Kiss and Tell

by Fiona Walker

  At ground level Penny Moncrieff continued showing her sister-in-law, Hils, around the horses, grateful for some fresh air in the last half hour before the midnight countdown. ‘This mare is a sweety – came from Val Lancaster’s yard.’

  ‘Val Mackesy as was, of course!’ said another voice, even more cut-glass than Penny’s. ‘I remember her from Pony Club! Hugo’s at school with her son, Alec.’

  ‘Alec’s not one of the mob here tonight, though?’

  ‘God no – he’s two year’s above Huey, so a different species. I am sorry he’s invited so many ghastly, spotty friends by the way. We said no more than two.’

  Penny laughed and their footsteps started to move further away. ‘I’m only sorry we don’t have any spotty girls to offer them as entertainment.’

  ‘Ah but you have Sylva Frost. The boys are delirious with happiness – even I’ve heard of her and I’m just a mink and manure housewife from the Cape peninsula.’

  ‘I didn’t invite her.’ Penny sounded arch.

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Hugo Beauchamp’s mother, I think.’

  ‘Gosh.’

  Their voices had started to drift out of earshot. Beccy could hear ‘horse’ and ‘affair’ and ‘publicity’ before the rushing blood in her head drowned everything else again.

  Chapter 44

  Rory walked around the Haydown yard with Twitch at his heels, listening to the rhythmic crunch of his horses eating their hay, the snorts and tail-swishes, the occasional bang of a hoof striking timber. He stroked Whitey’s long, pale face hanging over his half door to greet him, his ghost horse brought back from the brink of death and now teaching Faith valuable lessons. He moved to Fox, his back turned away as usual, content to keep his own counsel. He let sentimental Humpty rest his chin on his head, then yard comic Sid lip at his cuffs in search of treats, pulling silly faces. One by one Rory moved along the stables, checking them all and drawing comfort. Cœur d’Or’s heart-shaped star bobbed in the half light behind the grille of his corner stable as he pulled angry faces, furious at his prolonged box rest, and pathetically grateful to see Rory and get some attention at last. He reminded Rory curiously of Faith, always so pleased to see him yet always so cross with him.

  Rory let himself into the box and checked the horse’s stable bandages and rugs. Once someone got close up to Heart he inevitably stopped playing up and pretending to be menacing, and became very soppy indeed.

  Rory pressed his forehead against the horse’s warm shoulder and breathed in his power. Heart hadn’t been clipped because he wasn’t in work, so his coat was as fluffy and soft as a teddy bear. Horses had always been Rory’s comforter, since infancy when his father had bought him his first Shetland, strapped him into a basket seat and taken him out hunting. He had never had been attached to toys – they always got lost or broken – but he had treated his ponies like best friends, little gods that gave him speed and flight and power, that made a wimpy little boy with a bad home life into a superhero, attracting girls and plaudits, adult respect and, ultimately, glory. He knew the power of the horse. He understood horses far better than he understood humans.

  He closed Heart’s door and walked beneath the arch to the yard that housed the stallions in their own covered barn, which was partitioned into big, walled stalls with ornate rails and finials dating back to Haydown’s heyday of carriage horses, hacks and hunters kept ready for action by a small army of grooms, nagsmen and ostlers.

  Rio was waiting for him, coat as black as the night sky, his clever head slightly cocked as he watched Rory scuff his way along the aisle. He was by far the brightest horse that Rory rode, with such a sharp sensitivity about him that he could be almost impossibly volatile on a bad day, but was equally the best of the lot on others, so attuned that his ability to read Rory’s mind and body seemed far faster than Rory’s ability to think and act for himself. He blew Rory away, and he was almost frightened by how good he was. He secretly thought he was better than million-pound Fox any day. He was in a class of his own.

  He pulled off his glove to feed him a mint and felt the horse’s breath warm his hand.

  ‘Your mistress needs us to show her how good we are,’ he told him. If Hugo took Lough to America instead of Rory he might as well pack off back to Overlodes and drive in to a few more trees.

  He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about that. A week later and his body was still suffering. Boxing Day had marked an all-time low, a great wave of anger breaking inside him, crashing down memories of his father’s pathetic death, of his mother’s endless search for security through rich men, and his older sister who, over two decades earlier, had run away from home on Boxing Day, leaving a distraught eight-year-old brother secretly blaming himself for some childish prank that he was certain had made her leave. Christmas often had a negative effect on Rory. It had few good memories. His great uncle who, despite his austerity, had been Rory’s greatest ally had died three days after Christmas.

  His family was now barely tied together by more than a scrap of brown paper and a few loose strings compared to the Brakespears and Beauchamps, who were all wrapped up in ribbons and garlands.

  But falling off the wagon on Boxing Day and letting the runaway coach and horses drive in to a tree was unforgivable, and he knew it. His sister Diana had wanted to celebrate her birthday with just Amos, and Rory had felt like that eight-year-old again, rejected and at fault. Diana was still like a stranger sometimes, consumed by her amazing love affair, possessing the same curious detached manner as their mother.

  For the first time in his life Rory wondered if he had the same trait. Perhaps it ran in the family, but unlike his mother and sister, who preferred to devote themselves entirely to their men, Rory devoted himself to his horses and his sport.

  One of the horses called out from another yard and Rio raised his head to return the whinny, raising his upper lip to show his front teeth as he tasted the air inches from Rory’s face.

  ‘I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth,’ he said out loud, realising it properly for the first time. Faith had given him her horse to ride. He had never realised the scale of the gesture until now. Last week she’d saved his life.

  The least he could do was be there tonight to thank her in person. She’d asked him to be at the party for New Year, and he was just moping.

  He looked at his watch. If he hurried he could make it to Lime Tree Farm not long after midnight. He had no car, but he knew the combination to the machinery shed padlock, and the quad bike was in there.

  He raced out to the yard and then, remembering that he had a present he wanted to give her, ran to his cottage to fetch it, Twitch yapping excitedly behind him.

  ‘Ten minutes to go!’ a voice shouted above the din downstairs as Faith queued for the loo. She had been waiting so long that Lemon came in search of her, bringing brimming glasses of punch.

  ‘Perhaps someone’s passed out in there?’ he suggested.

  ‘You don’t suppose it’s Beccy?’ Faith replied in an anxious whisper. They hadn’t seen her in a long time.

  ‘Nah, she went outside.’

  Increasingly desperate for a pee, Faith banged impatiently on the door. They were in the little attic corridor next to her bedroom at the very top of Lime Tree Farm. She had no idea who was hogging her bathroom, but she wasn’t impressed.

  At last, the occupant came out. It was Gus’s teenage nephew, Huey. To Faith’s surprise he took one look at her and gulped, ‘Look, I’m really sorry about what just happened – about – everything. It was all my fault. I blew my load too quick, then my mother appeared on the scene and … Let’s just forget it, okay?’ And he bolted downstairs.

  ‘What “just” happened? What load?’ Lemon demanded jealously.

  ‘No idea,’ Faith’s bladder was too full to care. She handed her drink back to him.

  Lemon was lying on the little single bed in her room when she reappeared, leafing through the Pippa Funnell biography that made up her bedside
reading. He’d found the Melody Gardot tracks on the MP3 player that her brother had given her for Christmas and her sultry, sexy voice filled the little room.

  He looked up at her over the book as she sat down heavily on the bed. ‘Looks like we’ll never make it.’ He rested his feet on her lap and sighed deeply.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ she countered. ‘I plan to be just as successful as Pippa.’

  ‘I was talking about the pact.’ He lifted his watch to show her the dial. ‘We’ve got less than ten minutes to lose our virginities.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ She slumped down, staring up at the ceiling, his feet still on her lap. ‘I think I’ll save myself for Rory after all.’

  ‘Like he’s saving himself for you?’

  Faith said nothing.

  She had been certain he’d turn up, but it was now almost midnight. He clearly wasn’t coming.

  ‘He’ll be with someone right now, I reckon,’ Lemon predicted.

  ‘He said he was staying in.’

  ‘Yeah! Like when have you ever known Rory “stay in”?’

  Faith felt her heart deflate.

  ‘It’ll be some tasty married bit. You know Rory. Venetia Gundry, maybe? She’s not here tonight, is she?’

  ‘Lem, can we not have this conversation?’ Faith snapped, feeling sick suddenly. She knew she had no hope of competing on a sexual scale with Venetia, who had two marriages and a host of event riders under her belt.

  He shrugged, looking peeved.

  ‘The pact was a dumb idea anyway. We’d never have done it.’

  ‘We still could.’

  ‘In five minutes?’ She checked her bedside clock.

  ‘If we trust each other on this one.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’ She turned her head to look at him.

  His round, jokey face was bright red. ‘Lose it together?’

  ‘Yeah!’ She laughed dismissively.

  ‘I can’t be sure, but I think it’s a safe bet that I’ll come in at under two minutes first time around.’

  Faith propped her chin on her elbow and stared more intently at him. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘I fancy you, Faith.’

  Faith looked at him, uncertain what to say. She had never felt attracted to Lem physically, but she suddenly wanted to have sex very badly indeed, like wanting to jump six feet and not caring which horse she rode to clear it. This was a goal within her grasp. The thought made her feel fantastically empowered.

  ‘I guess it’s worth a try.’ She suddenly felt a pulse of energy thrum its way from her heart to her groin.

  ‘Do we kiss first, or undress?’

  ‘Both, I think.’

  By the time the countdown had started far below them, Faith and Lem were naked on her little bed and enjoying a thorough, unexpected and truly enlightening exploration of one another’s erogenous zones, tickly bits and never-been-touched-by-another’s-hand intimacies.

  ‘Crikey, it’s all a bit undignified, isn’t it?’

  ‘Feels good though, yeah?’

  Lemon had underestimated himself. He lasted considerably longer than two minutes, and Faith appreciated every second of extra time. This all took quite a bit of getting used to, she decided, as Lemon’s rising trot increased rapidly. It wasn’t perhaps quite the thrill of jumping a six-foot gate that she’d hoped for, but it was good to get it over with, and she was grateful that it was with a mate. At least they could laugh when his thrusts became so wild he kept slipping out, or when Faith discovered that the strange slopping noise accompanying them was because she was lying on her hot water bottle, still in the bed from the night before. In fact, losing one’s virginity was so fantastically absurd and preoccupying that they totally missed midnight.

  ‘… Three, two, one, Happy New Year!’

  Cheers, party poppers, whoops and ‘Auld Lang Syne’ replaced Big Ben’s bells as the Lime Tree merrymakers saw in another year.

  Lough Strachan, more sober than most, received lot of kisses, more than he could remember in thirty-two successive New Years. He didn’t particularly like kissing, but he was careful not to kick up a fuss.

  His eyes sought out Tash as they had all evening, feeling safe in her proximity and also fiercely protective. He was appalled at how negligent Hugo was towards his wife. When not flirting with Sylva Frost he was carousing with his dreadful, loud friends or knocking back glass after glass like a drunk at a public bar. Enmity soured in Lough’s veins.

  ‘Happy New Year – I hope you have a good time in England. A successful year.’ At last the only kiss he wanted arrived on his cheek, so tantalisingly close to his lips that he could almost taste it.

  ‘Happy New Year, Tash.’ He flashed his rare smile, but only for a moment.

  A voice cut through the din around them like an army officer in a parade ring.

  ‘I believe it’s customary for a man to kiss his wife at times like this!’

  Lough couldn’t watch as Hugo, hair dishevelled and eyes unfocused but still ludicrously handsome, grabbed Tash like a mannequin and threw her back into the crook of his arm to kiss her, almost pitching her straight on to the floor.

  Lough felt punched in the throat. He left the room without a backward glance as the revellers clapped and cheered in delight at the sight of Hugo giving Tash such a thorough kissing that when she finally emerged, pink-cheeked, minus her lipstick, flustered and yet beaming deliriously at such a demonstration of propriety, she didn’t even notice that her incredibly tight, short dress had risen to reveal very jaunty red lace control knickers.

  ‘Be hanging from their bedpost later,’ Gus said in amusement to Penny. ‘Any chance of your sensible waisties making a rare appearance on ours?’

  ‘Oh bugger off and phone your mistress to wish her a Happy New Year,’ Penny snapped as Niall loomed up broadside to kiss her.

  ‘Happy New Year, angel. Any resolutions?’

  ‘To give up hope,’ she muttered, casting Gus a weary look and turning heel to look after their guests.

  Lemon managed a second performance a few minutes into New Year, at the climax of which he howled like a coyote.

  Faith opened her eyes, all attempts to visualise Rory scuppered. With her own pleasure points still largely unexplored territory, she was secretly rather relieved the encore was coming to an end. Lem was never going to light her touch paper. But she had been enlightened, and for that she was grateful. He was also unwittingly funny, with his running commentary and his animal soundtrack, making the whole experience somehow sillier and less sordid than it could have seemed. She only wished he was Rory.

  ‘Yow, yow, yeeeeow!!!!’ he hollered.

  ‘Shhh!’ She giggled beneath him as the bouncing mattress jiggled her around. ‘That’s seriously off-putting – ah!’ He’d suddenly pulled up her knees so she shot further up the bed.

  ‘Good, huh? Yeaaaaawwww!’ Lemon plunged on.

  ‘Stop! Shh!’ She held up her hand urgently and covered his mouth, tilting her head towards the door. ‘Did you hear someone knock just now?’

  Lemon shook his red face beneath her hand.

  ‘It could be Beccy,’ Faith whispered. ‘We abandoned her.’

  ‘She’ll be fine.’

  They both looked at the door. The shadow of two feet moved away.

  ‘Whoever it was has gone,’ Lemon said obviously, starting to plunge and howl again.

  Beneath him, Faith fretted that Beccy must have heard what was going on – it was hard not to with Lemon making such a din – and was bound to feel hurt and isolated.

  She looked up at that round, red face and felt suddenly guilty. She had jumped the six-foot gate at last but it now felt like she’d got the stride wrong. Lem was fun and eager, and it had been incredibly educational – she’d had no idea how manic men got at climax, for a start – but the whole process made her feel strangely detached, like it was a simulation on a computer game. It didn’t feel real. When Rory had kissed her on the cheek before Christmas she’d thought her body
would melt right into the ground. Lemon was still grinding around inside her and yet she felt almost nothing.

  ‘Cherry picked.’ She kissed his nose and almost lifted him off her, her arms so strong from hauling shavings bales that Lemon’s solid little body was easy to manoeuvre to one side, where she rubbed his cheek affectionately, much as she would a horse, then patted his arm and closed her eyes again, immediately thinking of Rory and how much closer she must be to his world now that she had cast off her virginity and joined the team of players.

  Letting Faith doze, Lemon got up, feeling unbelievably good about himself as he swaggered to the little attic bathroom to take a pee wearing Faith’s dressing gown, which was rather practical and fluffy – he’d have preferred red satin – but was still rather excitingly feminine against his naked skin. He admired his reflection in the bathroom cabinet, deciding he looked part Leonardo DiCaprio, part Pink. The party was still raging on downstairs, with a drunken ensemble giving a rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

  It was only when Lemon wandered back along the corridor that he spotted the glittery little gift bag hanging on the doorknob of Faith’s bedroom. Quietly lifting it by its handles, anxious not to alert her, he took it back to the bathroom to examine.

  Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a white porcelain horse, its rider glued on rather wonkily after what looked like a crashing fall. The note was scribbled in almost indecipherably bad handwriting. To my beloved St Bernard. I haven’t forgotten what we said. Always. Rxxx.

  Lemon scrunched up the note and flushed it down the loo before hiding the china horse in among the clutter of dusty tankards, bottles, tarnished old trophies and assorted bric-a-brac the Moncrieffs kept crammed around the beams and sills in the bathroom. Thank heavens they were such messy buggers; Faith would never see it there.

  He went back to the bedroom, hoping she would be up for a third bite at the cherry. He was certainly game.

  A quad bike overtook Lough on the lane back through the downs to Maccombe as the New Zealander trudged along the frost-dusted verge with his hands deep in his pockets, his hair, coat and jeans as black as his mood.