Read Online Polo by Jilly Cooper - Free Book Online Page A

tomorrow lunchtime I'll have nailed him.'
        `What's your next take-over target?' asked Chessie sulkily.
        `You are,' said Bart. He glanced at his watch. `They'll just be throwing-in. We're going for a ride.'
        Like all polo players, he drove too fast, overtaking with split-second timing, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on Chessie's thigh. As the limo swung round the hangar, the helicopter standing on the apron was as blue as the Flyer's polo shirts and as the sky above. On its side
        in dark blue letters was written: 'Alderton - your friend in high places'.
        Chessie sat in the passenger seat with the full flight harness biting into her pink dress. Having gone round turning on switches and tightening screws as a pre-flight check, Bart had taken off his jacket and his green silk tie, and was secured by just a seat belt round his waist.
        Satisfied everything was in order, he started up the engine. There was a thrilling roar as the jets took a grip on the rotors which quickly accelerated to their operating speed. With a last look round to see everything was clear, Bart alerted the control tower, who asked for his destination and initial reading.
        `We're going to do local flying towards the south-east, not above a thousand feet,' said Bart.
        As they flew over yellowing fields and rain-drenched woods and villages, Chessie gave a scream of joy.
        `Isn't it heaven, just like a child's farm? If you picked up the houses they'd be hollow underneath.'
        She longed to run her hand up and down Bart's pinstriped thigh, hard as iron like Ricky's.
        `There's David Waterlane's place,' said Bart. `You can see them stick and balling.'
        Down below Chessie could see the dark, silken flash of the lake flecked with duck, and the dark brown oval of the exercise ring.
        `If you look closely,' she said, `you may see Clemency sunbathing in the nude, or Juan getting his back brown on top of her. Talk about One flew over the Cuckold's Nest.'
        Bart laughed. The sun was beating down on the glass bubble. Oh hell, I'm getting too hot again, thought Chessie.
        Five minutes later Bart pointed out a beautiful, white house with a green roof, set in a clearing thickly ringed with woodland. He flew so low that Chessie could see the cars glittering outside the front door and white figures leaping on the tennis court. The swimming-pool glittered in the sunshine like an aquamarine.
        `Gorgeous place,' breathed Chessie.
        `Belongs to Ashley Roberts,' Bart's voice thickened with excitement. `When I take him over tomorrow and fire him later this year, he'll be forced to put it on the market. How'd you like to live there?'
        Chessie went very still.
        `We rattle enough in our present house,' she said lightly.
        Ahead loomed a huge, apparently substantial, whiteand-mushroom-brown cloud which had formed into turrets, icebergs and snow drifts.
        `Let's go through that archway,' said Bart, not even touching the snow-white edges. Now he was flying alongside a massive, pinky cliff, just clipping it, laughing as Chessie flinched away. `I used to play around for hours like this when I was a boy. Now I'm going right into this cloud. This is the most scary feeling in the world,' he added, as they were enveloped in dense fog. `Even after years of flying it still scares the shit out of me. You can't figure if you're upside down. You have a total disregard of what the brain is telling you. It's completely disorientating.' Then, as he came out into brilliant sunshine, he smiled at her, powerful as he was handsome. `Pretty much like meeting you.'
        He does like me, thought Chessie in ecstasy, and I'm mad about him. He's tied up in a mega-take-over, and he's fooling around in the air with me.
        The sun was beating down on the bubble again. The shimmering fields and woods seemed to stretch for ever. Sheep huddled