Jump.

'I can't,' Trixie leapt backwards, 'it's gross.'

'That's not very polite,' said a soft Irish voice, 'when you're going to have such a lovely time.'

Next moment, iron arms that had driven and thrust a thousand winners past the post gathered her up, ripped off her leggings and pants and laid her beside Bonny.

'Rogue, how could you?' sobbed Trixie. 'Get me out of here.'

'You'll love it, angel.'

Suddenly a very large four-poster became very small as four heaving bodies took over.

'Get her wet first,' ordered Seth.

So Bonny knelt between Trixie's legs and got to work, tongue and fingers sliding everywhere.

'Stop that,' screamed Trixie, bucking like Furious.

'Just shut up,' snarled Seth, clamping a hand over her mouth to silence her, yet at the same time smiling into her eyes and gently stroking her face with his fingertips. 'Relax, babe, don't let me down.'

The three of them were so beautiful and so practised, Trixie felt she was the only lousy actress in one of Lester Bolton's grubby p.o.r.n films. She closed her eyes after that, trying to blot out who was shoving what into her, tears, and G.o.d knows what else, trickling down her face.

How ironic that when she finally opened her eyes again it was to read, on the wall above, Caliban's loveliest lines.

'Be not afeared. The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.'

She gave a wail of anguish. 'Let me go, please, please.'

'She's not enjoying it, poor kid,' said Rogue. 'Let her go.'

'Give her time,' said Seth, trying to grab her ankle as she leapt from the bed.

As she managed to unlock the door and stumble into the corridor, his last words were: 'If you breathe a word about this, you'll never see me again.'

Etta was so fast asleep, it took several rings before the telephone roused her.

'Darling, so sorry to wake you, it's Alan.'

'W-what, what's happened, is Trixie OK?'

'Fine, fast asleep in "Alonso". Darling, is it OK if I say the party didn't break up until three and then I had a late nightcap or daycap in your room?'

'Whatever for?'

'Carrie rang, doesn't believe I wasn't up to no good, so I said I was with you.'

'Oh Alan, you are her husband.'

'I'll explain, I promise.'

Etta was just dropping off again when the Major rang.

'Normie here, Etta. I woke Debbie up when I came in, is it all right if I say I had a late nightcap with you?'

Seth woke her around five, sounding unusually rattled.

'Etta darling, Rogue and I were having a drink in Bonny's room, "Caliban". Valent rang in and stupid me, not thinking, picked up the telephone. I hung straight up, but I don't want him to put the dogs on me. Can I say I was with you?'

'Seems Valent need not have booked so many rooms,' said Etta acidly. 'Did you keep an eye on Trixie?'

'I saw her into bed, she was fine.'

After he'd rung off, Etta lay back in bed helpless with laughter. She hadn't bothered to draw her curtains. A silver-white semicircle of moon peered in.

'Join the party,' said Etta. 'There's nothing left remarkable.'

It was not just the moon that had been visiting last night, most of the syndicate seemed to have had a party in her room.

Good thing Dora hadn't been around seeking stories.

s.h.a.gger, with no thought of Tilda, had been up all night feasting his eyes on the pink and white face of Toby, as he poured out his heart about the difficulty of holding down his job working for Carrie, and the responsibility of impending fatherhood.

'Is paralysis a symptom of pregnancy, s.h.a.g? Phoebe never moves an inch these days to cook supper or iron a s.h.i.+rt.'

On a chair in the corridor, a returning s.h.a.gger found Niall's prayer book open and covered in drink rings and, better still, b.u.mped into Niall emerging from Woody's room, which was named 'Sebastian'.

'Where the bee sucks, there suck I,' murmured s.h.a.gger, 'Hope you haven't been led into temptation, Vicar.'

'Etta's just left, quite the party animal,' said Niall blithely. 'So little opportunity for the syndicate to get together. Time flew, we were discussing Mrs Wilkinson's campaign.'

'Camp's the operative word,' sneered s.h.a.gger.

'Must rush back to Willowwood for Early Service,' cried Niall.

Outside, as he waited for a taxi, he called Etta.

'Could you bear to say you were celebrating Mrs Wilkinson's victory with Woody and me in "Sebastian" until dawn?'

'Who's Sebastian?' asked Etta.

94.

Amber woke from an excellent night's sleep. She was delighted with Mrs Wilkinson's win yesterday. She had no hangover. She had been miffed last night that no s.e.x had taken place. Marius had twice called her 'Olivia darling', but before he pa.s.sed out he had promised her a ride on History Painting. This all meant she could face Rafiq, who got so stormily jealous, with a clear conscience and drive down to Exeter without any fear of being breathalysed.

In the old days, she'd have got legless or stoned and gone on the pull. Now she was twenty, she

It was getting light outside. Hearing desperate sobbing as she pa.s.sed 'Alonso', she found the door ajar and Trixie slumped on the bed, naked except for a white hotel dressing gown. There was sick all over the carpet and on the pillow. The room reeked of rotten alcohol.

'Go away,' wept Trixie, 'I can't talk. Leave me alone.'

Grabbing a box of tissues, soaking a towel, Amber cleaned up, threw the pillowcase on the bathroom floor and gave Trixie a gla.s.s of water.

'Whatever happened?'

'I can't tell you, I promised not to.'

Amber sat on the bed, pus.h.i.+ng Trixie's damp hair back from her sweating forehead and feeling even more mature.

'Tell me, babe, I won't tell anyone.'

'It's Seth,' howled Trixie. 'I don't know how it happened. I loved him so much. He pursued me and pursued me, ringing me at school, texting me the whole time, sending flowers. I didn't want to know. I kept asking him if he had any attractive grandsons. Gradually I got hooked.'

'Hardly surprising, he's well fit.'

'He was so loving when he was coaching me, then he backed off, didn't answer my calls or texts, all over that vile Bonny. Last night he totally blanked me, but when I came out of my room he was waiting. He kissed me so lovingly and led me back into what I thought was his room and it was Bonny's.'

Trixie was crying so much, Amber could hardly distinguish what she was saying.

'B-b-bonny was on the bed starkers, Seth made her s.h.a.g me. It was hideous, she kept smacking and pinching me and laughing at me for being c.r.a.p in bed, then Seth joined in. Oh G.o.d, I feel so dirty.' She blew her nose on the duvet cover.

'Not your fault, babe.' Amber felt more mature by the minute as she stroked Trixie's hair. 'Threesome's nothing. Loads of grown-ups do it. Like jumping on everyone else's horses at the end of Pony Club camp. b.l.o.o.d.y Seth shouldn't have forced you, even if he was drunk.'

'It was a foursome,' whispered Trixie, 'Rogue was there too.'

'Rogue,' screamed Amber, 'Rogue! The b.a.s.t.a.r.d, how dare he, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

'He was laughing his head off and very drunk. Bonny kept ticking him off for not concentrating,' confessed Trixie. 'He was always into group s.e.x when he lived in Willowwood.'

Amber couldn't speak for fury, so Trixie carried on.

'Bonny was drunk too. She doesn't drink normally. She showed off terribly, proving how brilliant she was at b.l.o.w..j.o.bs and things, oh yuck.'

'The b.i.t.c.h,' whispered Amber. 'The b.i.t.c.h, how dare she.'

'Please, please don't tell anyone.' Trixie looked terrified. 'Granny would die if it got out. She thinks the world of Seth. And Uncle Martin and Romy would be so censorious. Mummy'd kill me, she doesn't understand love, and Daddy's so wrapped up in Tilda Flood.' The desolation in Trixie's voice for a moment distracted Amber from her own misery.

'Rogue ought to be shot.'

'Please don't say anything to him, or Seth says he'll never see me again. How can one hate someone so much and still adore them?'

Seth last night had been slightly disconcerted, on reaching 'Ferdinand', to be greeted by a sleepily replete Corinna: 'Darling, thank you for the best f.u.c.k I have ever had.'

But he cheered up when he read his reviews on a hotel laptop. For once they compared very favourably with Corinna's, which were so good she wouldn't give a stuff who'd been s.h.a.gging who last night.

Bonny was not so sanguine. After her first furious text, Seth had ordered a fry-up and shut himself in the bathroom to call her.

'Have you seen the internet, such fantastic notices... How are you, Bon-Bon, you looked ravis.h.i.+ng last night fun, wasn't it?'

'How could you let that happen?' shrieked Bonny. 'What in h.e.l.l did you slip in my drink? It could const.i.tute rape, that little tramp is sure to tell Dora and it'll be all over the papers. When I think of the efforts I've made to safeguard my reputation... And I can't see Rogue staying shtum either. How could could you?' you?'

'I'll square Trixie,' rea.s.sured Seth.

'And I've had an email from Martin Bancroft, who wants me to be the War on Obesity icon. If word gets out, they'll pull the plug.'

Seth had had enough. 'Oh shut up,' he said, 'I've got a headache. That's room service just arrived. The good news is my agent's just emailed me that there's big interest in you playing Gwendolyn.'

'Gwendolyn Framlingham over my dead body,' shrieked Bonny, remembering Cindy's dismissive remarks about her b.o.o.bs. 'I wouldn't work with those two.'

'Wilde's Gwendolyn, dumb-dumb, for the BBC. They want me to play Jack Worthing and, wait for it, they're going to offer Corinna Lady Bracknell. See you.'

Etta lay on her bed giggling hysterically.

'Our revels now are ended,' she read on the wall above, 'These our actors,/As I foretold you, were all spirits and/Are melted into air, into thin air.'

So no one had got off with anyone.

Room service then arrived with an enormous breakfast of bacon, sausages, tomatoes, fried bread, two fried eggs, mushrooms, orange juice, croissants and apricot jam.

Etta rang Miss Painswick.

'Joyce, I've been sent a huge breakfast by mistake, please come and share it with me and have a post mortem.'

'Mr Poc.o.c.k rang and asked if I'd like a nightcap,' said Miss Painswick smugly as she accepted another mushroom. 'Must have been tiddly but I said no because I'd got my curlers in. Who d'you think got off with who?'

'I don't know,' said Etta, spreading marmalade on a piece of fried bread, 'but the Vicar, Seth, Alan and the Major (yes) rang me and begged me to confirm that they'd spent half the night drinking in my room, which they certainly had not.'

Flattering in a way, she mused, that they'd turned to her, yet rather unflattering was the a.s.sumption that if they had been with her, their other halves would a.s.sume nothing could possibly have occurred.

'Shall we take the sausages back to Priceless,' she said, 'and the rest of the croissants for Pavarobin and the bird table?'

95.

Amber hurtled down to Throstledown in a red mist road rage, Rogue rage. Why was she so devastated? Was it because underneath she believed, despite Rogue's scores of women, that a special spark flickered between them that, if allowed, would flare into a conflagration? Or was it, more shamingly, jealousy? Bonny was stunning and made no secret of her dislike of Amber. Rogue had always said how silly Bonny was, but silliness, when allied to beauty, never deterred men. And why wasn't she jealous of poor victimized Trixie?

Pink aeroplane trails were playing noughts and crosses with the departing stars and a rosy glow in the east echoed her red mist as she stormed up Marius's drive.

In the yard Mrs Wilkinson was banging her food bowl against the wall winners deserve breakfast. Chisolm, hooves up on the stable door, bleated h.e.l.lo. From Sir Cuthbert's box she could hear singing.