by Fiona Walker
Tash tried and failed to persuade herself it was perfectly innocent and had nothing to do with V.
To take her mind off it, she added another layer of kohl around her eyes, masking her fear a little more.
In the bathroom, Hugo angrily replied to MC’s text, telling her that Lough was better suited to the American lecture–demo circuit than Rory, and if she didn’t like it she could fuck off.
Then he cleaned his teeth so angrily that he loosened a front crown dating back to the day he’d knocked a tooth out falling off Snob at their first World Championships.
He spat out toothpaste and glared up at his reflection, knowing that he should tell Tash how beautiful she looked tonight. She took his breath away. Yet jealousy had punched the words from his mouth. He could hardly bear to look at her, certain that every day which passed was counting down their marriage. He wished she was wearing a baggy sweater and leggings as usual, or had lost a front tooth too.
Unable to resist, he reached up and tested the loose tooth, and to his horror it fell out into the basin beneath with a clatter, leaving his gap-toothed reflection glaring back at him like a medieval village idiot.
Hastily retrieving it before it disappeared down the plughole, Hugo wedged the crown back as best he could, grateful he’d soon be in the States where he could get it fixed by the best in the business. It was one reason for still going, at least.
When he came out of the bathroom Tash looked even more beddable, hair teased out, red lips moist with anticipation, positively quivering as she weaved up to him to kiss him.
Afraid that his tooth would fall out again, Hugo kept his lips tight shut.
Abashed, she quickly turned away and picked up her handbag from the bed.
The New Year’s Eve party was well underway at Lime Tree Farm by the time the Maccombe contingent arrived, reversing along the village lane to find a space on the thawing verge because the farm’s driveways and arrivals yard had long since filled up with cars.
In the back of the Beauchamps’ four-by-four, Beccy fought car-sickness and nerves, aware of every millimetre of her body that was brushing against Lough’s as she sat crammed between him and Lemon. She was equally aware of the back of Hugo’s neck ahead of her, the neatly trimmed hair at its nape, the crisp cotton collar of his shirt and the familiar scent of lime-sharp aftershave rising from it.
Increasingly on edge, Hugo insisted that his Christmas gift from Ben be played on the car stereo at full blast for the short drive, Mask’s Best Ever Best of The Best CD, thus they arrived to Pete Rafferty’s legendary gravelly voice rasping the track ‘Infidelity’. The famous anthem, which claimed that all lovers would cheat if they could, was cut off in its prime as Tash turned off the engine. The song still ringing in all their ears, they spilled from the car and picked their way around the potholes and remaining snowy islands.
Feeling wretched, Beccy trailed along in the rear with a subdued Lemon, her heart thump-thump-thumping at such closeness to Lough. She was accustomed to it with Hugo, but she was still adjusting to it with Lough. All week, her blood pressure had been leaping and dropping crazily in his presence, with the usual Hugo-triggered hyperventilation to boot. Her body couldn’t take much more.
Dressed in an early sales bargain that she had thought wildly sexy until she’d seen Tash looking like something out of a fashion spread, she was suddenly aware of her big, raw shoulders that would be exposed by the strapless bodice of her dress as soon as she took off her long coat, and her chilblains grating and boiling beneath the Spanx pants that she’d prized on to neaten her butt. Worst of all, her newly short hair that Tash had re-dyed at Christmas now appeared to have turned a strange shade of khaki; every time she washed it, it looked more green. She wanted to go home.
‘Tonight’s the night,’ Lemon suddenly reminded her.
‘For what?’
‘Bye bye cherries, chérie.’ He looked up at her, pale eyes suddenly luminous in the security lights. ‘We get laid.’
Faith hung back when the Haydown mob walked in, her eyes scanning the group for Rory. He wasn’t there and her heart ripped wider. Hugo and Tash, looking amazing, were predictably hailed from all sides, along with Lough, who knew many guests from international championships and was also pulled straight into the mêlée.
Faith had barely spoken to Lemon since their Boxing Day argument. But he was refreshingly upfront, marching straight up to her with Beccy in his wake, Mohawk at its sharpest and tight leather trousers making him mince whether he wanted to or not.
‘You look fantastic, Eff. Great dress. Sexy.’ He kissed her on both cheeks, smelling deliciously of Hugo Boss aftershave and strawberry–lime gum.
Faith smiled abstractedly. She’d been a bit uncertain about the strapless dress she’d picked up hurriedly in a Marlbury chain store sale that morning – it was a clingy, garish mix of black, white, green and orange, but it had been less than twenty pounds, fitted and suited her figure absurdly well. Without Rory there, it hardly seemed to matter.
Loitering behind Lemon, her face as red as her hair was green and her expression oddly crestfallen, Beccy eyed the dress in horror.
‘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 cou
ld 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.