‘And what about Dillon’s heart?’
‘Oh I have that already,’ she giggled. ‘I just haven’t figured out what to do with it yet.’
‘Don’t abuse it, Nell,’ Ellen warned, her voice unusually stern. ‘If he’d rather be Old MacDonald than Ol’ Blue Eyes, you mustn’t punish him for that.’
Dillon loved the Dorset Horns: they bred year round, meaning they were reliable milkers. His new miniature cheeses wrapped in local wild garlic leaves, branded I Owe Ewe Lodes, were flying off the farm shop’s shelves this Christmas. It was a far more exciting prospect for him than his Christmas single, a reworking of the old David Essex classic ‘A Winter’s Tale’ that was being downloaded by his target female audience faster than if it was a George Clooney striptease on YouTube. Dillon hated his over-produced, rocky version with a vengeance, but he cynically agreed with his record company that it would be a smash hit, and perfectly timed to cash in on his high-stakes success.
He was exhausted from ever-shifting time zones. He seemed to have been on the publicity circuit in perpetuity. So many names to remember, so many anecdotes to tell and re-tell, so few hours in which to sleep, so little time to share with those he loved. These days he found he had more peace and time to think in the Johnston’s Malibu guest lodge than he did at home in the Lodes Valley. It was starting to become his refuge from Nell.
He had barely noticed her driving away earlier, although now he realised she was gone he registered a sense of relief familiar with her absense these days.
Dillon had allowed idle thoughts to drift in the direction of splitting up with Nell for a long time. But he’d never been good at ending relationships; like removing splinters, he preferred other people to do it for him. Instead, he retreated behind his BlackBerry and work schedule as often as possible. The relationship that had been so good on paper no longer stood up in an increasingly paper-free world. Nell crowded him in cyberspace when he was away,
continually texting, emailing, PMing and video-calling. If she could have projected a three-dimensional image of herself into his hotel suite he suspected she would. When she travelled with him she ransacked his headspace like an over-zealous customs official going through a suspicious suitcase. Yet her body thrilled him. Sex was never better with Nell than in hotels. She got off on hotels.
She fitted into the landscape in the Cotswolds like one of his gorgeous rare livestock, an old breed with class and sense and local knowledge. But the Lodes Valley bored her. She loved travelling the world and living out of suitcases, networking and partying and hanging out in VIP rooms.
In South Africa he’d almost plucked up the courage to end their relationship. It was going nowhere and, while the sexual kick still stirred him from his apathy occasionally, it hadn’t blossomed into the supportive family unit he’d hoped for. Nell’s jealousy was starting to impact upon his relationship with his daughters and ex-wife.
Lately she’d started accusing him of being boring and parochial, and he guessed she was right. He was happiest here in the Cotswold drizzle, up to his gumboot-tops in sheep droppings, talking lambs, milk yields and field rotation with his stockman.
Tomorrow he was flying to Abu Dhabi to sing at a wedding for so many million dollars he couldn’t have refused, but his body ached to stay put in his beloved farm and sort out his personal life.
He took a photograph of a winter lamb springing past and mindlessly texted it to Faith, who he knew missed the Lodes Valley desperately.
Ever-reliable, she replied within thirty seconds.
Where the hell have you been? Rory obnoxiously big-headed. Been out hunting today. When are you coming here to see your horses?
He texted back
Boxing Day
, although wasn’t at all sure if he’d be there. His PA had accepted the invitation to the Beauchamps’ shoot on his behalf while negotiations with Fawn had still been ongoing. Now that he definitely had his children, ex-wife and current girlfriend to juggle, he doubted he’d get them all to Haydown alive if Fawn and Nell had to share a car, and he was certain that guns were a very, very bad idea indeed.
His phone was beeping. Faith again, this time with a blurred, lopsided photo of something that looked like a Christmas turkey, plucked and trussed a week early.
?
Dillon replied.
My arse says you’ll never come here.
He grinned and saved the picture to his gallery, getting into the Christmas spirit at last.
Dillon made the mistake of laughing when Nell found the trussed-turkey photo on his phone.
‘How dare you keep another woman’s bottom on your mobile!’ she screeched.
‘It’s obviously not a real arse,’ he pacified, fighting amusement.
‘You saved it!’
‘Because it made me laugh – it’s an armpit or knees or something.’
‘So you’ve studied it quite closely then?’
‘No.’
‘There! I’ve deleted it.’
‘Oi, that’s my phone!’ He made to grab it, but she threw it over her shoulder.
They were in his bedroom at West Oddlode Farm. Gigi was back with Granny Dibs and Nell had just changed into a very tight electric blue sweater dress and black patent high-heeled boots. She looked fantastic.
‘I’m taking you out to dinner,’ she now insisted. ‘I can’t let you go to Dubai on a row.’
‘Abu Dhabi,’ Dillon yawned. Frankly, he wanted to be alone. Nell’s idea of taking him out to dinner was inevitably a very over-priced Michelin-starred country house hotel where he would be recognised and pointed out before having to pick up the bill for a lot of food and champagne she’d rejected. Then she’d announce that she had booked a room and he would follow her meekly, knowing that the sex would be phenomenal in their temporary quarters, as Nell insisted on trying out the bed, the bath, the dressing room and, quite possibly, hanging from the beams. He only wished she was as inventive at home, but his beloved house and fantastic, huge bedroom no longer seemed to inspire her. He was half tempted to put a minibar in one corner and lay out a tray of miniature toiletries in the en suite to see if it would spice things up.
It had always been his Achilles heel; he couldn’t end relationships calmly and sensibly. It was the big joke – the rock star incapable of
breaking hearts. Infidelity was his only Get Out of Jail Free card, and right now he had no takers and no inclination to take. His failure to get it right with Nell just saddened him, and he longed to be alone.
But he forced himself out tonight, determined to show some guts at last and tell her that it was time to call it a day. Lately even Fawn had been advising him what to say to end the relationship, convinced that Nell was making him depressed.
To his surprise, Nell took him to the New Inn in Upper Springlode, where they sat in one of the discreet oak panelled booths eating Gloucester Old Spot bangers and mash followed by a massive board of local cheeses, including several from the West Oddlode range.
‘I love you,’ she told him simply.
He gazed at her beautiful, fine-boned face. Those sea green eyes invited him to dive straight in with a siren’s call.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch lately,’ she went on. ‘I think it’s time I started looking after your heart more carefully.’
The end notes to their relationship died on his tongue after that.
That night, he lay back on his own bed in his beloved farm and studied the exquisite cello curve of her back as she straddled him, his endpin sliding out of sight, the rise and fall of her buttocks accelerating, her ankles forcing his legs further apart so that she could drive him deeper, her head tipping back on her long neck. Her hair, still wet from a hot shower, was so short that he could study the delicate nape, the clasp of her necklace resting at the top of her spine and several little moles clustered beneath it. He reached up and touched them.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he breathed, and to his shame found tears in his eyes.
He was only grateful she was facing away from him. By the time she lifted off and repositioned herself facing him, he was back in control, knowing the show must go on.
That she could look him so directly in the eyes while the dark blush spread up through her chest and throat, her fingers between her legs, lips parting, inhibitions utterly abandoned always thrilled him. She so wilfully grabbed her pleasure and rode it hard home. It still blew his mind – and his wad – even if his heart was starting to lock itself away.
*
While Dillon was playing wedding singer in Abu Dhabi, Nell headed to her brother’s yard to see Cœur d’Or for the first time in weeks.
Piers Cottrell had grown surprisingly fond of the horse with the wild eyes and the heart-shaped star, despite the fact that his early shots at riding him had left him on the deck. He was quite the best-looking animal on the yard, and after a few fierce arguments this Vale of the Wolds stalwart had put the strongest bit in his possession in the French horse’s mouth and risked a morning’s hunting to see what he would make of it. The horse – and Piers – had loved every minute. Now they were a regular partnership in the field and Heart was shaping up to be a true master’s horse.
Piers was therefore supremely reluctant to let his sister ride the animal. ‘Just a quiet hack,’ she pleaded. ‘He’s my horse.’
Nell had always been able to bend her older brother to her will.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he eventually relented. ‘There’s a shoot going on today; I don’t want you riding through it. Give me half an hour.’
But Nell wanted to be alone with Dillon’s Heart and so, while her brother was distracted on the phone, she quickly tacked up, hopped into the saddle and slipped away.
There were many who’d accused Nell of riding too recklessly over the years. She had always loved speed, often at the expense of safety. However, since taking a crashing fall out team-chasing while pregnant with Giselle, she’d calmed down greatly. She did exactly as she had told Piers, hacking along God’s Corridor past the Abbey, marvelling at the horse’s long, easy stride.
She stared up at the big house as they passed, wondering if Dillon’s father would ever move in or was just intent on owning it to wind up his son, as Dillon maintained. She was far too distracted staring at all the changes the Rockfather had wrought to remember Piers’s warning about the shoot.
A hundred yards away, a single gunshot cracked through the woods.
When Cœur d’Or took fright Nell wasn’t fazed, and she was quietly determined to stop him without heroism or hysterics.
The horse bolted the full length of the woodland bridleway, over a five-bar gate and out into open country. There, in a huge set-aside field punctuated by just one lone oak and a startled pair of fallow
deer, they hurtled around in wide circles. Nell knew the horse would eventually run out of puff, but he was hunting fit and so there was an awful lot of puff to get through. Round and round the perimeter of the field they sped until she was close to exhaustion. He was one indefatigable horse, but she was determined to hang on.
By the time Heart finally slowed down enough for Nell to take control, both were close to collapse. Nell rode away from the sound of the guns and found a gate at the far end of the field. It was padlocked. For a moment she thought about jumping it, but the horse was on his last legs. Instead she found a gap in the hedgerow a few yards away and urged him through it, not seeing the gaping ditch hidden beneath a tangle of dead bracken and brambles. But Heart saw it and put in an enormous leap from a near standstill, clearing it easily. Caught unawares, her legs and arms still like jelly from her recent exertions, Nell pitched forwards. As the horse landed his neck came flying upwards and smacked her firmly on the nose. She heard it crack, a strange sound that seemed to come from inside her head like a thought bubble popping.
They hacked back to the yard with the horse almost on his knees, his ears flopping sideways with utter fatigue.
‘What have you
done
?’ Piers was appalled when he saw the state of them both, dried blood congealing across his sister’s chin and chest, while Heart shambled through the gate so stiffly Giselle could have walked faster.
He put an urgent call through to their brother Flipper, an equine vet, before taking Nell to hospital to have her nose reset. To her credit, she didn’t complain once about the pain, but Piers was nonetheless livid. ‘You bloody little fool!’
However much she protested that the horse had just taken off, he didn’t believe her. Nor did the rest of her family, especially Flipper.
‘He’s tied up behind and blown both his front suspensory ligaments by the look of things,’ Flipper reported when they got back. ‘He won’t be hunting again this season, let alone eventing. The tendon injures will take months to heal.’
‘How many months?’ Nell asked her brother anxiously.
‘Hard to tell. At least six, probably the best part of a year, possibly never.’
‘My poor, dear Heart.’ Nell cupped the horse’s muzzle in her hands, feeding him mints and kissing his star. Rare tears of remorse
dropped on to her chest. She seldom wept over anybody, but horses were another matter.
‘Chances are, he’ll be fine.’ Flipper patted her back. ‘Many even get back to top-level one day. We’ll get him back to Haydown – Hugo has the facilities for laser- and hydrotherapy to help him.’
She turned tearfully to her brother. ‘Dillon will think it’s my fault. You
all
think it’s my fault. But he just kept going with me, Flips! He wouldn’t give up.’
Flipper knew his twin sister better than anyone. He placed a firm hand on both her shoulders. ‘And did you try to stop him?’
She looked at him sharply, opening her mouth in protest. Then she closed it again as she realised what he was saying. Very slowly, she shook her head. ‘I never try to stop them. I just wait until they get too tired to carry on. It’s what I always do.’ They both knew she wasn’t just talking about the horse now.
Sylva Frost was unwittingly walking in the direction of the Fox Oddfield shoot. The black-skied December drizzle depressed her utterly. In Slovakia, her home village would be covered in thick snow, its preparations for Christmas magical and steeped in history. In Upper Springlode the duck pond had overflowed to turn the little village green into a mud bath, the fairy lights outside the New Inn had fused and the windswept Christmas tree had blown over. She thought longingly of her fifteen-foot fibre-optic designer tree in the vaulted hallway of the Buckinghamshire mansion, stretching up towards the chandelier and decked with a thousand pounds’ worth of brand-new Swarovski-encrusted decorations.