The Country Escape

by Fiona Walker

  As he gathered Quiver up to leave the house, he pressed his lips to the small black head and said his first prayer in years. ‘Please keep her safe.’

  Kat had pulled out the Tantric accessories from behind the Lake Farm sofa. Now she dragged a fat floor cushion from its jewelled cover, attacked its seams with scissors to create a neck opening and arm holes, then pulled it over her head. She turned another into a pair of shapeless knickerbockers that she dragged over her breeches and secured with a belt before admiring her reflection in the microwave door – the closest thing Lake Farm had to a mirror. It was a quirky but no less dramatic look, she told herself encouragingly.

  Dougie arrived as she was wrapping a sari over her helmet to create a huge turban headdress that was unlikely to survive twenty yards into Duke’s Wood. Arms full of fabric, she stopped when she saw him step through the kitchen door. In black tie, Dougie Everett was suaver than Brosnan, sexier than Connery and more ripped than Craig. His eyes were bluer and hotter than a Mauritian ocean bay.

  He took the ends of the sari from her and slowly unravelled it. Then he pulled the cushion cover back over her head and pressed his mouth to her shoulder. ‘Fancy dress optional. Nerves of steel compulsory.’ He took her face in his hands and tilted it so that she was looking straight into his eyes. ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘You know I have to do it.’

  His lips landed hard against hers, then softened to draw her in, long fingers threading through her hair as she found her body curling into his, the perfect fit.

  ‘Do this for yourself, Kat. Forget about the marriage proposal. Forget about Constance. Forget about this place. Let this be for you.’

  ‘You don’t get out if it that easily. You’re still getting your answer. You dared me, remember?’

  Chapter 64

  Bollywood had come to Herefordshire. Staged to impress Igor, the Eardisford party was on an epic scale with no expense spared, no cliché left out and no chance of a moment’s boredom for the hundreds of guests. It was a sensory overload of colour, rhythm and entertainment. Big screens had been erected throughout the old house to show the dance sequences from the iconic movies, the catchy music piped into every room. Pretty Indian waitresses in traditional costumes whisked around with trays of champagne or bite-sized bhajis and samosas. There were snake charmers and illusionists, puppeteers and acrobats. The central run of reception rooms had been tented in peacock blue, scarlet and saffron, the draped ceilings backlit to glow like a sunset, hand-pulled fans sweeping back and forth. Vast gold-sprayed prop-store statues of Hindu gods lined the walls, and dancers glittered and jingled between the rooms, matching the movements on the screens.

  The carnival atmosphere carried on outside in the balmy, midge-speckled dusk of a high summer evening, where the water in the floodlit fountains had been dyed orange, pink and purple, jewel-coloured streamers and banners glowed like neon in the setting sun and a huge, domed marquee sat like a mini Taj Mahal on the lawns, booming out the music that was playing in the house. In every corner of the gardens, more entertainers drew the eye, fire-eating and juggling, sword-swallowing and balancing, and most of all dancing.

  ‘I hope this has been health-and-safety-checked,’ said Miriam, eyeing a troupe of acrobats balancing on a camel. Her cerise sari had corsetry and a platform bra built in and she’d added a high-grade pedicure to her spa treatments that day – her jewelled flip-flops were set off by the softest fish-nibbled skin and sparkling nails.

  Vivacious in an emerald body tube, Dawn wasted no time in introducing herself, Dair loyally at her side in a tweedy-coloured turban that was tipping ever-lower over his forehead. ‘We met through Kat Mason in February,’ Dawn reminded Miriam. ‘I’m interested to know if you think there’s any call for a mobile beautician in this part of Herefordshire.’

  Miriam replied eagerly that she thought there was indeed a tremendous call – she would love to be pampered at home, as would most of her girlfriends. And many local women would embrace a higher standard of personal care if it were on offer in a convenient venue one day a month – ‘At the village hall, say.’ She nodded pointedly at two elderly sisters hip-jigging by a coloured fountain.

  Cyn and Pru were clearly entranced by the music. They clapped repeatedly, wrists and bodies jangling like sleigh bells from the beads and sequins covering their home-made costumes. Tall Pru was sporting a makeshift salwar kameez consisting of a brightly coloured seventies kaftan and clashing eighties harem pants dug out of her jumble-sale box, while little Cyn had a brightly jewelled gypsy ghaghra skirt and ill-advised pink crop-top, a matching beaded chiffon scarf draped loosely on her head. Both were sporting sparkly bindis on their foreheads – sticky-backed jewels prised from a great-niece’s birthday card – and matching expressions of unalloyed rapture.

  ‘There’s a snake charmer!’

  ‘There’s an elephant!’

  ‘You wouldn’t think we were in a global recession, would you?’ chuckled Frank Bingham-Ince. His eyes were nearly popping out at the sight of so many exotic maidens baring their midriffs. Unfortunately he was being policed by his wife for once, sixteen stones of moral disapproval in a Thatcher blue sari wound tightly around her bulk. ‘I thought he was a philanthropist.’

  ‘No doubt it’s all offset against tax,’ observed Dair, tweedy turban lowering towards his nose now as he rolled up to introduce Dawn to Frank and his wife, who quickly admitted that, yes, a mobile spa would be a terrific boon, especially for one’s ‘garden topiary’.

  ‘Doesn’t Boyle do that with the secateurs?’ barked Frank, listening in.

  ‘I love people round here,’ Dawn told Dair, as they moved up the terrace steps towards the main house. ‘They’re just so… chilled. It’s all so chilled this far out of Watford.’

  ‘Would you like to borrow my coat?’ Dair offered gallantly.

  ‘God, you’re lovely.’ She threaded her arm through his.

  Dawn tried not to think about Kat, whom she’d been forced to leave behind, despite much cajoling all day and a great many beauty treatments, mostly performed in an ambush while she was mucking out an animal enclosure. Kat insisted she was fine and that she was meeting Dougie before coming. Dawn respected that dynamic far too much to interfere any more, but she knew when she was being shut out. It made her want to move in all the more.

  ‘Do you think there’s much call for male treatments round here?’ she asked Dair now, as they moved smoothly through security into the main house. ‘Back, sack and crack type thing?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ he said firmly.

  Dawn loved the fact Dair was so masterful. She was thrilled that being with him tonight meant having access to both the servants’ party in the gardens and marquee, and the masters’ in the house.

  Up here amid the tented sunsets and big screens, guests had been shipped in from every cosmopolitan corner of the globe, including several Bollywood stars and another pouting clutch of rented Baltic models. There were local landowners, London bankers, American financiers, Chinese capitalists, Euro royals and hordes of hired celebrities trading air kisses and posing endlessly against a backdrop of swagged silk for the society photographer. Seth’s most trusted team players had been tasked with ensuring the guests mingled, introductions were made, the biggest business allies felt the centre of attention and the crowd formed a constant happy drift of high spirits.

  Overseeing them all, Dollar was playing hostess in turquoise and gold silk, as ravishing as any Bollywood heroine. Traditional costume transformed her. Dawn, who had never seen her before, decided she was by far the most beautiful woman in the room when Dair pointed her out in a whisper. She had an almost ethereal femininity, the glittering gold of her necklace and headdress softening her face in which the dark eyes seemed far too large, the thoughts incredibly deep.

  Dollar was close to meltdown. Outwardly cool and controlled beneath the jaunty, happy soundtrack, the tremor of her jewellery resounded like a hive of bees. Seth was still not back from B
radford, his phone switched off. In his absence, the mantle fell on her to ensure the event was a great success. It was a constant round of overseeing the big picture and micro-managing smaller problems, which normally used a fraction of her active brain, but tonight her ever-churning heart was demanding a majority share, and the mutinous villagers were trying to claim more ground by the minute. As she suspected, the ‘servants’ were causing problems with a combination of raucous, drunken rubber-necking and mutinous rabble-rousing. They had been trying to infiltrate the masters’ party all night. The hired security staff – mostly Eastern European man-mountains brought in for Igor’s benefit – were in danger of being too heavy-handed. Several earthmen were already sporting fresh black eyes and more lost teeth.

  ‘I knew this was a bad idea.’ She had cornered Dair, who was looking extraordinary in an open-necked satin shirt, turban like a tweed mushroom, a curvaceous and sweet-smiling blonde in a glittery green dress beaming at his side. ‘You must calm them down, Dair. We have to avoid negative PR at all costs.’

  ‘I warned you this was a bad idea. Russ has been whipping them up all day.’

  The estate team were trying to play down the events of that morning by the lake, hoping the party would take everybody’s mind off them, although rumours of Igor’s archaic stag chase – wildly exaggerated through much retelling at the Eardisford Arms at lunchtime – now featured an army of bow-wielding Russians shooting arrows at baby fawns, elderly llamas and terrified sheep.

  It wasn’t the hunting news that was causing the most ongoing outrage in the servants’ tent however. It was still Dougie Everett’s indecent proposal. The story, which had been doing the rounds all week, had got no less salacious. The scandal was all the more shocking because everyone had liked Dougie so much. But they adored Kat.

  ‘Just like his bastard father,’ Bill Hedges was ranting at a trainee Herefordshire Life reporter, who was supposed to be taking down names for the social-pages photographer. Having raided the am-dram costume store again, Bill was in a full-length gold sherwani coat with a turban as wide as his shoulders. ‘Vaughan Everett took cash for questions, and Everett junior takes cash for marriage vows. Poor little Kat stood up to all the Mytton beneficiaries bullying her – now this. Old Constance will be coming back to haunt this place if it doesn’t stop, mark my words.’

  Chapter 65

  Arriving at the Bollywood party, Dougie was deathly pale and unsmiling. Having just thundered the length of the estate on the sanctuary’s quad bike, opening gates, pushing back brambles and checking for new livestock, his dinner suit was covered with burrs and dust, and his blond hair full of twigs. He hadn’t shaved, had forgotten his invitation and had a dog with him, but such was his beauty and class, he was granted instant access to both servants’ and masters’ revels, turbaned and veiled heads turning to stare at him as he marched through the main house. Navigating his way past acres of festooned silk that made him feel as though he was trapped inside a tumble-dryer, he made a bee-line for Dollar, who was lying low in a panelled corridor shouting into her mobile phone.

  ‘What do you mean I can’t speak to him, Deepak? You are piloting a plane and you answered your phone. Put him on the line!… Oh, I see.’ She looked up at Dougie, her face unmasked, her eyes huge. ‘Very well. Tell him I will be waiting beside the landing strip… What delicate situation?’

  Dougie paced urgently up and down the corridor until she came off the call, when he told her in an undertone that he was going to need her help. ‘In about fifteen minutes, we’ll have to get people away from the terrace steps and the main hall.’

  ‘Is it a bomb?’ she breathed, reaching for her phone again to call her head of security.

  He covered her hand to stop her. ‘Only if you classify my heart as a life-threatening incendiary device. Kat’s taking on the Bolt.’

  ‘What a stupid thing to do tonight of all nights.’ She checked her wrist watch. ‘In a quarter of an hour, Seth’s plane will be landing.’

  ‘Can you get him to circle out of the way for a few extra minutes?’

  ‘Absolutely not. His elderly parents are on board.’

  ‘I don’t care who is on board, they can’t land yet. She’s about to ride a horse through the lake.’

  To Dougie’s dismay, he heard a familiar metallic click as a gun’s trigger catch came off and he saw something glint under Dollar’s sari. ‘I will let nothing risk upsetting Seth’s parents, do you understand? Nothing. You must go and stop her.’

  ‘Frankly, I don’t think anybody could stop her right now,’ he admitted, ‘not even a plane.’

  Standing at the brow of Duke’s Wood, listening out for the church clock, Kat knew her route, so carefully planned and practised, galloped a thousand times in her head. Dusk was falling, red fingers pushing through the tree line behind her.

  Sri was on maximum alert, keyed up and desperate to get going. Kat looked at those familiar curling ears twitching, feeling the mare growing ever-taller beneath her as the spring coiled, lifting her ribs and putting her on her toes.

  You can do this, Katherine, came a familiar rallying call, as Constance’s gravelly, laughter-infused voice urged her on. It is the best feeling in the world. Do this and you can do anything.

  In the valley below, the hour bell rang out at last. She loosened her grip on the reins, barely needing to touch the mare’s sides before they were streaking into a gallop like a Derby contender exploding from the start gates.

  I want you to do it because it will set you free. You will understand what I am talking about when it happens.

  It was happening.

  At the servants’ party, Russ was sporting flip-flops and a Gandhi cap along with a dhoti made from a hop sack. Knocking back Kingfisher beer faster than a bad lad in a curry house, he was holding forth about his heroics to the Eardisford Arms regulars, who had regrouped to line the bar in the marquee. ‘If the bullet had been a centimetre to the left, it would have gone straight through me. Always knew there was illegal hunting planned. You can’t get away with it these days.’

  The earthmen exchanged glances and shuffled off for more free beer. Mags remained loyally gazing up at him above her jewelled veil, marked by Calum the Talon who was dressed in a shiny dinner suit that still had raffle tickets in its pockets from the last five hunt balls. Looking more belly-dancer than Bollywood in a costume that revealed the full glory of her tattoo collection, Mags had been so impressed by Russ’s daring near miss that she’d placed the Thermos with the bullet hole on the ‘trophy shelf’ behind the bar in the pub.

  ‘Do you think he’ll try again?’ she asked.

  ‘If he does, I’ll be waiting. I don’t care how many bullets I have to dodge.’ Russ clasped his beer bottle to his chest staunchly. ‘Shouldn’t think he’ll stay now he knows he can’t make up his own rules.’

  ‘We all miss the Hon Con,’ said Calum the Talon, eyeing a pink-watered fountain with distaste. ‘She was a gutsy old bird. Galloped to save this place, she did.’

  ‘Her lot were just as bad,’ Russ pointed out hotly. ‘I took a bullet for its future.’

  ‘Will you shut up about the bloody bullet?’ snapped Calum. ‘It weren’t much more than a ball-bearing. Besides, it missed you.’

  ‘Calm down.’ Mags arm-locked them both in an affectionate cuddle. Over her head, Russ shot a swaggering smile at Calum, who glowered back and drew a finger line above his hawk-themed bow-tie to mime a throat being cut. The two men had been squaring up for a fight for several weeks, which Mags found thrilling.

  ‘Shall we try and get upstairs again?’ Russ suggested, the beer making him militant. ‘I refuse to be segregated.’

  ‘Better entertainment down here,’ said Mags, as their little group was joined by Dair, proud as a peacock with Dawn on his arm. She was still conducting eager market research as she quizzed Calum about his grooming preferences.

  The villagers and estate staff mostly stuck together in their usual social groups in the marquee, intimid
ated by the glamour and ostentatious wealth on show in the house. Their home-made costumes were a colourful hotchpotch of scarves, curtains and throws with lots of turbans at jaunty angles, along with a few dusty dinner suits and ballgowns.

  ‘I can’t wait to see what Seth looks like,’ Dawn said eagerly, pulling Dair closer. ‘Apparently he’s been delayed on family business in Yorkshire.’

  ‘Probably getting last-minute cricket coaching with Rashid,’ Russ muttered, stalking off to ask a waitress which of the canapés on her tray were vegan.

  ‘Has Russ come as Jesus?’ Dawn giggled, admiring how dapper and manicured Dair looked after his pre-party Beautiful Dawn session, although he did admittedly whiff rather badly of fake tan. She saw herself as Victoria Beckham to his Golden Balls.

  She checked her watch. ‘I’m sure Kat should be here by now. I’m worried about her. She was meeting Dougie over an hour ago. What did he say to you again?’

  Before Dair could answer, there was a collective hush as the man himself hurried into the marquee. Hair dishevelled, collar open and bow-tie undone, he was the epitome of a bad-boy bounder who’d just spilled out of a mistress’s bed. The villagers eyed him suspiciously, some with open contempt.