The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous by Jilly Cooper

started to make his pile and began climbing socially, she got Weybridged and dressed like the Queen, eating too many white chocolates, and throwing herself into charity work like a rugger ball with a difficult bounce.'
        'Why are you telling me all this?'
        'Hang on there
        is a reason.'
        Driving on up the hill Ferdie pulled into a gap. Through the trees across the valley half a mile to the right of Valhalla they could see a Georgian house, smaller than Fleetley, but exquisitely proportioned, with soaring stone angels on each corner of the roof.
        'That house, Angel's Reach, was totally unmodernized with a fantastic wild garden,' said Ferdie. 'It's been bought by Georgie Maguire and her husband, Guy Seymour, who are spending an absolute fortune on it.'
        Lysander opened a bloodshot eye. 'Even I've heard her. Wasn't she a pop singer in the sixties? Mum had all her records.'
        'That's right. Now she writes songs as well.'
        'I've always thought she was seriously attractive,' said Lysander.
        'Georgie and Guy paid a million five.' Ferdie edged the car on until they could see a long lake glinting gold ill the falling sun below the house.
        'My guess is they can't afford it, but they're gambling on her new album, which is produced by Larry Lockton and Catchitune, being a massive hit.'
        'Aren't Georgie and Guy supposed to be the happiest couple in show business?' sighed Lysander enviously.:
        'Which probably means they're both screwing around,' said Ferdie cynically.
        Lysander shook his head in bewilderment. 'It's quite awful. What's the point of getting married if you spend your time bonking other people?'
        This monstrous regiment of womanizers,' said Ferdie with a shrug. 'Paradise husbands ring up from London on Thursdays to remind the housekeepers to get their wives out of the freezer so they'll be unfrosted by the time the master returns on Friday night.'
        'Why the hell do the wives put up with it?' asked Lysander with a shudder. 'At least Dad didn't bonk other women.'
        'When your husband's as rich as Croesus, you get used to a certain lifestyle and you can't bear to give it up.'
        'I've got Croesus in my face,' said Lysander, peering gloomily in the driving mirror. 'Let's go home, Ferd, I want to see Dolly and explain about The Scorpion before she goes into orbit. This place is seriously depressing.'
        'It is,' said Ferdie, swinging the car round, 'particularly for someone like Marigold Lockton. She loves that shit Larry to distraction, and that's where you come in. You're going to be her toy boy.'
        'How old is she?'
        'About thirty-eight.'
        'I can't bonk an old wrinkly like that,' said Lysander in outrage.
        'You're not going to bonk her, just hang about and rattle her husband, and make him so jealous he'll come roaring back. It worked with Boris Levitsky and Elmer Winterton. This time you're going to get paid.'
        'Don't be ridiculous,' snapped Lysander. 'I can't get a husband back if the marriage is dead. You can't reheat baked potatoes.'
        'First you've got to look at the wife,' said Ferdie. 'If she's gone to seed, you unseed her, and make her look like a mistress. Put back the gleam in her eye, let her taunt her husband with a scented body that's quivering with lust for someone else.' Ferdie rubbed the windscreen which was steaming up. 'Get the weight off,get her some decent clothes (I bet there's a raver lurking beneath Marigold's polyester V-necks). Above all, make her stop nagging and act detached. No more flying leaps to catch the telephone on the first ring.'
        'You've really studied this.' Lysander looked at Ferdie with new respect as they drew up outside the big electric gates of Paradise Grange.
        'We are about to repackage and remarket a product, said Ferdie. 'Let's go see Marigold.'
        Up a long drive through splendid