parfums Givenchy, Rosemary Nunneley, Guy Ralls, Henry Sallitt, Lottie Sjögren, Edward Smith, Pauline Stanbury, Diane Stevens, Harry Turner, Barry Watts, Madeline and Malcolm White, Kate Whitehouse and Francis Willey.

  I should also like to thank the National Canine Defence League and in particular Mrs Clarissa Baldwin for allowing me to use their slogan — ‘A Dog is for Life… Not Just for Christmas’.

  The subconscious mind works in strange ways. Almost from conception, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous was set in Paradise, a mythical village in the mythical county of Rutshire. Paradise Village in the book has a population of around eight hundred, an Anglo-Saxon church, a pub, a restaurant, a handful of shops and lies on a river at the bottom of a beautiful valley surrounded by steeply sloping woodland studded with beautiful houses.

  During a driving lesson, when the book was well under way, I told my instructor, Peter Clarkson, about my fictional village. Did I know there was a Paradise in Gloucestershire, he asked, and promptly drove me to a tiny hamlet which looked down into a valley, even more beautiful than the one of my imagination. Charles II is alleged to have named the place Paradise. Arriving by night while escaping from the Roundheads, he gazed out of the window the following morning and asked in rapture if he had arrived in Paradise. As I had written so much of the book by then, and because the two ‘Paradises’ are totally different, except in their rare beauty, I decided to keep the name, but would stress that no-one living nor any of the locations in Paradise, Rutshire, bear any resemblance or are based on anyone living or any of the places in Paradise, Gloucestershire.

  I must also reiterate that The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous is a work of fiction and none of the characters is based on anyone. Any resemblance to any living person is purely coincidental and wholly unintended.

  An author is only as good as her publishers. Mine have been magnificent. I would like to say a massive thank you to Paul Scherer, Mark Barty-King, Patrick Janson-Smith, of Transworld Publishers Ltd., and all their staff for their continued encouragement and advice while I was writing the book. Once it was delivered I had marvellous editorial advice from Diane Pearson, Broo Doherty and Tom Hartman. Nor could anyone have a more charming, merry or skilful agent than Desmond Elliott. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to my son Felix, who in January 1992 restored the gazebo at the bottom of the garden so I was able to write in blissful seclusion uninterrupted by doorbells or telephones.

  Finishing a big book is tremendously exciting and consequently I owe a further huge debt of gratitude to my friends Annette Xuereb-Brennan, Annalise Dobson, Anna Gibbs-Kennet and Marjorie Williams for entering into the spirit by working late into the night typing huge chunks of the manuscript, and often correcting factual mistakes and fearful spelling. Ann Mills was equally marvellous at clearing up after us all without throwing away any vital scribbling.

  Nor could the book have been written without the wonderfully soothing presence of my PA, Jane Watts, who listened when I was in despair, provided numerous funny lines and spent hours collating and photostating the manuscript.

  Finally, I would most of all like to thank my family, Leo, Felix, Emily, Barbara and Hero. All provided comfort, tolerance and inspiration. Few writers are as privileged.

  CHARACTERS

  EDWARD BARTHOLOMEW ALDERTON

  A significant grandchild.

  ARCHANGEL MIKE

  Landlord of The Pearly Gates Public House and captain of Paradise Cricket XI.

  JULIA ARMSTRONG

  A passionate painter.

  BEN ARMSTRONG

  Her husband — a caring beard in computers.

  ASTRID

  A comely Palm Beach groom.

  MISS BATES

  A temp with tempting ankles.

  BEATRICE

  A fair flautist misused by Rannaldini.

  JAMES BENSON

  A very smooth private doctor.

  BONNY

  A Palm Beach polo groupie.

  SABINE BOTTOMLEY

  Headmistress of Bagley Hall — a less caring beard.

  TEDDY BRIMSCOMBE

  Larry Lockton’s gardener.

  MRS BRIMSCOMBE

  His wife.

  BUNNY

  An ace Gloucestershire vet.

  RUPERT CA
MPBELL-BLACK

  Multi-millionaire owner/ trainer, ex-world show-jumping champion, Mecca for most women.

  TAGGIE CAMPBELL-BLACK

  His second wife — an angel.

  MARCUS CAMPBELL-BLACK

  His son — an embryo concert pianist.

  TABITHA CAMPBELL-BLACK

  His daughter — a teenage tearaway.

  SEB AND DOMMIE CARLISLE

  The heavenly twins. Vastly brave professional polo players, whose serious wildness has been tempered by the recession.

  CHLOE CATFORD

  Talented mezzo-soprano and Boris Levitsky’s mistress.

  BLUEY CHARTERIS

  Rupert Campbell-Black’s first jockey.

  LADY CHISLEDEN

  An old boot and a pillar of Paradise.

  CLIVE

  Rannaldini’s sinister black-leather-clad henchman.

  MRS COLMAN

  David Hawkley’s secretary — nicknamed ‘Mustard’ by the boys because she’s so keen on him.

  CAMERON COOK

  A talented television termagent.

  MISS CRICKLADE

  Winner of the home-made wine class at Paradise Church fete for ten years running.

  DANNY

  One of Rupert Campbell- Black’s stable lads.

  DIZZY

  Rupert Campbell-Black’s head groom. A glamorous divorcee.

  FERDINAND FITZGERALD

  Fat Ferdie. Lysander Hawkley’s best friend and minder. Estate agent and fixer who is riding the recession with a cowboy’s skill.

  RICKY FRANCE-LYNCH

  Polo captain of England.

  DAISY FRANCE-LYNCH

  His painter wife, a friend of Julia Armstrong.

  GERALDINE

  Guy Seymour’s London secretary.

  GRAYDON GLUCKSTEIN

  Chairman of the New World Philharmonic Orchestra.

  HELEN GORDON

  Rupert Cambell-Black’s first wife.

  BOB HAREFIELD

  Orchestra manager of the London Met. A saint.

  HERMIONE HAREFIELD

  His seriously tiresome wife. Rannaldini’s mistress. One of the world’s leading sopranos and an applause junkie.

  LITTLE COSMO HAREFIELD

  A four-year-old fiend.

  LYSANDER HAWKLEY

  A hero of our time.

  DAVID ‘HATCHET’ HAWKLEY

  Lysander’s father and an unmerry widower. Headmaster of Fleetley — a top English public school.

  DINAH HAWKLEY

  An old soak, and the widow of David Hawkley’s much older brother, Alastair.

  HEINZ

  A colourless assistant conductor at the London Met.

  THE REVEREND PERCIVAL HILLARY

  A portly parson who confines his pastoral visits to drinks time.

  JOY HILLARY

  His wife. A bossy boots.

  BEATTIE JOHNSON

  A seductive, totally unprincipled journalist.

  FREDDIE JONES

  Electronics supremo and director of Venturer Television.

  BORIS LEVITSKY

  A glamorous, temperamental composer who defected from Russia in the eighties. Assistant conductor at the London Met and lover of red wine, red meat and red-blooded women.

  RACHEL LEVITSKY

  His English wife. A concert pianist who has sacrificed her career to bring up two children: Vanya and Masha. Performs under her maiden name, Rachel Grant.

  LARRY LOCKTON

  Chief Executive of Catchitune Records and a rough diamond.

  MARIGOLD LOCKTON

  His once-ravishing wife, who is finding to her cost that rough diamonds are not for ever.

  ISAAC LOVELL

  A brilliant jump jockey.

  SHERRY MACARTHY

  A ravishing neglected American wife.

  GEORGIE MAGUIRE

  A sixties singer/songwriter and sex symbol. Slightly long-in-the-capped tooth, but poised for a massive come-back.

  DANCER MAITLAND

  A rock star.

  MARCIA MELLING

  A susceptible divorcee, one of Rupert Campbell-Black’s owners.

  OSWALDO

  A colourful guest conductor of the London Met.

  MR PANDOPOULOS

  Another of Rupert Campbell-Black’s owners.

  MRS PIGGOTT

  Georgie Maguire’s daily. Nicknamed Mother Courage because of her fondness for a pint of beer.

  ROBERTO RANNALDINI

  One of the world’s greatest conductors. Musical director of the London Met and a very evil genius.

  KITTY RANNALDINI

  His much younger third wife who runs his life like clockwork.

  WOLFGANG RANNALDINI

  Rannaldini’s son from his first marriage, a good sort.

  NATASHA RANNALDINI

  Rannaldini’s daughter from his second marriage: a handful in all senses of the word.

  CECILIA RANNALDINI

  Rannaldini’s second wife and a world famous diva. Given to throwing plates and tantrums.

  GUY SEYMOUR

  A bishop’s son and Georgie Maguire’s very decent and rather unlikely husband. Owner of London art gallery and nurser of talent.

  FLORA SEYMOUR

  Guy’s and Georgie’s wild child.

  MEREDITH WHALEN

  A highly expensive gay interior designer, known as the Ideal Homo because he’s always being asked as a spare man for deserted wives at Paradise dinner parties.

  ELMER WINTERTON

  American Security billionaire. Chief executive of Safus Houses Inc. and a philandering Palm Beach polo patron.

  MARTHA WINTERTON

  His ravishing neglected second wife.

  1

  Lysander Hawkley appeared to have everything. At twenty-two, he was tall, broad-shouldered, heart-stoppingly handsome, wildly affectionate, with a wall-to-wall smile that withered women. In January 1990 at the finals of a Palm Beach polo tournament, this hero of our time was lying slumped on a Prussian-blue rug in the pony lines sleeping off the excesses of the night before.

  The higher the standard of polo the better looking tend to be both grooms and ponies. On this punishingly hot, muggy day, all around Lysander beautiful girls in Prussian-blue shirts and baseball caps were engaged in the frantic activity of getting twenty-four ponies ready for the match. But, trying not to wake him, they swore under their breaths as they bandaged and tacked-up charges driven demented by an invasion of mosquitoes. And, if they could, these beautiful girls would have hushed the thunder that grumbled irritably along the flat, palm-tree fringed horizon.

  But Lysander didn’t stir — not even when an Argentine groom working for the opposition jumped a pony clean over him on the way to the warm-up area, nor when two of his team mates, the Carlisle twins, Sebastian and Dominic, roared up in a dark green Aston Martin yelling in rage and relief that they’d finally tracked him down.

  People loved doing things for Lysander. The grooms had kept their voices down. In the same way Seb and Dommie, both England polo internationals, had persuaded Elmer Winterton, the security billionaire who employed them for the Palm Beach season, to fly Lysander out as a substitute when the fourth member of the team had broken his shoulder in the semi-finals.

  ‘The little fucker,’ howled Seb, leaping out of the car, ‘after all the trouble we took getting him the job.’

  ‘He rewards us by getting rat-assed,’ said Dommie.

  Together they gazed indignantly down at Lysander, sprawled lean-hipped and loose-limbed as a lurcher puppy. Lazily he stretched out and raked a mosquito bite in his sleep.

  ‘No-one looking at that angelic inertia,’ went on Dommie grimly, ‘could imagine his ability for wanton destruction when he’s awake.’

  ‘Well, if he channels some of that ability against the opposition we’ll be OK,’ said Seb, and, picking up a Prussian-blue bucket, he dashed the contents into Lysander’s face. ‘Come on, Mr Hawkley. This is your wake-up call.’

  ‘What the f
uck?’ Leaping as though he’d been electrocuted, frantically wiping dirty water out of his eyes, Lysander slowly and painfully focused on two, round, ruffian faces and four dissipated blue eyes glaring down at him from under thick blond fringes.

  ‘Oh, it’s you two,’ he groaned. ‘For a terrible moment I thought I was seeing double. What the hell are you trying to do to me?’

  ‘Nothing to what you’re doing to yourself,’ said Seb briskly. ‘Game starts in half an hour. Get your ass into gear.’

  ‘Did you pull that blonde?’ asked Dommie, unbuttoning his grey-striped shirt and selecting a Prussian-blue polo shirt from the back of the Aston Martin.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Lysander’s wonderfully smooth, wide forehead wrinkled for a second. ‘I went back to her place, certainly, but I’ve got a terrible feeling I fell asleep on the job. I’d better ring and apologize.’

  ‘Later.’ Seb chucked him a polo shirt.

  ‘I bloody can’t,’ complained Lysander, taking a sodden piece of paper from his shirt pocket. ‘She gave me her number but the ink’s run. I’d like a tan like that,’ he added, admiring Dommie’s solidly muscled conker-brown back.