Honeycote (17 page)

He was glad! He was bloody glad she’d left him!

Admittedly, he’d been taken aback when Sandra had stood in the hallway last Wednesday, surrounded by her fifteen pieces of matching Samsonite and clutching the ridiculous vanity bag that held most of her face, and announced she was leaving. Two minutes later a cream Mercedes with tinted windows had drawn up and Keith, shell-shocked, had automatically helped her out with her cases. He’d stared in disbelief at the puny, callow youth that had leaped out to open the boot – she couldn’t be leaving him for this, surely? – then realized with a sinking heart that of course this was not her lover, but his driver.

Keith could read no expression in Sandra’s eyes, hidden behind her sunglasses. The only information she volunteered was ‘He’s taking me on holiday’ and Keith knew from the accusation in her tone that herein lay the only explanation he was going to get.

Neglect. He hadn’t paid her enough attention. Keith was aggrieved. Bathrooms didn’t sell themselves, especially not bathrooms with onyx sinks and gold taps and jacuzzis big enough for an entire rugby team. Obviously this was another one of life’s little equations: you couldn’t make millions and your wife happy.

He mentally wished whoever Sandra had run off with good luck and, as the plane started circling around the familiar Legoland below, Keith contemplated his immediate future with something bordering on relish.

Mandy slid her arms around his neck and breathed in his warm, musky scent. She could feel his iron-hard muscles ripple under her embrace as she nuzzled up against him, and rubbed her cheek against his. But the recipient of her affection was not impressed. He wanted his oats. Literally.

As Phoenix gave a snort and stamped his foot impatiently, Mandy tangled her fingers in his mane and patted his nose with the other hand.

‘I’m sorry, boy. I don’t know what to give you. You’ll have to wait.’

She hugged him again, but he wasn’t consoled. She was, just a little bit. Phoenix was like a giant teddy bear and that, in her confused and bewildered state, was what she needed. She’d lain awake all night, her emotions raging from fury to despair to cringing embarrassment back to tooth-grinding rage, while Sophie slept the blissful sleep of the innocent in the next bed.

Even worse than her state of mind was the state of her body. Again and again she ran over the events. Patrick’s hot, sweet kisses on her neck, his warm lips caressing her nipples, his wicked tongue tracing its journey over her stomach, dipping into her navel and finally coming to rest at its destination, where she’d been brought to the brink of –

What? Something, that was certain. Patrick had clearly known what he was doing as, leaning against the wall for support, she’d writhed and clawed at her body with the thrill of the new sensations sweeping through her. When he’d slipped a finger inside her she’d cried out with the shock, unable to help herself, and she felt herself tighten with pleasure around it as he continued his exploration until she could barely stand.

Then, suddenly, he had stopped. She’d sunk to the floor, breathless and gasping, and looked up at him in bewilderment. He’d looked down at her, given a little matter of fact shrug made even more infuriating by the belittling smile that accompanied it, and walked out, leaving Mandy in a humiliated heap.

Mandy had never had an orgasm, but she knew that, despite the delicious waves that flooded through her, something even better had been about to happen. And Patrick had known, had judged her responses so expertly that he’d left her in this agonizing limbo – and he’d done it quite deliberately.

At dawn, hot and restless, eyes burning through lack of sleep and the scalding tears that had slid out, despite herself, when the frustration of the evening’s events became too clear in her mind, Mandy had left the gloomy shadows of the bedroom and slipped through the house, heavy with the deep sleep of revellers, and out into the stable yard.

The air was cold and crisp and held promise of a beautiful day ahead. The early mists would soon be banished by dazzling sunshine and the air would carry glorious wafts of decaying leaves and wood smoke. Mandy, her senses already heightened, had breathed in her surroundings and felt strangely exhilarated.

Phoenix hadn’t been a good listener, absorbed as he was by his own troubles, but telling him her problems had helped Mandy sort things out in her mind. She wanted Patrick, unquestionably. She wanted what he’d been about to give her, desperately. But more than either of those, more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life, more even than the Sindy gymkhana set when she was eleven, she wanted revenge.

How neat it would be if she could think of a way of getting all three.

Twenty minutes later, Mickey, who’d come out for a blast of fresh air to get rid of his hangover, found her curled up in the corner of the stable fast asleep. He shook her gently awake.

‘You could have been trampled to death.’

‘Phoenix wouldn’t do that.’

‘He wouldn’t mean to. Horses’ brains are only the size of walnuts.’ Funny, that’s just what his brain felt like this morning – small and brown and wrinkled. The two pints of orange juice he’d already drunk had done nothing to plump it up. Still, the fresh air would either kill or cure it.

He held out his hand to Mandy and pulled her to her feet. ‘What are you doing out here, anyway?’

‘I couldn’t sleep.’ Mandy’s little sigh told Mickey this was nothing to do with the facilities at Honeycote House, and her troubled face told him not to probe any further.

‘Can you ride?’

Thanks to her mother’s regime of extra-curricular activities, there wasn’t much Mandy couldn’t do. ‘ I haven’t been for a while. But I know one end from the other.’

‘Come on, then. No one else will be up for ages, and I could do with blowing the cobwebs away.’

Mickey found her a beautiful bright chestnut cob called Monkey – because of his big, round, brown eyes, not his behaviour, Mickey assured her – and Mandy swiftly tacked him up, running her hands reassuringly down his soft nose and blowing into his nostrils so they could make their acquaintance quickly. She borrowed someone’s hat and a discarded Puffa from the tack room and swung up on to Monkey’s back: the little horse stood politely as she did so.

Mickey, meanwhile, led out a magnificent, towering bay whose hooves scuttered alarmingly over the cobbles as she span round in little half circles, leaving Mickey swearing on the ground below. Mandy reached down and caught the mare’s bridle, holding her firmly under the chin so Mickey could leap on.

Soon they were clattering out of the yard and on to the soft grass of the track that led into the nearby woods, leaving the sleeping inhabitants of Honeycote House behind. Mandy had always been a confident rider, if a little inexperienced, and she soon forgot her initial nerves and became absorbed in her surroundings. A squirrel surveyed them quizzically from high above, then bounded away. The horses, snorting with eagerness in the early morning freshness, blew plumes of frozen air from their nostrils, and Monkey’s legs did two strides for every one of the bigger horse.

Eventually, the grassy track dwindled down to a narrow path winding its way through tangled woodland. Now the leaves had fallen it was possible to see the way through, but Mandy imagined that in the height of summer it would be like fighting your way through a green sea. Even now she had to duck overhanging branches and twist out of the way as brambles whipped at her clothes. Mickey, two hands higher, had even more to contend with, and bent down low over his horse’s neck all the way through, until eventually the dense trees cleared and they came out into the bright, early morning sunlight on to a narrow road, hugged on both sides by low, drystone walls, that formed a narrow ridge along the back of a hill.

‘This way,’ said Mickey. He seemed anxious to get somewhere, and urged his horse into a trot along the road, which was so ancient, so little used, that grass grew in a thin spine along the centre of the tarmac. Mandy squeezed Monkey forward, his little legs twinkling in an effort to keep up, and she felt uplifted by the exercise. They finally came to a halt.

‘This is Poacher’s Hill,’ said Mickey. ‘It’s the highest point for miles.’

Villages were clustered like little golden nuggets, spires and turrets giving away the existence of the most secluded. Mandy drank in the glory of the view and tried hard not to think of Patrick, his black hair contrasted against the crisp white cotton of his pillow, his lean limbs wrapped up in his duvet. She was sure he hadn’t spent a night in mental and physical torment. No, he would have slept easily without a care, without a second thought for her.

Next to her, Mickey drank in the vista also. It was as familiar to him as the back of his hand, almost his birthright. What had happened to that bloke in the Bible who had sold his birthright? Nothing good, he was sure. And now he was on the brink of doing it himself. Not the whole kit and caboodle, of course. But it still felt like a betrayal.

‘You can see all of our pubs from here,’ he told Mandy. ‘Or at least, the villages they’re in. You’d probably need a telescope to spot the actual buildings.’

He pointed out a couple of the ones that were visible to the naked eye. Then he showed her the farmland that had originally belonged to his great-grandfather, who had grown tired of being constantly at the mercy of the elements for his welfare and so had turned to brewing in the middle of the last century.

‘The Walshes own what was his farm now. You met Ned last night.’

Mandy felt a stab of guilt, though she knew she had nothing to feel guilty about. Patrick had made it quite clear that he thought she’d been after Ned. Poor Sophie – she’d have to make sure she hadn’t got the wrong end of the stick. She didn’t want to lose her friendship, and she knew girls fell out over far less.

Beside her, Mickey sighed. Mandy looked at him, concerned, and he smiled ruefully.

‘Have you ever made a resolution, Mandy?’

‘I make them all the time. To drink eight glasses of water a day. And to take all my make-up off before I go to bed, that sort of thing. But I always break them.’ She frowned. ‘Is something the matter?’

‘Nothing that a couple of hundred grand wouldn’t sort out. Don’t suppose you could lend it to me?’

‘Sorry.’

They laughed together. Mandy was curious. What Mickey was hinting at tied in with what she had witnessed the day before, and she wanted to know more.

‘Are you in big trouble, then?’

Mickey cursed his indiscretion. He must still be pissed.

‘No – not really. It’s just cash flow. Boring, boring. Come on, I’ll race you to the end of this track. You can have a head start.’

Rising to the challenge, Mandy wheeled Monkey round and dug her heels into his side, giving the little horse his head. Mickey gave her fifty yards and followed at a steady pace, allowing her to win by half a length. She was flushed with triumph and exhilaration, and he hoped all traces of their conversation had gone out of her head. After all, cash flow was hardly of interest to an eighteen-year-old, was it?

Then he wondered why he was worrying. Everyone was going to find out soon enough, once the word got out. For he’d made a decision, and it wasn’t a happy one.

As soon as he got off the plane at Birmingham airport, Keith became a driven man. He located his Landcruiser where he’d left it in the long-term car park, then called his secretary at home on his mobile. She was paid generously, so he didn’t feel guilty about disturbing her on a Sunday. First, he cancelled all appointments for the next three days. Irene was respectfully and silently shocked. He hadn’t cancelled so much as a meeting since he’d had shingles four years ago, but she didn’t demur. Instead, she filled him in on Mandy’s whereabouts. Apparently she was staying with the Liddiards of Honeycote House, somewhere in the Cotswolds. Irene had checked them out with Miss Cowper at Redfields, who’d assured her they were a very nice family – they ran a brewery, apparently. Keith was very fond of the Cotswolds. He’d taken American clients there in the past, and it inevitably took their breath away and persuaded them to order container-loads of traditional roll-top baths and toilets with overhanging cisterns so they could recreate a little bit of England for their impressionable customers back home.

It was still only eight o’clock, but Keith decided that instead of going home to his mockingly empty mock mansion, he’d take a drive down to Honeycote and collect Mandy. It would be nice to take the four-wheel drive somewhere it might actually get dirty – he wasn’t sure he’d ever even put it into four-wheel drive – and he’d take the Liddiards out to lunch to say thank you for having her.

Little more than half an hour later he was bowling merrily along the picturesque ‘B’ road that his AA map reliably informed him would lead to Honeycote. He felt a silent wonder as he passed through storybook villages, sleepily complacent in their charm, perfect plumes of smoke curling from their chimneys. Their perfection lay in their irregularity: zigzagged rooflines encrusted with silver-green lichen, mullioned windows with leaded panes that never saw a drop of Windowlene, assorted chimney pots, grand next to humble, all hewn out of buttery stone and laid out along little lanes that twisted and curved and rose and dipped so that you turned a corner and were suddenly surprised by a steep grassy bank, the welcoming frontage of a pub or the strangely restful prospect of a churchyard, gravestones leaning at all angles. Keith marvelled that real people lived in these fairytale settings, then supposed that in fact it was not all roses. The downside would be the coachloads of tourists that inevitably trawled through their midst each summer, the lack of anywhere to park, the pubs filled with screaming day trippers – and an economy dependent on these locusts.

Nevertheless, Keith could feel himself relaxing in these surroundings. He slid Mozart into the CD player and hummed happily to himself as he negotiated the rest of the journey. He pondered on how he had once or twice suggested to Sandra that they move out of stifling, suburban Solihull to somewhere more tranquil and restful, but she had been mystified by the idea and refused to give it even a second’s consideration. What about their Social Life and the Golf Club? And (the reason that had convinced Keith that of course he was being whimsical) Mandy’s Education. Keith realized now that Sandra hadn’t given a fig about Mandy’s education, or indeed Mandy at all, but had been afraid of being forgotten in the countryside and losing her place on the rung of the social ladder. And presumably the attentions of her lover, though whether this was the first or the fortieth, Keith had no idea.