by Fiona Walker
‘Absolutely.’
Petra backed gratefully away to say hello to Mo and Gill, who were both mounted, the latter looking distinctly jaded under her frayed-brimmed beagler: ‘Three hours of charades, an entire Stilton and two bottles of port late last night are taking their toll,’ the vet reported weakly. ‘The only fresh air we got all day beyond checking horses was when Ronnie’s horse walked off with a greenhouse on its head.’
‘I’m sorry she’s leaving.’ Petra sighed.
‘No, she ain’t,’ Mo reported eagerly, kicking the cob closer. ‘Lester’s telling everyone as’ll listen that she’s staying and has some fancy sort coming over from America or somewhere to make the stud a world-beater.’
Petra cheered up immensely, guiltily excited at the idea of the ‘fancy sort’. She was in desperate need of a new SMC. Bay sent her another smouldering glance over his shoulder, lifting his big hunt whip to his hat brim. He looked far too rakish on a horse for safety. She couldn’t wait to retreat to the Plotting Shed and start rattling his priestly chains.
*
Pip had arrived back in Compton Bagot at lunchtime, after catching the morning ferry, her palms permanently scarred from digging her fingernails into them as she listened to her aunt talk about the ones that had got away. She had changed into her pink horse gear: she was missing morning hay nets, Lester and baking. And even the horses a little bit. She raced to the stud to find Ronnie nowhere in sight. Instead Carly from the estate was rolling round the yards with the ubiquitous buggy and snotty children, plus the big tattooed squaddie and a terrifying-looking dog on a string.
‘Does Mrs Ledwell know you’re here?’ she asked archly, as they went to hang over the fence and talk to Spirit. She couldn’t look at Ash at all.
‘Yeah, we saw her,’ Carly said, putting a hat back on one of the snotties as the first few flakes of snow started to fall. ‘She’s gone to watch the hunt come up from Eyngate to draw something called Compton Thorns.’
‘I’ll go there too.’ Pip had no desire to stick close to the tattooed one. She hoped the tack room was locked.
‘Pip.’ Carly called her back as she hurried away, making her heart stop a little. ‘JD was Ash’s cousin Jed. He’s been sorted out.’
‘Gosh, thanks.’ Being ‘sorted out’ sounded terrifying and nothing like she was doing with the stud attic. She hoped they’d left his best asset untouched. She could, she felt, bring herself to forgive him in time.
As she hurried down the drive and onto the lane, she stepped aside as a red Shogun swung into the stud entrance, then spun round in shock, watching it thunder up the drive, Alice and her lanky farmer husband in the front, three enormous children in the back and wrapped presents sharing boot space with a collie.
Further along the lane, in the gateway to the Sixty Acres, the Fosse and Wolds car-followers had already gathered in force, off-roaders parked at the usual haphazard angles, binoculars trained on the horizon. Ronnie was standing with the round-faced chairman of the hunt supporters, Barry, both laughing uproariously.
‘Hello, old Pip!’ Ronnie’s ever-amused voice was full of affection.
‘Hello!’ She bounced forwards. ‘Did you miss me?’
‘Too buggery fucking right I did!’ boomed a joyful voice, from somewhere in the midst of the donkey jackets and waxed cotton. ‘Bloody shaggingly good to see you again, Pip.’ A blonde Boris Johnson mop popped up. Roo Verney, in purple Puffa, pearls and Hermès scarf, was beaming over a burly Turner shoulder, camcorder in hand.
Pip smiled shyly back. Purely platonically speaking, it was overwhelmingly nice to be liked. And Roo did have tremendously sparkly eyes. She also listed Boyzone under her music choices on Facebook.
‘Give her some space, chaps!’ Ronnie lectured the foot-followers and terrier men.
‘Yes, give her some space,’ Pip ordered, earning a wink from Roo, who turned round as the horn blasted in the distance.
They watched the field canter up from the direction of Eyngate, the pace leisurely, no line being pursued, just a big Christmas-card tableau of hounds, horses, red coats and black jackets in a beautiful Cotswolds valley. The snow was thickening: scent would be poor. Compton Thorns would almost certainly be the last covert drawn, so Bay would achieve his ambition to jump his way home from a day’s hunting across his hedges, if he so wished.
Ronnie spotted Lester in the field, still best turned out by far and riding with terrific panache, even though his hips needed fixing and he couldn’t see much beyond his cob’s ears. She was glad she was staying to look after him. The Horsemaker was a lovely guy, but had no sense of the importance of Lester and the wisdom of Lester, the last of the great holy trinity of the stud.
‘Hello, Mum,’ said a low, sweet voice at her shoulder. ‘Sorry I didn’t call. We all thought we’d take you by surprise. Then you weren’t there.’
Hands flying to her face in surprise, she turned to Pax, a head above her, deep red hair already flecked with snow, freckles creasing together in a smile.
‘Merry Christmas and all that.’ The beautiful hare’s eyes blinked warily. ‘We brought lunch. We know you only do soup.’
‘We?’
‘Alice and her lot are up there. Tread carefully. I think Lester threatened violence. I brought my two men, four and forty, and the doughty in-laws, sorry.’ She pulled a face. ‘Tim’s in the Cape, as you know, but he chose the wine and is going to call. It’ll be a proper Percy Massty.’ She looked across the valley as the horn sounded. At the head of the field, standing in his stirrups, Bay charged along on a huge, rangy chestnut. ‘Nice-looking type.’
‘Not your sort.’ Ronnie threaded her arm through her daughter’s, patting Barry’s shoulder farewell. ‘No staying power. Got to sit tight and kick on in this life.’
As they made their way back up the drive, her phone rang, an unlisted number.
‘That might be Tim.’ Pax unthreaded her arm while Ronnie answered it, going to talk to Dickon and Horace, the point-to-pointer who had been turned out in one of the front paddocks, old-timers who were listening to the hunt pass with wise, delighted eyes, high heads and pricked ears.
‘Hello!’
The voice was the deepest, gravelliest she knew, as Australian as the Great Barrier Reef. ‘Ronnie, I have to see you before you go.’
She stopped, gazing up the drive to the beautiful house and yard her father had entrusted to her care. ‘There’s no hurry. Really, there’s no hurry at all.’
We hope you enjoyed this book.
The next book in the Compton Magna series is coming in summer 2018
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About Fiona Walker
FIONA WALKER is the bestselling author of seventeen novels. She lives in Warwickshire with her partner and two children plus an assortment of horses and dogs.
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First published in 2017 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Fiona Walker 2017
The moral right of Fiona Walker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, e
lectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781784977238
ISBN (XTPB): 9781784977245
ISBN (E): 9781784977221
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