‘Hi Beccy.’ Faith gave her friend a kiss on a cheek that was blushing hotter than ever. ‘Let me take your coat.’
‘No! I’ll wear it, thanks.’
‘But it’s boiling in here.’
‘I’m fine,’ Beccy insisted, clutching her manky waxed jacket closer around her. ‘Where can we get a drink?’
‘Here, I’ll show you.’
Beneath the coat, Beccy was wearing the same dress as Faith, two sizes bigger and far less suited to her figure. She wished that they had compared notes beforehand, but they didn’t have that sort of girly friendship and, even assuming they had, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. Worse still, when Beccy had asked what Tash was wearing she had interpreted ‘a dress Sophia gave me which is a bit out of my comfort zone’ as meaning Tash would look hideous, whereas she looked as beautiful as Beccy could ever remember her. Jealousy bubbled inside her. She missed her dreadlocks. She wanted to get very drunk.
At the opposite end of the farmhouse, Hugo was set on an equally lethal course of self-destruction, especially when the first person to loom out of the crowd in the sitting room, sexy smile playing on his famous lips and dark eyes sparkling, was Niall O’Shaughnessy, Tash’s charmingly rakish ex lover.
‘Hugo, my old friend!’ He gave him a double hand-shake before turning to Tash. ‘Angel! You look incredibly beautiful. It’s just grand to see you both in such good health, so it is.’ His kisses lingered indulgently on Tash’s cheeks, making Hugo want to swat him away from his wife like a bee. ‘Zoe will be thrilled to see you – she’s in here somewhere.’ He scanned the crowded room and then gave up, turning to admire her once again. ‘My goodness, but you’re breathtaking. You get more gorgeous every year.’
Aware that Niall was paying his wife the compliments he should be bestowing himself if he weren’t feeling so stupidly uptight at seeing her vamping it up, Hugo stalked off in search of champagne, hoping to return with a magnum and side-swipe Niall with it.
But before he could get across the room he was commandeered by his mother, who had brought a surprise guest.
It took Hugo a few moments to recognise Sylva without her documentary team, Slovakian contingent and – most noticeably – her waist-length blonde hair.
She had gone brunette. It suited her fantastically. She looked like Penelope Cruz.
Sylva planted a lingering kiss on his cheek which was so plump and perfect that it left a flawless cherry-pink lip stamp that could have been painted by a pop artist.
Hugo drew his mother aside, knowing her habits of old. ‘Mother, please don’t tell me you’ve adopted a new pet?’
Alicia, who was looking extraordinary in a Dior dress from her deb days and a peacock feather fascinator perching jauntily in her peppery Carmen waves, gave a discreet shake of her head. ‘She’s wildlife, I assure you. Like feeding a badger or a fox. Not pet material.’
In tears of happiness, Zoe was hugging Tash as tightly as she did her daughter India when she’d flown home from her first backpacking trip.
‘You look sensational!’ Her short blonde bob swung as she tilted her head to admire her friend. ‘Two children in as many years and – wow! It took me at least a year to lose the baby weight last time, but just look at you …’
‘It’s got a built-in corset,’ Tash admitted without guile. ‘And anyway, you had twins. Takes twice as long.’
Zoe kissed her again. ‘God, I miss you. Where’s Hugo? I’ve told Niall that he
must
buy a horse for you two to compete so we have an excuse to see you more.’
‘I’m not competing.’ Tash turned away, looking for Hugo and spotting him with Sylva Frost.
‘You and Hugo not competing?’ Zoe laughed. ‘How do you keep love alive? I thought that’s what sparked you.’ Her gaze followed Tash’s. ‘My goodness, that looks like Sylva Frost—’
‘It is,’ Tash said artificially brightly, surprised by the new dark hair and understated yet beautifully tailored wool trouser suit in deepest plum. ‘She’s a … family friend.’ Realising she was being watched, Sylva glanced across and gave a regal wave before turning back to Hugo. She was standing very close to him, Tash noticed. The diminutive Slovak was practically inside his jacket.
‘Gosh.’ Zoe had noticed it too, but then her eyes drifted through the room, taking in all the unfamiliar faces. ‘You are moving in different circles these days. All these strangers. But your new work rider is a dish, isn’t he?
So
sexy. Where did you find him?’
Tash guessed she wasn’t talking about Rory, for all his insouciant blond charm. Sure enough, Zoe was admiring Lough perched on the arm of a sofa, chatting quietly to his hostess, who was hugging a scatter cushion and looking positively skittish under his intense
gaze. He was certainly one if the most charismatic forces in the room, a tamed jaguar in jet-black jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt that revealed the muscular contours of his torso. Several female guests were practically climbing on to the sofa as they angled for invitations, all of whom Penny was gamely ignoring.
‘New Zealand.’
‘How heavenly,’ Zoe sighed. ‘When Niall was filming the Ptolemy Finch movies we pretty much lived there for eighteen months, as you know. Such a beautiful country. Very good-looking men.’ She winked. ‘Maybe Penny can give Gus a taste of his own medicine, d’you think?’
‘Sorry?’ Tash said vaguely as Lough looked up and caught her gawping at him. There was no regal wave this time. His eyes scorched paths across the room. He really was incredibly intense, she thought as she raised her glass clumsily and turned back to Zoe’s earnest face.
‘You eventers are worse than movie stars for flirting on set,’ she was saying, clearly fishing for something, ‘or perhaps you’d say “on course”?’
‘How d’you mean?’ Tash gulped, casting Hugo another anxious look and gratefully noticing that he and Sylva had parted company.
But Zoe wasn’t talking about Hugo. She checked Niall was still busy talking to old village friends before dropping her voice to a whisper, ‘What’s Gus playing at, Tash?’
Tash had heard enough rumours by now to guess it was more than idle talk, but she still looked deliberately blank, desperately hoping it wasn’t true.
‘Penny says there’s nothing to worry about,’ Zoe whispered. ‘But I’m her sister and I know her too damn well. You’re friends with both of them. Is Gus really serious about this other woman, do you think? Penny says temptation is a part of the sport, especially with such a high ratio of young, sexy women to men who should know better. It’s like actors, and Niall is appallingly hard to control, of course. Is Hugo the same?’ Do you have to say “down, boy” when the girls crowd around him?’
‘I don’t think – that is I’m not …’ Tash tried to stop her lip wobbling as she stared at her glass. ‘We don’t really talk about all that. It’s been a bit tricky lately.’
Zoe’s big eyes widened like warm spa pools eager to soothe away
Tash’s stresses, and she hooked her arm around that sexily corseted waist to lead her somewhere quiet. There were famously no quiet spots at a Lime Tree Farm New Year’s party – even the horses had to cope with the annual shock of sharing their stables with necking couples and their fields with cavorting revellers – but experience born from many years living and partying there had taught both Zoe and Tash precisely where to go.
They were shut safely in the larder within minutes, Tash breaking into a comforting packet of ginger nuts while Zoe started to ask probing questions.
Left unmarked, Niall was an open target for Sylva. Having peeled away from Hugo and Alicia, she locked on target and laid on the charm with its slickest lubricant – a bottle of champagne, two flutes and her cutest smile – as she shot like an arrow to his side to introduce herself.
‘I’m Sylva.’
‘Plain old Irish bog peat, me,’ he laughed.
‘Is Niall just a stage name then?’ Sylva was confused by the joke, but she didn’t let it deflect her. ‘I think you can tell a lot from a name. Pete is a sexy name. I have a silver tongue and a silver lining and here I am talking to a star of the silver screen. It’s fate.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Niall regarded her impassively.
He politely deflected her, totally unaffected by her charms. It was the first genuine brush-off she’d had in many years and it jolted her. The most famous of flirts would not play her game.
Compared to A-lister Niall, Jonte had been distinctly end-of-alphabet. He had needed Sylva as much as she needed him, their careers and profiles guaranteed to rise to new orbits together; Niall was so established that he only needed friends who genuinely entertained him and had nothing to gain from him. Sylva’s ambition was like neon above her head, and he just wanted to get on and talk to his friends, some of whom he so rarely saw, including local actor Godfrey Pelham, who bore down on him now: ‘Dear boy – what
have
you been doing lately?’ ‘Biblical epic with Scorsese. You?’ ‘Village panto. Mother Goose. Went down a storm. Shame you missed it.’
Sylva drifted off through the party, hoping that coming here had not been a mistake. Accustomed to being the centre of attention, she was
thrown by her sudden anonymity in such alien surroundings. They were really
very
horsy here. The Moncrieffs’ farm was such an unlikely gathering to find the nation’s favourite single mum on New Year’s Eve that she’d even managed to give the paparazzi the slip, although she had no doubt that at least one unscrupulous guest would soon spread the word that Sylva Frost was here at a green-wellies backwater to party with James Blunt playing in the background and weak punch on tap.
She pursed her recently saline-plumped lips at the notion of the press getting hold of the story, but then reassured herself that Niall O’Shaughnessy was here too and the media would naturally link their names together, like prom king and queen, because they were the only celebrities: of course they
had
to be there for each other. Being linked to Niall would do her image no harm, even if, in reality, the man wouldn’t even talk to her.
Sylva’s mood was rapidly blackening. She had only agreed to come here to avoid the annual exodus to Slovakia for New Year. Mama had chartered a private plane to take her grandsons, plus Hana and Zuzi and the rest of the mob, to Bratislava for two nights, booking all four of the exclusive Tulip House Hotel’s penthouse suites, plus five further suites. It would be noisy and chaotic affair, with relatives visiting non-stop, a constant babble of Slovak, laughter and tears, gifts and – in Mama’s case – lots of showing off.
So Sylva had hyped up this party as an excuse to stay behind and had dug in her heels, persuading Mama that it was an essential part of her Dillon plan and hinting that he might even be there, but of course he wasn’t. There were just hundreds of haw-haw event riders and locals, and a disproportionate number of adolescent boys following her around and taking photographs with their mobile phones. A few were even brave enough to ask if they could pose with her while they handed their camera phones to guffawing friends.
‘My nephew invited rather a lot of his school chums,’ Gus, her likeable host, apologised, helping himself to a top-up from her champagne bottle. ‘Great boys, but it’s a terrible age. Tell me if they’re bothering you and I’ll get Hugo to rein them back.’
‘Hugo?’ Sylva giggled at the idea of one so arrogant being put in charge of teenage discipline.
‘Also my nephew’s name – Hugo or Huey,’ Gus explained. ‘Parents beware: not a name to bestow lightly. Would you like Hugo Junior and his pack to back off?’
‘No, it’s fine,’ Sylva assured him, thinking how nice he was, like a big, shaggy blond bear that had lost most of its stuffing. From what she could tell, these event riders were all sexy rogues.
She needed attention like oxygen, but teenage boys were very thin air, and she liked her testosterone as chilled and vintage as her champagne.
As Dillon wasn’t here and she had got the brush off from Niall O’Shaughnessy, Sylva was determined have some fun this evening. She drained the last of the champagne and went to fetch another bottle, eyes scouring the faces around her. She was going to flirt with the most handsome man in the room.
The males of the English country set were not, on the whole, the most stylish figures, particularly given their propensity to dress in ludicrously bright trousers and waistcoats.
Which led her to a dilemma. By far the most tempting and sexually attractive man in the room was the prototype for all dashing, daredevil and very English horsemen, Hugo.
Only for the briefest moment did her friendship with Tash hold her in check. Friends were transient; sex was a life force. She quickly appropriated her second bottle of champagne and repositioned her biggest smile before setting her missiles on full lock.
Hugo was having a stiff-jawed argument with a dark-haired man as Sylva approached, both far too intent to pay more than cursory attention as she played waitress with her champagne bottle.
‘… Florida next week,’ Hugo was saying firmly as he held out his glass for a refill, then noticed who she was. ‘Lough Strachan, Sylva Frost.’ He introduced her as little more than a punctuation mark in his argument. ‘You’re coming to the States, Lough.’
‘First I’ve heard of it,’ Lough said dryly, not even looking at Sylva.
‘If you’d got here sooner we might have been able to talk it through,’ Hugo snapped.
But Lough shook his head. ‘I only just got here, mate, I’m not budging. I’ve hardly sat on my horses yet.’
‘You can bring two horses. It’s all arranged. We’re teaching clinics with MC and Stefan Johanssen through January and February,
and training while we’re there. It’s seriously good money and unbeatable prep work.’
‘Sounds great!’ Sylva interjected, starting to get irritated that she was being ignored.
But Lough blanked her, suddenly realising what Hugo was trying to do. ‘This is Rory’s gig we’re talking about, isn’t it?’
Hugo returned his accusing stare levelly, not denying it. ‘He was the sub. Now you’ve finally joined the Haydown team he stays on the bench.’
‘Rory must go to America.’
‘Yes, Rory will love America.’ Sylva dived in again. ‘I am—’