Kiss and Tell (68 page)

‘… Three, two, one, Happy New Year!’

Cheers, party poppers, whoops and ‘Auld Lang Syne’ replaced Big Ben’s bells as the Lime Tree merrymakers saw in another year.

Lough Strachan, more sober than most, received lot of kisses, more than he could remember in thirty-two successive New Years. He didn’t particularly like kissing, but he was careful not to kick up a fuss.

His eyes sought out Tash as they had all evening, feeling safe in her proximity and also fiercely protective. He was appalled at how negligent Hugo was towards his wife. When not flirting with Sylva Frost he was carousing with his dreadful, loud friends or knocking back glass after glass like a drunk at a public bar. Enmity soured in Lough’s veins.

‘Happy New Year – I hope you have a good time in England. A successful year.’ At last the only kiss he wanted arrived on his cheek, so tantalisingly close to his lips that he could almost taste it.

‘Happy New Year, Tash.’ He flashed his rare smile, but only for a moment.

A voice cut through the din around them like an army officer in a parade ring.

‘I believe it’s customary for a man to kiss his wife at times like this!’

Lough couldn’t watch as Hugo, hair dishevelled and eyes unfocused but still ludicrously handsome, grabbed Tash like a
mannequin and threw her back into the crook of his arm to kiss her, almost pitching her straight on to the floor.

Lough felt punched in the throat. He left the room without a backward glance as the revellers clapped and cheered in delight at the sight of Hugo giving Tash such a thorough kissing that when she finally emerged, pink-cheeked, minus her lipstick, flustered and yet beaming deliriously at such a demonstration of propriety, she didn’t even notice that her incredibly tight, short dress had risen to reveal very jaunty red lace control knickers.

‘Be hanging from their bedpost later,’ Gus said in amusement to Penny. ‘Any chance of your sensible waisties making a rare appearance on ours?’

‘Oh bugger off and phone your mistress to wish her a Happy New Year,’ Penny snapped as Niall loomed up broadside to kiss her.

‘Happy New Year, angel. Any resolutions?’

‘To give up hope,’ she muttered, casting Gus a weary look and turning heel to look after their guests.

Lemon managed a second performance a few minutes into New Year, at the climax of which he howled like a coyote.

Faith opened her eyes, all attempts to visualise Rory scuppered. With her own pleasure points still largely unexplored territory, she was secretly rather relieved the encore was coming to an end. Lem was never going to light her touch paper. But she had been enlightened, and for that she was grateful. He was also unwittingly funny, with his running commentary and his animal soundtrack, making the whole experience somehow sillier and less sordid than it could have seemed. She only wished he was Rory.

‘Yow, yow, yeeeeow!!!!’ he hollered.

‘Shhh!’ She giggled beneath him as the bouncing mattress jiggled her around. ‘That’s seriously off-putting – ah!’ He’d suddenly pulled up her knees so she shot further up the bed.

‘Good, huh? Yeaaaaawwww!’ Lemon plunged on.

‘Stop! Shh!’ She held up her hand urgently and covered his mouth, tilting her head towards the door. ‘Did you hear someone knock just now?’

Lemon shook his red face beneath her hand.

‘It could be Beccy,’ Faith whispered. ‘We abandoned her.’

‘She’ll be fine.’

They both looked at the door. The shadow of two feet moved away.

‘Whoever it was has gone,’ Lemon said obviously, starting to plunge and howl again.

Beneath him, Faith fretted that Beccy must have heard what was going on – it was hard not to with Lemon making such a din – and was bound to feel hurt and isolated.

She looked up at that round, red face and felt suddenly guilty. She had jumped the six-foot gate at last but it now felt like she’d got the stride wrong. Lem was fun and eager, and it had been incredibly educational – she’d had no idea how manic men got at climax, for a start – but the whole process made her feel strangely detached, like it was a simulation on a computer game. It didn’t feel real. When Rory had kissed her on the cheek before Christmas she’d thought her body would melt right into the ground. Lemon was still grinding around inside her and yet she felt almost nothing.

‘Cherry picked.’ She kissed his nose and almost lifted him off her, her arms so strong from hauling shavings bales that Lemon’s solid little body was easy to manoeuvre to one side, where she rubbed his cheek affectionately, much as she would a horse, then patted his arm and closed her eyes again, immediately thinking of Rory and how much closer she must be to his world now that she had cast off her virginity and joined the team of players.

Letting Faith doze, Lemon got up, feeling unbelievably good about himself as he swaggered to the little attic bathroom to take a pee wearing Faith’s dressing gown, which was rather practical and fluffy – he’d have preferred red satin – but was still rather excitingly feminine against his naked skin. He admired his reflection in the bathroom cabinet, deciding he looked part Leonardo DiCaprio, part Pink. The party was still raging on downstairs, with a drunken ensemble giving a rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

It was only when Lemon wandered back along the corridor that he spotted the glittery little gift bag hanging on the doorknob of Faith’s bedroom. Quietly lifting it by its handles, anxious not to alert her, he took it back to the bathroom to examine.

Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a white porcelain horse, its rider glued on rather wonkily after what looked like a crashing fall. The note was scribbled in almost indecipherably bad handwriting.
To my beloved St Bernard. I haven’t forgotten what we said. Always. Rxxx.

Lemon scrunched up the note and flushed it down the loo before hiding the china horse in among the clutter of dusty tankards, bottles, tarnished old trophies and assorted bric-a-brac the Moncrieffs kept crammed around the beams and sills in the bathroom. Thank heavens they were such messy buggers; Faith would never see it there.

He went back to the bedroom, hoping she would be up for a third bite at the cherry. He was certainly game.

A quad bike overtook Lough on the lane back through the downs to Maccombe as the New Zealander trudged along the frost-dusted verge with his hands deep in his pockets, his hair, coat and jeans as black as his mood.

The red brake lights lit up and the bike waited, engine ticking, a terrier barking in the crook of the driver’s arm.

As Lough drew level he realised Rory was aboard.

‘Hop on – you can have a lift,’ he called out.

‘I’d rather walk, thanks. Need to clear my head.’

‘Get on,’ Rory insisted. ‘The others will be coming back soon. Tash might be sober, but she doesn’t have the best eyesight in the world and you’re bloody difficult to spot.’

Lough clambered on, deciding he’d rather be home and warm, not that the lodge cottage was ever really warm. But surprisingly the solid-fuel Rayburn was still lit and a fire glowed in the grate.

‘I was here until half an hour ago,’ Rory explained, crouching down and raking through the ashes to encourage the fire to burn down. ‘Not really in a party mood.’

‘Me neither,’ Lough said, heading for the stairs. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

Rory looked over his shoulder. ‘Tell me, is Hugo taking you to the States? Nobody will give me a straight answer.’

Lough shook his head. ‘I won’t go. It’s your gig. I told him tonight.’

‘Good.’ Rory turned back to stab angrily at the embers, making them spark. ‘Suits me. I can’t wait to get out of here.’ Then, as Lough moved away again, he added suddenly, ‘Is Lemon trustworthy?’

Lough ran his tongue along his teeth doubtfully. ‘Depends what you entrust him with.’

‘Faith.’

‘Ah.’ Lough nodded, pausing to think. Lemon was as crooked as dog’s hind leg, yet fiercely loyal to those he cared for, most of them equine rather than human. He had few lasting relationships, but that’s why he and Lough had always worked so well together. ‘She’s one of his mates,’ he told Rory now, ‘and he looks after his mates. They have fun together. I reckon you can trust him to take care of her.’

Rory blinked and nodded, briefly still staring at the fire, his shoulders hunched miserably.

Three steps up the stairs, Lough paused again. ‘I’ll keep an eye on her if you like.’

‘Thanks. Happy New Year.’

‘You too, mate. Hope you get what you want.’

Rory looked at the last glowing specks of red, matching the burning in his heart. He’d figured out what he wanted, but as usual he was too late. He’d missed the stroke of midnight and Cinderella had run off with one of the footmen before he got there.

From now on he was going to stick to what he knew best: his horses, his sport and the occasional passing Fairy Godmother.

‘Beccy was very weird on the way home, don’t you think?’ Tash said as she and Hugo undressed in the early hours, yawns ripping at her jaw.

She had hoped that he might undress her but his black mood and drunkenness was clearly not going to cooperate.

He grunted, hopping around as he pulled off a sock.

‘I hope she’s all right. She seemed terribly out of sorts.’

He said nothing.

‘Hugo?’ She turned to check he was okay.

He was lying on the bed, squinting at her because he was having trouble focusing – but what he could see he obviously liked. His erection was on full alert.

‘You. Are. Beautiful,’ he breathed.

‘Thank you. So are you.’

‘Then why don’t you take the weight off your feet and lower it on to this?’ He indicated his magnificent flagpole.

Tash bit her lip, a giggle escaping out of one side of her mouth like a burp. She pressed her lips together to hide it, but it snorted out of her nose. Unable to stop herself, she bent double with laughter.

‘What?’ he wailed indignantly, flagpole lowering rapidly.

‘That is just such … a …
bad
… line.’ She was getting a stitch from laughing.

Hugo sulkily turned off the light.

Groping her way into bed, Tash located his mouth to bestow a pacifying kiss. It deepened deliciously. Then suddenly she felt something hard land on her tongue.

‘Oh Christ!’ she yelped, sitting up and spitting the little bullet into her palm. ‘It’s a tooth!’ Her panic-stricken tongue immediately probed her mouth for a gap.

‘Mine.’ Hugo retrieved it. ‘The king has lost his crown. Easy enough to fix. For now I’ll put it under the pillow and wait for the tooth fairy to grant my wish.’

Tash stared into the darkness, remembering how heroic he had looked after he lost the tooth falling from Snob, his beauty all the more obvious because of that gaping flaw in his once perfect smile. She’d fancied him almost more than ever then.

‘Come to America with me,’ he spoke into the darkness. ‘I can’t leave you on your own here.’

‘I won’t be on my own. There’s a team here now. I’ll be safely under Lough and Lemon,’ she joked, kissing him again.

Hugo’s lips yielded for a moment, revealing that delicious flaw, a temporary reminder of how dangerous his day job was, of how brave he was and vulnerable they all were. Tash found it a thrillingly sexy kiss. But the flagpole resolutely refused to raise its colours again.

‘Too many New Year toasts,’ Hugo muttered, falling almost immediately into a drunken sleep.

Trying hard not to feel rejected, Tash lay awake, thinking back to her conversation with Zoe and worrying that by avoiding walking on the cracks in her marriage she was going to fall flat on her face. She soon worked herself up into a panic, convinced that he was put off by her mumsiness, that he no longer saw her as sexually desirable and so he was playing away with increasing regularity.

‘Hugo,’ she prodded him urgently at three in the morning. ‘We need to talk.’

It took several more prods to get any response.

At last he groaned in his sleep, apparently mid-dream: ‘Your bloody deadlock.’

Tash’s hyped up mind immediately made word associations: deadlock … wedlock … stalemate … he must think they were in a terrible rut. ‘What deadlock, Hugo?’

‘Your bloody deadlock,’ he repeated, ‘if you lay a finger on her …’ His voice trailed away into muttered nonsense.

‘It’s not a deadlock if we talk about it,’ Tash bleated, suddenly even more insecure. Was he warning her off handbagging V while he was away in the States?

She prodded and shook him for a response, but he was too deeply asleep to rouse.

Also lying awake, just a few hundred yards away in the lodge cottage, Lough abandoned counting sheep – New Zealanders could always count more than anybody – and instead calculated the hours until his housemate and landlord crossed the Atlantic and left him alone at Haydown with Tash. Less than a hundred.

He could start the countdown, knowing he must watch and think.

Chapter 45

Not long before the first daylight of the New Year, Lemon and Faith arrived for work at Haydown in her little Volkswagen, having slithered up the hill from Fosbourne Ducis on black ice and frozen snow, both feeling deliciously deflowered but determinedly not in love.

‘This won’t change anything, right?’ Faith checked, automatically looking up at Rory’s window as they passed to see if the curtains were still closed. They were.

‘Nothing at all, yeah,’ he agreed, hoping that they could do it again very soon.

They were surprised to find no sign of Beccy, who always woke unnaturally early and would usually have started putting out feeds by the time Lemon got going or Faith drove in. But today the yard was deserted and the horses were banging on their doors. Jenny was still away in Germany with her fiancé’s family; Rory, Lough and Hugo weren’t yet in evidence.

Lemon and Faith cranked up the yard radio and set to work, a
bounce in their step, sharing knowing smiles as they passed.

But by the time they had fed, watered and hayed the horses and were gathering barrows to muck out the smiles were faltering.

‘We have to check on Beccy.’

When they went up to the stables flat she was in her little bed-sitting room, under her duvet, clutching Karma and shaking uncontrollably.