The Country Escape

by Fiona Walker

  Her ears were consequently struggling to take in much beyond a hundred and twenty frenzied beats per minute and her own breathing, embarrassingly loud, rapid-fire wheezing pants. And there was a lot of splashing going on beneath them.

  Yet she was certain that Dougie had just said he’d been hired to marry her.

  She felt as though she’d galloped bravely over a cliff only to find herself as the end-of-pier amusement. She’d just told him her most painful, personal truth and he’d come back at her with a joke about being a marriage assassin. At least it served to remind her that he was a flippant bastard. And, more surprisingly, it made her laugh, a shocked reflex that helped shake off the fear. Dougie’s dry, deadpan delivery drew a delicious ripple of laughter up through her, as unexpected as it was joyful. Laughter was such a relief after the intensity of talking about Nick, confessing the truths she’d never intended to spill again, certainly never to Dougie Everett. She should be furious with him for rewarding her with this childish joke, but it was too gloriously surreal – especially given they were both sitting on horses in a lake – and she was overwhelmed to have ridden Sri into water up to her belly. Laughter helped enormously: it stopped her thinking about the water. Wiping tears of mirth from her eyes and hanging on to Sri’s mane, she laughed until it hurt.

  ‘I told you I was lousy at truths.’ Dougie was looking at her curiously. Beneath him, Worcester was pawing at the water, trying to get his head down.

  Dropping the reins, she reached across and cuffed his arm. ‘But you’ve really cheered me up. Thank you.’ Her eyes caught his and he held her gaze so intently that the last of the laughter melted away. ‘Dougie, please don’t —’

  ‘I am not flirting,’ he second-guessed her with an impatient huff.

  ‘I was going to say “propose”.’

  Amusement creased in the corners of his blue eyes. Then his expression changed to one of alarm as the Marwari mare, who had put her head down to drink, started to crumple.

  Kat let out a scream as Sri dropped towards the water beneath her. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘She’s trying to roll. Grab the reins and pull her head up!’

  Preparing to cool off in the water with an ecstatic sigh, the mare was already down on her knees and hocks. Leaping from his saddle, Dougie threw himself across ten feet of water to rescue her and almost got mown down as Kat kicked and cajoled so energetically that Sri stood up and spun towards the bank. A moment later they were streaking across the meadow. ‘Not even Sri’s allowed to go down on one knee!’ she shouted over her shoulder.

  Galloping helped clear Kat’s head. Eventually, she pulled up at the edge of the woods, lungs bursting.

  ‘Never, ever do that to me again,’ she told Sri, whose curly ears were revolving like radar dishes at something she’d sensed in the woods. ‘If we’re going to get across the big lake, there’ll be no seal rolls. And Dougie Everett needs keeping under tight control. Don’t give him any more excuses to be heroic.’ She rubbed her sweaty face on the back of her sleeve, resting her arm against her eyes for a moment to blot out the sun setting through the trees. She groaned. Telling Dougie about Nick had been a huge mistake, she was certain. Her best survival tactic would be to laugh it off. And at least he’d been generous enough to supply the running gag.

  At that moment, Sri went sharply into reverse as she took exception to whatever she’d sensed in the woods, almost tipping Kat out of the saddle. Swinging around, she let out a shrill whinny and set off at full tilt towards the reassuring bulky shape of Worcester: Dougie was jockeying him across the meadow towards them at his gambolling canter.

  ‘Oh, shit.’ Kat pulled hopelessly at the reins as she found herself inadvertently riding towards Dougie through Lush Bottom’s jewelled carpet of flowers, like a swooning romantic heroine about to embrace her manly hero. Judging from the width of his smile, he was enjoying the show.

  Determined not to lose face, she shouted, ‘So how are you going to make me marry you?’

  Dougie was sopping wet and frustrated that his honesty had backfired, but the sight of her galloping towards him had cheered him up a lot, and he was equally determined not to lose face. Swinging Worcester around so that they were riding alongside one another, he played along with the joke she clearly found so funny. ‘I’ll propose.’

  ‘Go on then!’

  ‘Is that a dare?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Will you marry me?’ Worcester was blowing hard, accompanying the question with snorts, groans and clanking metal. Dougie brought the horse back to a trot, letting him stretch out his neck and relax.

  ‘If I say no, will you lose your job?’ Kat called, struggling to apply the brakes, her long red ponytail twirling.

  ‘I might get a formal warning.’ He wished that he had kept quiet about the bonus. She was right to dismiss it as a joke.

  ‘And if I say yes and we rush off to a register office, I lose Lake Farm under the terms of my lease.’ She reined to a halt, eyebrows shooting up. The big, defensive smile was back in place, he noticed, with a sinking heart.

  ‘Clever girl.’ He rode level before pulling up too. ‘You spotted the evil master-plan.’

  Just for a moment he saw her eyes flicker behind the smile and knew she was questioning her laughter. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to push that door and find a big HAHAHA waiting after all.

  He mustered a self-deprecating smile. ‘I take it the answer is no?’

  To his surprise, she didn’t immediately answer. She was looking at the stables clock-tower, only just visible beyond the woods. It was eight fifteen. From the opposite direction, they could hear the village church bell ring the quarter chime.

  ‘I’ll give you my answer after I ride the Bolt. As long as you promise not to flirt with me until then. Not once.’

  Chapter 46

  Dougie honoured the flirting ban. For three weeks, he and Kat met almost every evening as the birds roosted and the hay was cut in the meadows around the estate, trading truths and dares, riding ever faster, tracking the course of the Bolt from Duke’s Wood right up to the house. By day, he ran his hounds and exercised horses while Kat juggled aged animals, budget nightmares, dippy volunteers and endless maintenance. But each evening, for an hour or two, they stood in their stirrups and rode the loveliest turf in Herefordshire, intent on a joint mission. The marriage proposal remained a running joke, but the historic Mytton challenge was something they both took increasingly seriously, a dare that must be met.

  Dougie had plotted two routes, one of which avoided the lake but would require Kat to ride a great deal faster and more accurately. He broke it down into sections and they tackled each in turn, perfecting every change of direction and pace, like rehearsing a stunt sequence. Kat was a tireless if occasionally stubborn pupil, fearless yet precise, listening to every instruction, determined to get better. She was also surprisingly easy to talk to.

  By not flirting, Dougie found himself laughing more than he remembered doing in years, as well as shouting, coaching and trading satisfyingly furious insults. Their conversations were fast, furious and laughter-laced, breathlessly gasped between bursts of speed, covering childhood, careers and engagements, of which they’d broken five between them if you counted Dean Stoppard, who had proposed to Kat at the age of eight.

  ‘His dad was being posted to Germany, so we exchanged rings and had an engagement party, promising to stay true to other until we were sixteen and could legally marry. He wrote to me every day until I replied six weeks later breaking it off because his ring had given me a green finger.’

  ‘With our track record, we’d better skip engagement and heard straight for Vegas after you ride the Bolt. Race you to the haha.’

  They embraced their common ground, trading memories of childhoods with divorced parents and a succession of evil step-parents, romantic disasters, favourite films and music, sharing their unswerving love of animals and a fierce loyalty to their friends, whom they saw rarely because, af
ter all, they had both run away here. Most of all they made each other laugh, trading insults with increasing joy.

  ‘You’re almost human for a posh boy.’

  ‘You’re pretty cool for a common cow.’

  Not flirting turned them into two children playing through long, balmy, midge-hazed summer evenings, lost in a world of chivalric challenges, silly jokes and breakneck races. Much later each night, it transformed them into two sleepless, sheet-twisting teenagers, hollow with longing, stomachs churning with anticipation. With friends and acquaintances, it turned them into two self-satisfied puritans who could very honestly report, ‘We just ride together.’ They blithely rose above the village gossip, which had cast them as the Lancelot and Guinevere of Eardisford, and determinedly ignored the approaching storm of Seth’s first VIP visit.

  Dougie counted the minutes to those snatched hours each evening, although he dreaded the call that inevitably came afterwards. Dollar’s questions were increasingly personal, the monotone voice calm as always but her mistrust clear. ‘I think it is unrealistic to expect this of you. You are clearly becoming too attached.’

  At first, he was evasive and glib, insisting it was all in hand, anything to buy himself more time. Then, in a masterstroke of unwitting impatience, he told Dollar that he had proposed but that Kat would only answer after undertaking an historic challenge. ‘Constance Mytton-Gough did much the same thing. It’s a local tradition. She’s very old-fashioned like that.’

  To his surprise, Dollar thought this perfectly reasonable. ‘This is excellent. You will keep me informed of her progress. She must undertake this challenge before Seth’s visit.’ After that, their conversations became much easier, and thankfully Dollar was soon too distracted by Seth’s ambitious weekend plans to delve into too many details and discover the no-flirting clause.

  ‘He will be hosting a Bollywood party on the Saturday. His weekend guests will enjoy a banquet in the house, but there will also be a marquee in the grounds to which he would like to invite the estate staff and villagers. Invitations will be circulated shortly.’

  ‘A servants’ ball.’ Dougie laughed, guessing his tactics. ‘How very archaic. Let me guess, we get the village cricket team so pie-eyed at the ball they can’t bowl straight the next day. Meanwhile, estate staff are contractually obliged to stay sober.’

  ‘Everybody will be encouraged to have a good time, although Sunday’s cricket match is of great importance. For Seth, cricket is second only to religion,’ Dollar said, adding briskly, ‘and his mother.’

  ‘Is Kat going to be invited to the ball?’

  ‘That would not be appropriate. In the event that she has not vacated Lake Farm, contingencies are in place for the weekend. However, I strongly recommend you pursue your objective.’

  ‘Leave it with me.’ He promised nothing, increasingly aware that he was on borrowed time and that his objective had changed. He knew that the open proposal was just a joke to Kat, and he wasn’t focusing on that any more. As far as Dougie was concerned, all that mattered was that she had a chance to ride the Bolt before Seth’s visit, yet he knew she was far from ready. Nor was he ready to let go of their shared evenings. Every minute was precious as he charged along the rides and headlands with Kat, timing each section, adoring her determined expression as she sought to improve, the way laughter burst from her when her time was shorter, the hugs and kisses raining down on Sri’s neck.

  When she heard about the servants and masters ball and learned that she would not be invited, Kat simply laughed and joked that she should ride the Bolt that night. ‘It’s just the sort of thing Constance would have done.’

  She talked about Constance often, relating conversations about Marwari horses, the history of the house and estate, and the many legendary runnings of the Bolt, so many steeped in failure and a few in tragedy.

  ‘The Myttons who accepted the challenge would ride up the steps and through the grand hall, out on to the front carriage sweep and along the drive to the Hereford road,’ she explained, when they examined the final leg, eyed suspiciously by a battalion of cameras now discreetly positioned in amongst the Jacobean architecture.

  ‘Not easy to make sure the house is open.’ He sucked in his lips thoughtfully. ‘We could try bribing someone on the staff, but they’re a pretty tightly briefed team. The security is seriously high grade now.’ He knew he could speak to Dollar, but it seemed like cheating, and compared to crossing the lake, it was a minor worry. They’d now clocked enough section times to know that there was no way Kat would make the time if she went around the water: she had to ride through it.

  Kat had stared at the lake almost every evening that summer, trying to imagine herself swimming across it, but the first time Dougie assessed it with her close-up, on foot after they had ridden out one evening, he let out a low groan. ‘Fuck, it’s huge.’

  This hardly gave her great encouragement. ‘You’ve seen it loads of times.’

  ‘I always forget how big it is. It looks quite small from the top of the parkland.’

  ‘That’s an optical illusion from the oxbow.’ Kat stood at the shallowest curve of bank alongside the ornate stone-plinthed causeway, knowing it would be the obvious place from which to gallop a horse through the lake, but just looking at the black, weed-choked water left her breathless with panic. Two football pitches separated her from the far side.

  ‘The water is only deep for about ten metres in the centre,’ Dougie shouted over his shoulder, wading in to his thighs. ‘Horses swim incredibly slowly, so this is the shortest crossing point and it has great visibility. She’ll hesitate at first, so you’ll need lots of leg. Come on.’ He reversed up to her standing on the bank, holding his arms out.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Giving you a ride. I’m the horse.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Come on, get on. We’ll just go in a few feet and come out. You won’t even get your feet wet. I dare you, you bloody wimp. We’re getting you across this lake by the end of the week, I swear. I’ll even tell you another truth. Anything.’

  It was the first time Kat sensed real anger in his cajoling and frustration. She hesitated, already clammy-handed and breathing shallowly, but her blood was up and she wasn’t going to be accused of wimpery. Having banked on going round her nemesis, she now knew she had no choice but to face it.

  Cursing under her breath, she put her hands on his shoulders and jumped on to his back, wrapping her arms around him for balance. As soon as she did it, she realized her mistake: the sense was knocked out of her with a white-out of sensory overload, feeling the hard breadth of him, smelling his sweetness, feeling his hair against her cheek. His lips touched her arm, whether by accident or design she had no idea, but they rested there, his breath soft on her skin, and she was certain he knew how attracted she was, how her body cleaved to his no matter what her mind was telling it to do, drawing his skin against hers, absorbing its warmth. For a moment they remained still, a lakeside piggy-back of strange, heavenly connection.

  Then she screeched with laughter as he turned away from the lake and cavorted along the bank towards the lime avenue, carrying her at a reckless bouncing, jigging pelt, slaloming through a few trees before kinking right into the arboretum.

  ‘You should have kicked on. I’m now running away with you!’

  He finally let her down in the farmyard, where the last rays of sun were slicing right through the house, as they so often did, turning it into a light-box. He stepped away swiftly and decorously as soon as she was on the ground, upright and eyes-front as a guardsman.

  ‘This is a beautiful place.’ He admired Lake Farm’s ugly artisan face, the Pompidou Centre drainpipes and loose wires transformed by its magic-lantern windows. ‘It deserves to be lived in and loved.’

  ‘I love it very much.’ Kat admired it too.

  He wandered inside, surrounded by dogs – they now thought of him as a great mate and ushered him excitedly into their lair along with Quiver,
eager to help him explore.

  ‘You have nothing whatsoever to drink.’ He looked in the fridge. ‘Or eat.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting a guest.’ Kat edged after him cautiously.

  ‘I’m not thinking of me – I have a fridge full of goodies – I’m thinking of you. You’re feeding the mare extra rations for all this work she’s doing. What about you?’

  ‘I get by.’

  ‘Come to dinner.’

  ‘No thanks.’ She didn’t trust herself for a minute with wine, good food and Dougie, worried she’d be a total pushover, the easiest notch ever grooved on his much-striped bedpost. ‘You’ve already proposed – it’s a bit late to start the courtship.’

  ‘Have I flirted?’

  ‘No.’