by Fiona Walker
‘I did a naughty thing just now when I was having my smoke.’
‘Oh yes?’ Faith was only half interested in his practical jokes.
‘I texted Lough that Tash and Hugo have split up.’
She snorted in surprise. ‘You what?’
His porcine eyes glittered. ‘I reckon I’ve had it the wrong way round, you see, – telling Lough what he doesn’t want to hear: “You’re in deep shit. Hugo’s spitting blood.” Maybe this’ll work. Carrot and stick. Tell him something he wants to hear.’
‘Why would he want to hear that Tash and Hugo have split up?’ asked Faith. ‘Have I missed something?’
Beccy felt her face flame.
Lem looked at her thoughtfully before turning to Faith. ‘Ka mate kinga tahi, ka ora kinga rua, as the boss says.’
‘Meaning?’
‘When one house dies, another lives.’ He raised his glass. ‘Lough comes from a broken home, yeah. He likes to take on damaged horses to try to rebuild them, same goes for people. He doesn’t really care for something unless it’s broken.’
On cue, ‘All You Need is Love’ started playing over the pub’s sound system.
As Faith and Lemon crooned along, Beccy had to sit on her hands to stop them shaking.
Chapter 28
In the Pyrenees, Hugo threw his phone on to the table of the little hotel bar and reached for his wine glass. He’d tried to call Tash while he took a cigarette break outside, but the reception was lousy and it had started to rain. Now he raised his glass at Marie-Clair, grateful for her company.
She raised hers in return. He knew that look in her eye of old. Lusty, excited, red-blooded and fantastically unfettered by any morals. Her rich American husband was in another time zone, and as far as she was concerned that placed her beyond reproach. She wanted to be extremely naughty tonight.
She’d looked exactly the same throughout the two decades they’d been friends, with her sunshine complexion and knowing eyes, her body still as fit and lean from riding horses and lovers daily. MC had always possessed an unashamed appetite for sex, food and wine, and as well as friendship she and Hugo had shared a bed several times, but that had been before his marriage.
Tash was in his blood, his head and his heart, but he had never felt as distanced from her as he did now. He ran a dry tongue along his teeth and tasted his mounting unease.
Beside him, Rory looked as though he could only taste success, washed down with his fourth glass of Buzet. Hugo envied the young man his carefree attitude. His dressage that day had been a disaster, yet he remained enviably upbeat. Another time, Hugo might have laid into him about slipping off the wagon but he knew he was hardly leading by example as he leaned across the table to refill their glasses.
In fact, Rory was far from happy, but the wine was acting as an anaesthetic, and he had been brought up not to sulk, however bleak his heart. Sylva had dumped him by text that morning. Theirs had never been anything more than a playful fling, but because Rory played with all his heart he felt bruised by the brush-off, and insulted that she felt it necessary to dismiss him like a superfluous employee. The press had found out about Jules, she said, and it was all about to blow. She wanted his name kept out of it and insisted it was best to cease all contact.
Cease all contact. It made him feel like a stalker under threat of a court order. When he’d replied that there were no hard feelings his text had come back as undeliverable. She had blocked his number.
His mind had been in the wrong place all day and his dressage on Rio had been a shambles. He knew that he’d let Hugo down. He was feeling so low that he’d wanted to crawl to bed early that night, but Hugo insisted that he come along to supper with Marie-Clair Tucson. His bleak mood made him uncharacteristically tongue-tied, even more so because he was dining with one of his teenage pin-ups, a woman so intimidatingly carnal that every man in the restaurant seemed to loosen his collar upon looking at her.
He’d long admired MC, and had coveted the chance to get closer to her for years. Once the undisputed glamourpuss of the sport she was still a formidably sexy figure – part Sophia Loren, part Jacqueline Bisset and wholly built for sin. She must be over fifty now, but she had amazing glossy olive skin, and rumpled bed-head hair the colour of Nutella that snaked down towards a cleavage as welcoming as two profiteroles. He was immensely excited at the thought of ten days in her company at her family’s Loire retreat, which purportedly had an indoor pool, Jacuzzi, hot tub and sauna as well as four-poster beds as big as snooker tables.
No longer competing at four-star level, she remained one of the most respected and influential female riders of her generation, not least because her marriage to an extremely wealthy, horse-loving American businessman, himself a long-term sponsor of the United States Eventing Association, had enabled her to become a great patron and benefactor of the sport. The couple had homes in Florida and Montana, as well as MC’s magnificent stud near Angers.
A holiday in France was just the time out Rory needed, and would suit Sylva, who clearly wanted him as far away as possible. It also delayed his return to Haydown. He knew Faith was going to be there: she’d texted him earlier that day to break the news and demand to know why he hadn’t told her Rio was competing at Pau. The truth was, Rory had no desire to encounter the all new, grownup, altered Faith with her plastic additions and her Essex attitude. He preferred the kid he remembered. He had a feeling the allnew Faith could be almost as scary as MC, who had the same ballsy, outspoken grit and free spirit. But MC had grown from child to woman many years ago and Rory had no problem seeing her curves, carnality and corruption as assets. He fancied her a lot, despite the fear factor.
He was happy to sit back and watch as she and Hugo spent the evening chatting alternately in French and English, gossiping, joking and spatting – not always in an entirely friendly way – and lifting Rory’s spirits. He loved the way she reached out to touch whoever she spoke to, as automatically as someone stroking an attractive dog lying at their feet. When she touched Hugo he had a habit of batting her away without realising it, as though her hand was a fly that kept landing on him. Rory suspected his irritation came more from the fact that she accused him of losing his competitive edge since having children.
‘Thees boy, he ride with more balls than you now, huh?’ She reached out and stroked Rory’s hair, making the balls in question tighten deliciously.
‘That’s your opinion,’ Hugo snapped. ‘But we all know you ride with the biggest balls of all, MC. I’m amazed you can stay in the saddle.’
‘I am ze belle of ze big balls, no?’ She laughed, winking at Rory.
‘Alarm belle maybe,’ Hugo muttered dismissively, but there was affection in his voice.
‘Ta belle époque est terminé, chéri.’
‘C’est la pitié qui se moque de la charité.’
‘Eh?’ Rory was lost.
MC turned to him again, this time touching his cheek. ‘I tell him he is past his prime, and he tell me zat I ze pot calling kettle black, oui?’
‘Nonsense! You’re perfect. Beautiful.’ He admired her gloriously high cheekbones.
‘You are sweet boy.’ She smiled, revealing fabulously white teeth with a seductive gap between the front two. ‘When we were lovers, I taught Hugo many French sayings which now come back to – how you say – haunt me?’
‘You two are a great double act,’ Rory said. ‘Why d’you never marry?’
‘I asked her once,’ Hugo told him truthfully. ‘She said I’d be too unfaithful.’
Rory laughed uproariously at this. She was just like Faith.
‘Maybe that trait is not so bad for me now.’ Marie-Clair’s sexy chocolate eyes gleamed with mirth. ‘And I am ze one asking all ze questions tonight, huh Hugo?’
He shifted uncomfortably.
‘And do you have an answer for me?’ She licked her lips, plump and moist and temptingly carnal. ‘Shall we do it again for old times’ sake, or must I wait for your wife to give you your balls
back?’
Hugo said nothing.
‘Have I missed something?’ Rory was baffled.
But neither of his companions answered as they carried on regarding one another with a mixture of long-standing respect, lust and confrontation. Rory sensed a subtext.
‘Is this the point at which I should make my excuses and leave?’ he joked.
‘Stay, chéri.’ MC reached out and stroked Rory’s leg with strong, warm fingers that edged excitingly close to his crotch.
Rory stayed.
Hugo tapped his phone against the table, glaring at its darkened screen, a muscle fluttering in his cheek.
‘Okay.’ He looked up, suddenly smiling in that way that transformed his masked face and made all the waiting staff fall over one another to get to the table first. ‘We’ll do it again.’ He called for more wine.
MC let out an ecstatic purr. ‘Is that a promise?’
‘You have my word.’
‘And your wife? Will she want to join in this time?’
Convinced he was listening in on a sexual assignation, Rory’s eyes bulged at the thought of a threesome with MC and Tash. Now that would be heaven. It even outranked his romp with Sylva and Jules.
‘I need to work on Tash. For now it’s just you and me – and perhaps Rory can join us.’
‘Ah, yes. Hmm. Perhaps not.’ Rory started to panic. Wrong sort of threesome. He’d never had Hugo down as a daisy-chain man, but in this sport it never did to assume. Rory fancied MC, but he genuinely liked Tash and, while not averse to a little off-limits carousing, this was too far out of line. Realising this was all getting too hot – and adulterous and kinky – for him to handle, he made to stand up and announce he was off to bed, but MC’s hand kept him clamped down by the groin.
‘We are having another drink, chéri,’ she insisted throatily. ‘Then I need you to come and help me open the bathroom window in my room. I like to have extremely steamy baths, and ze catch mechanism is very, very stiff.’ The hand stroked higher and Rory felt his own mechanism stiffen in sympathy.
‘Is Hugo checking the catch too?’ he asked in a small, anxious voice.
‘Why should he? Ou es-tu homo?’ She sighed disappointedly.
‘No! I thought you and he just agreed …’
‘Hugo will ’ave to wait his turn, non?’ She was practically sitting in his lap now, which Rory found impossibly thrilling. MC was the most predatorily sexual woman he’d ever encountered, and far more his type than coquettish, manipulative Sylva hiding behind texts, high walls and her entourage.
‘Besides, Hugo, ’e is an old man now – he needs to preserve his energy for ze cross country tomorrow, non? I sink you need a workout instead.’
Rory’s face suddenly lit up with understanding. ‘Oh, right – one at a time. Great! Me first then.’ He couldn’t think of a lovelier way to get over being dumped.
‘Non, chéri.’ She laughed throatily. ‘Where are your good manners you English are so famous for? I always come first.’
At Haydown, Tash was grateful to have an evening of solitude, without the customary obligation to provide a meal for Beccy and Lemon, or her mother-in-law who had a house guest that weekend.
Aching from a day lunging and long-reining young horses, she settled by the easel in the study to finish a painting of a brace of red setters, listening out for the phone. She’d already tried to call Hugo, but his mobile was going to voicemail. She knew they both longed to make peace, but it was proving hard, and she was still livid that he’d suggested holidaying without the children.
Equally, he’d been so furious when she refused to join him in France that he’d left without even saying goodbye. They’d spoken daily since then, but these had been curt, mandatory updates with no affection. The last she’d heard, he and Rory had got into trouble for riding two borrowed mopeds around the Pau horsebox park at three in the morning on the first dressage day. As it was their home-bred hopeful Cub’s first four-star CCI and Rory’s first real test on The Fox, she was not best pleased, but she knew that Hugo’s default setting was juvenile hell-raiser when the marriage hit a sticky patch. It somewhat reassured her that, if he was drunkenly pratting about in the early hours, at least he wasn’t having illicit liaisons with the mysterious V.
Ever-mindful of the V texts, Tash was desperate to put the row behind them. All evening she conducted imaginary conversations with him, alternating between indignation and affection. She knew he was struggling to understand the way that she was right now, her clawing fear of getting back in the saddle and her desire to stay at home, which was at such odds with the Tash he knew so well, who’d shared his competitive and physical passion for so many years. Her fitness and confidence had recovered so quickly after Cora was born that she’d taken it for granted that the same would happen a second time. Instead, she was ever more introspective and deeply selfconscious, and couldn’t hope to explain to Hugo how much her saggy, untoned body appalled her, certain that by doing so she would just bring it into sharper relief. They’d only made love a handful of times since Amery was born, and she’d been far too busy trying to hold in her stomach to really enjoy it. As her mother-in-law kept telling her, ‘Yummy mummies are all very well, but if they can’t close the nursery door at night baddy daddies start to look elsewhere.’
Another hour crawled by with no call. His mobile was still unobtainable.
In Tash’s overactive imagination, Hugo was no longer repeating the moped escapades of the previous night, and was instead sitting astride quite another racy plaything. Now entertaining paranoid visions of Hugo pleasuring a mistress in Pau, she painted faster and faster to blot out the products of her mind’s eye. Soon, the two red setters on the canvas in front of her began to take on the facial expressions of a married couple, one as bashful as the other was sexy and roguish.
She was so carried away that she might have added a Cavalier King Charles rampantly in heat and wriggling on her back between them had the phone not rung.
Picking it up to hear a really crackly line from a mobile, she almost sobbed with relief.
‘I’m so glad you called! I’ve been thinking about you all day. I so wish I was sharing your bed tonight.’
‘Tash, are you okay there?’ It wasn’t Hugo’s voice; this was a deep, unfamiliar drawl yet with an accent recognisable to all three day event riders: a New Zealander. ‘Your mobile number’s been dead all night.’
She coughed nervously. ‘Actually, I don’t have a mobile right now. Is this—’
‘I’ve just got Lem’s message. I can’t speak long. I’m still in some deep shit here.’
‘Are you okay?’ The conversation was surreal.
‘I’m not allowed to leave the country yet. Where’s Hugo gone?’
‘France.’
‘Has he taken the horses?’ ‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Shit. And the kids?’
‘They’re with me. Can I just check, is this—’
‘I haven’t forgotten a word you said,’ he interrupted urgently. ‘I’ll be with you by Christmas, that’s a promise.’ There was a beat’s pause then, his voice dropping, ‘I wish you were sharing my bed tonight too. I’ve got to go.’ He hung up.
Tash scratched her head and tried Hugo’s mobile number again. This time he picked up the call, predictably bad-tempered.
‘Hang on … go outside … no blood … reception …’
‘I think I’ve just heard from Lough. It sounds like he’s in hospital or something.’
‘Hope … broken his neck. Save … from wringing it. All okay there?’ The bad line made him sound even more distant than ever.
‘Yes. You?’
‘So so. Rory ballsed up his dressage this afternoon. Rio freaked out at the stadium, and by the time he settled him Rory was so wired he forgot his test.’
‘At least he posted top-ten with Fox yesterday,’ she placated, ‘and you’ve got Cub in contention.’
‘Think I should go for it tomorrow?’
T
hey’d already agreed tactics for the young horse, but she could tell Hugo was dying to be competitive.
‘Take it steady and give him confidence,’ she urged. ‘He’s still green.’
‘Hmmph. Need to get … owners … next season … decent four-star horse …’ He disappeared into crackling interference again.
‘There’s plenty of time,’ she reminded him.
But the line was breaking up badly now and he was talking across her:
‘… been thinking … drive the kids and … in the Loire … next Monday … bring Verucca, yes?’
‘Don’t call her that,’ she said automatically. ‘And I can’t come. I’ve got an important lunch next week.’ It was the perfect opportunity to remind him that she was meeting Sylva Frost and to sound him out about which horse they should try to sell her. She could be just the new owner he needed.
He’d moved to get better reception again, his voice suddenly a crystal-clear bark. ‘Cancel it. You’re coming to France. MC’s dying to see you.’
Tash knew Marie-Clair of old, and doubted she’d notice if Tash was in the room doing a tap dance on the table.
‘So you’re definitely planning to stay on there?’ she asked in a small voice, realising he was truly taking a stand.
‘She’s invited Rory too.’
‘Oh yes?’ Hardly a reliable chaperone, she felt. The three would be drunkenly debauched from day one.
‘Come and join us, Tash.’
She wanted to say ‘we need you here’ but her throat was too choked to speak the words. It was all she could manage to croak ‘No.’
He hung up without a goodbye.
Tash clambered wearily into her boots and pulled on a coat to do night-check with the baby monitor in her pocket, walking outside just in time to see Beccy’s sporty little car driving far too fast into the first courtyard and parking at an angle in front of the door to the stable’s flat. Then she practically carried Lemon from the passenger seat and through the door.
The lights were glowing above the archway and the sound of the television indicated that the Czechs were still up, wrapped up in one another and their cloak of shared language.