Tash took her hand. It was shaking. The nails had been bitten down so much they’d been bleeding. ‘I don’t hate you.’
‘Even though Hugo wanted me to give him a blowjob, and I didn’t say no?’
Tash winced. Put that way, hate was burning up every vein. Mumbling that she really had to go, she turned and walked out before she broke down in front of everyone on the ward.
The woman in the bed beside Beccy leaned over again, ‘Next time, tell that friend of yours the stripy socks and cream leggings do nothing for her. Pretty girl, but doesn’t make the most of herself, does she? Not surprised her husband had a crack at you.’
At Brightling Park the scandalmongers were on full alert, speculating why Hugo had left the event in such a hurry while he’d been topping the leaderboard on day one. Penny had already phoned Gus to alert him and it took all his powers of self-control not to share such momentous news, even with his mistress. But this was too dangerous a rumour. Hugo was an old friend and such a slur could ruin his reputation, even if there was absolutely no truth in it as Gus didn’t doubt for a moment there was.
Lemon had no such compunction and was happy to let the story slip among the more gossipy grooms. Soon, word was out: Hugo Beauchamp had not only been caught with his trousers down, but with his wife’s sister, and he’d taken it too far.
Focussing totally on the competition, ignoring course talk as always, Lough had no idea what was being said, although Hugo’s prompt departure hadn’t gone unnoticed. That evening, avoiding the lorry-park parties as usual, making tom yum soup on the little gas hob of his horsebox, the punch of the lemon grass and ginger in his nostrils reminded him of the night he’d cooked it for Tash.
He picked up his phone, but stopped himself just in time. Instead he texted Beccy to ask how she was doing, the first contact he’d made since her accident. He knew she’d smashed her pelvis; it was a big blow.
It was typically the early hours of the morning before she replied, his phone beeping in the dark. Thinking it was his alarm, he half woke, reaching for it. Blinking sleep from his eyes, he read the message.
‘Lem!’ he bellowed, causing his little groom to fall off his bunk in the opposite corner of the box. ‘What in hell is going on?’
That night, Tash couldn’t sleep. Hugo denied the accusation, treating it with total contempt, but she didn’t know who to believe any more.
Looking back, she found herself wondering whether she had noticed a change in him since that night. Her mind threw trick images and lights across her restless eyes as she lay awake into the early hours, thinking about recent weeks, the way Hugo had seemingly revelled in treating her like a sexual object and had wanted to control her more and more. He must think so little of her to drunkenly force himself on her stepsister. How many other women had he been cavorting with? There was the mystery V and possibly a host of others in England and America. All the time he’d been beating his chest fiercely and haranguing her about Lough, he’d carried on taking his own pleasure wherever he found it, at home and away.
As dawn broke she stole out of bed and pulled on the first clothes she could find, going commando in Hugo’s jeans and an ancient shrunken T-shirt, creeping through the house and out into the yard.
She saddled up a surprised Mickey Rourke and rode out through
sleeping Maccombe to the downs, flying along the ridge with tears streaking back into her hair.
She needed her mother more than ever, she realised with hopeless sobs. She was as frightened as she’d ever been.
As she rode back she saw a familiar sight weaving along the narrow lane from the Fosbournes, glossy and black. It was Lough’s horsebox.
Just as he started to swing in through the Haydown gates, Lough looked out of his side window and spotted her. He abandoned his box right there, cutting the engine and blocking the drive as he jumped from the cab and sprinted across the lane, hurdling a low hedge and running up the track towards her.
When he drew level she pulled up and he looked up at her, dark eyes cavernous with concern, black hair on end. It needed cutting again, Tash found herself thinking.
‘Oh Jesus, Tash, I never wanted this to be true.’
‘It’s
not
true!’ She caught her breath. ‘Just how many people knew about it? Was it in
Horse & Hound
or something? Did I miss the press release?’
‘Get off the horse,’ he begged.
‘No.’ She shook her head as Mickey strained to be home for his breakfast.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I won’t,’ she replied mulishly, knowing that to be on his level would to be lost, because he would touch her and comfort her and she so badly needed to be hugged and reassured, but if that happened she didn’t trust herself.
‘I want you to come back with me.’
‘Back with you where? To the Moncrieffs?’
‘We’ll find somewhere. We’ll live in the horsebox. I don’t care. I love you. I need to look after you.’
‘I have two children.’
‘They’re part of this,’ he agreed. ‘They come too.’
For just a moment, just a split second, the salvation that he offered was almost tempting, the run-away escape, the blot-it-out craziness of eloping.
But she was already shaking her head. ‘No Lough. No. You rescued me once before. That’s enough.’
‘What?’
‘Melbourne.’ She reached down to him and he took her hand and pressed it to his lips, electricity shooting through them both. ‘Thank you. But I can go it alone now. We both can.’
Straightening up, she looked out across the valley steeped in misty early-morning sunshine, to her beautiful strawberry house with its courtyards of stables, the ultimate happily ever after any pony-mad girl might dream. And inside that house was Hugo, more exciting and magnetic than any fantasy she’d conjured up when pop stars and heart-throb actors had eventually usurped ponies. When she had met him for the first time, in her teens, she really had believed that all her dreams would come true if only he loved her. Now it was a living nightmare.
Kicking a more than eager Mickey, she cantered down the hill, jumped the little hedge Lough had hurdled and clattered across the road, almost causing the post van to drive into the ditch as the big grey spooked at the horsebox.
The postman, pale from his near-miss and now hounded by the barking Roadies, thrust a big pile of mail straight at Tash through the window of his van.
Dismounting on the yard, she let Mickey wander to the water trough for a drink as she picked up the postcard from the top of the pile, her heart lifting as she recognised the uniform of the Cadre Noir at Saumur, a handsome cavalryman directing his horse in the expressive capriole in hand. It had to be from her mother, probably posted from a desert island. A set of postage stamps featuring a despotic-looking ruler and an unfamiliar alphabet obscured part of the horse’s head. Alexandra always took a clutch of French postcards with her on holiday, an eccentricity her family had never understood, although she claimed it stemmed homesickness, in the same way that she regularly sent ‘Greetings from Rural England’ postcards from the Loire.
And when Tash read the reverse, she let out a grateful sob:
Home next week! So many traveller’s tales to tell. Speak very soon. xxxx
His chin in his hands and his heart like lead, Lough sat on the hill for a long time as the morning mist cleared, affording an incredible view over Haydown from so high above it.
He saw Tash running across the yard to the main house, then various grooms coming and going. A string of horses from a nearby
training yard trotted along the village lane, their riders pointing out Lough’s horsebox parked across Haydown’s entrance. Then suddenly Tash reappeared with Amery in her arms and Cora at her knee.
Lough’s heart lifted as she loaded them into a car, followed by a suitcase.
Stumbling and falling in his haste to run down the hill to meet her, certain that she had changed her mind, he saw Hugo coming out of the house dressed in nothing but an old pair of cut-off jeans, waving his arms around and pleading with her. Tash’s ancient shortsighted dog was cowering at his heels, trying to press her greying muzzle anxiously to his leg. Tripping over her, Hugo shouted even more.
White-faced, Tash got in the car and started the engine. Hugo pressed his palms to his head and watched her reverse and swing around, the wheels spitting gravel.
Lough had reached the hedge, and it was not so easy to hurdle a second time. It caught his ankle and turned him over, causing him to crash down into a dry ditch.
He stood up just in time to see Tash driving through the gates. Misjudging the amount of space needed to get her wide off-roader past his horsebox, she forced her way through the gap with a terrible graunching noise as she scraped all the paint off one side and ripped a skirt-locker door clean off, leaving a gaping hole. It was a hole that matched the slash in Lough’s heart when she drove straight past him and hurtled away through the village.
‘The Wheels on the Bus’ was booming through the open windows.
Lough stood in the lane for a long time, staring after her, heart bursting.
When he turned back to his lorry he realised that Hugo was in his gateway, dogs at his heels, studying the wrecked paintwork.
‘She did a good job on that,’ he pointed out.
Lough ignored him, walking towards the cab. His horses were still on board, kicking and snorting impatiently.
‘I suppose you’re behind this ridiculous accusation too,’ Hugo hissed.
Lough stopped, one foot on the cab step.
‘Well, you got what you wanted,’ Hugo continued, running a
hand through his hair. ‘Well done. Shame she doesn’t want you either. All bets are off.’
Lough said nothing as he climbed into his lorry and reversed into the lane. Standing sentry beside the pack leader, her small body still shaking with anxiety, old Beetroot’s barks were drowned out by the furious roar of the truck engine.
As the horsebox drove away Hugo turned to walk back through his gates, but then stopped, stooping down to pick up the twisted metal locker door that had been ripped off in Tash’s getaway and hurling it furiously at one gatepost. His aim was surprisingly accurate as one ancient, lichened lion rampant toppled from its pedestal.
Sylva had recently let her friendship with Indigo cool to almost nothing, although it was her one fragile link with Dillon beyond the media circus. Dong infuriated her and Pete had been away in Ireland all summer while his young wife prowled around the Abbey, adding yet more ethnic furnishings and children.
Their girls’ lunches were now a rarity, but Sylva still regularly used the Raffertys’ underground gym and pool, and sometimes borrowed a horse for an hour. Pete and Indigo had much flashier horses than Jules: Andalusian stallions in every available colour.
Today she texted Indigo to ask if she could take a dip and was relieved to receive the reply:
Be my guest. Running with Dong. Help yourself to whatever you like. It’s all yours for the taking. Ix.
Sylva always preferred going to the Abbey when they were out.
She decided to take her new Lambretta for a run, noticing as she zipped out of Le Petit Château’s electric gates that there were quite a few more paps than usual, and even a couple of grubby journalist types stepping from cars, but she didn’t hang about to talk to them, giving her snappers their action shot of the day by accelerating past them with a wave and racing off along the sun-dappled village lane before cutting through an alley far too narrow for them to follow, loving the throaty little gurgle of the vintage engine. Dillon’s management had good taste.
Being Dillon Rafferty’s girlfriend was a very profitable affair and great for her public profile. Sylva now had almost as many Twitter followers as Stephen Fry, more hits on her website than a laughing baby on YouTube and her Facebook wall was plastered with more comments than graffiti on a New York subway. Ratings for
Sylva’s Shadow
were up twenty per cent and she was in constant demand for photo shoots and exclusives, including renewing her contract with
Cheers!
for a seven-figure sum. Business was looking good: her named range of products were selling better than ever and she was adding more and more income streams, including soft furnishings and children’s riding clothes. Her latest book had been a
Sunday Times
top-ten bestseller for eight weeks now, although she hadn’t yet got around to reading it.
She seemed to spend her life in the back of cars, on planes and in hotels, but the only reading she had done lately was a very enlightening biography of legendary rock group Mask, and a more detailed biography of its lead singer and sole surviving member Pete Rafferty, more famous now of course for his subsequent solo career which had led him to be known simply as the Rockfather.
Her own ghostwritten books were of no interest, and more recently she had started to forsake her own press too. For the first time in her career she had no interest in following what was being written about her and whether or not she was IFOP. She was always IFOP now that she and Dillon were ‘engaged’, but reading about it depressed her – she preferred non-fiction. She was accustomed to her own publicity machine exaggerating facts and creating newsworthy angles to otherwise apparently mundane activities and events, but this had gone into overdrive as the Sylva and Dillon myth was created. A snap of the couple together had become one of the most valuable commodities on the open market. She currently had photographers following her day and night, knowing that one shot could pay their mortgage for a year.
Their respective management teams were boxing clever, reluctant to be the first to pull the plug because it could reflect so badly on two such popular celebrity figures who had both been through a bad time, and the fickle public could go either way if they split.
Sylva’s team, spearheaded by Mama, played closer to the flames, and to
The Sun,
with leaked wedding plan stories galore, but they could afford to because she was seen as a more sympathetic figure
than her husband-to-be. Dillon’s team had retaliated with the strange tactic of romantic gifts that had been arriving on a regular basis at Le Petit Château all summer, delivery of which were joyously snapped by her paparazzi gatekeepers: first it was a diamond-encrusted gold pendant in the shape of a horse, then a huge abstract painting, statues for the garden, the baby-blue scooter she was riding now, miniature Ferraris for the boys, a little palomino pony for Zuzi, and endless bunches of flowers, all just signed ‘Rafferty’. Dillon denied all knowledge, but Sylva knew positive PR when she saw it. The public lapped up these expensive scraps.