The Country Escape

by Fiona Walker

  Dougie snorted, remembering the comment about Dark Knight being shit after the tenth viewing. He had a feeling that Seth was so devoted to Dollar that he trusted her judgement on high risk ventures, even marriage, it now seemed.

  ‘The one thing Seth was always very uncomfortable about was stopping you getting the part in the big network series,’ she was saying. ‘He thinks it would have made you a huge star.’

  ‘Maybe he did me a favour.’ Dougie gazed across the estate, thinking about the sheer pleasure he drew from its changing landscape, the delight of working with his hounds and horses. The only reason he would want to use the ticket in his hands right now, he realized, with a jolt, was to visit Zephyr, still on stable rest in a veterinary recuperation barn, having his oxygen treatment. ‘Was the fire deliberate as well?’

  ‘No! Seth would never harm any animal.’ Looking out across the estate, a five-hundred-year-old hunting ground for the super-rich, she hurried on. ‘You are free to go back to LA, Dougie. Seth just asks that you don’t leave before the cricket because you are captain of the team.’

  He laughed in amazement. ‘I’m forgiven for fucking up his multi-billion, poverty-ending deal to build flight simulators, but woe betide me if I let him down over the village cricket match?’

  ‘He’s in a forgiving mood.’ She tilted her head. ‘You just saved his life.’

  ‘What if I say I want to stay?’ Dougie muttered, looking across to Lake Farm, briefly imagining himself taking on Badger Man and tweedy Dair in jousting duels and tournaments, fighting for her favour.

  ‘There is no job for you here.’

  ‘What happens to the sanctuary?’

  ‘It is safe for now. The estate will even pay for its repair, starting with the bridge. Seth was most insistent about that. He would like it designed like this one.’ She held up the book again and Dougie realized that she hadn’t been showing him Constance but the lake behind her, across which stretched a beautifully ornate wrought-iron bridge. ‘When this photograph was taken, there was a far more substantial bridge. It was dismantled during the war so that the metal could be used in munitions. Only the stone pillars remain, upon which the plank causeway was built. It will significantly improve the look of the parkland for the next – incumbent.’

  ‘Will the estate be sold?’

  ‘That is not decided. Nothing is decided.’ She gripped the book so hard the picture plate snagged from its spine stitching and he saw how terrified she was, her knuckles white.

  ‘You guarantee Kat’s going to be safe? You won’t try to get her out?’

  ‘Maybe we will find her another husband.’ Dollar chuckled, not noticing his frozen face. ‘She may be able to stay here as long as she likes whether she marries or not.’ She flicked the page. ‘The Bolt is the challenge to which she aspires, is it not? It says here that the prize for its completion is the Eardisford Purse.’

  ‘What is it?’ Dougie had never heard Kat mention it.

  She read aloud, ‘“For the generations of Mytton men who undertook this legendary challenge, the honour of joining the ranks of the very few to achieve the near-impossible feat was far greater than receiving the Eardisford Purse, although that prize was notable in its eccentricity. The Purse contained a signed apple wager between the participant and the estate’s owner.”’

  ‘What’s an apple wager?’ Dougie took the book to look at the page. ‘Are you saying they went through all that for a bag of Bramleys?’

  ‘It’s a local term. It’s a simplistic reward and forfeit system basically. Seth’s researchers think it is as straightforward as “Climb that tree and I’ll give you a pound – fall off and you can give me a pound.” Constance Mytton entered an apple wager with her father over the estate, but he failed to honour it. Perhaps marrying Ronnie Gough was really her forfeit.’

  He wondered what Kat would be willing to risk losing. Certainly not the farm.

  ‘Is Seth going to challenge her to an apple wager?’ he asked, feeling sick at the prospect.

  ‘Kat’s wager was agreed with the previous owner,’ Dollar explained. ‘It was signed before Constance Mytton’s death. I do not believe Kat understood the significance of it, and it’s not legally binding in itself, but the Mytton solicitors looked into it in great detail, as have Seth’s. It could possibly hold up in court. The old lady clearly thought it would be honoured.’

  ‘Kat gets the farm if she succeeds?’ It made glorious sense to Dougie. Constance had been denied her own wager; she would redeem the past through Kat.

  ‘I have not seen the document, but I believe that is the gist of it.’

  He couldn’t wait to tell her. Constance hadn’t let her down. Kat had a very real chance of taking control and making the sanctuary into the veteran-animal haven he knew she longed to create there.

  ‘Of course, if she fails,’ Dollar said quietly, ‘she must leave.’

  He stood up, horrified. ‘The cantankerous old bat! How could she?’

  ‘She knew her own mind. She was obviously a strong woman. She saw herself in Kat. She had not failed in this and saw no reason why Kat should. She was an uncompromising egotist with great charm. I think she sounds wonderful.’ Dollar was clearly enraptured, reclaiming the book. ‘I gather Kat was very fond of her.’

  ‘She loved her. She wants to ride the Bolt in her memory, purely because Constance asked her to. I’m sure she knows nothing about this apple wager.’

  ‘I’m certain you are right. It took a great deal of detective work for Seth to find out the details.’

  Dougie went very still. ‘He knew about it all along?’

  ‘His legal team saw a reference to it when the purchase took place. His researchers took a while to find out the details, but he got the picture. Then he learned that you were training Kat to ride the Bolt and he was most delighted.’

  Dougie closed his eyes, the truth dawning on him. ‘I was the only one who encouraged Kat to do it, who helped her and believed in her. Everyone else is convinced she’ll fail. That was why Seth was happy for me to stay. I’ve double-crossed her again.’

  ‘So you think she’ll fail?’ Dollar’s impassive face was trying to hide her loyalty, but she was clearly hoping for a yes.

  He thought about Kat’s glacial white face today. Riding the course in a quarter of an hour required almost suicidal speed, even without that fear of water. Kat had the speed, the guts and the determination; she was as light as a professional jockey and as tough as one, always bouncing back, always thinking her way around the next bend. But she had yet to swim the lake on the mare. His head was spinning like a weather vane in a typhoon. He remembered her small voice saying she couldn’t do it without him. If he made her try, it might cost her the thing she loved most.

  ‘I’m not going to give her the opportunity to fail,’ he said determinedly. ‘She won’t ever try it. It’s far too dangerous. She won’t get married, at least not to me – that’s way too dangerous too. I’ll fly to LA on Monday. At least I can’t hurt her any more there. She wants me out of her life and she’s right. I just bring hurt.’

  Chapter 63

  Kat saw Harvey first, a white ghost horse among the meadow flowers, muzzle down. He threw up his head and whinnied when he recognized the Lake Farm dogs. Having brought all five of the pensioner pack out together for once, Kat’s attempt at a dignified arrival was marred by a bitch fight between the terriers, the lurchers coursing off after a rabbit and the Labrador flopping down to rest with a flatulent fanfare as they came through the gate. Dougie turned, still wearing his yard clothes, hands in his pockets, kicking at the ground. He looked up as she approached, blue eyes gleaming. She felt as though her heart had stopped.

  ‘I thought you’d be dressed for the Bollywood party.’ He took in her shorts and faded T-shirt.

  ‘Can’t get a date. What’s your excuse?’

  ‘My dinner suit’s already packed.’

  Having spent a lot of the day working around Dawn’s frantic pre-party pampering,
Kat was exhausted. Her life-saving moment earlier had barely had a chance to sink in. She felt as though she was wading through ball bearings connected to the mains, jumpy and desperate to keep moving. Dawn had been sweet, trying to talk to her about what had happened, to draw her out about Dougie, but Kat was too busy jogging everywhere on overdrive to stop and think, ignoring all advice to rest. She’d disinfected the animal pens, stock-checked and de-cobwebbed the feed room, given the returning Lake Farm fugitives baths, cold-hosed puffy legs, kept a vigilant check for colic and soothed an apoplectic llama. Anything to stop herself thinking about Dougie. It had succeeded about 0.5 per cent of the time.

  ‘Why is your suit packed?’ she asked, standing a respectable three feet away, watching the dogs.

  ‘I’m flying to LA.’

  Kat swallowed what felt like a fireball. ‘Moving on to another acting role so soon?’

  There was a pause. ‘That’s right. Turned out I was miscast for this one. I’m getting out of your life as requested.’

  ‘So the million-pound proposal is off?’ She tried to match his deliberately clipped, glib delivery, but she lacked his acting skill and sounded like a Munchkin with blocked sinuses.

  He stepped sideways as Harvey barged into the conversation, checking out pockets. ‘Seth withdrew my funding. There is no million. I have nothing worth offering any more. Worthless, that’s me.’ The big charm smile came out, so unfamiliar and defensive.

  ‘What about the Bolt?’ she asked, her chest in flames now.

  He cleared his throat, smile fading. ‘Don’t be a fool. You’re not good enough.’

  Kat felt as though he’d just punched her. She stepped back.

  He was looking down, the dark lashes veiling his eyes as he watched Quiver play-fighting with the two old terriers. His voice was uncharacteristically hard, with none of its customary lazy huskiness softening the blow. ‘I’m telling you this for your own good.’

  Kat guessed he was trying to spare her the humiliation after he’d left. She still wasn’t fast enough. She couldn’t cross water. Their one dry run had been a disaster. But her anger flared, like a box of matches dropped in a bonfire. She was devastated that he thought her incapable, decimated that he was leaving.

  ‘I don’t care. I will do it one day,’ she said angrily, remembering Constance’s fierce belief that she was capable of it. ‘I’ll do it without you. You never belonged here anyway. It’s a place for stayers, for loyalty and for dares.’

  ‘And badger men.’

  She stared at his set profile. ‘What are you talking about?’

  He looked up, eyes like lasers. ‘The thing with Dollar lasted only a few days when I first got here. What you saw last night was nothing – she wanted a quick buck, but I wasn’t playing. What I saw last night was you wrapped around Badger Man, then Dair Armitage.’

  Kat registered the rage of jealousy, a collision of lowered brows, flared nostrils, slamming cheek muscles and pouting lips on that handsome face. And despite her infuriation, the hurt and the indignation that made her want to thump him, her heart rose into her throat.

  ‘Dollar’s in love with Seth,’ he was saying. ‘Turns out he’s in love with her too. You think people would tell each other these things rather than involve other people all the time, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘It makes sense.’ Kat remembered him saying, ‘I love you,’ in the water before vanishing beneath the surface to save Seth. Her lungs still burned from diving down when he had literally taken her breath away. She was almost on tiptoe now, her heart in her mouth.

  He was still staring at her, blue eyes defensive, blinking at one-second intervals, voice controlled. ‘It’s better I go. The marriage thing. Sorry. I’ve never regretted anything so much in my life as agreeing to it. I hope you can forgive me.’

  It burst out of her like a round of gunshot: ‘I love you too.’

  ‘Give it time, we’ll both see the funny side,’ he was saying tight-lipped, and then looked up in surprise, no longer blinking. ‘What?’

  ‘I love you.’

  Dusk hadn’t come early, nobody had dimmed the lights and Gone With the Wind wasn’t playing on the big-screen horizon over Duke’s Wood, but Kat and Dougie couldn’t stop staring at one another. They stared for a ridiculous amount of time.

  Practically en pointe now, heart on her lips, Kat watched Dougie’s eyes start blinking again, as though he had been given an adrenalin shot. ‘I am a no-good,’ he said very quickly, voice heart-breaking and husky. ‘Kat. I am unreliable and selfish and so screwed up in love with you that I can’t think —’

  Harvey swung his long freckled face around and knocked Dougie squarely into Kat.

  Lust and love made for lightning reflexes. Their arms were around one another in an instant, fingers threading through hair, bodies drawn urgently together, lips colliding. Kat had never been kissed the way Dougie kissed her. His eyes drank her in, his hands warm on her face, guiding her mouth into his, thumbs sliding into the soft hollows beneath her ears and stroking them with exquisite tenderness.

  ‘I thought you hated my guts.’ He laughed as they pulled breathlessly apart for the fourth or fifth time.

  ‘Having guts is a good thing,’ she insisted, no longer sure if she was en pointe because she appeared to have lost the feeling in her lower legs, her knees jelly. ‘You use yours so freely – showing off, riding too fast, shooting things, seducing things, saving drowning things and runaway things.’ Her eyes sparkled at the memory. ‘I’d love your guts.’

  ‘You have my guts, Kat – and some. And you have my heart, every worthless beat it makes.’ His eyes danced between hers. ‘Here’s my plan. I go to LA. I work my arse off acting for a year or two. I get a bit of money, some horses, breed a few foals – Zephyr the Friesian is going to be a daddy. You come out and visit. I come here and visit. I get secure and I get trustworthy. I will earn your trust, Kat, and my living. I’ll do it the hard way and I’ll do it for you.’

  She wanted to scream in protest that he mustn’t leave, but he looked so earnest she hesitated. ‘I thought you hated LA.’

  ‘I do, but I need a job, and a chance to prove I can stick with something at some point in my wasted bloody life.’

  Kat knew Dougie could act. He might not be able to emote his way through Hamlet in the round six nights a week live, but on screen he was something else. She’d witnessed the Everett Effect before meeting him and could vouch for its power. Yet his face here and now didn’t smack of ambition or a desire to do it for anything beyond duty and accountability. ‘What do you really want to do in life?’

  ‘Truthfully?’

  ‘Would you rather take a dare?’

  ‘I don’t need anybody to dare me to want this.’ His laughter warmed her skin on its way to her mouth and besieged it with more kisses. ‘I want to work my hounds, to train another team of trick horses, to fly Zephyr here. I want to earn your trust, Kat, to ride with you, sleep with you, and for your voice to be the first and last thing I hear every day. I want to swim in the lake with you, work with you, play with you. I want to marry you one day, but not for money – we’ll probably be stony broke for life, frankly. But it’ll be for keeps. For ever. For us.’

  Kat’s voice was a squeak of emotional overload. ‘Your proposal technique needs brushing up, but the package sounds good.’

  ‘I’ll remember that next time I go down on one knee.’

  ‘As you pointed out this morning, I haven’t actually given you my answer yet. I haven’t ridden the Bolt.’ Suddenly gripped by fervour, she looked towards the clock tower beyond the woods. There was at least an hour of daylight left.

  ‘No, Kat.’ Dougie was shaking his head violently as he read her thoughts, gripping her shoulders tightly.

  But her blood was up, Constance’s voice in her head and her mouth. ‘I can do it.’

  ‘I know you can do it, Kat, but there’s so much more at stake.’

  Kat knew what was as stake. And she wanted to give him her answer
so badly that she would ride faster than she ever had before. Not staying to listen to his protests, she sprinted back towards the millstream track. ‘Unpack your dinner jacket. I’ll see you at the farm in twenty minutes. There’s nothing you can say that will stop me, Dougie.’

  Dougie had never put on a dinner suit so fast, tied a bow-tie so lop-sidedly, or fallen over a dog so much. Quiver trembled with anticipation underfoot, sensing something life-changing about to happen. As he dressed, Dougie thought about all the things he could say to stop Kat, played them through in his head incessantly, rehearsed them and dismissed them. If he doubted her now, he would destroy her self-belief. Constance had not wanted her to know about the wager in the Eardisford Purse. She’d believed in Kat. He must too.