by Fiona Walker
Kat knew nobody would want an assortment of elderly pets, horses and livestock, especially as she would demand to be rehomed with them. She could never leave the Lake Farm animals. But Dougie Everett had unsettled her so much that her urge to protect herself and get away from the estate was now searing her skin, like the sunburn she’d got in recent days, despite slathering herself in factor fifty. It wasn’t just his insensitivity, his overt flirtation, or the way her organs rearranged themselves when he looked at her in that hard, sexy way, or even those glimpses of extraordinary kindness, trust and good humour that were all too rare and made her lift up on her toes with involuntary joy as she tried to catch them. She just didn’t trust her body around him, and she didn’t trust him around her body. There had been a moment earlier, pulling up after the bareback gallop, when she had wanted to kiss him very badly. The jolt of animal attraction and terror had been so violent she’d leaped back as though touched with a cattle prod.
‘Did you say you have to swim the lake for the Bolt?’ Dawn was saying, in disbelief, at the other end of the line.
‘I’ll be on a horse.’ Kat tried to make it seem achievable, but she knew it sounded as convincing as ‘I’ll have lead knickers, concrete boots and a leaky rubber ring.’
‘I keep telling you that you don’t have to do this thing.’
‘I won’t let it beat me.’ Kat rallied, hearing Constance’s voice taking over hers. It was what she’d said about death when Kat had first cared for her, a pronouncement of such determination it had worked against all odds for more than a year.
Dawn heard it too and laughed nervously. ‘Good to know you’re still possessed by an aristocrat who wants to drown you from beyond the grave. At least stick to dry ground until I’m with you.’
‘You’re really coming to visit?’ Kat was cheered.
‘We exchanged contracts this morning. So in four weeks’ time I will no longer be a woman in chains, property or ball-related, and you and I will celebrate with champagne.’
‘That’s so brilliant.’
‘Isn’t it? House sold to Pervy Man, check. First husband divorced, check. Second husband identified, check. When will the elusive Seth be in residence? A dotcom-billionaire playboy ticks most of the boxes. The only question is, how do I get close enough to catch his eye?’
‘Go to Mumbai. He’s never here.’
‘Damn.’
‘I’ve heard he might be coming for the village versus estate cricket match in July – there’s talk of him fielding half the Indian second eleven – but don’t hold your breath. Most players’ batting average is lower than their shoe size and the teas are famously awful.’
‘What’s the date? I’ll put it in my diary,’ Dawn said. ‘If not, I’ll take a square man with a third leg as compensation. How’s Dair?’
‘It’s third man and square leg. And I’ve not seen him lately.’
‘I see him in a recurring dream a lot right now.’
‘That must be a nightmare and a half.’
‘Don’t laugh. He captains a yacht in full Officer and a Gentleman kit. I still don’t really remember what he looks like – Hopflask should be prescription-only – but he’s lovely in my dreams.’
‘You’re in for a bit of a disappointment,’ Kat said kindly.
‘Please tell me there’s at least one gorgeous eligible bachelor playing.’
‘Dougie Everett.’
‘He’s yours.’
‘He is not! He flirts with everyone in the village. I only put up with him to improve my riding. Today was awful. I told him a bit about Nick and he was a completely insensitive shit.’
‘You told him about Nick?’ Dawn breathed in amazement, and Kat realized she had already given herself away. But she was unwilling to admit to the confusion that had been stirred up along with the mud as she scrambled from deep water.
‘I won’t let it beat me,’ she said again.
Later, Kat lay awake beneath her hot blanket of elderly snoring dogs, grateful that it was the shortest night as she tried not to relive the one day that had changed her life’s direction totally. Flashbacks of today’s total submersion kept haunting her, and she longed for a reassuring body to cling to.
She got up to go outside and watch the dawn stealing across the lake, sitting cross-legged beneath the black willow, a magnificent broad-trunked relic from the Edwardian arboretum.
‘I won’t let it beat me,’ she whispered.
A warm breath on her neck made her jump out of her skin, and she turned to see two blue eyes looking at her worriedly. ‘Sri.’ She scratched the mare’s forehead, running her hand along her neck still looking across the lake. ‘Tell me we can do it.’
The mare rubbed her face vigorously against Kat’s arm before looking up suddenly with a deep, wary snort.
Then Kat saw the stag on the far bank of the lake, cast in the first silver cloak of dawn, his antlers like winter trees, head lifted high as he registered her presence with a gleam of a dark eye before loping off, tail flicking.
She stayed to watch the steely fingers of a new day’s light stretching across the water and tried to imagine herself on Sri, sending ripples in their wake as they raced towards the house. She could do it easily if Dougie rode with her as he had today. Riding pillion to a stuntman was a confidence shot like no other.
She had an image of them swimming on horseback together now as she gazed across the water, seeing his blond head turning to look at her over his shoulder, the big smile full of encouragement, and those dark-lashed eyes full of pride. But then he ruined it by shouting instructions at her through a megaphone like a boat cox. ‘Stroke! Stroke! Stroke! Don’t catch crabs! It’s sink or swim!’ She sat up with a start, realizing she’d drifted off to sleep. Heaving herself up, she headed back to the house to get dressed in her yard clothes. She envied Dawn her recurring dreams of yachts with a man dressed in officer uniform, even if he was Dair Armitage. Her own dreams still revolved around water, drowning and – increasingly – Dougie Everett turning on her.
Chapter 41
Posters for the masked movie night had been pinned all over the village hall notice-board. As Kat warmed up her ladies for their Bums and Tums class, she found her eyes drawn to Vivien Leigh swooning in the arms of Clark Gable, flames leaping in the background.
Babs Hedges edged closer as they did shoulder shrugs, red-faced and eager in ancient cycling shorts and a faded Countryside Alliance T-shirt. ‘You must be missing Russ while he’s away touring with the band.’ She made her husband’s nephew sound like Eardisford’s answer to Jimmy Page.
Kat gave a vague hum and a noncommittal smile as she moved into side stretches.
‘He’s always been a bit of a wandering minstrel, but he comes back eventually,’ Babs reassured her kindly, arms criss-crossing now as though she was directing traffic around Hyde Park Corner. Rumours of a rift between the reigning wassail monarchs were clearly doing the rounds and she wanted the low-down. ‘I hear you’ve been riding out with the young hunt master every evening,’ she said leadingly. ‘The ladies were worried you’d cancel Bums and Tums. Viv has her daughter’s wedding coming up and still can’t get into that Jaeger dress.’ She nodded towards a figure silhouetted by the tall windows, waving her bingo wings enthusiastically. ‘We need you, Kat love.’
‘I wouldn’t let you down,’ she said, flustered to be the subject of such intense gossip. ‘Dougie’s just been teaching me race riding.’ She hadn’t told him she would be here this evening instead of riding, but he’d been horribly flippant yesterday and she didn’t want him joining her class again.
‘Dair mentioned you two have been thundering about Lush Bottom like a pair of hares every evening,’ Babs was saying, a frown bearing down on her button eyes. ‘You’re not still seriously thinking of riding the Bolt, are you, Kat love?’
‘Why not?’
‘You do know Constance wasn’t the last Mytton to ride it? One of the daughters tried it in the seventies. Back then, the hunt ke
nnels were still on the estate and a few Brom thrusters egged her on to do it. The horse drowned. Terrible business.’
Kat stood still, shocked. ‘Constance didn’t mention it.’
‘She never knew. She and Ronnie were away – Italy, I think, pearl wedding anniversary. It was all hushed up, and the huntsman behind it left soon afterwards.’
‘I wouldn’t do anything to put Sri at risk.’
‘Of course not. That young Dougie Everett will see you right.’ Babs gave her engine-tick laugh. ‘My girls are totally smitten and – what is it they say? – “well jell” of all the rumours about him setting his cap at you.’ Seeing Kat’s horrified face, she chuckled. ‘Oh, you know what pub talk’s like. Don’t worry, Russ told them there’s nothing going on and never would be.’
‘Russ told them?’
‘The night of the quiz, it was. A few of the earthmen got a-chuntering when you weren’t there and young Dougie left early, but Russ said you knew what you were doing.’
Kat realized the entire Bums and Tums class was listening in fascination to the conversation now. ‘Oh, yes, I do,’ she said brightly, glancing up at the Gone With the Wind poster as she reached for the stereo to flip to a high-energy track. ‘Time for the thirty-minute burn, ladies. Are you ready?’
Dougie dealt with the news that a VIP might be arriving at short notice in the same way he dealt with anything he didn’t want to dwell upon: by ignoring it. It was out of season, and no fool would want to follow hounds in midsummer. In any case Dair was set to rustle up some shooting.
By contrast, he found it impossible to ignore the nagging doubt that he’d pushed Kat too far and misjudged the situation. Whenever he tested her riding nerve, he found the hardest steel, yet her emotional temperature shot up and down, like the mercury in a thermometer. She seemed so fearless, but her past clearly chased her, no matter how fast he rode. Her failure to turn up at the meadow that evening bothered him deeply, and his impatience was no longer about deadlines or dares. He wanted to see her to apologize for coming on too strong and to try to make the smile reach her eyes again.
He rode to Lake Farm, but found nobody at home, a dachshund barking at him furiously through the cat flap.
Several miserable-looking pheasants were lined up in makeshift runs and coops in the open-fronted barn. He remembered Kat saying they drove her mad and were always dying for no good reason – it was one of the only negative things she’d said about Russ and his obsession with rescuing wildlife. Double-checking that nobody was around, he liberated a few of the healthier ones. Dougie found Kat’s loyalty to Russ Hedges baffling and infuriating. He could only imagine that she saw the big, hairy militant as one of the many animals she cared for in the sanctuary, plus occasional guard dog, and he thought it was high time for a badger cull.
Sri was turned out in the field along with her small herd, he noticed, and Harvey charged up to say hello as Dougie approached, pushing at his pockets for mints, barely recognizable because he’d been rolling in the red Herefordshire soil so that his grey coat was patched with chestnut, like a poor impersonation of the Marwari mare.
Dipping his hand into the water trough, Dougie wrote his phone number and DOUGIE on Harvey’s red side, followed by a handprint on his still-white quarters like a Hindu sacred cow. He was about to add a smiley face when he stopped himself, appalled at his sentimentality. Harvey shambled off to roll again, then shook himself and trotted away to his rejoin his new best friend, at which point Dougie saw he had smudged off the number.
Having popped in to see Miriam after her class and stayed on for supper and too much Pinot Grigio – only to find herself grilled about Dougie’s hunting plans and her own Bolt-riding ones – it was dusk by the time Kat came home. When she checked the horses in the fading light, she briefly mistook Dougie’s old stunt horse for Sri and thought she was seeing things at first, a message from Constance beyond the grave appearing on one dark patch. Then, realizing it was Harvey, she felt the wine kick in and addressed the horse as though he was his master whose name was written on his side.
‘You are a gorgeous, arrogant bastard, you know that? I don’t trust you at all. And I wish it was as simple as tumbling into bed with you for a week until I can’t walk, but for me that’s more terrifying than riding through any lake you could show me. And, God help me, I fancy the arse off you.’
As Harvey pricked up his ears and turned his heard sharply towards the woods, Kat heard crashing through the undergrowth and groaned, imagining her Catherine the Great speech doing the rounds in the pub. But then, to her relief, she saw the unmistakable shape of the big stag’s antlers moving away through the trees.
When Kat took Sri to the hidden meadow the following evening, Dougie was already riding there, cantering Rose along the row of willows. A storm was gathering overhead as they caught up alongside.
‘I’m so glad you came.’ He laughed, the blue eyes earnest, pupils huge.
‘I can’t stop,’ she confessed breathlessly.
‘Me neither,’ he said, riding closer. ‘I’ve never felt like this.’
‘I mean I have no brakes,’ she shouted, demonstrating her problem by pulling on the reins, which Sri cheerfully deflected with a flurry of fly-bucks, then speeded up more. ‘I literally can’t stop!’
Dougie’s smile widened and he accelerated to match. ‘The secret is not to try too hard. Race me to the first horse chestnut.’ He nodded at it.
Flying along in his slip-stream, Kat knew she was really galloping now, that flat-line, breakneck speed that was a feeling like no other. It was why she was here, she reminded herself. The adrenalin kick was astonishing, and the thought of racing from one end of the estate to the other at such speed, with a stretch of water to cross, was beyond daunting.
‘You’ll need to cover ground at this pace through the main stretches of old parkland and the best headlands to buy yourself time through the woods and the lake,’ Dougie told her, as he pounded alongside on the grey mare. ‘But you’ll need much better brakes, you’re right. That’s what went wrong the other day. Take more contact, apply pressure with your legs and start to sit up – great. Now kick on again, fast as you can to the big oak over there, where we’ll slow up enough to turn and gallop back.’
Turning wasn’t something Sri was eager to co-operate with. Nose in the air, ear tips practically criss-crossing, she managed to keep up a rapid sideways pelt without knowing where she was going until they both went their separate ways under a low branch.
‘What did you say about trusting her?’ Kat grumbled, picking herself up from a mercifully soft landing in a mossy dell.
‘She has to trust you too. You were totally unbalanced and tugging at the bit like a gym-freak on a rowing machine. Now do it again.’
After half an hour, sweat pouring from her face, she was flying around the oak like a rodeo barrel-racing champion. ‘Better?’
He nodded, his eyes darker than ever. ‘I think we’re almost ready to name the day.’
She looked at him curiously.
‘The day you ride the Bolt.’
Chapter 42
‘Thing is, Harv mate,’ Dougie glanced across the paddocks to the sagging roof of Lake Farm, his knobbly bicycle tyres bouncing slowly through the ruts as he let his hounds jog ahead, ‘much as I admire your taste in accommodation – and, indeed, hostess – this is not a long-term option. We can’t get attached. She has to relocate, and it’s our duty to help her. It’s either that or come clean.’
Shambling along on the opposite side of the fenced rail that divided the millstream track from sanctuary land, Harvey regarded him wisely and very muddily, his grey coat its customary dusty chestnut from rolling.
‘In your case, coming clean will take some time.’ Dougie conceded and pedalled on as Harvey stopped to touch noses with an eager, smiling hound.
Dougie had been out since six thirty that morning, covering almost ten miles of roads and tracks, and was ravenous. He briefly contemplated calling in on K
at, imagining scrambled goose eggs on thick doorsteps of toast, steaming mugs of tea and her dressing-gown falling open as she passed the salt. But he knew she wouldn’t play the game. Neither would she thank him for bringing eight couple of hound into her farmyard. Theirs was an evening acquaintance that existed separately from their normal working and social lives, despite his best efforts to lure her off a horse, flirt her towards his bed and guard her like a sentry. The trouble was, he was also flirting with a million pounds, and that had started to feel like a curse rather than a bonus.
He saw the summer as his own time, a long stretch of hazy days and naked nights before the hunting season began, a time in which he’d get his horses fit, his hounds disciplined, his local knowledge up to speed, and in which he’d do whatever it took to help Kat Mason ride for her life across water.
