by Fiona Walker
He pressed his forehead to hers. ‘So I guess asking isn’t always the best route.’
She gazed into his dark, honest eyes for a long time.
‘What exactly are you saying here?’
Niall smiled. It was that big, loopy smile which creased his cheeks, crinkled his brown eyes and could stop her heart at fifty paces.
‘That perhaps your mad bloody family have done us a favour. That perhaps this is fate. Neither of us is putting pressure on the other; the pressure is from outside. We could tackle this together. Think about this together. Enjoy this together. That’s what marriages are about, Tash – committing to something together.’
‘You’re not saying that you’re really willing to go through with it?’ She gulped.
‘Why not?’ he laughed. ‘We love each other, live together as much as we can. We now have dual custody of a dog and a turkey. And,’ he rolled his eyes, ‘I seriously think your grandmother would breathe her last if we tell them it’s all been a misunderstanding now.’
‘You really want to marry me?’ Tash was aware that she was sounding rather thick, but she wanted to make sure she was reading this absolutely right.
‘Depends if you want to marry me?’ He raised a black eyebrow hopefully.
‘It’s certainly a thought.’
‘Nothing need change.’ He shrugged. ‘Sure, you don’t even need to change your name. And it’d make your family and mine extremely happy.’
‘And us?’
Niall smiled. ‘I don’t know about you, but the only thing in the world that would make me happier would be a bit more time with you.’
‘Same here.’
‘So, shall we do it?’
Tash hugged him tightly, tucking the doubts and worries tightly away in her excited, leaping heart. ‘Like you say, why not?’
Three
* * *
NIALL’S FAMILY WERE NOT as delighted as he’d anticipated. In their Catholic eyes, he was still, strictly speaking, married to Lisette, so could not be married again in their church. And, although they adored Tash, they felt she was too young and too daffy to make their son a decent wife.
‘Sure, the girl’s a mere slip of a ting, Niall,’ his mother worried when he called them from the forge to break the news. ‘And she’s a hopeless cook, so she is. I’ll never forget those sloppy pancake tings she served up on your birthday last year.’
‘Fajitas.’
‘Well, it certainly gave your father gas, now.’ There was a deep sigh at the other end of the line followed by the sound of a hand-rolled cigarette being lit. ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right ting here, son?’
‘Sure,’ Niall said firmly, knowing just how to win her over. ‘Tash can’t wait to start a family.’
‘Ah, sweet girl.’ There was an ecstatic exhalation of breath followed by a hacking cough. ‘I’m so pleased for you, my darling. Sure, it’s about time you gave Nuala’s nippers some young cousins to play with now.’ She started coughing again.
‘You should give up smoking, Mother,’ Niall scolded. ‘I feel so much better since I packed it in.’
As soon as he was off the phone, he lit up one of Tash’s Camel Lights and wondered if feeding his mother the babies line had been a wise move. She was bound to be searching for her knitting needles already in anticipation of tiny socks and babygrows.
Through Lime Tree Farm’s illuminated kitchen window, Tash caught sight of a neat, pudding-basin mop of blonde hair flopping over the table to scan a newspaper, and breathed a sigh of relief as she realised Zoe was there to offer coffee and advice. As she crunched up the drive, Zoe looked up and waved, smiling widely. She had a classically poised, northern European appearance that seemed icy-cool and imperturbable on the surface but cracked every time she smiled to reveal a bubbling geyser of warmth beneath. Tash thought her the epitome of sex appeal and longed to possess that effortless glamour.
Zoe Goldsmith was older than her sister, Penny, by a few years – she never specified how many – and had been something of a career and society glamourpuss in her time. For many years, she had been married to one of London’s most successful designers. In the eighties, she’d had a showpiece house in Greenwich, a regular ‘career mother’ column in a Sunday broadsheet, feature pieces commissioned weekly, a designer wardrobe and two great kids who were so well behaved and good-looking that her friends had smarted with envy as they wiped snot and jam from the howling faces of their own plump brats.
Quite what had gone wrong was something Zoe kept a closely guarded secret. All Tash knew was that the dream marriage had ended very abruptly and acrimoniously, leaving her financially stymied as she lost both her house and the job practically in the same week. She and the kids had then decamped to stay with Penny and Gus temporarily until Zoe could find more work and get herself a small flat in London.
That had been seven years ago. So far as Tash could gather, Zoe had gone through some sort of breakdown shortly afterwards, and had stayed on to recuperate, paying her way by cooking and filing for her overstressed sister who in those days competed abroad for a great part of the year. Finding it impossible to get back into the closed shop of high-powered journalism, Zoe had tried instead to write fiction, failing to attract any interest in her work for several years before she accidentally bumped into an old friend who was setting up a new publishing venture.
That venture was now one of the most successful erotic fiction imprints in the industry, churning out hot, steamy tomes with short shelf-lives and high profits. Zoe – under the name Su Denim – was its flagship author, with over twenty books to her credit. She could now easily afford those things that had eluded her after her divorce: a London house, smart social life and public-school education for her kids. But instead, she deliberately shunned such superficial trophies, preferring the settled, bucolic life with her sister and brother-in-law. The warmth of her friends within the eventing circuit and the good education that the local schools were providing for her kids could not easily be replaced by the slavishly fashionable and academically snobbish world she had left behind in the chattering dining rooms of her London circle. In truth, Tash also suspected that she stayed at Lime Tree Farm because she also knew how invaluable she had become to Penny and Gus. Without her calm, easy-going efficiency, unflappable common sense and occasional baling out when the bills turned red, the Moncrieffs would be bankrupt within weeks. Tash adored her, although she sensed a deep, enduring sadness that Zoe kept deeply hidden from her chaotic, dependent family.
‘Can I borrow a fag? I left mine in the forge.’
Tash settled down at the Moncrieffs’ cluttered table and reached for the nearest packet.
‘Please do.’ Zoe looked up from a pile of late Christmas cards and grinned. ‘They’re Rufus’s. Since I confronted him about the cigarette butts in the guttering outside his window, the little brat now feels he can smoke openly in front of me. I have absolutely no authority.’
Rufus was the elder of her two children; at seventeen he was a big, blond charmer who loudly justified smoking, drinking and having four girlfriends as ‘vital teenage experimentation’.
‘Matty treated my mother the same way the moment he grew taller than her.’ Tash was searching around for a lighter. ‘It’s just a height thing. Did you have a good Christmas?’
Zoe wrinkled her long, straight nose as she passed Tash a box of kitchen matches. ‘Bit hectic. Gus had invited a load of people who he hadn’t told me about, as ever.’
Even her voice was as warm and rich as butterscotch. Both sisters had cut-glass, almost antiquatedly clipped accents, harking back to hours of elocution lessons forced upon them by their snobbish parents. But whereas Penny had a high, slightly quacking voice that could split eardrums, Zoe’s was so soft and velvety that she merely melted them.
‘I was here when they arrived,’ Tash reminded her. ‘I saw Stefan Johanssen poling up along with Brian Sedgewick’s mob. And two of Gus’s brothers were arriving as I left.’
&n
bsp; ‘So you were.’ Zoe rubbed her forehead. ‘Well, one chap got so paralytic he had to stay, and then Enid took a piece out of him when he came down for a glass of water during the night.’
‘Poor thing.’
‘It’s okay, she calmed down once she realised he wasn’t an intruder, didn’t you, darling?’ She blew a kiss to her nervy Dalmatian who was curled into a tight, uncomfortable knot in one of the tiny cats’ beds by the Aga. Certifiably paranoid and singularly devoted to Zoe, Enid was wildly jealous of anyone her mistress touched or spoke to. Ears sinking back into her head, she blinked her pale amber eyes worriedly, anxious that she was being picked on.
‘I was referring to him.’
‘Oh, he’ll live. Gus administered a tet jab with remarkable skill considering the number of bottles he’d sunk.’
‘Christ, I’m glad I just had Matty and Sally snoring on our sofa.’ Tash gazed around the kitchen, seeking comfort in the familiar, tatty paintings, over-stuffed shelves, piles of post and horse paraphernalia which littered every available surface. The room always smelled of hot coffee and wet boots.
‘So Matty and Sally enjoyed Christmas with you, did they?’ Zoe asked coolly.
‘Sally did.’ Tash gazed at the large, wipe-clean wall roster which had her marked as off work for the week. There was very little writing on it at all at this time of year as most of the horses were roughed off for winter and there were no events to attend apart from the odd hunt or indoor jumping competition. Come May it would be covered in bright felt pen marks like a toddler’s mad doodling.
‘And Matty?’ Zoe was trying to coax Enid into eating a Bonio.
‘Sulked throughout, as ever.’ She sighed. ‘I think they’ve got a lot of money problems at the moment. But Niall cheered him up in the end – he was wonderful, making everyone laugh so much.’ She noticed that the list of next year’s scheduled BHS trials was up on the wall at last, Blu-tacked beside the work roster with those competitions they were already entered for marked in red and those still pending in pencil. Eventing was so over-subscribed these days that sending off an entry fee was no longer a guarantee of competing – there was always a chance of being balloted out, and one had to choose which events to give top priority very carefully. Tash noticed to her delight that she was pencilled in for the biggest spring event, Badminton, on both of her top horses and a big grin spread across her face without her even noticing it.
Watching her, Zoe picked up a dead match and played with it thoughtfully. She knew Tash pretty well by now, realising that beneath the shy, rather clumsy exterior there existed a far tougher, more decisive heart. A heart that would tear itself out for something it loved and believed in, but with a good deal of self-preservation embedded in it too.
Tash was often embarrassed by the impact of her own physical presence. Despite an urge not to stand out, she was not a person who blended easily into the background. Extremely tall, curvy, and in possession of two huge, oddly coloured eyes, she inevitably drew attention as she dominated every crowd, her unkempt mop of hair several inches above everyone else’s crown. These were not always admiring glances either: Tash had the natural hunched gaucheness of the self-conscious and seldom made an effort to dress up. She was renowned for looking dreadfully scruffy on almost all occasions. But this simply enhanced the effect whenever she did dress up. And, unusually, she had dressed up today.
Dark, smudgy kohl lines encircled her green and amber eyes, a beaded pin was holding her thick, curling hair up from her face to show off those high, pink cheek bones and long, long neck. She was even wearing a dress – the first time Zoe had seen her in one. Short, bias-cut and silky, it showed off her elongated curves and endless legs, although a tiny ladder was already threading its way up her tights.
‘What’s the occasion?’ She smiled. ‘I thought you’d just popped in for a coffee.’
‘Niall’s taking me out for dinner at the Olive Branch tonight.’ Tash was staring at one of Zoe’s daughter’s GCSE drawings which was curling its way from its Blu-tacked position on the wall. ‘That’s a great picture – India just gets better and better.’ She glanced at Zoe again. ‘I was hoping the others would be here.’
‘Well, Gus and Pen should be back any minute – they’re raiding Tesco’s wine department for New Year’s Eve. You two are coming, aren’t you?’
‘To the party?’ Tash grinned at her. ‘Try and stop us.’
‘Hugo will be back from Oz by then too – in fact, I think he’s due back today, so he’ll add to the glamour.’
‘And to the drinks bill,’ Tash sniffed.
‘You two still not talking?’ Zoe cocked her head critically. With her blonde, blunt-cut hair and thoroughbred features, she bore a rather startling resemblance to Joanna Lumley as Purdey. The cool, velvet voice and cat’s eyes added to the illusion. There were moments Tash almost ducked for fear of getting a karate kick in the eye.
She pursed her mouth uneasily. ‘Not sure. I’ve avoided him since the end of the season.’
‘Mmm.’ Zoe eyed her thoughtfully. ‘I think Gus mentioned that you wouldn’t even go hunting in case he was out with the field and tried to run you into a ditch.’
‘Something like that,’ Tash muttered. Although she had used the excuse of avoiding Hugo for not hunting this year, Tash had other reasons as well. A childhood accident and a general disapproval of the barbarity of the sport kept her away more than her tall, arrogant bête noire.
Hugo Beauchamp ran an eventing yard just a few miles away from Lime Tree Farm. He’d known Penny and Gus Moncrieff for years and they were mutually reliant upon one another, trading horses between the two yards, swapping advice, sharing the transport to many of the more distant events and helping one another out in a crisis. Hugo, who had a private income and a fat sponsorship deal, often benefited from the relationship more than the Moncrieffs, buying their best youngsters for the cash they desperately needed to keep the yard running. As a result, he was ranked amongst the top five riders in the country and had clocked up a large number of international honours to prove it. He even had an Olympic medal as the chain of his downstairs loo, which Tash thought horribly ostentatious.
Initially helpful when Tash had entered the sport, Hugo Beauchamp had been growing increasingly unpleasant of late. All had been well when she was a clumsy novice who seldom made it to the end of the cross-country phase, let alone into the money. Hugo, one of the sport’s biggest stars, had coaxed her through her first year with rather condescending largesse, selling her his good novice, Drunken Hunk, giving her hours of coaching and ferrying her to events in his five-star lorry when Penny and Gus needed their dilapidated box elsewhere. But now that Tash was so regularly placed that she was climbing the overall leaderboard and getting ever-closer to making it into an international team, Hugo had gone right off her. He’d won last year’s British Championship at the Gatcombe Open Trials just a weekend after Tash had moved into the forge with Niall, loudly rumour-mongering that she had done badly because she was thinking about kitchen cabinets and not the course. When she had beaten him into second place at Burghley three-day-event two months later, he had grown actively hostile, cutting her dead or putting her down at every opportunity. Hurt by his about-face, Tash now thought he was unspeakably spoilt and petty.
‘Try to make friends again, huh?’ Zoe uncurled her feet from beneath Wally the collie and stood up to put the kettle on.
‘He’s the one being unfriendly,’ Tash pointed out tetchily.
‘Well, I know.’ Zoe was framing her words carefully, aware of how sensitive Tash could be about Hugo. ‘But it does make things rather awkward for Gus when there’s this ruck between you two. You know how much he relies upon Hugo’s support.’
‘Humph.’ Tash stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Hugo takes him for a ride almost as often as his own nags. Gus is better off without him.’
‘Not really,’ Zoe said kindly. ‘I mean, I know that the majority of Hugo’s actions are born out of self-interest, but he’
s not a bad ally for all his faults. He gets Gus liveries, gives him a lot of his time and cast-off equipment, sends Franny down here to help out when we’re short-staffed.’
‘I hardly think Hugo’s forcing her!’ she snorted.
Franny was Hugo’s Rubensesque and rather terrifying head girl who dressed like an S & M mistress of pain and had a whip-like tongue to match. For the past six months she had been conducting a very public affair with Gus’s much younger and less efficient groom, Ted. It paralleled and helpfully shielded the far more private liaison which Hugo was conducting with Gus’s senior working pupil, Kirsty Judd, a Scottish event rider who used the yard as her southern base. Kirsty, who had worked in Australia for several years as a riding instructor, was engaged to a very rich, very macho Australian solicitor with whom she was spending Christmas. The fact that Hugo was also in Australia for the festive season had not gone unnoticed. Just as he took especial pleasure in riding dangerous horses, so, it seemed, he preferred his relationships with the heat on and the risk-factor high.
‘Go easy on him on New Year’s Eve, huh?’ Zoe pleaded, handing Tash a chipped mug full of coffee. ‘He’s only mad at you because he’s jealous.’ She carefully didn’t add what specifically he was jealous of. She privately doubted that it was just professional. Hugo was a far more complicated character than Tash gave him credit for.
‘I’ll try,’ she sighed.
For years, as a teenager, Tash had lusted after Hugo from afar with a passion that only the hormonally confused youngster can harbour. A close friend of her brother-in-law Ben Meredith’s, he had drifted around in the background of her family’s social calendar like a beautiful spectre, and haunted Tash’s dreams like a goading nightmare. His total disdain for her had been crucifying. While Tash had wept and daydreamed over pictures of him cut from Horse and Hound, Hugo had treated her with the curtest of uninterested scorn in return, hardly seeming to notice her existence.
It was only when they had been forced to endure one another’s company during a long, lazy holiday with Alexandra, Pascal, and the rest of their assorted family and friends two years earlier that they had struck up an unexpected, if uneasy, friendship. Hugo had helped her get to grips with the difficult, hot-headed Snob, given to his step-daughter by Pascal as a holiday challenge. Hugo had admired her courage and talent, and helped her get a job with the Moncrieffs as a result. For a brief and rather terrifying moment, he had even appeared to be attracted to her. The sense of amazed, disbelieving victory which Tash had experienced at that time had only been overtaken by the giddy joy of falling madly in love with Niall. Hugo had gone off her pretty quickly afterwards, and wasted no time in working his way through a string of staggeringly beautiful girlfriends, most of whom he treated appallingly.
