Read Online Polo by Jilly Cooper - Free Book Online

Red.'
        Chessie whistled. `Wow, that's an even nicer face. He really is beautiful.' Then, sensing she'd said the wrong thing: `Nearly as good-looking as his father.'
        Bart looked mollified: `All the girls are crazy for Red. He's kinda wild. He got looped at the wedding, and threw his cookies all over his granny's porch. Plays polo like an angel. If he'd quit partying he'd go to ten. And here's my baby, Bibi.' Bart's voice softened.
        `Now she is like you,' said Chessie. `What a clever, intelligent face.'
        No one could call her pretty with that crinkly hair and heavy jaw.
        `Bibi is super-bright. Harvard Business School, only one interested in coming into the business. She's Daddy's girl. Doesn't get on with Grace. She might relate to a younger woman,' he added pointedly.
        He is definitely putting out signals, thought Chessie, as their second course arrived.
        `D'you often have affairs with men who aren't your husband?' said Bart, forking up poached salmon. `Not since I was married. And you?'
        `Occasionally. They weren't important.'
        Chessie examined the oily sheen on a red leaf of radicchio. `Is this?'
        `I guess so. That's why I didn't call you before.'
        Elated, Chessie regaled him with scurrilous polo gossip, knowing it would delight him to know how other players ripped off their patrons. Aware she was dropping the twins in it, and not caring, she told him about them selling one of Victor's own horses back to him.
        `Are you going to Deauville?' asked Bart as he came off the telephone for the third time.
        `Not unless Ricky forks out for a temporary nanny. The grooms get so bolshy about baby-sitting and Deauville's no fun unless you can go out in the evening. We haven't had a holiday since we were married,' said Chessie bitterly and untruthfully.
        Bart traced the violet circles under her eyes.
        `You need one. Don't you ever get any sleep?'
        `Not since I met you,' said Chessie, who had drunk almost an entire bottle of champagne.
        It excited her wildly that this man at the same time as dealing in billions of dollars could give her his undivided attention. All her grievances came pouring out: `Having been dragged up by a succession of nannies himself, Rickythinks Will ought to be brought up by his mother.'
        Will's a nice kid,' said Bart. `He's only whiny, overadrenalized and super-aggressive because he's picking up tensions from your marriage. You're both too screwed up to give him enough attention.'
        `That's not true.' Chessie dropped her fork with a furious clatter. `If you're going to talk to me like that, I'm going.' Bart caught her wrist, pulling her back.
        `Stop over-reacting,' he said sharply. `You haven't done anything wrong. Will's playing up because you're miserable.'
        `Does your son Red throw up in porches and no doubt in Porsches because you and Grace aren't happy?' spat Chessie.
        `Grace no longer excites me. Let's go upstairs,' said Bart calmly and he opened a door hidden in the romping nymphs behind him which led straight into a lift. `The beauty of this place is you don't have to go through Reception to get to the bedrooms.'
        It was a most unsatisfactory coupling. Bart was too anxious to get at her. Chessie was too angry and uptight to get aroused. Despite her moans and writhings, Bart knew she hadn't come. Sick with disappointment and frustration, she got dressed. Here was just one more failure because she was not able to tell people what she liked, that she never came from straight screwing, and never with Ricky.
        `Poor little Rick's girl,' said Bart, kissing her forehead. It's all over, thought Chessie miserably.
        As they went outside, Bart's telephone rang again. He talked so long that Chessie was about to wander off without even saying goodbye when he hung up in jubilation.
        `I've got forty-nine per cent. By