Free Appassionata by Jilly Cooper Page A

appalled.
    ‘That’s more than my best stallion gets for covering a mare. “Con” is the operative word.’
    Remembering Abby’s c.v., Rupert gazed into her eyes. They were the same pale yellow as the winter jasmine growing round the drawing-room window at Penscombe, but the irises were ringed with black, and the brilliant whites lined with the thickest dark lashes. Rannaldini had compelling hypnotic eyes, too; perhaps it was essential for a maestro.
    ‘I hear you want to conduct.’
    ‘So I don’t have to put up with schmucks like tonight.’
    ‘Isn’t it enough being a genius at the violin?’
    ‘Genius is never enough,’ said Abby haughtily. ‘I want power.’
    ‘Nice scent,’ Rupert buried his nose in her wrist. ‘What’s it called – raw ambition? Your poxy agent doesn’t want you to come on Declan’s programme. You’d enjoy it. Declan’s a lovely man, and Edith Spink’s on our board. She’s a lovely man too.’
    ‘Spink,’ squeaked Abby in excitement, ‘I just adore her Warrior Woman Suite , a genuine talent, Spink, even if slender.’
    ‘I’d hardly call Edith slender. She weighed in at sixteen stone, all of it muscle, at our last board meeting. When she came to my stag-party, she drank everyone else under the table.’
    ‘You’re the dopiest guy.’ Again Abby burst out laughing, leaning back as the waiter laid a fish knife and fork on either side of her Union Jack table mat.
    ‘Don’t you have any control over your life?’ taunted Rupert.
    Abby shrugged and drained her glass.
    ‘I live on a treadmill. Hotel bedroom, airport, concert hall, airport, hotel, recording studio, recital, back to the airport. I know the flight schedules better than the Brahms tonight. I’ve slept in the most beautiful suites in the world, but had no-one to share them with.’
    ‘Lay down your Brahms, and surrender to mine,’ said Rupert lightly.
    Then he looked deep into her eyes, holding them, letting his own narrow slightly – corny old tricks he hadn’t played for years.
    ‘That is a terrible, terrible waste. How did you meet your gaoler?’
    ‘My dad died early. He didn’t make any dough, he never verbalized his feelings, but he cried when he listened to Beethoven and I loved him. Mom isn’t Jewish, right? But she became more of a Jewish Momma after she married Dad. She was the one who pushed me. She still calls after every concert trying to control my life. Christopher heard me playing and signed me up when I was twelve. He took me out of school in the States, found me a good teacher for a year, then packed me off to the Conservatoires in Paris and Russia.’
    Rupert let her run on. It was quite interesting, and he liked looking at her face which had great strength and at her breasts rising out of the halter neck.
    ‘I never had the life of a normal child,’ she added finally, ‘music was the only thing that mattered.’
    ‘And Christopher,’ Rupert plunged his knife into his steak, releasing the blood, ‘how long have you been sleeping with him?’
    Abby looked up in terror, eyes staring, totally thrown.
    ‘How’d you know? Please don’t say anything . Christopher’s phobic about scandal. His wife’s been so darling to me. Mind you, she’s a yachneh,’ then, at Rupert’s raised eyebrows, added dismissively, ‘a housewife with large boobs.’
    ‘I’ve got one of those,’ said Rupert approvingly. ‘Jolly nice too.’
    But Abby was too distraught to laugh. Leaving three-quarters of her sole uneaten, ignoring Christopher’s and Hermione’s looks of disapproval, she lit a cigarette.
    ‘Christopher never sleeps with her,’ she whispered defiantly.
    ‘A husband,’ said Rupert idly,’ is a man who tells his wife he never sleeps with his mistress, and his mistress he never sleeps with his wife. I used to be like that. I’ve got a past longer than the Bible.’
    ‘What happened?’ The burning glow of Abby’s cigarette was jumping round like a firefly in her shaking