Country Pursuits (28 page)

‘She's barely out of her teens, you fucking pervert!' she had hissed at him when he had returned to the table.

‘Oh, for Christ's sake, Luciana is a very intelligent young woman who has just got a business degree and wants to come over and work in the City,' he had informed her smoothly. ‘The least I could do is give her my business card. Give her a leg up.'

‘Leg over more like,' Sabrina had spat, filing her nails out of the window furiously.

Sebastian had surveyed her coldly. ‘Jealous are you, darling? You shouldn't be, it doesn't make you look half as pretty.' Vain creature that she was, that
had shut Sabrina up and she had sulked the rest of the evening, not even letting Sebastian get near her in bed when they got back to their magnificent villa. She had been feeling quite twitchy anyway. She hadn't seen Piers for weeks, and had heard on the model grapevine that he'd taken up with some silly anorexic bitch from Slovenia.

She had wondered if it was about time she got in touch with the Russian businessman who'd been pestering her. To hell with Sebastian. She'd met Vladimir in Le Caprice restaurant when he'd sent an eight hundred pound bottle of Cristal over to her table, where she had been dining with a girlfriend. Short and squat with a shaved head, he had looked like a low-rent bouncer, so she'd brushed him off. But he'd still given her his business card as he left. When her girlfriend had seen his surname and squealed, saying he'd been listed in
Forbes
as one of the fifty richest and most influential men in the world that year, Sabrina had had second thoughts. Especially when she'd Googled him later that night at home and found out he was divorced, friends with the Sultan of Brunei and kept a twenty million pound yacht called Sapphire moored in St Tropez.

With this in her mind, Sabrina had calmed down enough so that when Sebastian's hand wandered up her inner thigh in business class the next evening, she hadn't pushed it off. Besides, she'd gone without sex for almost twenty-four hours, which was some kind of record for her. Sabrina needed sex like Denis Healey needed a pair of eyebrow-tweezers.

They'd ended up renewing their membership of
the Mile High Club in the toilet, only pulling apart when an air stewardess had knocked discreetly on the door and told them they were starting the descent to Heathrow. Sebastian had stopped his own descent between Sabrina's thighs and the pair had waltzed out smugly. ‘What are you looking at, Four Eyes?' Sebastian had snarled at a small, bespectacled man in a suit who had quickly dived back behind his
Sunday Times
money supplement.

Elsewhere in the capital, Stephen and Klaus were on a conference call to Clementine from their six million pound art deco pad in Chelsea. As promised, they had managed to secure the services of the legendary Christie's auctioneer Belvedere Radley. As it had turned out, he'd once had a great uncle Bunty who had lived on some rolling estate a few miles south of Churchminster and had always had a great affinity with the area.

‘Chaps, that's wonderful!' said Clementine when they relayed the news to her.

‘Rather,' Stephen agreed. ‘He's bloody merciless in action. He once got someone to pay fifteen mill for a loo seat that had apparently belonged to Van Gogh. If he can't get the likes of Jemima Khan handing over her entire inheritance for a fivesome with Take That, no one can!'

Talking of foursomes, Angus had been badgering Camilla to set up a double date with Harriet and Sniffer.

‘What about Horse?' Camilla had asked.

‘Oh, Horseman has been seeing some chick from Cirencester,' Angus had chortled over a late supper
at the Jolly Boot one evening. ‘Sniffer said he wouldn't mind a go on old Hatty now. I think you and I getting hitched has got him wondering if he shouldn't make a decent woman of some lucky filly.' With that, he'd squeezed Camilla's thigh with his huge hand in a gesture that was meant to be tender, but had made her yelp out in pain.

‘OK, I'll ask her,' she had said dubiously.

Harriet's expression said it all. ‘You're not interested are you? I didn't think you would be, but I had to ask, Hats,' said Camilla. It was the next evening and the two women were curled up on the sofa in the sitting room at Gate Cottage, a half-drunk bottle of Sauvignon Blanc on the floor between them.

Harriet sighed. ‘He's just a bit much. Although I suppose I should be taking up every offer I get, otherwise I am going to end up an old maid, and Daddy will hate me even more.' Sir Ambrose had only just started talking to her again, but any plans of her pursuing the career she wanted had been firmly stopped.

Camilla took a sip of wine. ‘So you're not going to look around?' she asked.

‘Not unless I want to be cut out of the family will and made homeless and penniless,' said Harriet gloomily.

‘That's such a shame,' cried Camilla. ‘I think you'd make a marvellous events manager.'

Harriet smiled. ‘You are a dear friend, Bills.' She changed the subject. ‘How are the wedding plans going?'

Camilla shrugged. ‘It's all on hold, to be honest.
Mummy and Daddy have fixed for us to get married at St Bartholomew's like them and Granny and Grandfather, but with this awful business of the Revd Goody, everything's suddenly a bit up in the air.'

Harriet shivered. ‘It's horrible, isn't it? I can't believe someone murdered him.'

Caro looked round the cottage. ‘Do you get scared being here by yourself?'

Harriet thought for a second. ‘A little, since he was killed. But I've just had security lights installed and, besides, Jed's just down the road.'

‘Ooh yes, he looks like he could knock an intruder out,' remarked Camilla. She hesitated. ‘Have you ever fantasized about, you know . . . I mean, he
is
awfully handsome.'

Harriet laughed. ‘No, we're more like brother and sister, I suppose. Besides, can you imagine Daddy's face? In his eyes, getting it on with the hired help is far worse than events management!'

‘Oh Hats, poor you,' said Camilla. ‘I'm sure your father is only like this because he wants the best for you.'

‘Best for him, more like. He hasn't got a clue what I want,' Harriet retorted. She stared off wistfully into the distance, then looked back at her friend. ‘Oh, to hell with getting upset about it! At least they've gone off the idea of making me move back in the Hall with them.' She stood up. ‘I've got some of Cook's legendary chocolate-chip cookies in the kitchen. Do you want one?'

Camilla hesitated. ‘I should be watching my weight. I've got a wedding-dress fitting next week.'

‘Nonsense! If anyone should be on a diet, it's me,'
said Harriet, looking down at her straining Jack Wills tracksuit bottoms.

‘Have you still got any of that delish hot chocolate from Fortnums to dunk them in?' asked Camilla hopefully.

Harriet shot her a wicked glance. ‘Oh, I am sure I can dig some out.'

The Revd Goody's body was finally released to his family. He had a private funeral in London attended only by his sister, who flew over especially. As requested in his will, his ashes were to be scattered over the fields in his favourite part of Tuscany.

The village said goodbye in their own way as well, with a service at St Bartholomew's commemorating the Revd Goody's life. The Revd Brian Bellows was seconded in to take it, looking dreadfully uncomfortable standing in the pulpit where the Revd Goody should have been. Rance and Penny stood surreptitiously at the back, observing the crowd. Babs Sax, dressed in a dramatic black veil and engine-red lipstick, sobbed theatrically throughout the service.

‘She's such a bloody drama queen,' hissed Brenda to Pearl Potts. The two women were sitting in a pew behind Caro and the rest of her family.

‘Lawks, I know! I don't think she ever set foot in church when our dear Reverend, God bless his soul, was still alive,' said Pearl. Several people turned round and shushed them, but to no avail.

‘You know she's trying it on with that handsome Mr Towey,' Brenda said. Caro's ears pricked up.
‘Inviting him over to dinner and all sorts. The woman's got the morals of an alley cat.'

‘Nice young man like that, can't imagine why he's divorced,' remarked Pearl. ‘He's awfully rich, you know, runs some hot-shot business up in London.'

‘Well, from what I heard,
he's
not much better!' said Brenda in a scandalized voice. ‘Left his wife high and dry for some other woman.'

‘Well, I never!' said Pearl. ‘Men just can't keep it zipped in their trousers, can they?'

Clementine turned around. ‘Shush!' she ordered crossly, and both women finally shut up.

Caro couldn't concentrate on the service after that. Just when she had been thinking he wasn't so bad after all, Benedict Towey's true colours had been shown up. What a complete bastard!

UNFORTUNATELY, THINGS SOON
went from bad to worse between Harriet and her father. The next time she visited him in his study, he informed her he wanted the car park back in its original place. ‘To the left of the Hall, away from the rose gardens.' It wasn't a request, it was an order.

Harriet looked at her father in despair. He gazed out of the window at something in the distance, not even granting her the courtesy of eye-contact. Harriet had had enough.

‘For goodness' sake, Daddy!' she said furiously, raking a hand through her hair. ‘Why? I've had to ring the car park people and get them to draw up a new plan, because
you
didn't want it out there in the first place.' She looked at her clipboard and started rifling through the pages loudly, trying to find the contacts page.

Ambrose suddenly swivelled round in his huge, leather chair. ‘Stop making that bloody racket,' he roared, staring belligerently at the clipboard. ‘What, is that thing surgically attached to your chest now? I want you to move the car park because I've changed my bloody mind. And that, my girl, is a
good enough explanation for you, so don't you dare question me again!' Harriet felt all of twelve years old again, and had a flashback to the time he'd shouted at her for riding her pony through the downstairs of the house. She turned and fled the room.

In the hall, she bumped into her mother. Frances was dressed in her snow-white tennis outfit, a shiny new tennis racquet in her hand. She was on her way out to the courts behind the house for her weekly lesson with her coach. ‘Darling!' she exclaimed, taking in her daughter's red, agitated face. ‘What on earth is wrong?' Harriet sighed in exasperation. ‘Bloody Daddy wants to bloody change the location of the bloody car park again!' she said.

‘Language, darling,' said Frances, guiding Harriet further down the hallway. She had never seen her placid, well-mannered daughter so uptight. ‘I know he can be a trifle difficult at times, but he does know the Hall better than anyone,' she told her. ‘I'm sure he must have a perfectly good reason for changing it.'

‘He's just trying to ruin everything I'm doing!' cried Harriet. ‘Why, Mummy? Does he really think I am incapable of achieving anything?'

‘Of course not,' soothed Frances. ‘It's just that he has his own particular way of doing things.' As she said it, she wondered why she was defending him. Ambrose
was
being impossible at the moment. She must be feeling guilty over Devon. Not wanting to think about Devon, she swiftly changed the subject back to one she was more comfortable with: Harriet's appearance.

‘Darling, you really do need a haircut,' she said
critically, eyeing her daughter's hair. It was a hot September day and the heat had made it even more frizzy than normal. ‘Do you want me to arrange for François to come over?' François was the family hairdresser who ran a very exclusive, expensive salon called Allure in Cheltenham. The Frasers had been going to him for years.

‘Oh, who gives a shit about my hair?' Harriet snapped. ‘I might just go to the barber's in Bedlington and get it all shaved off. At least then you wouldn't be able to have a go at me about it!' And with that, she stormed off down the corridor, leaving an open-mouthed Frances in her wake.

‘She's probably just having a tough time with her hormones,' Devon said, when Frances recounted the episode to him. They were in the master bedroom at Byron Heights. Dozens of lit candles cast a bewitching light over the room. With its opulent red rugs and thick, purple velvet curtains hanging luxuriantly from the windows, it looked like a scene from
The Arabian Nights
.

‘She's thirty, though, not some hot-headed teenager,' sighed Frances, lying back on the pillow. The cover fell away to reveal one milky white breast, and Devon leaned over to kiss it. They had the place to themselves whilst Nigel was out at some concert recital in Oxford. Frances had told Ambrose she was going out for dinner with a friend.

Earlier, Devon had played Frances some of his new material and, like Nigel, she had been blown away. ‘Darling, that was just wonderful!' she had said when he had come to the end of ‘Heart Catcher', a stirring soulful rock number that had
made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

‘Well, you're the one who inspired it babe,' he had confessed, grinning at her.

She had flung her arms around his neck. ‘Oh Devon!' she had said breathlessly. In a more subtle way, Devon had definitely been having an effect on her as well. Frances had become more light-hearted, more girlish. Even her appearance had changed: the elegantly severe chignon, always her trademark, was sometimes replaced by a loose ponytail that made her look softer and even more beautiful. Cook had noticed the change in her mistress and had wondered what, or rather who, was responsible for it. It was so unlike Lady Fraser to have an affair, but Cook had to admit it suited her.

A slight wind blew in from the open sash window, making the candles flicker momentarily. All of a sudden, there was a thud from downstairs. Devon and Frances both sat up. ‘What was that?' asked Frances uncertainly. The Reverend's death flashed through her mind, making her blood run cold. Was it the murderer, back for more victims? Common sense kicked in. Don't be so ridiculous, she told herself.