The Country Escape

by Fiona Walker

  They swung through a door concealed in the panelling and Dougie found himself in a vast armour-lined dining room dressed with more Civil War heraldry than a lavish costume drama set, an untouched midnight breakfast laid out along its heavily carved oak sideboards. There were trays of kedgeree, sausages and scrambled egg, croissants and Danish pastries.

  ‘Help yourself to anything.’ Seth poured himself a coffee.

  Dougie’s stomach was churning too much for food, although he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Sounding disappointingly like his father leaving his cabinet post after the cash-for-questions scandal, he said, ‘I regret to inform you that I wish to tender my resignation.’

  Seth ignored the statement, picking up a spoon to study the crest on its handle. ‘The family sold off the Mytton silver just before I got the place – crying shame. I’ve been trying to buy it back, but it’s been divided up and is all over the place. The same goes for the art and furniture collection. No respect for the past, those kids.’ He looked up at the restored strapwork ceiling with an avuncular sigh, even though the Mytton beneficiaries had been considerably older than his own parents.

  ‘I wish to terminate my contract,’ Dougie said more forcefully.

  Seth turned to him and Dougie was reminded of just how deadly sharp his eyes were, for all the Bradford-lad camaraderie. ‘Y’know, Constance Mytton-Gough was a bonkers old bird by all accounts but a good custodian of this place. And, man, they loved her round here, didn’t they?’

  Dougie nodded. ‘The land and farms would be in as many different hands as the family silver by now if it weren’t for her.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I want to terminate my… contract.’ He omitted ‘fucking’ with great self-control.

  ‘Is that because Dollar wants you to marry the girl from Lake Farm?’

  ‘You know about that?’

  Seth rolled his dark eyes up to the ornate plaster ceiling again. ‘Of course I bloody know about it. It’s total genius, yaar, as so many of Doll’s ideas are. I’d make her my company vice president if ninety-nine per cent of the stuff she came up with wasn’t illegal or unethical. Plus she’s too violent to risk among my board members. Has she hit you yet?’ He grinned across at Dougie.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good girl. She’s really chilled out, these days. She might even cope with my wedding.’

  Dougie thought uncomfortably about that ruby-nailed finger violently stabbing at names on the Brides List.

  ‘You know, Constance M-G married to save this place.’ Seth wandered over to admire a suit of armour. ‘I had the history of the house researched when I bought it. There’s a book in the library here full of pictures of her handing out sandwiches to Land Girls during the war.’ He tipped up the helmet visor and peered inside.

  ‘Her father promised to sign across Eardisford if she rode a famous challenge called the Bolt.’ Dougie related the story as Kat had told it to him. ‘Constance took it on believing her future was riding on it, but her father broke his word and made her marry.’

  ‘Hock Mytton was a bastard.’ Seth let the visor drop with a clank.

  ‘I agree, but his daughter was nothing like him. She had a backbone of iron. That’s why this place still existed in its entirety when you bought it for your “movie set”, apart from the contents her children flogged to cover death duties. It’s easier to buy silver spoons than to be born with them, these days.’

  ‘We all have an opportunity to redeem the past, Dougie. My great-grandfather Ram would have been very proud of me. Three generations after his honour was sacrificed for the Mytton name, his descendant has the title deed to their land holdings.’

  Dougie was about to snap that adding it to a goody-bag in an arms deal was hardly an historic redemption, but he bit back the sarcasm. ‘What if the Bolt was ridden again?’

  ‘You want to try it?’ Seth was admiring the Jacobite weaponry hanging on his lime-washed walls now.

  ‘Will you terminate my contract if I do?’

  ‘I’ll let you off marrying the girl.’ He grinned over his shoulder.

  ‘If I marry her, do I still get a million?’

  ‘Doll offered you that?’ Seth whistled, picking a claymore sword off the wall. ‘That’s way too much. Then again, she fancies the pants off you, and she always overvalues the things she wants most.’ He swung round with the sword and Dougie ducked just in time to avoid partial decapitation.

  ‘Sorry, mate.’ Seth laughed, setting the sword down on the gnarled, wicket-long table. ‘It’s seriously heavy, yaar. Give me small arms any day. What d’you think of Dollar’s arms? Beautiful.’

  Dougie had good jealous-husband instinct. He’d been the clandestine lover enough times to identify a cuckold on the scent. Dollar might not be Seth’s wife, but he definitely wanted ownership, and the arms he was talking about had been wrapped around both men more than once.

  He mustered a charming smile. ‘Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer a bow and arrow any day.’

  ‘Except when it comes to entertaining my weekend guests.’ Seth raised one eyebrow to a forty-five-degree black stripe of sarcasm. ‘You’re lucky Dollar likes you so much. You’ve let me down big-time, Dougie.’

  Dougie was on high alert now, smelling danger. No wonder he had been welcomed in so genially. The leopard had come padding into the tracker’s house.

  Seth was refuelling his coffee. ‘I don’t want to talk hunting, man. All that tweedy shit is seriously beat. Let’s talk cricket.’ He turned and looked at Dougie, unsmiling, the hey-dude demeanour hiding a cobra. ‘We play it my way.’

  If he’d been handed any other topic, Dougie might have backed down. But this was cricket. ‘I won’t field professionals,’ he said firmly. ‘If you want that, someone else can captain the estate side.’

  ‘You’re the village hero, Dougie. We need that goodwill.’

  He laughed. ‘Not any more, I’m not. Word’s got out I’m your hired groom as well as private huntsman. Some don’t take kindly to that around here.’

  ‘They can be won round.’ Seth regarded him over his coffee cup. ‘Bowl the maiden over and cover yourself in glory. You can still earn that million.’

  ‘You’ll pay out if Kat Mason marries?’

  ‘Everything has a price, Dougie. Even you.’

  ‘Kat doesn’t.’

  ‘More fool her.’ Seth looked at him irritably. ‘The deals I do impact directly on the charities I run. This place is playing its part in something that will change many thousands of lives in India. It’s worth paying top dollar if it’s something that close to your heart.’ The scimitar brows lifted meaningfully as he sucked espresso froth off his upper lip. ‘You come from a long line of political marriages, don’t you, Dougie?’

  ‘My lot all married up,’ Dougie said distractedly, thinking about his father’s advice to split the money with Kat for honour and liberty. ‘We’re only a few generations away from merchants and serfs.’

  ‘I come from a long line of high-caste cavalrymen, but my father was a carpet-fitter.’ Seth’s fingers were drumming on the sideboard behind him. ‘My mother wants me to marry next year. She has a short list drawn up of well-born Sikh girls. I’ve narrowed it down to three. I have to choose one this weekend.’

  Dougie remembered the red nails clawing angrily at the screen, the desperate plan to turn virgin brides into deflowered castoffs. ‘Can you not marry any woman you choose?’

  Brows lowering fast, Seth looked set to tell him to sod off and stop prying, but then his eyes fixed on the sword on the table and he pouted thoughtfully. ‘This way has always worked for my family.’ His fingers drummed again, one eye closing as he played something over in his mind. ‘How did the village find out that you were a “hired groom”?’

  ‘I told Kat and she told…’ he winced at the memory of Badger Man wrapped around her, worse still big-bore Dair bending her backwards over the kitchen sink ‘. . . others.’

  ‘Why the fuck did you tell her, man?’

/>   Dougie looked at his hands, turning the signet ring around on his little finger, trying not to dwell upon Kat’s tempestuous love life. ‘I thought she deserved the truth.’

  ‘Are you in love with her or something?’

  ‘You can lose the “something”,’ Dougie said quietly.

  Seth gave a whoop, slapping his palm on the table victoriously. ‘I bloody knew you’d suit one another, man! That’s why I let this thing roll on when I found out. To be honest, I reckon Doll figured you’d break the girl’s heart and that way she’d bugger off and leave Lake Farm of her own accord. She’s very taken with you, is Dollar. She made me watch the movies you were in so many times it did my head in. Forgive me, but you’re pretty shit in Dark Knight after the tenth time – it’s no Oscar winner, is it? Dollar watched it every night for a month.’ Seth’s nails rattled on the sideboard in an ever-faster bhangra beat. ‘Did she come to see you this evening?’

  Dougie remembered her warning not to breathe a word of their conversation. He thought uncomfortably of the brush-off he’d just given her, and wondered if Seth knew they’d been lovers. ‘She’s pretty formidable.’

  He laughed. ‘Yeah, that’s an understatement. She used to be so aggressive I had to give her a rubber stick to bite on in meetings, but she’s calmed down a lot. She’s my beautiful, caged tiger and I throw her more toys to play with, these days.’ He gave Dougie a slow smile, revealing front teeth as white and upright as a cricket eleven in a team shot. ‘She likes playing with you.’

  He knows, Dougie realized, as he flashed his most charming, diffident smile in return, his own cricket eleven drunkenly lopsided but Persil white.

  Seth’s eyes belied his fury. ‘If she asks you to run away with her, take my advice and don’t. The last time she did, somebody got killed. Caged tigers aren’t easy to release from captivity. Believe me, I’ve tried. Did she tell you how she got her name?’

  ‘Yes.’ He realized his mistake as soon as he said it. Seth’s eyes darkened further. He was now aware that she was intimate enough with Dougie to share such close truths.

  ‘I’ve told her loads of times she should change it back, but she says it’s a reminder that she still owes me. She’s ferociously intelligent.’ Despite his anger, Seth’s eyes glowed in the same way Dollar’s did when she talked about him. ‘She’s too clever to be my PA.’

  ‘And bodyguard.’

  ‘That too,’ he acknowledged, with a sideways nod. ‘I want to set her up in business of her own, but she claims she wants to be a wife and mother. I just can’t see it, man. She did get engaged once,’ his eyes blackened to boiling tar, ‘but she broke it off when the bridegroom killed my bodyguard. He died saving me. Dollar said protecting me was her job, so she came back.’

  ‘Her fiancé tried to kill you?’ Dougie stared at him, things starting to add up in his head.

  ‘The press reported that it was a bungled contract killing, but it was a straightforward crime of passion. Dollar’s fiancé found out she was in love with another man and he wanted to kill that man. It happens.’ He picked up the claymore sword from the table and lifted it to his shoulder, fixing Dougie with a death stare. ‘If I see dollar signs in somebody’s eyes, I want to terminate the acquaintance too.’

  Dougie knew exactly what was going on. Slotting the lobia-cooking murderer into the picture had been the final decisive clue. This was not just about avenging the distant past: it was about a love affair that was still being played out, and he had stumbled into the middle of it to be used as a weapon. Seth had played Pygmalion to Dollar and given her extraordinary opportunities, but however great his success and riches, he could never marry her without incurring the wrath of his family. Dougie knew that his father would strongly advise him to refrain from comment at this point, but he heard Kat’s voice in his ear, forthright and generous.

  ‘She’s in love with you.’

  ‘Everyone loves me, man!’ Seth looked away, his bravado acting as covering fire. But the need to stand up in the open and defend his territory was too great. ‘Dollar is beautiful and fearless and much cleverer than me. I’ll destroy anyone who hurts her again.’ He slotted the sword back on the wall, running his fingers along its shaft, his voice quiet and earnest. ‘I could never have achieved what I have without her. We’ve travelled the world together. We even lost our virginity together. She’s more than a wife to me. She knows I’ll give her anything she wants except marriage. I’ve tried to explain to her that business deals and marriages are much the same thing. You must look beyond them to see a bigger picture.’

  ‘She sees a bigger picture. She thinks you’re offering her to Igor, along with Eardisford.’

  ‘She should know me better than that.’ Seth swung round furiously. ‘I’d never trade Dollar. You’re the one risking the girl by backing out on a deal, mate. If Igor takes on this place, they’ll be digging little Kat’s grave alongside all those other pets the Mytton family loved so much. He’ll have no scruples getting rid of her. She won’t stand a chance.’ His voice dropped to a hiss. ‘If you won’t marry her for the money, do it for her safety. Call it a rearranged marriage.’

  Chapter 60

  The biggest Eardisford stag was far too wise and wary to be tracked easily, but the man with the radio mic who had him in his sights was among the best in the world. Small, stealthy and hugely experienced, he had been called out by his boss many hours earlier, enabling him to track the beast into woodland close to a small farmstead, clearly a favourite spot where it munched tree bark and shoots, helping itself to the contents of a pheasant feeder before locating a well-shaped tree to rub its forehead and antlers.

  The tracker checked his GPS to whisper his co-ordinates back to base.

  When Kat woke up to feel steam billowing across her face, she imagined she’d been brought a mug of tea in bed – a very rare treat – but then she opened one eye and spotted a bowl of piping hot water into which Dawn was dropping essential oils before soaking a flannel.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Just after six. I haven’t been able to sleep for thinking about Dair, so I thought I might as well get up and give you a steam facial. I know you’re always up early, and those pores have to be mucked out before the pigs.’

  Kat groaned and rolled over to bury herself into the cool side of the pillow. ‘Much as I admire your dedication to your work, I’d rather sleep for another half-hour.’

  ‘I’m here to make you look a million Dollars.’ Dawn swept aside the curtains in Kat’s room and came back to scrutinize her sleep-creased face. ‘Either you’ve been crying again or you have hay-fever. I can deal with puffy eyes, and your brows are crying out for my finest threading, plus those lashes need a tint. Then I’m on the case with that fluffy upper lip.’

  ‘What fluffy upper lip? They’re freckles. I’m a redhead.’

  ‘Yeah, you and Yosemite Sam. You are getting the full Beautiful Dawn treatment this morning. Beautifu —’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t sing it.’

  ‘Thinking about it, I might have enough facial hair bleach to strip off that horrible tint.’ She peered at the top of Kat’s head where the temporary dye had left it dull brown. ‘There’s henna in your bathroom cupboard. It’ll be tricky to get right, but it’s worth a go.’

  ‘There I must draw the line. Last time you bleached my hair, it took four hours and ended up white.’

  ‘Looking a million dollars can’t be rushed, and white is very on trend. All the top models have it this year. Dougie Everett has pretty classy taste – Kiki Nelson is platinum blonde. Sorry, I made you cry again.’

  ‘It’s hay-fever. Why would I cry over a man I’ve only kissed once?’

  ‘One kiss is sometimes all it takes, trust me. Dair is such a good kisser. I love the little gap between his front teeth.’

  ‘Too much information.’ Kat groaned again, closing her eyes. ‘I am not bleaching my —’ Her protests were cut short as a hot wet flannel landed on her face.

 
; In Duke’s Wood, Russ and his vigilante team had taken up their positions just before first light, hiding out around the day nests of a big sounder of female wild boar and their weanlings, which would make easy pickings for the hunt party. The nets they had strung across the paths and tracks were already spun with spiders’ webs jewelled with dew. They grew stiff and uncomfortable as they crouched behind the curtained canopy of an old hazel thicket, trying to keep up their spirits with a Thermos of rooibos tea and a packet of vegan biscuits, but inevitably arguments broke out over tactics – a common theme between them – and the activists divided over the decision not to drive all the game from the woods before the guns arrived.

  ‘This isn’t a little forestry shoot in the Cotswolds,’ Russ hissed. ‘This is the Eardisford Estate. It’s bigger than Cheltenham. Imagine chasing a drift of pigs round that.’ They shut up.