He did hold her hand, and she did her best to suppress the shrieks of pain when she trod on something sharp, or stubbed her toe on tree roots. At first she tried hopping on her one sandal, but when she'd lost her balance and nearly dragged them both to the ground she gave that up, and went barefoot. At least that way the pain was shared between both feet.
Doc was ominously silent, until he ordered the dogs into the Range Rover and positively bawled at them to sit. They did, but with such expressions of pained incomprehension Lucy had a job to stop laughing.
'I'll have to beg some towels and dry them off, or they'll be frozen,' he muttered, and they left the dogs and went to the hotel entrance.
Naturally the reception area was full of people when they arrived. There had been some sort of function, and people were just leaving. They had clearly had a good time, and Lucy suspected half of them, at least, were over the limit. She could smell the brandy fumes yards away. And of course, this crowd contained more than the usual number of wags who couldn't resist jokes, none of them funny, some of them offensive. She knew her dress was clinging to her legs, as well as elsewhere, but that didn't give these cretins licence to comment on her figure, or to speculate avidly on what they had been doing to contrive to fall into the river.
The manager bustled out and gave them a horrified look. Perhaps it was as well they wouldn't be coming to this hotel again, now Rosa was a mother-to-be, as she had no doubt the manager would have refused a booking. It wasn't at all the thing for his posh establishment, though with a river a hundred yards away he might have been used to it.
'My dear madam, sir!'
'I'd appreciate a couple of old towels to dry off my dogs,' Doc said, and she'd never heard such ice in anyone's voice. 'I'll be back in ten minutes when I've changed.'
'Yes, sir, of course. What room number? I'll get your key,' he added. He clearly didn't want them spreading river weed and mud as far as the reception desk.
Doc stressed the two room numbers, and took the keys the manager brought.
'And perhaps you'd like us to dry your clothes?'
'Thank you. You can collect them from our rooms in a few minutes. Come, Lucy, you need a hot bath or you'll soon be frozen.'
She hobbled across to the stairs, horridly conscious of the drips she was leaving behind. It didn't help that one of the waitresses appeared carrying one of those monster wet and dry vacuum cleaners and was following their footsteps. Lucy tried not to giggle as she imagined being sucked up as well, but they outdistanced her up the stairs, and were soon in their rooms.
'Goodnight, Lucy,' Doc said as he unlocked her door. 'I'll see you in the morning.'
And so ended her romantic evening. All she would have to remember it by was one kiss. A wonderful kiss, true, but as she lay in the bath she knew it would never be repeated.
*
Her dress would never be the same again. The hotel had probably done their best, but without proper dry cleaning facilities they hadn't been able to get rid of the muddy marks. She didn't dare ask about Doc's suit. At breakfast, which was a somewhat quiet meal, he confined himself to a brief comment about the weather – sunny and windy, a rather forced apology about the behaviour of his dogs – who had been responsible for landing them in the river, and a hope that Flick had found him a new housekeeper.
The dogs, despite the towels the hotel had provided, still looked rather bedraggled, and they needed baths to get rid of the pungent smell of river mud. Doc began to apologise again, but she couldn't help giggling, and he suddenly let out a roar of laughter.
'Oh, Lucy, I felt like killing those animals! I shall have to remember not to take them with me again on a romantic evening.'
What was she to make of this? Did he mean any romantic evening, or was he contemplating more with her? She decided to believe the latter, and could barely stop smiling as they drove to collect Rosa from her own romantic encounter.
Graham was supervising a lorry from which piles of fencing boards were being unloaded. He was obviously making sure his llamas stayed in the paddocks where they were put. Lucy supposed it would create havoc with his breeding plans if the stud animals had unrestricted access to the females.
He left the lorry and came to meet them, beaming.
'I hope you'll invite me to come and see Cappuccino's cria next year,' he said. 'I want to keep tabs on all his offspring.'
'Sure, I'll let you know. Can I get past the lorry to hitch up the horsebox?'
'They'll be finished in ten minutes. Come and have some coffee while we're waiting.'
They were on their way to the house when several of the llamas began making a noise. It sounded rather like an elderly man laughing, but it made Graham turn to look back towards the paddocks.
'What the devil!'
'What is it?' Doc asked.
'That's their alarm call. They do it when they see anything they don't like, strange dogs, or a fox. Your dogs are safe in the car, aren't they?'
'Of course.' Doc sounded annoyed.
Lucy was looking round, to see what could have alarmed them, when she heard a whooshing noise, then, floating silently over the house, came a monstrous red and yellow striped hot air balloon. A man was leaning out of the basket, gesturing, but the balloon was drifting lower and lower, and she didn't know what he thought they could do about it.
It was heading straight for the paddocks, and Graham was running towards them, but he was too late. The llamas had scattered, most of them leaping over the fences and racing away towards the woods on one side and the driveway and garden on the other. Rosa was well in the lead heading for the woods.
*
By the time they captured her it was late afternoon and Lucy had lost all her fears of llamas. She'd met so many of them as Doc and she trailed after Rosa. Graham had called them back as they first set off after her.
'Here, take some halters, or you'll never be able to get them back,' he shouted, heading for one of the barns.
Moments later he reappeared and flung a pile of rope halters into their arms.
'Makes sense, I suppose,' Doc said.
The men in the balloon, which had by now landed in the paddock where Rosa had had her romantic tryst, were shouting for help as they tried to make the thing collapse. Graham turned to his wife who had emerged from the house.
'Get their details,' he snapped. 'If any of the llamas are injured they'll be sued for compensation.'
He collected another bundle of halters, handed them out to his stable lads who had all run up from where they had been working, and they set off towards the garden and driveway. Doc and Lucy followed Rosa.
She was soon lost amongst the trees, but Doc was reassuring. There was a high wall between the wood, which had once been the park of a large estate, and the road beyond.
'Let's hope it's in good repair,' Lucy muttered. 'What do we do with these others?' She pushed away a dark brown female who was trying to nibble at her hair.
'Put a halter on, and then tie her to a tree. We'll collect them later, we can't afford the time to take each one back.'
She disentangled one of the ropes, and after a bit of experimenting found the right way of slipping it over the llama's face and ears, and fastening it. Luckily the llama didn't seem to object to Lucy's inexperience, but she had a bit of a struggle to lead the animal over to the nearest tree. Eventually she managed to anchor her, and set off after another she could see happily grazing on a young beech tree. Briefly she wondered whether, like giraffes, they had grown their necks long so that they could reach up into the trees. She knew so little about them, but was getting interested, and could see the fascination they were for Doc.
By the time they had captured a dozen each it was several hours later and they were exhausted, but they hadn't found Rosa. Doc and Lucy met near the boundary wall and compared notes.
'I'm sure she isn't in this side of the wood,' he said, 'but she could have been moving round, circling us. Look, you take the ones we've got back to the paddocks,
and perhaps she'll follow. I'll have another look round here.'
Leading several llamas at a time was not the easiest of jobs. Lucy decided that she'd start with two in each hand, but even that was tricky, as they were inclined to pull, and they were strong brutes. Slowly, with several stops to untangle them when they got the halter ropes crossed, she got them back to where Graham was supervising the removal of the balloon onto a pickup truck which, she assumed, belonged to the men and was their transport for taking the balloon back to base.
The balloonists were both talking, and she gathered something had gone wrong with the gas so that had not been able to reach a safe height.
'We were lucky we didn't come down in the river,' one of them said.
'If any of my llamas are injured you'll wish you'd come down in the middle of the Arctic sea,' Graham said.
He turned and saw Lucy. 'Is that all you've caught?'
She was getting fed up with this. 'There's a lot more tethered to trees, and I suggest you send your lads to fetch them. They might be able to lead more than four at once. And I'm not one of your stable lads. I'm going to help Doc look for Rosa. She still hasn't been found.'
She handed him the halters and turned away before he could object. If Doc did buy any more llamas she sincerely hoped he would get them from someone else. She could understand Graham's worry, but there was no cause for him to treat her to his bad temper. After all, they had no responsibility for any llamas apart from Rosa.
She went back through the woods, and eventually found Doc at the far edge, with Rosa. He was talking to her in a gentle voice she hadn't heard before, stroking her neck and rubbing noses with her. She seemed to like it, by the satisfied look on her face. Lucy wished he would do the same for her.
'Will you drive home tonight?' she asked. 'It'll be midnight before we get there. And we haven't had any lunch, and I'm starving.'
He laughed. 'We'll find a room somewhere. I'm not leaving Rosa here any longer, I don't think much of Graham's security. She'll be OK in the horsebox for one night in a private car park. Let's go. He can sort out the mess.'
She was too busy analysing the singular room to reply. Did he mean one room, to share? Suddenly her heartbeats accelerated, and she was breathless. Had she put on her best underwear this morning? For the life of her she couldn't remember.
As they walked back towards the paddocks she tried to pull her tee shirt away from her shoulder, bending to peek at her bra. Was she wearing the red one Doc had seen on her laundry, or a utilitarian white one. Then she caught Doc glancing at her in amusement.
'Have you been stung?' he asked.
She tried to sound nonchalant, even though she knew her face was as red as the bra she'd discovered she wasn't wearing.
'Just rather hot after all that exercise, trying to get a through breeze.'
He grinned, and she suspected he wasn't fooled by her excuses. 'Perhaps you need another dip in the river.'
*
The dogs were frantic with relief when they got back to them, so as soon as they were safely away from the farm Doc took them for a walk while Lucy set out the second lot of picnic things. The ice bags had all melted, and the packets of food were sloshing around in water, but they'd been wrapped up well and had survived. They were both ravenous and soon polished it all off.
After another hour Doc drove through some rather ornate gates and drew up in front of a lovely Georgian house which had been turned into a very up-market hotel.
'Hang on, Lucy, while I see what they have available.'
She gulped. Did she want separate rooms or not? Now it was crunch time, what would happen if they had to share? Then she told herself not to be a wimp. Hadn't she lusted after Doc from the first moment she'd seen him? So why was she being coy? This was her chance, and it could be the only one she'd get, so if she didn't want a lifetime's regret she'd better make the most of it.
Doc was soon back, speaking to her through the window of the Range Rover.
'Just one room, I'm afraid. Do you object to sharing?'
'Er, um, er, no, of course not.' She tried not to sound too eager.
'I'll be a proper little gentleman, I won't jump on you,' he said, and grinned, but he had a wicked gleam in his eye.
He'd better be careful she didn't jump on him.
'Isn't this rather posh? I don't have another dress and the other one's not fit to be seen in any restaurant. I can't dine in jeans and a tee shirt.'
'Neither is my suit wearable. I doubt it ever will be. We'll order room service.'
They were shown to a huge bedroom furnished with real antiques. The bed and the bathroom, though, she was relieved to see, were both modern. The porter set down the cases and backed out of the room. Lucy wandered over to the window. It looked over the back of the house, which had lawns sloping down to a lake. She determined not to go anywhere near it. She didn't want another ducking to spoil a promising situation.
'I'll go and feed Rosa, and see she's OK,' Doc said. 'Make the most of the bathroom.'
She did. After all the chasing of llamas that afternoon she was aching and felt sticky, so the deep bath, soft hot water, and oodles of toiletries were very welcome. She poured whole bottles of bath essence into the water and soaked. She shampooed her hair, made use of the conditioner, and then wrapped herself in a huge fluffy towelling robe while she used the hair dryer.
She was wondering whether to put on the same clothes, or whether a fresh tee shirt would be too much when Doc came in.
He lifted his head and sniffed. 'This smells like a brothel!'
'How many brothels have you been in? No, don't tell me. I expect you have a whole chain of them, above your delicatessens. Though this sort of smell might overwhelm the garlic sausages.'
'I can see I'll have to consult you when I expand my business empire. Oddly, I hadn't thought of brothels. Do you advise it?'
'That's up to you.'
He grinned. 'I'll brave the bathroom for a shower. Were there any manly smellies in there? Or did you use all of them? Here,' he handed her a menu, 'choose what you want and we'll order it when I've showered. And don't bother to get dressed again. That robe looks very fetching.'
She shivered, but not from cold. She was still cosily warm from the bath. This looked promising. She concentrated on the menu. Avocado, she saw. And asparagus. Did many aphrodisiacs start with A, or could one work through the whole alphabet? This time she decided to be brave. Pity there were no oysters. Or was that because there was no R in the month?
Doc came out in a matching robe, read the menu and telephoned the order.
'It's early, but I fancy an early night after all that exertion,' he said.
Did he? He was a farmer, used to hard work, and walking through those woods couldn't have been as tiring for him as for her. Did he really mean what she suspected?
There were two chairs facing the view from the window, and she'd retreated to one. Doc came and sat beside her. The chairs were close together, and he stretched out and grasped her hand.
'Lucy, you've been great. Most girls would have made far more fuss after being pushed into the river. Then I have you chasing llamas all day. Are you tired?'
Would Alice have made a fuss? Hastily she pushed the thought away. She did not want to think about Alice, especially if the evening went as she hoped. Did he really mean tired as in weary, or as in wanting to get into bed soon?
'There wouldn't have been much point, would there? I can make a fuss if by doing so I can change things, but yelling about an accident wouldn't have made the river go away.'
'Or dry up. I was mortified. I thought I'd trained the dogs not to jump up, but I can see I have a lot more work to do. I meant helping with the llamas too. You're not afraid of them now? Flick said you seemed terrified the first time you met Rosa.'
'I was. Wouldn't you have been, if you'd never seen a llama in the flesh before, and it was invading your kitchen?'
He was playing with her fingers, tracing circles in her palm wit
h his thumb, and she found it rather difficult to concentrate.
Then there was a knock on the door, and when Doc admitted the waiter it was with a bottle of champagne.
'To celebrate Rosa's initiation into the joys of sex,' he said after the waiter had departed and he was pouring the champagne into two flutes.
She enjoyed champagne, but with them both holding glasses there was less manoeuvring possible for physical contact. She recalled her wanton thoughts about having champagne dribbled on her stomach, and shuddered. What a waste of good wine that would have been. Surely you could create the same effects with a glass of fizzy mineral water.
They'd almost finished the bottle when a whole parade of waiters arrived with a trolley, a table, silverware, a branch of candles, an ice bucket, and another bottle of champagne. With efficient ceremony they set out the meal, lit burners under the dishes to keep the food lot, and bowed themselves away.
'Bon appétit, and good night. Just push the trolley into the corridor when you've finished, and you won't be disturbed again,' the one who seemed to be the head waiter, since he had done nothing but stand around watching the others, said as he backed out and gently closed the door.
She'd wondered if she'd be able to eat for excitement, especially as they'd had the picnic late in the afternoon, but the food was so delicious she had no problems. As they finished the last of the Belgian chocolates with the coffee Lucy sighed with satisfaction.
'That was wonderful.'
'It's going to be even more wonderful, if you want it,' Doc said. 'I didn't plan a king-sized bed, and if you prefer me to be the little gentleman and stuff pillows down the centre, I'll do it and suffer.'
She couldn't speak, but held out her hands to him. He pulled her out of her chair, and drew her close. This kiss was as wonderful as the previous one. Gradually, so slowly that she was almost screaming with frustration, he slipped the robe from her shoulders, and drew it down over her arms, holding the edges so that his hands traced the swell of her breasts, down, ever so slowly, to her stomach.
She was clutching him, trying to tear off his robe, but he held her to him so closely she couldn't get her hands between them. Then he bent and began to nuzzle one breast. She arched against his lips, and suddenly her robe was pooled on the floor around her feet. She was panting with desire, and when he lifted her and carried her over to the bed she almost cried out as they collapsed onto it together.
Mating the Llama Page 14
