As a teenager I devoured, in private and with a tinge of shame, my local library’s entire collection of Mills & Boon, so it was a relief to discover that, according to a recent survey conducted on behalf of the Costa Book Awards, 85 per cent of us have a guilty-secret author whose work we read avidly but never in public.
Perhaps there are some closet Jilly Cooper fans out there; some of you made a mightily convincing stab at taking off the queen of the racy romp. I liked Tom Durrheim’s Violet Elizabeth swooning over William’s ‘hard magnetism: the square shoulders, the tousled hair, the glittering eyes that twinkled with eternal mischief’, and J. Seery’s saucy Romeo.
The winners, printed below, get £25 each. W.J. Webster shows true bonkbuster potential, but the extra fiver belongs to a nicely understated William Danes-Volkov.
Bathsheba heard a horse, and went out. The rider did not stop, but turned towards the sheep field. As he passed, Gabriel looked down at her. Bathsheba avoided his gaze, but her eyes were drawn again to the thighs in their smooth jodhpurs, pressing close to the horse’s sweating flanks.
In the field Gabriel flung off his coat and shirt, and the sun caught the little silver chain that nestled in the soft hair on his chest. In his hand was the pricker, ready to release the gas from the dying sheep. He knelt, running his left hand across the distended stomach. Bathsheba watched, fascinated, as he stabbed the pointed knife, with its circular sheath, into the panting sheep. With a jerk of his hand he pulled the knife out, leaving the tube in place. The gas rushed out, and the sheep lay back, breathing easier now, in its gratitude.
William Danes-Volkov
The Islamic hordes were making their superior numbers count, but the desperate state of battle was the last thing on Roland’s mind. Things looked bad, but it was the Middle Ages. You couldn’t expect a stable existence. The one thing that lasted was love.
He thought again of Oliver, his second self, his ideal. So different in some ways — steadfast and patient where he, Roland, was all fire and air, wise beyond his years yet with a youthful spirit of optimism, a brave, strong and reassuring presence with superb pecs. They complemented one another. Oh, women were all right in their way, but Oliver…
A vision possessed him of Oliver showering off under a waterfall after their last hard ride. It was so vivid, so intimate, that the noise of battle faded, and he was deaf to the voices that begged him to blow his horn.
Basil Ransome-Davies
‘I’m no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut in Thornfield orchard,’ Rochester rasped, his hand straying ‘blindly’ to my buttock. ‘What right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?’
‘You’re still brimful of sap,’ I laughed, ‘and ramrod straight from the shock of that lightning bolt if I’m any judge.’
‘So you’ll marry me? A crippled man 20 years older than you whom you’ll have to lead about by the…’
‘Steady yourself, sir,’ I laughed coquettishly. ‘I love you better now I can be really useful to you, because you’ll be jolly useful to me. I’ll require caviar, champagne, international travel; all the little luxuries we shall easily afford once married.’
‘Oh yes!’ he ejaculated keenly. ‘Hitherto I’ve hated to be led, but with you, my own dear Jane, I find the prospect uniquely stimulating.’
In both senses, readers, I screwed him.
Adrian Fry
Izzy gazed down at the slightly choppy sea, her blonde hair framing her beautiful face. Poor dear Brangwyn had gone for a lie-down. Of course she would marry Mark, she thought. OK, he was a bit wrinkly, but all that property in Cornwall — she’d live like a queen. Only Daddy’s Dublin business was bigger. Mind you, Mark should have thought twice before sending that dishy young sales manager over with the yacht to fetch her — Izzy thought of his bronzed face and those twinkling eyes. And there he was beside her.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘What is there?’
‘Only aphrodisiac,’ he joked. ‘Actually, there’s a rather decent Chablis.’
Later, when the storm was over (she had hardly noticed the real one outside), she thought to herself: “What the hell! Mark can provide the money and Tristram can supply the rest! This isn’t the Middle Ages, after all.’
Brian Murdoch
As they lay on the tough, springy heather, she slipped her hand under his shirt and ran slender fingers through the matted hair on his chest. Somewhere in the valley below a dog began to bark. He turned his gaze on her. ‘Maria, my Maria,’ he murmured. ‘For thee I’d move heaven and earth.’
‘Heaven can wait until I die,’ she said gently. ‘Now I only wish thee to make the earth move.’
Silently, in one lithe movement he took her, his shaft thrusting into hers, and the long, deep shuddering began.
O-O-O-O-O-Olé!
Later Robert brushed his lips softly against the downy bristle of her eyebrows. ‘Did it truly move for thee, my love?’
‘Oh yes, yes. Off the Richter scale.’
He smiled, stroking a finger down her cheek. Her eyelids, closed against the sun, quivered a little.
‘Olé me again,’ she breathed.
W.J. Webster
No. 2500: Spoiled sport
‘There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight …’ Not any more. You are invited to describe in Newboltian terms the aural and visual antics of a modern-day Test match (including, if you wish, reference to the goings-on in Mesopotamia). Eight, 16 or 24 lines. Entries by 25 June to ‘Competition 2500’ or e-mail to lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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