The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

Georgie shut her eyes and hummed. Slowly a tune that her brain had been chasing for days took form in her head, almost as fast the words followed: ‘I want to blaze with love once more before I die.’ Joyfully she started to write, but her biro refused to function where the paper was soaked with suntan oil. She took a fresh sheet; somehow she must capture the doomed folly of their love.

She didn’t know how long she wrote, only that music was singing in her head and words racing as though the streams of Angel’s Reach were carrying the rains off the hills once again. Like Hemingway, she was about to stop when she was ‘going good’ and make a cup of coffee when Dinsdale’s bay rang out and Jack and Maggie raced across the lawn. Maggie was carrying an envelope which she dropped in her excitement. Georgie only had time to whip off her elastic band, fluff out her hair and clutch her bikini top to her sweating breasts when Lysander crept round the corner.

He was wearing Ferdie’s dark glasses and carrying a bottle of champagne and a bunch of clashing pink-and- purple asters. It was hard to tell if he was shaking more from nerves or from hangover.

‘Get out,’ said Georgie.

‘I’ve come to say I’m sorry. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done, but basically I got pissed and Jack’s desperately sorry, too.’ He reached down to pick up the envelope which Maggie had dropped. ‘Jesus, my poor head! I can promise you there’s nothing sham about this pain.’

As he handed over the bottle of Moet, he looked at Georgie under his lashes and was disappointed to see no flicker of amusement.

‘Why aren’t you playing in that polo final?’ she snapped.

‘I pulled out. You’re more important and I’m not bonking your daughter.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Georgie, wishing she wasn’t so conscious of being hot, sweaty and middle-aged, when all she should be thinking about was Flora’s honour. ‘She didn’t get back till four in the morning last Sunday, and I overheard her talking on the telephone.’

There was no way she was going to own up to reading Flora’s diary.

‘Flora stayed half an hour last Sunday and had one drink,’ said Lysander, ‘and what is more,’ he went on indignantly, ‘she wasn’t remotely interested in Arthur, even when he lay on his side and snored and shook hands for a Twix bar and drank a can of Fanta. I was appalled.’

Not exactly the way, thought Georgie thawing slightly, to Lysander’s heart.

‘And she kept looking at her watch,’ he went on. ‘Then a car came to the bottom of our lane and she was off like a rat up a drain. You ask Ferdie.’

‘He always covers for you.’

‘He does not. He’s just given me another bollocking.’

‘Any idea who was in the car?’

‘No,’ lied Lysander. ‘Where’s the Ace Carer?’

‘Gone to Oxford for an end-away fixture.’

‘Am I interrupting you?’ Lysander glanced at her paper. ‘You have written a lot.’

‘I’ve had a good morning.’ Georgie suddenly felt absurdly happy. ‘D’you want some lunch?’

‘Don’t think I could keep it down. Oh, Georgie, thank you for not being cross any more. I’ve been so miserable.’ He followed her into the kitchen which was as cool and dark as a cave.

‘I ought to get dressed,’ said Georgie, putting the asters in the sink.

‘Please don’t. You’re overdressed as it is.’

‘How about some cold chicken or a bit of sea trout?’ Georgie opened the fridge door.

‘Unless you’re starving. I’m honestly not hungry. Let’s watch EastEnders first.’

‘You ought to cook for me,’ said Georgie, ‘since you beat everyone in the chocolate-cake competition.’

Lysander opened his bloodshot eyes wide, then roared with laughter. ‘I stuffed it with hash. No wonder the judges finished every scrap and couldn’t identify the special flavour. Ferdie got livid because I kept taking spoonfuls while he was mixing it. Cakes are so much nicer before they’re made.’

‘Like women,’ said Georgie acidly.

‘Not all women,’ said Lysander, handing her a glass.

Collapsing on to the dark gold sofa in the drawing room, Georgie wished Guy hadn’t just cut back the rambler rose which had obscured the window. Now the bright sunlight streamed in showing up all her bags and wrinkles.

Dinsdale promptly heaved himself up beside her and refused to budge, so Lysander was reduced to sprawling on the shaggy rug at her feet, as her children so often did. From now on she must regard him as one of Flora’s cricketing friends — delectable but out of bounds.

It was a gripping instalment of EastEnders and Georgie was so involved in Michelle’s conversation with Sharon that she suddenly found to her horror she was stroking Lysander’s hair.

‘I thought you were Dinsdale,’ she said aghast.

‘If only I were,’ Lysander trapped her hand, ‘I’d like to climb into your bed every morning. Oh, Georgie, I’ve had my binoculars trained on Angel’s Reach since first thing waiting for Guy to go out. And I stood watching you this afternoon while you were writing, you looked so gorgeous. I really fancy you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Georgie swelled with all the outrage of a cat startled by a dog.

‘I nearly kissed you in the woods during the cricket match — and I know you fancy me.’

‘I do not.’

‘You do, too, or you wouldn’t have been so furious about me and Flora.’ Sliding his other hand round her neck he drew her towards him until their lips touched and he kissed her with such alacrity that she fell off the sofa on top of him.

‘No, we really shouldn’t.’

For a moment they were all deliciously sprawling limbs, then his tongue slid inside her mouth and as she struggled with increasing half-heartedness to escape, the safety-pin holding her bikini top gave way and she was naked except for her faded-blue denim bikini pants with her red-gold hair flowing over her golden shoulders and youthful rounded breasts.

‘Oh, they’re sweet!’ Lysander kissed each nipple. ‘You’re so beautiful.’

Laying her across his thighs, he pushed back her fringe and adoringly kissed her forehead, her heavy eyelids, her snub nose, and then, with a whoop of delight, returned to her mouth. All the time he was gently stroking the back of her neck, her armpits, and her breasts an inch below the nipples, every place where she was most responsive, before tunnelling under her bikini bottom until he could feel her heart bashing against his and her thighs quivering with delight.

‘I thought you had a hangover,’ muttered Georgie, struggling to keep a metaphorical foot on the bottom of the pool.

‘You could put Fernet Branca out of business,’ whispered Lysander. ‘God, I want to get inside you. I’ve got a thing about women of experience.’

‘Experience of retreating men,’ said Georgie sadly. Oh, why hadn’t she kept up those exercises to strengthen her internal muscles? ‘Anyway we can’t, not in front of Dinsdale.’

Laughing, Lysander laid her on the rug. Switching off EastEnders, he removed his dark blue shirt, threw it over Dinsdale and turned a photograph of Guy to face the wall. Then, dropping his jeans, he knelt beside Georgie, gently easing off her bikini bottoms. Burying his face in her breasts, breathing in Ambre Solaire, he mumbled, ‘I dreamt and dreamt this would happen. I’m going to be the bridge over the ravine to your new happiness. Don’t cry, it’ll be so lovely. Lie on top of me if the floor’s too hard.’

It had been such agony with Guy that morning that on seeing the splendour of Lysander’s cock, Georgie was terrified he’d never get inside her. But having turned her sideways, with one thigh between his, he spat on his fingers and stroked her so delicately that she was soon bubbling like a hot churn of butter.

‘Oooooh, that’s heavenly,’ she sighed as he slid easily right up inside her. ‘We’re tailor-made. God, what a wonderful cock.’

Lysander grinned down at her. ‘It’s an absolute tower of strength,’ he whispered and Georgie got such giggles he came and she didn’t.

‘God, that was magic.’ Lysander filled their glasses with tepid champagne. ‘I’m sorry. I should have kept