The Country Escape (33 page)

In the hidden meadow the following evening, Dougie buckled an old stirrup leather around Sri’s neck and ordered Kat to leave the mare’s mouth totally alone. ‘Keep the loosest rein contact and hold on to the neck-strap if you need
to balance.’

As soon as they tried to pick up canter, the mare gave a huge buck and Kat fell off within three strides.

‘Try again,’ Dougie said cheerfully. ‘That’s just exuberance.’

She did, and fell off again.

He was unapologetic. ‘Once more. You’ve got to learn to sit a buck. It’s easy with practice.’

The next fall was starting to hurt. Fed up and humiliated,
Kat picked herself up from her grassy crash mat and straightened her helmet. ‘You show me how to sit a buck if it’s so easy.’

‘I knew I should have brought Worcester.’ He kicked out his stirrups and ran a reassuring hand along the neat peppery mane in front of him before jumping off. ‘You’d better hop on Rose. She’ll never stand still if you try to hold on to her from the ground, but she
usually has better manners when ridden.’

Kat looked doubtfully at the enormous mare: she was far taller than Sri – at least seventeen hands – and had white-rimmed eyes that rolled a lot. With her long back and a stride that could cross a field faster than a bird’s shadow, she reminded Kat of Tina’s Donald, on which she’d ridden the charity race. She had to be easier than Sri, she decided,
not noticing the worried expression on Dougie’s face as she grabbed the stirrup.

Refusing his offer of a leg up, Kat spent a long time hopping on the ground in order to mount, the saddle being a lot further up than she’d realized. When she finally made it, she could feel the heat of Dougie’s backside still on the leather, which was curiously reassuring as the big, rangy horse started to
dance beneath her.

‘Just sit very quietly and she’ll be fine,’ Dougie told her, glancing briefly up to the skies in prayer, which she was too busy shortening her stirrup leathers to see.

Sri’s curling ears twitched like hot butterfly wings as soon as she felt him on her back, primed for another race where she dictated the pace. When asked to canter in a circle instead, she gave Dougie
her full repertoire of bronco gymnastics.

‘Are you okay there?’ he called across to Kat whose big mare was jogging on the spot, like a runner waiting at a pedestrian crossing. ‘Want to swap back?’

‘Fine! I’ll stick to this one, thanks.’ She watched anxiously as Sri almost turned herself inside out in her determination to get her head and gallop, but Dougie sat on her easily, chatting
as though he was lounging on a sofa with a mug of tea.

‘The secret is to avoid tipping forwards,’ he explained, as Sri rodeoed around. ‘Try to imagine your legs are Velcroed to her sides, your back a strong spring and your bottom is plugged into the saddle.’ Realizing that bucking was getting her nowhere, Sri now dropped into a light, bouncy canter. He gave her a pat. ‘Good girl.’

Kat was incredibly impressed, but had no time to say so as Rose decided the lights had changed on the pedestrian crossing and started to march forwards.

‘Good idea – lovely evening for a hack.’ Dougie rode upsides. He was doing the all-smiles thing as usual, but his blue eyes watched Kat closely. ‘Relax your hands a little. We’ll stick to walk for now. Happy?’

‘Very,’ she insisted,
struck by how far away the grey’s ears seemed compared to Sri’s little curling archway at the end of the narrowest skewbald neck. The grey mare, by contrast, had a huge long stretch of runway to the pricked, black-tipped peaks. Kat was particularly taken by being so much higher up than Dougie. ‘She’s gorgeous.’

They moved into the long shadows of the trees alongside the woods, sending a
small group of muntjac scattering for cover ahead as they were chased by the terriers, who had accompanied Kat to the meadow as usual.

‘I used to think muntjac got the nickname “barking deer” because they stripped bark off trees.’ Dougie watched them go. ‘Then I heard the racket they make.’

‘It gets pretty loud here after dark,’ Kat agreed. ‘I couldn’t sleep when I first moved in.’

‘Heard one of your horses calling last night.’

Kat thought about the old hunter charging lamely up and down his field hedges. ‘He still thinks his friend’s going to come back.’ She’d spent a lot of the previous night trailing out to comfort him, wishing there was something more she could do to ease his grief.

Going slowly meant talking, which Kat wasn’t entirely comfortable
with given how overtly flirtatious Dougie was, but she was loving the feeling aboard the long-striding grey mare, and he seemed happy to chat about everything from horses to movies, the estate’s farms to the forthcoming cricket match, occasionally breaking off to remind her to bend her elbows and relax her hands. She could fulfil her promise to Russ and Miriam, she thought, and asked about the role
of an ‘equerry’. ‘I mean, what is it really? You’re a huntsman, right?’

‘Seth hired me to help entertain important house guests.’

‘A court jester?’

‘That’s probably closer to the truth, yeah. I’m a trick rider, after all. Keep your lower leg still.’

‘So how does the horseback archery fit into it?’

‘I’ll slay dragons.’ He dropped his reins and mimed drawing an
arrow, causing Sri to bolt forwards. Glancing over his shoulder as he pulled her up, he saw Kat still idling along beneath the sweet-chestnut branches twenty metres behind him. ‘Well held!’

Kat, who hadn’t needed to hold on to the mare because she hadn’t broken out of her loafing walk, looked at him curiously.

He waited for her to catch up, still watching her closely. ‘Sit up, you’re
slouching. Heels back. We’ll take it up a notch.’

‘When is Seth moving in?’ she asked, as they broke into a trot. ‘We’ve all been waiting so long.’

‘I don’t think he’s planning to live here.’ He was sitting out more bucks as Sri fought to go faster. ‘It’s more of a corporate hospitality thing,’ he added, momentarily vanishing as the mare spooked at a rabbit shooting out of the undergrowth
nearby, reappearing on Kat’s other side. ‘He’s due to visit for the cricket match next month and there’s talk of him hosting some sort of party, but the new landing strip’s not long enough for his plane so he won’t be dropping by until that’s changed.’

‘That’ll explain why the bulldozers were out again this morning,’ she said, grateful that her mare was lolloping along so charmingly while
Sri crabbed into a sideways canter, bucking again.

‘The work on the house is pretty much complete, I believe.’ Dougie was bobbing up and down like a kid on a trampoline. ‘I’ve not been inside, but it’s got to be amazing. The palm house is now full of mango and banyan trees. There’s a man called Sanquat especially employed to look after them. It’s all he does. He even sleeps in there. Like
you and your animals.’

‘It’s so beautiful here.’ She looked across at the woods to their left, above which peeped the main clock-tower, its face pink in the sunset, telling them it was almost nine. ‘I love this time of year.’

‘Longest day tomorrow.’ He pogoed alongside again, their stirrups ringing out as their legs brushed together. ‘The midsummer solstice.’ His voice dropped to
purring seduction. ‘Sacred to lovers.’

Kat fell silent as they turned to trot alongside the small lake at the far end of the water meadow, sending a pair of wild ducks quacking off into the sunset. She hoped Sri would bolt again so that he couldn’t ruin the moment with his Pepé Le Pew moves, but he had her well anchored.

‘Will Badger Man be serenading you with his nose flute at dawn?’

‘If you’re referring to Russ, he’s playing at a vegan-awareness festival near Ludlow.’ She wasn’t about to explain to Dougie about Russ’s free-range life or last night’s new house rules. Letting him believe that Russ was her live-in boyfriend might be somewhat dishonest, but if it meant she got in the riding practice she needed without Eardisford’s disreputable new bad boy trying to add
her to his bedpost notches, she was happy to keep the myth spinning. It wasn’t as though anybody would tell him differently. Russ’s walkabout season had truly begun, a nomadic round of music festivals while the apples ripened, his sleeping quarters constantly shifting, the caravan and hammock in the orchards backed up by a hide tent in the woods and an earth shelter by the river.

‘Can we
gallop?’ she asked, eager to get some more in. The big grey mare’s trot was revving up as she turned for home.

Beside them, Sri pricked her curly ears at the word ‘gallop’, almost pulling Dougie’s arms out.

‘Are you sure?’ He glanced at the grey colossus powering past him. ‘That girl is seriously fast.’

Kat stood up in her stirrups as they broke into a canter. ‘If I’m going
to gallop Sri into the end of the longest day tomorrow, I’d like a dress rehearsal.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re missing the vegan festival!’

‘Some things are more important than tofu.’

‘In that case, hang on very tight.’ He nodded at her, clicked Sri into action, and they flew past in an arc of divots.

Sitting on the grey mare as she accelerated behind them was like perching
on a bobsleigh along an Olympic run. Kat had never felt anything so exhilarating. This was by far the most powerful horse she had ever ridden. Catching up effortlessly to streak across the meadow alongside Sri, she turned to Dougie and gave a thumbs-up.

‘That’s just her cruising speed. Amazing, isn’t she?’ he shouted.

It was only when they’d turned a big loop in the meadow’s basin
and pulled up to walk, taking the horses back towards Lake Farm, that Dougie admitted the big grey had a terrible reputation. ‘I got her for a song from a friend of Dad’s because nobody there could ride her. My staff can’t hold her at all. She’s monumentally bloody-minded and strong.’

‘I think she’s lovely.’

‘Because you had confidence in her, you trust her. You should trust Sri.
She has a very big heart.’ He patted the curved skewbald neck in front of him. ‘I normally don’t work with mares as trick horses, but I think she’d be incredible. There’s a third part to the saying “tell a gelding, ask a mare” which is “discuss it with a stallion”. This little Marwari reminds me of my Friesian stallion.’

‘Are you accusing my horse of being gender confused?’

‘I’m
saying she’s got balls. And tackling the Bolt will take plenty of those. The same goes for you.’

She let out a cynical snort, remembering Nick and his firefighting cronies’ similar obsession with ‘cojones’, as though courage could only be weighed in a scrotal sack. Dougie clearly came from the same male chauvinist mould.

The horses had pricked up their ears as they spotted an old
flea-bitten grey shambling towards them, led by the little Indian groom Gut, who was very out of breath.

‘Of course, Harvey has no balls whatsoever but he’s still the bravest bugger I’ve ever known.’ Dougie laughed as the horse let out a bellow of recognition and towed Gut towards them.

The little groom talked animatedly in Hindi, waving his arms around and huffing a lot before nodding
farewell to Kat and walking Harvey on towards the main Eardisford yard.

‘He got in with your horses again,’ Dougie said apologetically. ‘Gut says he was a sod to catch.’

‘I didn’t know you could speak Hindi.’ She was impressed.

‘I don’t understand a word he says,’ he admitted, eyes smiling up at her through the long lashes. ‘But I know Harvey. He’s like me. Once he finds a
kindred spirit, he can’t keep away. And I just can’t keep away from you, Kat.’

Battling hard to quash the tell-tale tangle of heart, stomach and lungs that squirmed inside her when he laid on the Everett Effect, Kat braced herself for another smooth invitation to share his bath. But before he could speak again, his phone began ringing in his pocket and he was forced to sit out a massive
fawn-leap from Sri, who rocketed into the woods.

‘How come you have a signal here?’ Kat asked, when he finally got control and made his way back to the track.

‘Satellite,’ he explained. ‘Your boyfriend listens in to the walkie-talkies.’

‘So you’ve got something to hide?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Only my desire for you.’ His handsome face wore the most devastating example
of his smile repertoire – as sexy as it was self-mocking. ‘If Badger Man’s away, you can invite me in for a drink.’

They had arrived at the Lake Farm gates. The phone was ringing in his pocket again. He ignored it. ‘You shouldn’t be all alone somewhere as isolated as this.’

The tangle in Kat’s chest tightened uncomfortably at the memory of banishing her growling bear. There was no
reason she couldn’t invite Dougie in for a Sui-Cider, which would be only polite, given she’d already taken several drinks off him and he was helping her so much, but self-protection had to come first.

‘I’m not alone,’ she reminded him, as the dogs that had stayed napping in the yard surged out to greet those who had accompanied Kat out riding. ‘And I’m not inviting you in.’

‘How is it progressing?’ Dollar cross-examined Dougie as he rode back to the main stableyard, the line lagging badly with a satellite delay, making her deliberate monotone sound more computer-generated than ever. ‘Have you seduced her yet?’

‘We’re saving ourselves for our wedding night.’

‘This is excellent news. You must keep the pressure on. Your time will soon be taken up
providing sport for Seth’s guests, so make the most of this opportunity. We would ideally like her gone within a month.’

‘I don’t think I’m quite ready to book tickets to Las Vegas,’ he said, shocked.

‘Then you must increase the pressure.’

‘I’m intending to,’ he assured her, already looking forward to galloping into the sunset. He found the riding challenge far more interesting
than the seduction one, which he strongly suspected was still going nowhere. Kat’s company was a lot more fun when he laid off the Casanova stuff, although she certainly wasn’t immune to his charms. She had a curious way of looking at him, which was one part desire to one part fear, the rest amusement, which put him off his stroke. She was far too defensive to risk going in fast and hard. In
any case, Dougie had discovered a curious anomaly in the past two days. The less he flirted, the more attractive he found Kat Mason. When they were having a riot, like this evening’s gallop, he forgot his motivation for being there.