Polo

chaperonage of hundreds of babies who had been successfully adopted into loving homes whose photographs gazed down from the dark red wallpaper. Tabitha, his daughter, was the only baby Rupert had ever liked, but he would have been happy to adopt a chimpanzee for Taggie’s sake, and was trying not to lose his temper with this earnest, probing woman.

‘When you first saw Mrs Campbell-Black, was it love at first sight?’

‘No, lust,’ drawled Rupert, then added hastily, ‘but it would have been the reaction of any man. She’s very pretty but I was involved with someone else at the time.’

‘And you lead a full sex life?’

Full of Taggie, thought Rupert. ‘I’m afraid I’m not prepared to discuss our sex life with anyone,’ he said coldly. ‘The reason she can’t have children has nothing to do with sex.’

Mrs Paget fingered her pearls. ‘You’ve only been married seventeen months, hardly long enough for us to place one of our very special babies with you. With the pill, the abortion law and girls keeping their babies, children to adopt are like gold dust today. And you are in a catch 22.’ She brought out the expression to show she read. ‘You’re forty at the end of this year, which makes you too old to adopt.’

Rupert gritted his teeth. ‘I know that.’

‘And we have couples who’ve been on our waiting-list for years. You wouldn’t consider an older child, handicapped perhaps, or coloured? I’m sure Mrs Campbell-Black has the necessary patience and understanding.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ said Rupert truthfully. ‘We want a baby.’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Mrs Paget almost archly.

The stupid bitch is trying to rile me, thought Rupert. If I lose my temper she’ll mark me down as a baby- basher.

‘Hardly a beggar,’ he snapped.

It was all a ghastly game. In his inside pocket was a cheque for a quarter of a million pounds, which would buy a house in Battersea for the society to house their unmarried mothers. The donation would be anonymous – so the press would never find out – and Rupert and Taggie would jump the queue.

‘Are you sure you personally want to adopt, and it wouldn’t be better for Mrs Campbell-Black to concentrate on being a mother to your own children? I’m sure they need a stable background.’

‘Plenty of stables already at Penscombe,’ said Rupert idly.

‘There’s no need to be flippant. Couples who lose a baby often try to adopt one immediately to fill the aching void, but it’s the wrong motive.’

‘Works perfectly well with puppies,’ said Rupert.

‘Mr Campbell-Black,’ Mrs Paget’s midnight-blue cashmere bosom swelled, ‘I don’t like your attitude. We have to ensure you’d make a suitable father. Your track record isn’t exactly . . .’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, ask my own children!’ Getting to his feet, Rupert walked over to the window. Outside, under a colonnade of burgeoning plane trees, a slim girl in jeans was pushing a pram and gabbling happy nonsense to the baby inside. He’d be reduced to kidnapping soon.

‘You’re supposed to be a Christian organization,’ he went on. ‘Isn’t there something in the Bible about more rejoicing in heaven over one lost sheep?’

‘Calm down,’ said Mrs Paget, thinking how frightfully attractive he was. She wanted the money for the unmarried mothers’ house very badly. The committee would regard it as a tremendous coup and had already earmarked an adorable Irish baby for Rupert and Taggie, but she felt he ought to be made to sweat a little longer.

‘I understand,’ she went on soothingly. ‘You must be feeling very threatened. It happens to lots of middle- aged men who marry very young wives and worry not only about satisfying them sexually, but keeping them amused. A baby seems the perfect answer.’

Rupert’s jaw dropped. There was an imperious knock on the door.

‘I’m interviewing, Miss Roach,’ cried Mrs Paget.

‘I think you should see this,’ said Miss Roach who looked more like a cod. Barging in, she thrust a copy of The Evening Scorpion in front of Mrs Paget, whose pale pink wild-rose complexion slowly turned the dark crimson of an Ena Harkness as she read.

‘I’m afraid there’s not an adoption society in the country who’ll touch you now,’ she said, handing Rupert the paper.

On the front page were two huge photographs of Perdita and Rupert at eighteen. Both in profile, they were incriminatingly identical. ‘Snap!’ said the huge headline.

Rupert was as pale as the lilies-of-the-valley on the table as he turned to the centre pages where Jackie Cosgrave’s statement was quoted in full:

‘There were seven men at the Sidney Street Orgy. They included rock star Bob Riley and his lead guitarist Harry Nelson, actor Johnny Friedlander, the Hon Basil Baddingham, a polo player, show-jumpers Rupert Campbell- Black and Billy Lloyd-Foxe and myself. At eighteen, Rupert was an officer in an exclusive cavalry regiment, the Blues, and was home on leave from Cyprus. He was very brown and so beautiful no-one could take their eyes off him. Being in the forces, he was also the only one with short hair. Rupert was very much taken with Daisy, and being very fit, made love to her most of the night. We all had bets how long he could keep going. The rest of us were too stoned to do very much, though we all had a go at her, I remember, because she was so tasty.’

Jackie Cosgrave had always been disgusting, thought Rupert irrationally. Like Daisy two days before, he couldn’t read any more. Inside were fuzzy blown-up snapshots, including one of Daisy and Rupert both naked. In one he was smiling down at her and stroking her left breast. In another he was kissing her passionately and his left hand had disappeared below the cropping of the photograph. There were also pictures of everyone else at the orgy, and, even more horrible, on the next page of Eddie, Violet, Marcus and Tabitha, with a caption: ‘You’re half-brothers and sisters now.’

‘Jesus,’ exploded Rupert, crumpling up the paper and throwing it in the corner. Then, turning to Mrs Paget, ‘And you believe this junk?’

‘It seems conclusive,’ she stammered. ‘You could be twins.’

‘I’m going to get the highest damages in history. Can I use your telephone?’

Mrs Paget nodded. After the initial rage, she told Miss Roach later, he was terrifying in his calmness.

It was a good thing the helicopter knew its own way back to Penscombe because Rupert was totally unaware of flying it. As towns, motorways and the winding Thames gave way to acid-green woods, emerald fields and tawny villages, he churned with rage. Perdita was responsible for Taggie losing their own child, and now an adopted baby. And God knows what lasting damage she’d done to his children, just as they were getting over the devastating revelations of his memoirs eighteen months ago.

He couldn’t see the gravel outside his house for reporters and cameramen, and took a savage pleasure in sending them scurrying for their lives. As he leapt out, they all swarmed back.

‘Hello, Rupe, talk about gaining a daughter,’ said the Sun.

‘She’s a chip off the old block where horses are concerned,’ said the Mirror. ‘You going to teach her to show-jump?’

‘We heard you were trying to adopt a baby. What chances of that now?’ asked The Scorpion.

‘Are you going to recognize paternity?’ asked ITN.

As they ringed him, ravenous for information, there was something of the cornered, maddened bull about Rupert. Then, with his phenomenal strength, he shoved them out of the way and, sending The Scorpion and the Star flying, charged the front door, which opened like a trap door to admit him, then slammed against their frenzied hammering fists.

Frantically Taggie and Rupert clung to each other. She tried to smile, but she was deathly pale and her eyes were red-rimmed. ‘You poor, poor thing, it’s so horrible for you.’

‘I’m so desperately sorry.’ As he held her, Rupert felt comfort flowing back into his body like a transfusion after a massive loss of blood. ‘Please don’t leave me. I can face anything as long as I’ve got you.’

‘I’d never leave you,’ said Taggie, appalled. ‘I love you. Anyway, it all happened years ago, long before I met you.’

‘It could have been any of the other guys at the party. They can make anyone look like anyone in