James knew he was romanticizing. Lucy had probably clung on to him because she’d had too much champagne. And he’d seen her get into the taxi with Mickey not half an hour before. They’d looked very much a couple – Mickey had draped his dinner jacket round her because she hadn’t brought a coat.
But screwing Caroline now would desecrate the memory; he’d somehow feel as if he was being unfaithful. He managed to slide her into his bed and pulled the blankets up under her chin, tucking her in firmly before she got any ideas.
Patrick was woken by the sound of the taxi dropping everyone off. He could hear Mickey and Lucy talking and laughing down the corridor, swapping notes on the events of the evening. He could bet his father was leaving one particular section out.
Patrick barged into the bathroom where Mandy was cleaning her teeth and glared at her across the black and white tiled floor.
‘You’ll have to keep an eye open for Sophie during the night. She’s been as sick as a dog – no thanks to you.’
Startled, Mandy put down her toothbrush.
‘Me?’
‘What the hell did you do to her tonight?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You made her look like a slag.’
‘She looked brilliant.’ Patrick was glad of her choice of adjective, for it highlighted the Birmingham twinge in her accent and took the edge off her attraction.
‘Everyone thought so.’
‘And how could you flirt with Ned like that?’
‘I wasn’t. We were just having a laugh. I don’t fancy him or anything.’
‘So you just did it to wind Sophie up?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. Sophie’s mad about him. No wonder she went and got blind drunk.’
‘Shit.’ Mandy look at him in anguish, and he was surprised that she sounded so genuine. ‘I didn’t know. Honestly. Why didn’t she tell me?’
Patrick wasn’t going to be taken in. He knew what women were like. Bloody good actresses when they wanted to be. This little bitch needed to be taught a lesson. He wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
For a few moments they stared each other out. Then Patrick let his eyes travel down Mandy’s nightshirt, down her long, lightly tanned legs and up again. Her nipples stood out like shirt buttons under the soft cotton, and as their eyes locked again he reached out and caressed one lightly with his thumb. She took in a sharp little breath, but didn’t move, and he knew that if he could feel her heart it would be pitter-pattering like a rabbit in a trap.
He took another step forward, until he was so close that he could feel her breath on his face. She looked up at him, wide-eyed and expectant, as he put his hands behind her head and pulled her forward to meet his lips. His first kiss was gentle, almost imperceptible, and she shut her eyes for a moment, savouring the taste and feel of him as an expert would a new wine.
Then in a second she was on him, drinking hungrily at his mouth like a newborn lamb on its mother’s teat. Patrick was surprised by the depth of his own response. He wound his fingers roughly in her long, dark, silky hair, so unlike Kelly’s, which was bleached, back-combed, gelled and sprayed until it felt like Shredded Wheat. Kay’s, too, was brittle through years of expensive and subtle highlighting. Mandy’s skin was baby-soft and Patrick had no fear of streaky orange foundation being left on his white dress shirt. He breathed in her scent, a faint, lingering trace of lemons, not a cloying assault on the senses; both Kelly and Kay were devoted to expensive, over-powering perfumes that lingered wherever they went. She was delicate, natural, beautiful, and suddenly Patrick wanted her very, very badly.
He tilted her head back for a moment to look into her eyes. Her pupils were huge with desire and he could feel her small breasts rise and fall against his chest in time with her quickening breath. He smiled, and she smiled back at him, rather unsure. He touched the pretty dimple that appeared at the side of her mouth with his finger, then delicately traced the outline of her mouth. Her eyes were half closed, like a cat in the ecstasy of attention.
Suddenly a picture of her face as she flirted with Ned sprang into his mind. Mandy need only have snapped her fingers and Ned would have been hers, slavering in adoration, while Sophie sat by watching in abject misery, her chicken marengo untouched as the adolescent pangs of unrequited love gnawed at her insides. Patrick thought Mandy had probably got exactly what she wanted all of her life. And now she thought she’d got him. He’d been seduced by her pretty packaging; the hard little heart wrapped in layers of pink tissue, tied with a ribbon and labelled ‘Take Me’. It was, admittedly, difficult to resist. But, unfortunately for Mandy, Patrick’s heart was harder than his penis. Just.
8
On the flight from Nice to Birmingham, Keith Sherwyn stuck his legs out into the space allowed him by travelling Club and sipped on a restorative brandy and ginger ale. He avoided the seasonal mince pie that reminded him Christmas was only just over a week away: all that French food, much as he’d enjoyed it, had left him with a slightly unsettled stomach. Derek Legge, the fellow in charge of refurbishing the Sheikh’s yacht, had insisted on taking him on a gastronomic tour of the south of France. The Sheikh was prone to sacking people overnight on a whim, so Derek was making the most of his expense account while he still had it and Keith had benefited from his profligacy.
It had taken considerable time to persuade Legge that black granite in all the bathrooms would slow the vessel down considerably. The Sheikh had his heart set on it and Derek suspected that being the bearer of bad tidings would be a sacking offence. Keith couldn’t help feeling that Derek blamed him in some way, but he couldn’t change the fact that granite was bloody heavy. Finally, under a Picasso and over foie gras at the Colombe d’Or in St Paul de Vence (Keith felt that the painting and the pâté were both overrated, but didn’t say so), he’d talked Derek into a resin substitute that wouldn’t sink the boat. He didn’t tell him that it was basically upmarket formica, or that his profit margin would be substantially higher as there would be less labour involved in installation. The Sheikh had, miraculously, agreed – speed, it seemed, was more important than surroundings – and after that it had just been a question of pinning down the accessories: taps, towel rails, toothbrush holders, et cetera.
For the past four days Keith had allowed himself to think of nothing but business. This had been a lucrative contract that needed attention to detail, so he’d been able to force himself to give it his undivided attention. Now, however, as the plane sped back over the Channel towards Solihull, which he knew would seem so soulless after the chic, bustling glamour of the south of France, Keith was left with little choice but to contemplate his disastrous personal life.
He stared out of the window at the white wisps of cloud scudding beneath them, and finally allowed himself to feel. He waited for the pain of abandonment to twist at his gut, the agony of desertion to tear at his heartstrings – but there was nothing. Not even a little stab of self-pity. He wondered if perhaps the brandy had numbed his feelings, but that was ridiculous – the shot he’d been given wouldn’t have made a toddler tipsy. He leaned further back into the padded headrest and tried to focus on his predicament. A glossy air hostess passed by him and smiled.
‘Looking forward to going home, sir?’
Disconcerted, Keith roused himself up and realized with amazement that he’d been smiling to himself, and that the only feeling filtering through was a secretive, schoolboy sense of glee at having escaped some sort of eternal detention. He raised his glass to the hostess.
‘I certainly am.’
He could go home and put on his favourite holey jumper, stick his still-shod feet up on the coffee table, drink beer out of the bottle and not worry about the rings it left, have the TV on as loud as he liked and completely ignore the telephone. Instead of being forced into his designer tracksuit and ‘house’ shoes, having to pour his beer into his shiny monogrammed tankard with matching silver coaster, having the TV drowned out
by Barry Manilow or Garth Brooks and leaping up to answer the phone in case it was an invitation to the social function of the year. Even though they had an answerphone. Because, Sandra had explained to him severely and incessantly, some people didn’t leave messages if they thought you were out, especially if it was a last-minute thing.
He was glad! He was bloody glad she’d left him!
Admittedly, he’d been taken aback when Sandra had stood in the hallway last Wednesday, surrounded by her fifteen pieces of matching Samsonite and clutching the ridiculous vanity bag that held most of her face, and announced she was leaving. Two minutes later a cream Mercedes with tinted windows had drawn up and Keith, shell-shocked, had automatically helped her out with her cases. He’d stared in disbelief at the puny, callow youth that had leaped out to open the boot – she couldn’t be leaving him for this, surely? – then realized with a sinking heart that of course this was not her lover, but his driver.
Keith could read no expression in Sandra’s eyes, hidden behind her sunglasses. The only information she volunteered was ‘He’s taking me on holiday’ and Keith knew from the accusation in her tone that herein lay the only explanation he was going to get.
Neglect. He hadn’t paid her enough attention. Keith was aggrieved. Bathrooms didn’t sell themselves, especially not bathrooms with onyx sinks and gold taps and jacuzzis big enough for an entire rugby team. Obviously this was another one of life’s little equations: you couldn’t make millions and your wife happy.
He mentally wished whoever Sandra had run off with good luck and, as the plane started circling around the familiar Legoland below, Keith contemplated his immediate future with something bordering on relish.
Mandy slid her arms around his neck and breathed in his warm, musky scent. She could feel his iron-hard muscles ripple under her embrace as she nuzzled up against him, and rubbed her cheek against his. But the recipient of her affection was not impressed. He wanted his oats. Literally.
As Phoenix gave a snort and stamped his foot impatiently, Mandy tangled her fingers in his mane and patted his nose with the other hand.
‘I’m sorry, boy. I don’t know what to give you. You’ll have to wait.’
She hugged him again, but he wasn’t consoled. She was, just a little bit. Phoenix was like a giant teddy bear and that, in her confused and bewildered state, was what she needed. She’d lain awake all night, her emotions raging from fury to despair to cringing embarrassment back to tooth-grinding rage, while Sophie slept the blissful sleep of the innocent in the next bed.
Even worse than her state of mind was the state of her body. Again and again she ran over the events. Patrick’s hot, sweet kisses on her neck, his warm lips caressing her nipples, his wicked tongue tracing its journey over her stomach, dipping into her navel and finally coming to rest at its destination, where she’d been brought to the brink of –
What? Something, that was certain. Patrick had clearly known what he was doing as, leaning against the wall for support, she’d writhed and clawed at her body with the thrill of the new sensations sweeping through her. When he’d slipped a finger inside her she’d cried out with the shock, unable to help herself, and she felt herself tighten with pleasure around it as he continued his exploration until she could barely stand.
Then, suddenly, he had stopped. She’d sunk to the floor, breathless and gasping, and looked up at him in bewilderment. He’d looked down at her, given a little matter of fact shrug made even more infuriating by the belittling smile that accompanied it, and walked out, leaving Mandy in a humiliated heap.
Mandy had never had an orgasm, but she knew that, despite the delicious waves that flooded through her, something even better had been about to happen. And Patrick had known, had judged her responses so expertly that he’d left her in this agonizing limbo – and he’d done it quite deliberately.
At dawn, hot and restless, eyes burning through lack of sleep and the scalding tears that had slid out, despite herself, when the frustration of the evening’s events became too clear in her mind, Mandy had left the gloomy shadows of the bedroom and slipped through the house, heavy with the deep sleep of revellers, and out into the stable yard.
The air was cold and crisp and held promise of a beautiful day ahead. The early mists would soon be banished by dazzling sunshine and the air would carry glorious wafts of decaying leaves and wood smoke. Mandy, her senses already heightened, had breathed in her surroundings and felt strangely exhilarated.
Phoenix hadn’t been a good listener, absorbed as he was by his own troubles, but telling him her problems had helped Mandy sort things out in her mind. She wanted Patrick, unquestionably. She wanted what he’d been about to give her, desperately. But more than either of those, more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life, more even than the Sindy gymkhana set when she was eleven, she wanted revenge.
How neat it would be if she could think of a way of getting all three.
Twenty minutes later, Mickey, who’d come out for a blast of fresh air to get rid of his hangover, found her curled up in the corner of the stable fast asleep. He shook her gently awake.
‘You could have been trampled to death.’
‘Phoenix wouldn’t do that.’
‘He wouldn’t mean to. Horses’ brains are only the size of walnuts.’ Funny, that’s just what his brain felt like this morning – small and brown and wrinkled. The two pints of orange juice he’d already drunk had done nothing to plump it up. Still, the fresh air would either kill or cure it.
He held out his hand to Mandy and pulled her to her feet. ‘What are you doing out here, anyway?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ Mandy’s little sigh told Mickey this was nothing to do with the facilities at Honeycote House, and her troubled face told him not to probe any further.
‘Can you ride?’
Thanks to her mother’s regime of extra-curricular activities, there wasn’t much Mandy couldn’t do. ‘ I haven’t been for a while. But I know one end from the other.’
‘Come on, then. No one else will be up for ages, and I could do with blowing the cobwebs away.’
Mickey found her a beautiful bright chestnut cob called Monkey – because of his big, round, brown eyes, not his behaviour, Mickey assured her – and Mandy swiftly tacked him up, running her hands reassuringly down his soft nose and blowing into his nostrils so they could make their acquaintance quickly. She borrowed someone’s hat and a discarded Puffa from the tack room and swung up on to Monkey’s back: the little horse stood politely as she did so.
Mickey, meanwhile, led out a magnificent, towering bay whose hooves scuttered alarmingly over the cobbles as she span round in little half circles, leaving Mickey swearing on the ground below. Mandy reached down and caught the mare’s bridle, holding her firmly under the chin so Mickey could leap on.
Soon they were clattering out of the yard and on to the soft grass of the track that led into the nearby woods, leaving the sleeping inhabitants of Honeycote House behind. Mandy had always been a confident rider, if a little inexperienced, and she soon forgot her initial nerves and became absorbed in her surroundings. A squirrel surveyed them quizzically from high above, then bounded away. The horses, snorting with eagerness in the early morning freshness, blew plumes of frozen air from their nostrils, and Monkey’s legs did two strides for every one of the bigger horse.
Eventually, the grassy track dwindled down to a narrow path winding its way through tangled woodland. Now the leaves had fallen it was possible to see the way through, but Mandy imagined that in the height of summer it would be like fighting your way through a green sea. Even now she had to duck overhanging branches and twist out of the way as brambles whipped at her clothes. Mickey, two hands higher, had even more to contend with, and bent down low over his horse’s neck all the way through, until eventually the dense trees cleared and they came out into the bright, early morning sunlight on to a narrow road, hugged on both sides by low, drystone walls, that formed a narrow ridge along the back of a hill.
‘This way,’ said Mickey. He seemed anxious to get somewhere, and urged his horse into a trot along the road, which was so ancient, so little used, that grass grew in a thin spine along the centre of the tarmac. Mandy squeezed Monkey forward, his little legs twinkling in an effort to keep up, and she felt uplifted by the exercise. They finally came to a halt.
‘This is Poacher’s Hill,’ said Mickey. ‘It’s the highest point for miles.’
Villages were clustered like little golden nuggets, spires and turrets giving away the existence of the most secluded. Mandy drank in the glory of the view and tried hard not to think of Patrick, his black hair contrasted against the crisp white cotton of his pillow, his lean limbs wrapped up in his duvet. She was sure he hadn’t spent a night in mental and physical torment. No, he would have slept easily without a care, without a second thought for her.
Next to her, Mickey drank in the vista also. It was as familiar to him as the back of his hand, almost his birthright. What had happened to that bloke in the Bible who had sold his birthright? Nothing good, he was sure. And now he was on the brink of doing it himself. Not the whole kit and caboodle, of course. But it still felt like a betrayal.
‘You can see all of our pubs from here,’ he told Mandy. ‘Or at least, the villages they’re in. You’d probably need a telescope to spot the actual buildings.’
He pointed out a couple of the ones that were visible to the naked eye. Then he showed her the farmland that had originally belonged to his great-grandfather, who had grown tired of being constantly at the mercy of the elements for his welfare and so had turned to brewing in the middle of the last century.
‘The Walshes own what was his farm now. You met Ned last night.’
Mandy felt a stab of guilt, though she knew she had nothing to feel guilty about. Patrick had made it quite clear that he thought she’d been after Ned. Poor Sophie – she’d have to make sure she hadn’t got the wrong end of the stick. She didn’t want to lose her friendship, and she knew girls fell out over far less.
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