by Fiona Walker
‘You spied on me?’
‘I heard hooves, thought you were a loose horse.’ He sucked his teeth, looking away to pull up a smile. ‘You looked great.’
‘I’m far too rusty really to take on the Wolf Moon Lap. I’ve absolutely no hope of doing it in the time.’
‘Does it matter? If you cross under the arch while Jupiter’s playing, it’d be good luck, yes? But that doesn’t mean it’s bad luck if you don’t.’
‘I suppose not,’ she conceded. ‘I just don’t want to disappoint Lester. The full moon’s only a week away.’
‘Sure, he’ll be made up. He wants you to ride it again, not set a record. Had anybody told you you’re a perfectionist?’
‘Many, many times,’ she laughed.
‘Nothing in life is perfect, Pax. It’s the imperfections that make things meaningful. Maybe I’ll ride it with you.’
Her heart was in her throat, bursting with happiness.
‘You,’ she kissed him, ‘are perfect.’
While Luca went to the bar for more drinks, she turned over her phone to check her messages in case Kes wasn’t settling. Her screen was striped with missed calls from the stud. Trying not to panic, she called back, but there was no answer. She hurriedly dialled voicemail.
Her mother had left a message from the stud’s crackly line sounding breathless and excited to say that a friend of Luca’s had just turned up and could they come back as soon as possible? It was rather urgent, she stressed.
It took so little to undermine her, for her imagination to run riot.
He’d kept his phone switched off all night, she’d noticed. She’d foolishly thought he’d done it so they could focus on their conversation, but now she thought back to all the unanswered calls the previous evening, to his jumpiness. He’d even told her that he hadn’t been entirely honest. She’d overlooked it because he’d kissed her and she’d run home to gallop around a field for real because galloping in her head no longer soothed her.
She watched him saunter back towards their sofa now, all smiles and blond curls. He was so close to perfect, so nearly utterly perfect. Trust him, Pax. Tiny steps.
‘A friend of yours has turned up at the stud. Someone called Michele?’
All the colour drained from his face.
*
‘Are you a racing man, Your Highness? Point-to-pointing’s my passion.’
‘My father has a few horses in training, yes.’
‘We’ve two out campaigning this season, how about you?’
‘In your country, about five hundred.’
‘Marvellous. More tea?’
Thank heaven for Bay, thought Ronnie. His natural loquacity had kept their unexpected guests going, and she was having a tough time with Kes.
‘Gronny!’ he called from the stairs turn again. ‘Gronneeeeeee!’
Making her apologies, she hurried out. She was rapidly going off being a hands-on-grandparent. ‘What is it, darling?’
‘I did a poo!’
‘Ha ha, yes very funny. Knock knock, I—’
‘No, I really did a poo, Gronny, and I can’t make it go down the loo. When I put the brush in, the handle came off.’
‘Excuse me, Mrs Ledwell?’
Ronnie jumped as she realised the prince’s wife had followed her out, a pretty western woman in an embroidered abaya that couldn’t disguise her pregnancy bump.
‘May I use your…?’
‘Of course.’ Oh, God, Kes had just incapacitated the one bathroom in service, and the only functioning downstairs lavatory was off the back lobby, a pink enamel antique with cobwebs festooned on its windowpanes and a novelty light pull. Her grandfather – who had once sold hunters to Arab playboys – was probably in there, haunting it in horror. ‘Let me show you.’
‘Gronneeeeee!’
‘Don’t worry about it, Kes. Gronny will pop up and deal with that in a minute. You take Rab C. back to bed.’
‘It’s the best bed ever.’ Big yawn. ‘Love you, Gronny!’
‘Love you too!’ She bowed her head apologetically at her guest as he trotted off. ‘This way, your high—’
‘Call me Atiya.’ The princess smiled with a very unregal wink.
‘Pretty name.’ Ronnie led the way.
‘Isn’t it? My husband gave it to me when we married. It means Gift of Allah.’
‘How charming. I really am most sorry we’re not terribly hospitable. Had we known…’
‘It’s we who should be apologising. Mishaal’s a very determined man, and he insisted we must come here before we fly home. The plane can wait on the tarmac at Heathrow for as long as it takes, but it is very rude of us to take up your time like this.’
‘Not at all. Here you go!’ Ronnie reached in and tugged the Eiffel Tower light pull. It was just as bad as she’d feared: freezing cold, it smelled of cheap air freshener and mould – thank goodness not wee – and had Kes’s booster step in front of it, an abandoned Minion on the windowsill.
But Princess Atiya was looking at the framed photographs that tiled the walls with such wide-eyed delight, Ronnie could have just led her into Santa’s grotto. ‘OMG! You know these people?’
‘Back in the day, yes.’ Ronnie followed her gaze around the little room, a Hall of Fame for latter-day Compton Magna horses that had gone on to the most successful competition careers: showing, point-to-point, jumping and horse trials. Amongst them was an elite scattering of four-star eventers. Her royal guest was studying these closely, spotting Britain’s hunkiest Olympic eventing pin-up aboard one, his much-loved wife on another. ‘Those two were my absolute heroes as a girl. Look at these! There’s Ginny and there’s Lucinda, and Hugo again here. It’s like a Who’s Who. You still breed horses like this?’
‘It’s our stock-in-trade.’
‘I know it’s an imposition this late in the evening, but I would love to see them.’
‘Not a problem!’ Ronnie backed out, now delighted by the power of her downstairs loo. Thank you, Grandpa, she mouthed as the door closed, just in case he was in there, before hurrying back to check on the prince who Bay was trying to convince to try pheasant shooting.
‘We’ve some marvellous drives just across the valley here.’
Resplendent in his white throbe and shemagh headdress, the prince had a rather sinister scar, like Blofeld, running across one eye. He’d been wearing dark aviator glasses to cover it when he arrived, but due the extreme dimness of the house’s light bulbs, he’d dispensed with these, his one seeing eye all-knowing.
His bodyguard stood cross-armed behind their sofa. It looked like a scene from a James Bond movie, apart from the open Toy Story DVD cases and abandoned Mini Boden hoodie. Ronnie would have liked to have taken her guests to the drawing room in which Major Frank had entertained Prince Aly Khan, but when she’d put her head in it earlier it had been so cold she’d seen her breath, and one of the dogs had disembowelled a rat on the Persian rug.
The prince was looking at a chunky blue and gold chronograph watch. ‘Luca will be back shortly?’
‘Expecting him any minute!’ Ronnie had heard nothing, which wasn’t entirely surprising because she’d run the cordless phone battery down talking to Blair. ‘Bay, I wonder if you’d mind keeping an ear out for Kes if I show Princess Atiya around the yard? She’s eager to have a quick look. Perhaps Your Highness would like to come too?’
For the first time since arriving, the prince smiled, showing very expensive white teeth. ‘I would like that very much.’
In the neighbouring kitchen, the phone’s battery had re-charged enough to make a half-hearted attempt at ringing. ‘That’ll be them!’
‘Whatever you do,’ Luca’s voice breathed urgently, ‘don’t let him anywhere near the horses!’
*
‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth?’ Pax growled furiously.
‘Can you drive any faster?’
‘Not up this hill.’ She was hammering the Noddy car as hard as she dared, the climb from Chipping
Hampton up into the Comptons a horsepower-sapping drag of hairpin bends.
‘He’ll have the horse destroyed if he sees him. Worse, maybe. He wants to hurt him.’ Luca was mad at himself for complacently believing Mishaal had left the country. Madder still for not telling Pax, keeper of so many secrets that she had shared with him, now deeply hurt that he’d kept this one to himself.
‘Kes is there.’ She negotiated a tight left with a squeal of tyres. ‘If he’s in danger or sees anything that—’
‘He isn’t, he won’t.’
‘You don’t know that!’
He couldn’t argue.
They crossed the Fosse Way and were charging along the straight chestnut-lined avenue at last, passing the Austens’ farm on their left, a mini Daylesford peppered with discreet heritage-tone signs offering game cookery, country crafts and pottery courses, then up the slow climb to the outskirts of the village, the verges banking up to tunnel them, then opening out on the crest of the hill, where they could both see across to the stud, its yard lights glowing like a football pitch, in front of which sat the silhouette of a helicopter like a giant wasp, its pilot still sitting inside.
‘Oh shit.’
Pax careered up the driveway, raking the car to a halt beside the yard entrance so that Luca could spill out. As soon as he was through the arch, he spotted the four figures gathered outside Beck’s stable. He ran like his heels were on fire, not caring if he got a prison sentence for punching a member of an elite royal family to the ground. ‘Stooooooooooooooooop!’
Mishaal turned in surprise, his pregnant wife frozen beside him, feeding the Shetland a carrot.
Luca put the brakes on hard, feet sliding across the cobbles like ski moguls before tripping his way to a halt a few feet from the prince. He was looking apprehensive. ‘Luca, my old friend!’
Friend?
He gaze automatically went to Beck’s half-door. It was in darkness, no insomniac white face or pink nose. A bulky shadow of a henchman stood in front of it. His heart slammed.
‘Luca, we’ve been calling and calling!’ With a shimmer of gold embroidery, half-eaten carrot brandished like a light sabre, Mishaal’s wife rushed forward. ‘How wonderful to see you!’
He recognised the big, naughty blue eyes. So like Ronnie’s, but without the wisdom. Still brimming with an appetite for fun and fortune, they were set in a pretty face with a surface so smoothed by chemicals it had no expression. And the huck of laughter was unmistakable.
‘Signe?’
‘I am Princess Atiya now,’ she said graciously.
‘Good on ya.’ Luca’s gaze flicked to the stable door again. Darkness. Heart slamming harder.
‘Luca!’ Ronnie bustled between them, the original and authentic blue eyes fixed on his like emergency lights. ‘About bloody—’
‘MUMMY!’ There was a banshee wail from the archway. ‘WHERE IS KES?’
‘If you’ll excuse me, Your Highnesses?’ Ronnie marched off towards Pax.
Luca faced Mishaal, for so long the boy man he’d despaired of helping. He found he couldn’t address him formally. He couldn’t speak. His heart was a fist in his throat. He nodded instead.
Mishaal was swathed in a black and gold farwa coat, a thick Bedouin armour of jewelled, corded velvet, as exotic on the frosted cobbles as a leopard. He nodded back. Behind him, his big bull of a bodyguard stood in front of Beck’s door, trigger hands making fists by his sides.
Mishaal stepped forwards with a swish. ‘Luca, I came to make peace.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Luca was still eyeing the dark stable door and its beefcake doorman.
‘Listen to our plea, Luca.’ Signe stepped beside her husband and they held hands.
‘My marriage to Atiya has made a great difference to me,’ Mishaal said, raising his wife’s hand to his lips. ‘We have worked together on many changes, on our charitable projects and on our beloved family.’ He touched her bump. ‘Atiya focusses her spirituality on processes that heal.’
‘Good for you.’
‘I have made an inventory of all those that I have harmed and I wish to make amends to you all. I humbly ask your forgiveness.’ Mishaal lowered his eyes and waited.
Luca was nonplussed. Weren’t those the words of the Eighth Step so recently baulked at by himself and Pax? Had Signe plagiarised them for her healing spirituality?
He shot her a wary look.
The big blue eyes radiated back kindness. ‘My husband is lifting the curse, Luca.’
‘Oh, right. That’s good news.’ He glanced to the stable door again.
‘Peace be with you, namaste, assalamu alaikum, fred være med dog.’ Signe raised her hands to either side and let out a joyful breath.
Mishaal looked up, his face relieved. ‘Is that over? Can we go now?’
‘You’re not going anywhere until I know this guy’s safe.’ Luca marched to Beck’s stable.
A white face lifted in the darkness, eyes like black pearls.
Luca pressed his forehead to the bars with relief. He’d been in there all along, standing at his comfort blanket back wall. A belly roar of relief went up now, and Beck stormed across the shavings towards him. Then he stopped, throwing his head up, eyes huge.
‘Which horse is this, Luca?’ Mishaal was alongside.
Beck didn’t move. Luca didn’t move. ‘You don’t know him?’
The horse might have turned from gunmetal to white since Mishaal took him to deathmatch, but he was unmistakable, surely?
‘They all look the same to me,’ Mishaal said lightly, his all-seeing eye on the Irishman’s face. ‘My wife wants to buy the dun colt in the barn.’
‘He’s not for sale,’ Luca dismissed, watching Beck still, a silver statue in the darkness.
‘That is what Mrs Ledwell said.’ Mishaal’s monotone had a bemused uplift. ‘When I said she could name her price, she told me Spirit has no price.’
‘It doesn’t,’ Luca breathed, watching Beck, who hadn’t moved, only his skin shimmering with occasional twitches belied the fact every muscle was drum-tight.
‘You always were his saviour.’ Mishaal offered his hand to shake. ‘Mine also, as it turns out. Good bye, Luca. Ila liqaa.’
Luca took it. ‘Indeed, until we meet again.’
*
The helicopter was reverberating its way over the crest, lights flashing by the time Pax finally managed to shepherd Bay outside.
‘They didn’t say goodbye.’ He tilted his head to watch it. ‘How rude.’
‘Goodnight, Bay.’
‘Darling one, we need that lunch.’ Penhaligon’s Quercus. Kisses on cheeks. Stubble. ‘Bring Kes. Hugely good company. Do say goodbye to your mother from me.’
Only Ronnie, Pax reflected, could get away with recruiting the bounder who had once come between them as a babysitter.
Battery charged, she was back on the phone to Blair now, leaving Pax to throw Bay out and round up Luca. Her heart tightened at the thought.
‘He won’t make you happy, you know,’ Bay said.
‘Who?’
‘Man called Horse or whatever title he gives himself. He’s a chancer. Won’t make you happy.’
‘Who are you to judge what makes me happy?’
‘Because I did once. And that means I still know what it feels like to hold it here.’ He held up a closed fist.
‘Goodnight, Bay.’
Head lowered, feet scuffing, he sucked a shaking breath through his teeth. ‘You know my marriage has come unstuck too?’
Pax had a brief, sharp image of the stud-fringed ear, deep, distorted unhappiness. ‘So go home and deal with it.’
‘You’re a hard taskmaster.’
‘I know what’s good for you.’ She held up her own fist. ‘I held it here.’
‘You still do. For God’s sake don’t let go.’ Two more Penhaligon cheek kisses and he was gone.
‘Don’t blaspheme,’ she breathed after him.
She looked up at Cassiopeia and Cepheus, constan
t onlookers to the waxing moon, still six slices away from Wolf. Then, hugging herself for warmth, she crossed out through the yards, all the dogs at her heels. Bay’s tail-lights were streaking away down the drive.
Luca was by Beck’s stable as she’d known he would be, clean-shaven face still unfamiliar, taking a heartbeat to recognise. She stood beside him and he told her that Mishaal had asked forgiveness, urged on by his wife. Obsessive, driven and bulldozing as always, he couldn’t leave the country without it. ‘He pretended not to know Beck at all.’
‘Maybe it was easier that way? You hid what you knew about his past from us.’
‘Nothing’s hidden now,’ he promised, taking her shoulders and standing her opposite him. Letting go, he started walking backwards, counting.
‘What are you doing?’
‘… eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve steps. Twelve steps between us. I’m back at Step One.’
‘Admit you have a problem.’
He didn’t hesitate. ‘I love you. I fell in love with you the day I met you. The stroke of midnight would be an exaggeration – you were kissing another man at the time, and you weren’t great company after that, to be honest – but later that day something happened. I can’t tell you if it was you pulling the wires from your bra, throwing a feed scoop at me or getting the giggles because you realised you were breaking out of your marriage, but I just loved you, Just like that. That’s my problem.’
Pax looked at him across the cobbles. ‘We have exactly the same problem.’
‘Remind me what Step Twelve is again?’ he asked.
‘You’d better come over here and find out.’
21
‘Isn’t this fecking shite?’ Bridge hissed at her fellow Saddle Bags as they picked vegan amuse bouche crumbs from their cleavages and tried not to gawp at Mr Well Cottage’s Phileas Fogg mutton chop sideburns in the next-door group, let alone the fact he was talking to a trio that looked suspiciously like Kate Moss, Damien Hirst and Stella McCartney.
The grand opening of Suzy David at The Hare in Compton had brought Cotswold and Bardswold celebrities within close reach of the villagers. There were even paparazzi outside. Petra had walked in three times so far, hoping to be snapped to no avail.