Country Rivals

by Zara Stoneley

  Rory raised a questioning eyebrow, so Lottie answered for him. ‘Of course he is. They’ve done really well today, haven’t you?’ She took the letter.

  ‘Good luck at getting round. I’ve heard it’s a tight course for a big horse.’ And with those words of encouragement, Dom neatly turned his car around and headed home.

  Chapter 29

  Dominic had known. He lay awake, Amanda’s warm body alongside his, and knew. He’d always faced his problems alone, preferring to keep his feelings to himself, until he’d met Amanda. Then he’d discovered that sharing them with her made him stronger.

  He needed her comfort now, but didn’t want to wake her up. She’d had enough sleepless nights and uncomfortable days as she’d battled through the early stages of her pregnancy, being as sick as a dog every single day, but not complaining.

  It had been the same when she’d been carrying Alice, and the idea of doing it all again had frightened him. He didn’t want to see her suffer. But she’d been determined, and with her soft calm voice had told him it would be worth it. One more child.

  He hadn’t been the one feeling like death warmed up every day for months, but he could understand why she was willing to go through it all again. The brain forgot, forgave, or the population wouldn’t be growing at the rate it was. Most people would stop at one, otherwise.

  Alice was as easy to love as her mother – thoughtful, quiet, and undemanding. So unlike her grandmother.

  He shifted slightly so that he could wrap his arm around Amanda. He knew what he was doing. Concentrating on life instead of death, avoiding thinking about his stern, aristocratic mother. Lady Elizabeth Stanthorpe. She’d never been one to show emotion, to be demonstrative. It was all about the stiff upper lip, carrying on regardless, but he’d never felt unloved. A squeeze from her hand, the nod of approval – they came, and the little gestures meant so much.

  Dom, never one to show emotion himself, felt the unshed tears burn at the back of his eyes. For a moment, when he’d gone to say goodbye, her grip had been firm. Her fingers curling around his hand like talons, but it had been fleeting. When he bent to kiss her, an unheard of gesture, the same hand had rested on his neck. Keeping him there. And he knew, as her words whispered their way quietly into his head.

  ‘There’s a letter in my bag, Dominic. Charlotte needs to read it. I know I don’t have to ask you to promise, you’ve always been a good boy. You’ve never let me down. I’m so glad you found Amanda, she will always be there for you. I did worry when you were younger and alone.’

  ‘She’s wonderful. I’m lucky.’

  ‘You are wonderful too, Dominic. Go home to Amanda, she will be wondering where you are.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘There’s only one thing you can do, Dominic. Tell them I need to go home, I must go home. Please.’ She didn’t let go. ‘Tell them.’

  ‘I’ll try. We’ll see you tomorrow, Mum.’ He moved, back slightly, searched those once-sharp eyes, which were watery, misted. Old.

  ‘You will.’ She paused to cough. ‘See me.’ Then she closed her eyes and released her hold on him. And he knew.

  Dom had kept his hand resting on his mobile phone all night and when it vibrated gently into life below his fingers, he knew what time it was before he glanced at the clock. Four in the morning – prime dying time. He’d told them to ring whatever time it was, any change, good or bad. But nobody rang in the middle of the night with good news.

  Amanda murmured as he slipped out of bed and went downstairs to take the call.

  ‘Dom.’

  ‘Shush, darling. Get some sleep, I won’t be long.’

  * * *

  The call was brief. Dominic was dressed and waiting at the door to Tipping House, with Lottie and Rory alongside him, when the ambulance arrived.

  With the moon casting a cold shimmer over the lake Lady Elizabeth Stanthorpe arrived back at her beloved home and was tucked up in bed with her Bertie at the foot and her granddaughter and son on either side.

  She sighed, a gentle flutter of sound, a butterfly beat in the stillness. ‘That’s better. Much better.’

  Chapter 30

  ‘She never liked goodbyes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you think she knew she was going to …?’ Lottie sensed rather than heard her Uncle Dominic’s sigh.

  ‘I do. That’s why she wanted to get home so urgently. She knew her heart was damaged. Mother hadn’t got it in her to live a half-life. She wouldn’t have wanted to carry on if she couldn’t live life to the full, walk the dogs, and give us grief.’ He tried to smile. ‘Lying incapacitated in bed wasn’t quite her style, was it?’

  He squeezed her hand and they watched together as Lady Elizabeth Stanthorpe was laid to rest.

  The church had overflowed. Everybody in the village, almost without exception, turned out – some loved her, some admired her, some respected her, but all had been impacted by her presence in Tippermere. Those that couldn’t squeeze into the pews stood in the summer sun, listening to the words that drifted out through the open doors.

  Now they lined the small graveyard. There had been no new-fangled requests from Elizabeth for her mourners to dress in bright colours, there were no modern songs serenading her departure. Elizabeth died as she had lived her life, with old-fashioned dignity, but with a certain mischievousness that was reflected in her demands that Bertie attend the service, that Roxy and Alice arrive with their ponies, and that Pip be included via Skype over a rather intermittent Wi-Fi connection that left her singing out of sync with the rest of the congregation.

  As Lottie stared at the dark, newly dug earth she couldn’t quite get to grips with the fact that Elizabeth had actually gone. That they would never, ever see her again.

  The time between her death and the funeral had passed in a haze. She’d been stumbling through thick fog, unable to see or understand what was going on around her. But Rory had steered her through it, managed any problems with the film crew, sorted the horses, and made sure that somebody was with her every second of the day.

  Now Lottie shook hands, accepted kisses, and murmured words of regret, and all she could think was – she’s gone. The one constant in her life. Our family is our strength, Gran had said, but it was Elizabeth who’d been strongest of all. And now the strongest link had been broken.

  Rory squeezed her hand, a constant reassuring presence through the meticulously organised wake. Elizabeth had left detailed instructions on her funeral, the wake, everything, Lottie realised, apart from how they coped afterwards. She’d not said what to do when everybody had gone. How to cope the next day when you turned around, expecting her to be there. What you did when you had a question nobody else could answer, how to comfort Bertie as he wandered around inconsolable and lost.

  There was no manual to help when you spotted her wellingtons in the boot room. Smelled her distinctive cologne that clung to the house with a ghostly embrace. Spotted the walking stick abandoned in the hallway.

  It was early evening before peace descended on the Tipping House Estate. Bertie had finally settled, stretched out in front of Elizabeth’s favourite chair, his head on his paws, his eyebrows lifting and his tail beating the floor at the slightest sound. Ever hopeful.

  ‘The letter.’ Lottie frowned. She’d forgotten all about the letter that Dom had delivered.

  ‘Tomorrow.’ Rory pulled her tighter against his body. ‘You’re tired.’

  ‘I can’t just sit here thinking about …’ She pulled free, sending the dogs scurrying in all directions, and went in search of the letter, which she knew she’d put somewhere safe after reading it.

  When she’d first read it, in bed after returning from the hospital, she’d skimmed over the words. Expected Elizabeth to be around to suggest what she should do.

  The heat of tears unexpectedly filled her eyes and she brushed them away with the back of her hand wearily. She couldn’t just keep crying. Gran would be cross.

  Harry followed her aroun
d with a look of hope in his brown eyes, his tail doing a slow wag. ‘You’ve already been for a run.’ The wags speeded up. ‘Oh there it is, on the kitchen table.’ She made her way back to Rory, who moved the terriers off the seat to make room for her, and unfolded the letter. ‘I want you to see this. We need to talk about it.’

  ‘Okay.’ The word was long and drawn out and she glanced at him.

  ‘You look totally knackered.’

  ‘I am.’ He ran his fingers through his hair and gave a tired grin. ‘Pooped.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a girly word.’

  ‘I feel a bit of a girl right now. Come on, then, show me the letter.’

  There were two pages in the envelope. The first, an enquiry about The Tipping House Estate on behalf of an unnamed potential buyer. The second was an email from Pip, who had done some digging, as instructed by Elizabeth.

  Rory hadn’t read either. If he was completely honest he’d completely forgotten about the mystery mail as events had taken over. He had been caught up in consoling Lottie whilst grieving himself, caught unawares by the thump to his gut, by the sheer weight of emotion that had enveloped the whole house. The phrase ‘tearing the heart out’ had suddenly meant something.

  He took the pages from Lottie. She’d not told him what they contained – just said they needed to talk about it. Now he read them, and then read them again, to be sure.

  ‘Fucking hell, that’s her game is it?’ He gave a low whistle. ‘Pandora wants to buy this place?’

  ‘I told you she did. She wants you and this place. She wants everything.’

  He glanced sideways at her, but she didn’t look like she was about to cry. She looked cross and determined, like Elizabeth.

  ‘Well she definitely isn’t having me. I’m all yours.’

  Lottie gave the first signs of a smile. ‘She’s not having any of it, the cow.’

  ‘Do you think she even has the money?’

  ‘Well Seb might have.’

  ‘I bet she’s not even told him. He’d never want to live here. He hates fresh air. Are you sure Pip has got her facts right?’

  ‘Have you ever known her be wrong? She should be a private investigator not a journalist. Anyhow, look, she says here that it wasn’t hard to find out who had asked the agent to write and enquire. She just rang them up and acted ditsy.’

  ‘Ditsy?’ He laughed. ‘Doesn’t sound like a word you’d apply to Pip.’

  ‘Thick, dippy, you know she just acted stupid and said she was ringing on Pandora’s behalf to check if they’d had a response from us yet.’

  ‘But how did she know …’

  ‘Gran just had an inkling that it was Pandora,’ she paused to let the wobble go out of her voice. ‘Look she says that in her message to Pip, she also says if it isn’t Pandora, then it doesn’t matter, we should just ignore it.’ She purposefully didn’t read out Elizabeth’s exact words, reading them would bring her back. She wrote in exactly the same way she spoke. Precise, to the point, but correct. If she read them, she’d hear her in her head and that would be it.

  ‘Maybe we should just ignore it anyway, even though it’s Pandora?’

  ‘No.’ Lottie sighed and let Harry join the pile of dogs on the sofa with them. ‘I need to confront this and stop it once and for all.’

  ‘But you could just say no.’ Rory frowned. ‘I mean, you’re already in discussions with those other people who want to buy it, so she’s too late anyway.’

  ‘No, look at the name.’

  Rory looked and wasn’t any the wiser.

  ‘Rory, it’s the same people that the solicitors have been talking to. Pandora is the buyer we’ve been negotiating with.’

  ‘You’re kidding? Shit.’

  ‘When I saw Gran at the hospital she insisted I didn’t rush into anything. This is why, Rory, she knew. It didn’t make sense at the time. I wondered what she was going on about when she said something about signing my life away being easy. She kept saying I had more time than I realised and not to rush, and she said it when we chatted after the village show as well. She was trying to warn me. We’ve got to stop. No way could we be Pandora’s tenants, can you imagine it?’

  Rory stared. ‘No way. We’ve not committed to anything, have we?’

  ‘Nope. It’s not quite got to that stage yet.’

  ‘Then there has to be alternative, another buyer, anything.’

  She looked him in the eye. ‘Gran thought Pandora was somehow connected with the fire too.’

  ‘Fire?’ She had Rory’s full attention now. ‘She tried to burn our bloody home down?’

  ‘Well Gran didn’t exactly say that.’ Lottie had to be honest. ‘But she said Pandora had been talking to the guy who we think did it, and she got Tab and Jamie to do some digging on Facebook ‘cos that’s where he’s been boasting about the fire serving us right, and about knowing a film star. What if she put him up to it?’

  ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘No, but I need to know why she did that. Gran also reckoned that Pandora had been trying to cause trouble between us.’

  ‘So she wasn’t after my sexy body after all?’ He grinned.

  ‘Well I think she is, actually, and she did make sure that story about the two of you got in the paper.’

  ‘And she sent Xander in to woo you.’

  ‘Woo, who says woo these days?’

  Rory grinned. ‘So it could be her behind the story of your childhood romance too.’

  ‘We didn’t have a childhood romance. She tricked Xander into coming here. He didn’t know we lived here till it was too late. He used to hate me at school, he didn’t mind coming back to Tippermere, but the last thing he expected was to bump into us.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Rory laughed and squeezed her. ‘Hated you? Fancied the pants off you, more like. I told him to get over it.’

  ‘Ahh so that’s what you were nattering about over the barbecue.’

  ‘That and some other stuff. He’s okay when you get to know him.’

  ‘I told you he was. We need to get everybody together and talk about this.’ Family is our strength. Friends and family. The fight died away in Lottie as abruptly as it had come. She was drained, empty, she didn’t want to fight, she wanted to curl up and cry.

  Rory stood up and held out a hand. ‘We do, soon, and I think we should rope Xander in as well.’

  ‘Xander?’

  ‘Xander, I’ve got a feeling he’ll be happy to help. Now come on, it’s bed time.’

  ‘Rory?’

  ‘Lottie?’ He sat back down and pulled her onto his lap.

  ‘I do love you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I think Mum loved me.’

  ‘I know she loved you, Lottie. How could she not? Your dad told me that she would have done anything for you. He said he’d never seen her as happy as when she was playing with you.’

  ‘Did he? Really?’

  ‘I think the thing he most regrets is not being able to share you with her, not being able to show her the wonderful woman you’ve grown up into. He said he’s not a praying man, but if he was he’d just ask that she could look down and see.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘He did say it when we were drunk on whisky, mind, when Tiggy was driving me home, and he did say he’s not really a church-going man, but he meant it.’

  ‘Rory, if we had a baby and, and, well if anything you know, happened to me, and it was just you and the baby,’ she looked up to check he was listening, ‘how would you feel? I mean being landed with a kid that you had to look after on your own.’

  ‘Well I wouldn’t feel I’d been landed, for a start, if it was our child.’ He kissed the top of her head. I’d be so bloody glad, Lottie, that I’d still got a tiny part of you left, something to remind me, somebody to love, who was as close to you as I could ever have been.’

  ‘That’s good.’ She yawned, a sudden wave of fatigue washing over her like a warm blanket. ‘I think I’m ready for bed now.’
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br />   ‘Good.’ He stood up, then swept her into his arms. A big, warm protective hug and she nestled in against his firm, familiar torso. ‘Come on, sleepy, even Harry has admitted defeat and gone without us.’

  * * *

  Grief had paralysed Lottie when her horse had died, but this time it was different. She had walked around in a daze until the funeral, but now seemed to be full of a strange energy that wouldn’t let her rest.

  The tack room had a spring-clean, the horses were groomed until their coats gleamed, even if they were going straight out into the field, and poor Harry was worn out as he considered it his duty to shadow her wherever she went.

  When she cleared Rory’s coffee cup away before he’d even had a sip, he put his hands on her shoulders and gently but firmly steered her back to the table.

  ‘No, stop. Sit still, we need to talk.’

  She started to play with a spoon.

  ‘Lottie listen. There’s only a few more days of filming left. They’ll all be gone soon.’

  ‘Not if Pandora has her way.’

  ‘So we make sure she doesn’t get her way.’

  ‘Gran said not to rush, but we can’t stall for ever just waiting for a miracle, can we?’

  ‘Fight back, Lottie,’ he leant across the table, eased the spoon from her fingers, and took her hands in his, ‘that’s what you’re good at. If you need to confront her, then do it, then we can start again. Okay?’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Elizabeth got you all the ammunition you needed. Don’t let her down, Lottie. Come on, let’s talk to Tab, ask what she found out.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Why not? I’ll give her a shout. I left her tidying the muck heap, so she’ll jump at the chance to do something else.’

  Tab jumped. Tidying the muck heap was her least-favourite job in the whole world. She was at a complete loss as to understanding why it had to be a neat packed-down rectangle, when surely the word ‘heap’ said it all.