A Mills-and-Boon love story in parts
A Mills-and-Boon love story in parts
India is set to be the biggest English-language book-buying market in the world. At the forefront of this readers' revolution is Mills & Boon -- the publisher launched here two years ago. Its India manager told The Guardian newspaper in London: "The low hanging fruit for us is the single working woman who has money in her hands, the liberty to read, no responsibilities yet, no husband, children and so on." Here's our tribute to Mills & Boon.u00a0
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Thrust of a stallion
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"I can't believe it's him," said Penelope Swiss, looking across the bar at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park. "It's the Count."
"I told you he'd be here," said Marion, her new friend, nonchalantly.
The pair met when Marion, a cousin of the King of Albania, and a countess in her own right, of Bulzheet, had arrived at London's Chelsea & Westminster Hospital on a Saturday night a week or two before.
The Countess had fallen from the first-floor balcony of her flat in Hyde Park Mansions and broken her tiara -- it could have been worse had a Mercedes ferrying Vladimir Lebvedev, a Russian billionaire, not pulled up and buffered her fall.
"A woman on top of the car sir," Frank, Lebvedev's driver, had said. A burly Cockney in his sixties, Frank chewed paan -- a habit he'd picked up from a neighbour in Tooting.u00a0u00a0
Lebvedev, tired after a hard day's work, taking over a national newspaper and opening a chicken battery, examined the picture of the woman on top of his car that Frank presented to him on his iPhone.
Recognising her from a party at the embassy of a Soviet republic he had once tried to buy but couldn't remember the name of, Lebvedev invited the Countess to drop on to his vehicle anytime and then instructed Frank to take her to hospital.
u00a0 Penelope, a nurse who humbled the most senior consultants with her puppy eyes and plump, red lips and ample bosom, recognised the Countess from Hello! magazine among the sprawl of bar brawlers and old people who had hurt themselves and were waiting to be seen.
"We can't have the Countess in there," she told Dr Nirmal Singh, a young man with the sexual energy if not the confidence of a Mongolian pony during mating season. As ever, he was distracted by Penelope's physique, drooling over how her tight uniform hugged her hips and the curves of her breasts.
"It's a scandal," she implored. "People will clock who she is and take pictures and tomorrow we'll be in the Mail. And look, her tiara's broken. Bless."
The Countess was slumped next to a Polish man in blue overalls who had his arm around her as she snored, spit dripping out of her mouth. His thumb was bandaged, reddened by blood. They looked an odd pair whose attempt at courting across social classes had gone awry -- the tiara was now on his head.
Penelope rushed in to pluck it, and her, away from him.
"It's definitely a fracture," said Dr Nirmal, with a grim face, trying to suppress the thought that he, the Countess and Penelope could elope to the Alps, spend their days skiing and their nights playing Scrabble in front of a crackling log fireu2026u00a0u00a0u00a0 and hopefully there would be wireless access.
"There's not much we can do for it here, you need a jeweller," he said, beads of sweat forming on his brow.
"I need this fixed," the Countess slurred.
"Look at my finger," the good doctor ordered, "this way, that way". No brain damage, he decided, other than that caused by her Chelsea upbringing. She was duly discharged and so, nearly, was he.
Penelope took the Countess home in a cab and settled the fare. Now, to return the favour, the Countess had brought her to the Mandarin Oriental where no other than Count Sebastian Complimenti was necking cashew nuts at the bar and sipping a dram of scotch. His eyes caught hers and both felt an itch behind the ear and, in the abdominal area, the uncontrollable charge of a randy mare towards her stallion.
To be continued...
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