saying: ‘One should always be ready to help young and inexperienced riders.’
‘Sir Gala-had everyone in sight,’ howled Amber when she read the piece, ‘how dare he call me young and inexperienced …’
She wasn’t even mollified when Rogue sent her two dozen red roses.
On the Saturday after the accident, she was visited at midday by an old schoolfriend. Milly Walton was looking so urban chic and ravishingly little girlish, in a pale pink smock and brown leggings. Perching on Amber’s bed, reading her cards and eating her grapes, Milly tried to divert her with London gossip about all their mutual friends and the parties Amber had been missing, which she might now have time to go to.
As Amber was still looking wintry and bored, Milly tried to interest her with the information that she had a new boyfriend – a jockey.
‘You’re mad,’ snapped Amber. ‘For a start, jockeys are useless in bed. They’re only interested in coming as fast as they can.’
‘This one is fantastic,’ protested Milly.
‘Can’t be a jockey then.’
‘He is. He’s called Dare Catswood.’
‘Dare’s an amateur,’ said Amber scornfully. ‘Amateurs are different, they have to work harder for a ride.’
Milly giggled. ‘Well, I think he’s hot.’
‘Jockeys get thoroughly spoilt.’ Amber was on a roll now. ‘Once they’ve got a licence everyone wants to hop on them, like a bus in the rush hour.’
‘You have changed,’ sighed Milly. ‘At school you were crazy about Rogue Rogers, had pictures of him all over your study …’
‘Rogue lives up to his name, he’s really like a bus in the rush hour, just comes more often and in more lanes. Even the roses he gave me got brewer’s droop in twenty-four hours. He’s the worst of the lot.’
In mid-rant, Amber suddenly clocked that Milly wasn’t laughing any more, just looking horrified and deeply embarrassed.
As she swung round, Amber’s heart failed, for standing in the doorway was Rogue. Beneath the peak of his blue baseball cap, on which was printed the words ‘Italian Stallion’, his eyes were shadowed and tired, his laughing face unutterably bleak.
‘R-rogue,’ stammered Amber, ‘what are you doing here?’
‘On my way to Chepstow, thought you might like these.’
He threw a huge bunch of freesias on the bed, followed by Richard Dunwoody’s autobiography.
‘On second thoughts, not,’ he took back the book, ‘you don’t seem to like jockeys.’
‘She was only joking,’ stammered Milly. ‘I know she’s a huge fan really, so am I. She always took the piss out of everyone when we were at school.’
‘Perhaps she should go back there and learn some manners.’
‘Rogue, I’m sorry,’ wailed Amber, but Rogue had turned on his heel, slamming the door behind him.
Amber cried for the first time since she broke her wrist, howling even louder when Milly discovered a little card inside the freesias, ‘Darling Amber, I’m so sorry, please come back soon. All my love Rogue,’ in Rogue’s handwriting.
She was utterly inconsolable.
98
Dora, having passed eleven GCSEs, decided to leave Bagley Hall because she was fed up with her mother moaning about the fees. Choosing to take a gap year, she was in New York in late February, staying with her half-sister Sienna and her husband Zac, when she received a long email from Alan:
Darling Dora, we all miss you. Hope you’re fine. I thought I’d give you an update on the syndicate. I’m really pissed off because my Life of Wilkie has hit the buffers again because Amber’s been sidelined for four months with a broken wrist and there’s no one to ride Wilkie – who’s due to run at Rutminster early next month.
The tragedy is that the last time she ran and won, the syndicate had such a fantastic time afterwards at the après stage Antony and Cleopatra party, they’re frantic for another opportunity to behave badly.
From what I can gather, Alban and the Major both pulled Corinna. Amber disappeared upstairs with Marius. I draw a veil over Painswick and Pocock. Seth was off pleasuring Bonny and God knows who else and the Vicar and Woody are looking very smug.
Valent pushed off before the orgy, said he had a crisis at work, but I guess, being an alpha male, he was pissed off with all the women drooling over Seth, who incidentally was magnificent as Antony.
On the luvvie front, Corinna, on the grounds that Dame Judi shines in comedy, agreed to play Lady Bracknell in a BBC production of The Importance of Being Earnest, due to start any minute, only to discover that Seth’s playing Jack Watling and, far, far worse, Bonny’s