by Fiona Walker
She dashed into the lorry to collect her ID, flicking on all the lights in her search until she tracked it down in the pocket of her sleeveless hoodie. Running yet again, breath sharp and fast in her chest now, she dashed to the stables security gate.
‘Busy in here tonight,’ the official yawned, having only just waved another one through a minute earlier.
Faith checked first Whitey, who whickered eagerly, still wide awake and fit to party, and smelling strangely of freshly crunched mints, then Rangitoto, who looked sleepy but comfortable despite keeping all his weight on three legs.
She hurtled back to the horsebox park, battling the urge to detour via the big, shiny Beauchamp box like a heat-seeking missile.
It was no good. She just needed to stand near him.
Creeping up to the Beauchamps’ box, she propped herself up on the steps as silently as she could and peered in through the nearest window. It was almost dark inside; the little reading light was on above the Luton and the curtains open to reveal a crumpled sleeping bag, but nobody was occupying it.
When Rory wandered back past the Moncrieffs’ old Bedford he was surprised to see all the lights on this time, the lorry glowing amid its darkened companions like a party boat in a sleeping harbour. But there was nobody aboard.
He turned away with a sigh, disappearing around the tail end of the lorry just as Faith appeared at the cab end, wearily sorting out the correct key to let herself back in.
She got straight back into bed and texted Lough that his horse was okay but sore.
Her DVD player was still on her bunk. She watched Jim and Jessica’s kissing scene again, but the battery conked out half way through.
She remembered Fearghal’s words: ‘Of course you must tell him you love him. Just wait until after the trials.’
He was right, of course, she told herself as she switched off the light and closed her eyes tightly. It was just another fifteen hours until the outcome.
Her eyes snapped open.
What did Fearghal know, she thought hotly, sitting up and groping for her phone. He was just a dodgy horse dealer from County Mayo. Hadn’t he said that her mother was the one that got away? That meant he had got it wrong all those years ago and had let Anke get away. Well, she couldn’t risk that happening with Rory.
Whether you win or lose tomorrow, she typed out on her little phone, I love you with all my heart and I always will.
Closing her eyes and screwing up her face, she pressed Send. Then she hid under her duvet, groaning with shame.
Her phone beeped back within seconds.
I love you too.
Chapter 89
When Rory and White Lies trotted into the arena at Burghley as the last combination to jump, they had just one fence in hand as a safety margin against any mistakes that might rob them of the title and the Grand Slam.
The crowd, knowing how much was riding on this round, were absolutely silent.
In their midst, even Sylva Frost was holding her breath and jabbing Pete in the ribs to stop him signing autographs over the membership enclosure fence and start concentrating.
‘That the butch bird you were shagging from the stables?’ he asked vaguely as Rory trotted past, waiting for the bell.
‘Darlink, this is a man called Rory,’ Sylva told him, handing him his prescription sunglasses. ‘He is a friend.’
‘You want me to buy you this horse?’ He checked as he put on his glasses and realised that what he had taken to be a big-boned woman riding a large white cow was in fact a pale-faced man riding an ugly grey horse.
‘No,’ she purred. ‘I want the black mare Kevin the French boy was riding.’
‘Righti-ho.’ Pete yawned, grateful that wearing his dark glasses meant he could close his eyes without being rumbled. All the sex was exhausting. At least this was the last horse and they could get back in his chopper soon, although he feared his chopper might get another rotary action from Sylva’s tongue. She was showing a great predilection for high-altitude sex, which made piloting tricky.
Sitting beside his father, Berry on his knee, Dillon ignored Pete’s loud yawns and concentrated on Rory, Fawn’s hand in his with her fore and middle fingers crossed as the unprepossessing grey horse lumbered towards the first fence.
Whitey had never respected coloured poles as much as he should, and in old age he had become increasingly arrogant and eccentric towards them.
He was as fit as he had ever been. He had bounded through the final inspection with such enthusiasm and spring that the ground jury had laughed as they passed him with a wave, unlike poor Rangitoto, who had not even tried his luck.
With the overnight leader withdrawn, the way was clear for Whitey to convey his rider to victory, but he was never going to make it easy for Rory or the breathless crowd.
He barely lifted off the ground for the first fence, crashing through it so belligerently that horse and rider almost stopped, disoriented. The crowd groaned, sensing a huge anticlimax in store with poles set to fly everywhere.
He hit the next three fences so hard that it was a miracle they didn’t come down; the top pole of the fourth jumped clean out of its cups before landing neatly back down in them, then he rattled the next two.
It seemed he was almost enjoying the anxious gasps from the crowd every time he tapped those flat black feet down on the wooden poles. Later, some spectators swore that he winked a dark eye at them as he lumbered past the stands.
Yet they were soon half way around the course and everything apart from the first was still up.
In the collecting ring Stefan, lying in second, couldn’t bear to watch.
Bang, rattle, bang, Whitey clouted the double of gates and the angled oxer. Thwack, clunk, rattle, he scraped over the stile, the triple bar and the wall. He then set the top plank swinging and muddled his stride up so much that he dipped a leg in and out of the big parallel, somehow leaving it untouched.
But as Rory rounded the far end of the arena to set up for the final line, a treble combination followed by an upright, something seemed to go wrong and he looked down in alarm, then leaned forwards to look at Whitey’s head.
He was riding in a hackamore, a bitless bridle that gave control by exerting pressure on the horse’s nose and thus relieving his mouth where the bit had left him a little desensitised after cross-country day. A hackamore required a greater degree of skill from the rider, but Rory had been using it with the horse for years and knew he was safe in it as long as the contact was light.
Now the contact was so light it was non-existent.
One rein had broken, severed just beside the metal arm of the bridle that applied pressure to the horse’s nose.
Rory was racketing towards the final four fences on the course with no steering and limited brakes.
‘Ohmygod!’ In the grandstands beside her mother, Faith covered her eyes and wailed.
In the collecting ring, Hugo said a prayer and held on to Tash, who gripped his hand so tightly in return that his signet ring flew off and his fingers turned blue.
Standing closer to the arena entrance, Lough groaned aloud, suddenly remembering Lemon’s warning: ‘Rory Midwinter won’t win tomorrow even if half the field withdraws.’ It had seemed a hollow threat at the time but now, as the horrified crowd watched Rory lose control down the last line, he knew Lemon had cut the rein as a parting gesture.
‘Just do it!’ he breathed, willing Rory on. Beside him, leaning on her crutches, Beccy let out three little squeaks for each of the elements of the treble Whitey cleared. She had let out similar squeaks of pleasure last night, Lough remembered, only those had been far wilder and harder to conceal as they’d stifled all their sound effects in case they awoke Henrietta and James.
There was nothing stifled about the squeal that Beccy emitted when Whitey’s soup-plate black hooves landed back down on the turf after that final upright without spilling a pole.
The crowd followed within a split-second, roaring and screaming and clapping and whoo
ping as Rory thrust his hat in the air and hollered with glee, patting Whitey’s grey neck and dropping a kiss on his plaits as the old horse thundered around the arena taking a victory lap, imagining himself back at Cheltenham, in the Foxhunter Chase.
Julia Ditton was waiting for the victors in the collecting ring, microphone aloft and running shoes on so that she could jog alongside Rory as soon as he came out, demanding an in-the-saddle quote live on BBC2.
But of course Rory had just one rein attached to a now-useless hackamore. And Whitey was enjoying himself far too much to slow down. He might be eighteen, but he was as fit as a fiddle and the crowd’s cheering ringing in his ears was sweet music after so many years away from the limelight. He lapped it up, literally, bombing round and round, ears pricked, eyes shining.
Eventually, just as the arena officials were starting to mutter about trying to catch him – rather a humiliation, it was felt, for the Burghley victor and first winner of the Grand Slam in almost a decade to have to be cornered like a hard-to-catch pony in a field – Whitey slowed to a trot, blowing heavily but happily.
Then he came to a very decisive halt directly in front of the packed South Stand. Puffing excitedly, he let out a shrill whinny and bobbed his head.
There must have been a hundred faces staring back at Rory from just that one small section of seating, but he only had eyes for one.
The BBC producers, going mad that Julia was still waiting for her interview with this incredible triple crown winner and that the network coverage was now about to switch to the snooker, ordered her to run in to the arena to grab a word.
Julia and her cameraman were just yards away from Rory when he stood up in his stirrups and talked directly at the crowd.
‘I love you, Faith Brakespear!’ he called out. ‘You are the best thing that has ever, ever happened to me. I want to make you happy and look after you for the rest of our lives!’
The BBC producer who had been ordering his control room to cut to the snooker anyway suddenly hissed, ‘Stay with the horses! Stay with the horses!’
Faith had turned very, very red, from her hands to her cheeks, but her smile was just inescapable.
‘Come here!’ Rory called hoarsely, a medieval knight to his lady, farmhand to rancher’s daughter, Jim to Jessica.
Faith turned to her mother, astounded to see tears pouring down Anke’s usually impassive face.
‘Hurry up, kæreste!’ Anke told her, pressing a kiss to her fingertips and laying it on her daughter’s hot cheek.
To claps and cheers from the crowd, Faith clambered through the seating, over the sponsor’s banners and in to the ring, where Rory leaned down to kiss her just as Julia Ditton finally panted up with her microphone, eagerly telling the viewing public that Rory was about to reveal to them all who this very lovely girl was.
But as she thrust the microphone at him Rory slipped his hands under Faith’s arms and hooked her up towards the saddle in front of him, where she sat side-saddle like a gypsy girl at a fair. It was their moment, the scene from his favourite movie enacted in front of thousands. He kissed her again and she felt her heart grand slam against her chest.
‘Hang on tight,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘I have no steering.’
Acknowledging the delighted crowds with a wave, they galloped out of the arena.
A divot of earth now hanging in her immaculate blonde hair, Julia Ditton turned to her cameraman and said ‘Bollocks!’ live on air. A moment later the picture cut to Ronnie O’Sullivan potting a pink.
*
The paparazzi, who had yet again donned their green wellies to dodge horses, dogs and dung in their pursuit of the ongoing tabloid soap that was Sylva Frost and the Rafferty men’s love lives, were getting increasingly confused. No sooner had an unknown girl groom called Faith Brakespear been revealed as Dillon’s ‘mystery Caribbean blonde’ than she had jumped into a clinch with another man and galloped off into the sunset (well, into the main catering area to be accurate, where Whitey’s lack of steering had caused havoc among those sitting around the Pimm’s stand watching the action on the big screen). Then, minutes later, Dillon had been spotted loping up to congratulate his sporting protégé with his famous ex-wife on his arm and lots of overexcited children in tow, looking to all the world like a steady family man. At the same time, Pete had emerged from the retail village with Sylva and a small army of Slovakians carrying shopping bags and had joined the family tableau.
‘Hang on—’ One pap checked his notes against a rival. ‘The horsy bloke’s now with the Caribbean tart, Dillon’s with the wife and Sylva has had the Rockfather, his son and the horsy bloke, but is definitely sticking with Pete. Am I close?’
‘Something like that. They’re sex mad, the horse set.’
Trotting happily from the trade stands with Ben, Sophia Meredith decided with a sad sigh that it had been a terribly dull Burghley – apart from the blonde boy from Hugo’s yard winning the Rolex Grand Slam. The horse they part-owned had been eliminated cross-country, Zara Phillips wasn’t there – nor any Royals of note – and the shopping had been very lacklustre. But at least she had managed to get secret RSVPs to almost all of her invitations to the surprise party next month. It looked like it was going to be a show-stopping night.
Much later, in the Beauchamps’ state-of-the-art horsebox, Rory handed Faith his new Rolex watch and made her promise to check that he would be on time for every date that he planned to take her on in coming weeks and months.
‘I am going to wine you and dine you to make up for lost time,’ he promised.
She clipped the watch around her wrist, where it slipped right over her hand. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world now.’ She set it aside, stretching forwards to kiss him. ‘Oh, I do love you, Rory.’
He kissed her back until it all started to get so electrifying and frantic that he lifted her up and staggered towards the steps up to the Luton mattress.
‘I’m probably not as exciting a lover as Dillon,’ he fretted anxiously as they started to pull off layers.
‘He was just coaching me,’ she assured him.
‘Like MC was coaching me?’ he realised, unwrapping her from her shirt with delight, hot stains of colour creeping into his cheeks.
‘Exactly.’ She reached down to pull his shirt from his breeches. ‘We’ve both been coached by pros. Now we’re ready to ride together.’
He may have been coached by a pro, but MC had never possessed a Wonderbra. Rory gave up wrestling with the fastening and settled for feeling the parcel through the wrapping.
‘Wow,’ he reached out and cupped one of her improbably globelike breasts. ‘I really shouldn’t approve of these, but they feel amazing.’
It wobbled strangely under his touch. Then it capsized. Faith froze, panicking that he would no longer fancy her without boobs.
For a moment Rory looked terrified, thinking he’d hurt her. Realisation dawning, he peered at the chicken fillet. ‘You didn’t have cosmetic surgery?’
‘Of course not. You told me not to.’
‘But I thought you went ahead and did it anyway?’
Faith swallowed uncomfortably. ‘You mean all these months and you haven’t even looked?’ It didn’t say a lot for his devotion.
But Rory’s pewter gaze was positively eating up her body. ‘I’ve looked, Faith. Believe me, I’ve looked at this amazing woman I’m in love with, who is the most beautiful woman I know, who almost blinds me. But I thought I’d lost you, that you’d moved on. I wanted the real you back, the one who was always in my case about something, who was just as beautiful, just as amazing, just as gorgeous in every way.’ His eyes brimmed with love.
Turning pink with pleasure, Faith let out a little squeak of happiness.
‘You were always perfect. These are fun …’ He pulled out the second chicken fillet, ‘but I love these.’ He dipped his head to kiss the treasure trove beneath.
Making love with Rory seemed the most natural thing in the world to Faith. He w
as so familiar and so special, his lips and fingers on her body just burnt her love all the more indelibly. It was making love, she realised as he shuddered to a climax inside her and her heart seemed to fill up the rest of her shaking, tingling body. She loved him now more than ever. And they could make more and more and more of it for as long as they lived, like a never-ending love-making factory.
As they sank back on the mattress, sweaty and sated, they heard feet clattering up the lorry steps.
Rory just had time to reach out to pull the curtain across when Tash walked into the living area carrying two bottles of champagne, Beetroot at her heels, followed by Hugo with Cora dangling around his neck and Amery on his hip.
‘Oh, they must have popped out,’ she realised. ‘Go and check the stables, will you? They might be helping Franny pack up the trunks.’
Grumbling, Hugo clanked out again, still with Amery. Behind the curtain, Rory rested his cheek on Faith’s hot, naked chest and listened to her heartbeat hammering in his ear. In the living area they could hear Tash clattering about packing up the lorry living, while Cora sang ‘Nick Nack Paddywack’ and clambered all over the seats.
‘Watch!’ she announced, holding up the dropped Rolex.
‘That’s odd.’ Tash took it from her and placed it carefully back in its box on the table.
As she washed up all the plastic plates and cups and put them back in their storage boxes for travelling in the cupboards, Cora – who was very in to climbing – ascended the ladder steps to the Luton and peered around the curtain.
‘Hello Rory!’ she greeted him brightly.
‘Hi,’ he smiled back.
‘Hello Face!’
‘Hi,’ Faith waved politely.
At this, Tash let out a bleat and Cora was hastily removed. ‘Ohmygod I’m sorry!’