When they got back to the barn, both ponies had been caught and were no worse for their joy ride. Bibi rang Luke the moment she got home. ‘Why didn’t you tell me Angel flew Mirages in the Falklands?’
‘You didn’t ask,’ said Luke flatly. ‘He and his brother Pedro brought down more Brit planes than any other pilots. Angel crashed behind enemy lines, and was interrogated by the Brits. Pedro was killed. Angel doesn’t like to talk about it.’
Bibi told Luke about the storm and Angel saving her life.
‘I guess you’ll have to be a bit nicer to him in future,’ said Luke curtly. ‘I gotta go. You might tell Dad what Angel did, then he might be a bit nicer to him too.’
Bibi felt rebuked. Red claimed that Luke hadn’t even been sleeping with Perdita, but he’d certainly been in a vile mood since she’d gone back.
Bibi, despite her cranky exterior, had a very big heart. She had never really got on with Grace, who quite blatantly preferred Red. Jealous of Red’s dazzling looks and charm, Bibi had nevertheless been conscious that Bart preferred her to Red, of whom Bart was also wildly jealous. But then Bart had fallen for Chessie and for months on end had had no time for Bibi at all, and Bibi had felt as though she’d lost a lover. Being so rich, she couldn’t comprehend any man loving her except for her money. Being Bart’s daughter, she worked triply hard in the hope people would think she’d got to the top by her own abilities rather than by nepotism.
Perversely, in the same way that an actress lets herself put on weight or is habitually late for auditions so she can blame her fatness or the lateness and not herself for not getting the part, Bibi wore huge spectacles and ugly baggy clothes and scraped back her hair, so she could attribute this to her not having a steady boyfriend. Anything rather than the agony of being hunted for her fortune. What she really wanted was an old-fashioned billionaire and loads of children, but felt that this was as against her feminist principles as it would have been to have a nose job in order to attract men.
Ahead lay one of the busiest weeks of Bibi’s life. Frantic at the office, she was also organizing a large charity ball for Cancer Relief in Palm Beach.
After a panic on Friday afternoon, because one couldn’t serve non-vintage champagne if one was charging $600 a ticket, Bibi got home to a smirking Chessie and a thunderous Bart. Her Trust Fund Baby boyfriend Skipper, who was supposed to be taking her to the ball, had begged off again saying his stepmother was dying.
‘The rat,’ said Bibi furiously. ‘Skipper loathes his stepmother.’
‘Perhaps he’s planning to hold a dance on her grave,’ said Chessie, who was having a manicure.
‘And it’s too late to get someone else.’ Bibi crashed down a large, white jasmine someone had sent for the tombola.
‘Take a shower, honey,’ said Bart. ‘I’ll find you a partner.’
The moment she was out of earshot, he dialled the barn.
‘I guess I’ve gotta thank you for saving Bibi’s life,’ he said to Angel.
‘Is nothing.’
‘For a start, I want you to have dinner with us tonight.’
Angel said he had a previous engagement. ‘Cancel it.’
‘Mrs Miguel ask me to deener.’
‘I’ll square Mrs Miguel. She’ll understand.’
Angel was outraged, particularly as Mrs Miguel had also asked Shark Nelligan’s groom, Samantha, and Angel would have had Samantha on a plate as well as the
Having dressed for dinner frequently at home, Angel was further incensed when Bart ordered him to wear a tuxedo.
‘The hire-shop’s open on Worth Avenue, and for Chrissake don’t get a coloured shirt or a made-up tie, and see you shave properly, and don’t be late. Bibi’ll expect you around half seven. You’re going to the ball, Cinderella.’
Bart summoned Bibi out of the shower. She was wrapped in a pink towel, her soapy hair rising in a unicorn horn above her head. She had a glorious body and wonderful shoulders, reflected Bart. Such a pity she covered them up with all those butch suits and baggy dresses.
‘I’ve found you a guy – Angel. Luke tells me he saved your life.’
‘Did he tell you why he saved my life?’ said Bibi, suddenly hysterical. ‘Because he was ponying five horses and they carted him and we nearly lost the lot. I’d rather have
‘I sent him to Worth Avenue,’ said Bart, ‘and I called them to make sure he hires the right gear.’
Bibi was thrown into a turmoil. I hate him, she thought furiously, he’s my social and professional inferior. I must not let myself be fazed.
But instead of the black-and-white sack-dress, which made her look like an overweight zebra, she picked from her wardrobe a clinging, coral-pink dress which had a short skirt and was cut low back and front. She’d bought it to wow Ricky in LA, but had never had the guts to wear it. Chessie and Bart had gone off to a drinks party and, in a rare act of charity, Chessie had sent her maid, Esmeralda, who used to be a beautician, to help Bibi dress.
‘Oh, Miss Bibi, just let me make you look gorgeous.’
By half past seven Bibi was ready. Her mane of hair flopped dark red and curly round her face and down her back. Replacing her heavy spectacles with contact lenses, she had allowed Esmeralda to draw kohl round her big, brown eyes and apply three layers of black mascara. She’d always been embarrassed by the size of her mouth and painted well inside it as Grace had taught her, but tonight Esmeralda took the lipbrush round the full outline and filled it in with bright coral.
The voluptuousness of Esmeralda rubbing moisturiser and brown make-up into her back and shoulders, with those magic fingers that daily massaged Chessie, had made Bibi realize with a pang how much she craved the caress of another human being.
Her red shoes had spike heels which she would plunge into Angel’s feet if he started cheeking her. Then she put on her diamonds, chandeliers at each ear, stones as big as marbles round her neck and left wrist. Inherited from Grace’s mother, they lit up her sallow skin, which the coral dress had already warmed.
‘You look beautiful, Miss Bibi,’ cried Esmeralda in ecstasy. She’d always felt Bibi got a raw deal.
‘If only my nose weren’t so big.’
‘You crazy?’ said Esmeralda. ‘No one worries about a Borzoi having too big a nose.’
Bibi was so excited she thought she’d faint. I am waiting for a man I really really want, she thought. Then Angel ruined it by arriving an hour late, by which time Bibi had drunk three-quarters of a bottle of champagne to steady her nerves. She needed it. Angel, with his bronze curls slicked back to show off the exquisite bone structure of his forehead, temple and cheek bones, his beautifully planed cheeks and jaw denuded of stubble and his eyes flashing like an angry Siamese cat, completely took her Gold-Spotted breath away. How could such angelic features conceal such a black heart?
With one of those diamonds I could buy half a dozen ponies, thought Angel sourly, as he paused to admire the beautiful pale pink house, the pale turquoise sweep of swimming-pool, the tree house in the multi-branched grasp of the ficus, the blue-decked lawn going into the ocean and the other wonderful houses peeping out of the trees on the opposite bank. Bad luck to live in Fairyland, reflected Angel, when you didn’t look like a princess. All the same Bibi looked much better than he expected, and her breasts were amazing; tawny smooth and full in that tight coral dress and he’d never dreamt the rest of her was so slim.
‘We’re not going in that,’ she said in horror, as Angel opened the door of his filthy Mini. ‘We go in mine.’
‘No, in mine.’ Angel took her arm firmly.
Bibi was about to jump away, but the sureness of his touch made her feel very unsteady on her red heels.
For a second they glared at each other. Bibi dropped her eyes first and, getting meekly into his car, threw a wicked-looking pair of spurs he’d left on the passenger seat into the back.
‘You going to use those on me?’ she spat, trying to control the hopeless thumping of her heart.
‘Not unless I ’ave to.’ Leaning across her to lock the door, Angel deliberately brushed her breast with his arm. ‘I only keep them for big matches.’
‘And I’m only a low-goal friendly?’
