ROBERTO RANNALDINI

One of the world’s greatest conductors. Musical director of the London Met and a very evil genius.

KITTY RANNALDINI

His much younger third wife who runs his life like clockwork.

WOLFGANG RANNALDINI

Rannaldini’s son from his first marriage, a good sort.

NATASHA RANNALDINI

Rannaldini’s daughter from his second marriage: a handful in all senses of the word.

CECILIA RANNALDINI

Rannaldini’s second wife and a world famous diva. Given to throwing plates and tantrums.

GUY SEYMOUR

A bishop’s son and Georgie Maguire’s very decent and rather unlikely husband. Owner of London art gallery and nurser of talent.

FLORA SEYMOUR

Guy’s and Georgie’s wild child.

MEREDITH WHALEN

A highly expensive gay interior designer, known as the Ideal Homo because he’s always being asked as a spare man for deserted wives at Paradise dinner parties.

ELMER WINTERTON

American Security billionaire. Chief executive of Safus Houses Inc. and a philandering Palm Beach polo patron.

MARTHA WINTERTON

His ravishing neglected second wife.

1

Lysander Hawkley appeared to have everything. At twenty-two, he was tall, broad-shouldered, heart-stoppingly handsome, wildly affectionate, with a wall-to-wall smile that withered women. In January 1990 at the finals of a Palm Beach polo tournament, this hero of our time was lying slumped on a Prussian-blue rug in the pony lines sleeping off the excesses of the night before.

The higher the standard of polo the better looking tend to be both grooms and ponies. On this punishingly hot, muggy day, all around Lysander beautiful girls in Prussian-blue shirts and baseball caps were engaged in the frantic activity of getting twenty-four ponies ready for the match.