Kiss and Tell (76 page)

She tied her dressing-gown cord tighter and went back up to the flat to knock on Lemon’s door before walking straight in, desperate for distraction.

Lem quickly shut his laptop, looking shifty. ‘Jeez, you made me jump, yeah?’

Beccy’s lip wobbled.

‘You want a hug, I suppose?’ He sounded snappy and defensive, as though she’d just barged in to borrow a fiver.

She shrugged, not caring what website he’d been looking at. She was sure it could contain nothing worse than what she’d just witnessed. Her lips were wobbling out of control now.

With a sigh Lemon padded across the room, arms outstretched. She sank gratefully into them, feeling his hard little wrestler’s body against hers, a rock in her stormy sea.

‘Whassamatter?’ He rubbed her back.

Falteringly, she told him what she had just seen. ‘Hugo should know what Tash and Lough are up to behind his back,’ she finished tearfully.

‘Leave Lough out of this.’

‘What do you owe him?’ she sobbed. ‘He’s horrible to you most days. You could get a better job grooming for someone else over here. We both could.’ She loved the idea of running away with Lemon, who had been so kind recently, who sometimes even seemed to be able to see right into her muddled mind.

‘We’d never get a flat as good as this one,’ he deflected.

She put on her best suburban-housewife voice: ‘We’ve got the place just how we want it.’

‘We’re like an old married couple.’ He tried a voice to match. ‘I love tinkering with my mains pipe, and you like to dust your knickknacks with the curtains drawn.’

‘Nobody else around to dust them,’ she giggled.

‘Shame the marriage was never consummated.’ He let out a theatrical sigh then pressed his lips to Beccy’s head, breathing in its shampoo scent. She used Johnson’s baby shampoo – he had seen the bottle in the bathroom and always found it fitting because her
attitude was so childlike. He thought wistfully of Faith and her boyish body, now so cruelly denied to him.

Beccy’s surprisingly womanly body was getting decidedly hot and bothered against his. ‘You really think it’s a shame?’

‘Nobody dusting my beautiful Limey’s knick-knacks?’ Lem exclaimed, still camping it up. ‘A crying shame: you were built for luxury. You need a woman who does.’

‘I need a man who does more than my husband,’ she corrected, wriggling out of the hug and blushing furiously.

Lemon kept hold of her arms. ‘Your husband would do anything for you, you know that.’

They exchanged a lingering smile, Beccy bashful and cautious, Lemon suddenly cocksure, his excitement mounting as he looked at his sidekick from an entirely new perspective. He’d been barking up the wrong tree all year, he realised, trying to climb the prickly acacia rather than the weeping willow. Lemon was no druid, but Beccy was no flower fairy, as he’d learned in recent weeks. All that flakiness hid a stubborn will. She still refused to accept that Hugo had taken advantage of her at the Moncrieff’s party, although it was obvious she was deeply damaged by it. Lemon was starting to tire of the constant comfort she craved. Tonight, however, he saw the perfect antidote to her neediness and his own ongoing sex drought. He was now feeling so cocksure that his pyjama bottoms had developed a front canopy.

‘Do you love me?’ Beccy asked suddenly, putting him off his stroke.

‘Yeah,’ he said vaguely.

Beccy’s heart, so bruised from seeing Tash cradling Lough in her arms while her beloved Hugo was away, beat hard and fast against her ribs. Lemon was safe and familiar; he surely deserved access to that secret part of herself she’d never quite let loose. It was kicking so hard against the stable door now, she had to free it. Libido-ration beckoned.

Two dressing gowns were dropped in record time.

Beccy found him surprisingly confident and adroit. She had spent a decade trying to find herself, but within minutes Lem was finding parts she never even knew existed.

‘I’ve only had a couple of lessons, but I had a very exacting tutor,’ he panted.

‘I thought you were a virgin too?’

‘We’re neither of us virgins now,’ he said a moment later as he thrust eagerly inside her.

Soon Beccy didn’t care whose cherry had been picked first, if it felt this thrilling. When she caught sight of their reflections sliding together in the wardrobe mirror, illuminated by just the dim bedside light, she let out a gasp of pleasure.

Lemon joined in, howling like a coyote.

As her body went from unexplored territory to conquered empire, Beccy could almost feel her mood shift from black clouds to blue sky. She was making love. She loved Lemon.

Five minutes later, he was ready to go again. Unlike Faith, Beccy’s enjoyment increased with each encore.

What Lemon lacked in stature, he more than made up with in eagerness and ability to go again and again. Beccy simply couldn’t get enough of his stubby, wide and very active spring-loaded cock.

They were still making love at dawn, the horses kicking hungrily for breakfast outside.

‘If Faith’s your tom-boyfriend, what am I?’ Beccy asked leadingly.

‘You’re my best-girlfriend.’ Lemon, pumping away happily, kissed her nose.

Beccy felt marvellous. She had a boyfriend. It didn’t quite soothe away the panic she had felt at seeing Lough and Tash embrace, but it made life a whole lot rosier.

When he issued his last coyote wail of the night, rolled off her and sagged back against his pillows, sated and jubilant, she covered his sweaty face with kisses. ‘I’ll go and put out morning feeds,’ she offered, ‘then I’ll come back and cook you breakfast before we muck out.’ She went out, humming ‘Two Souls’.

Waiting in bed, Lem reflected that, for a gay man, he was getting an awful lot of girl action – certainly more than his straight boss. If Lough wanted to get hooked on a married women, that was his loss. Goey virgins were where it was at.

Thinking about Lough and his fixation on Tash, Lemon’s eyes narrowed, but he no longer felt so threatened by the situation. Wrapped in a post-coital glow, he felt invincible. Hugo had stolen a gold medal from under Lough’s nose. He’d taken advantage of Beccy who was so vulnerable. That he deserved to have his charmed life wrecked had never been in doubt, so Lemon could hardly complain
if Hugo’s wife now performed that duty with her characteristic lack of guile, cuckolding the arrogant Brit by mounting the most talented rider in the world. Any romance between Lough and Mrs Beauchamp would never last, after all. They were both far too easily led. Lemon had more chance of living happily ever after with Beccy.

The thought made him chuckle as he settled back beneath the bedcovers and looked forward to his cooked breakfast.

Outside, still humming ‘Two Souls’, Beccy wafted around on a cloud.

Staying up all night and falling in love might have improved her mood immeasurably, but it had done nothing for her concentration. She gave horses the wrong feeds, reeling around happily, still smelling Lemon’s body on hers. Dancing into Heart’s stable, she plonked his feed bucket at his stamping feet. A moment later his hooves were lifting off the ground.

Beccy screamed as the horse, scenting escape, made a lunge towards the open door. Instinct told her to stand up, but suddenly his chest was right in her face.

She stood, frozen in horror. Before she could move a pair of arms closed around her and rugby-tackled her to the ground, pinning her there as the horse jumped clean overhead and clattered away across the yard, whinnying delightedly.

The arms let go and Faith looked up at Lough’s furious face. For a moment, the déjà vu was so intense it almost blinded her.

‘You okay?’ came a bullet-shot enquiry.

‘Yes,’ she spluttered.

He was gone in an instant, grabbing a headcollar and crossing the yard to catch Heart and lead him back. He looked furious. ‘You should never leave his door open. You know that.’

She nodded, moving to one side of the stable as he led in the overexcited horse, and feeling very silly. Her face flamed so much she was surprised the shavings bed didn’t combust around her.

Lough waited for her to go out before following her and bolting the door. ‘You sure you’re okay?’ His eyes studied her red face. ‘You look a bit spaced out.’

She nodded again, feeling incredibly awkward. It was the first time she’d been alone with him at close range since he discovered she was behind the texts and phone calls. She stared at her shoes.

‘I’m really okay,’ she gabbled, her mouth starting to bolt faster
than Heart from the door. ‘Really, really okay. Fabulous, in fact. Never better. Thank you for asking. Appreciate it. And thanks for rescuing me back there. Super job. You’re so amazing with horses.’ She peered up at him, hoping she’d said enough to convince him.

Lough’s rare, guarded smile touched his eyes and mouth. ‘It’s easy.’ He gave her a mock salute and walked away.

Beccy caught her breath. ‘It’s easy,’ she repeated. Suddenly ‘Two Souls’ had been replaced in her head by ‘All you Need is Love’. Over and over again that four letter word repeated tunefully within her. She reeled back against the clambering roses, knowing that she really was very much in love. It was knowing who, exactly, she was in love with that troubled her.

Chapter 50

Sylva admired her latest
Cheers!
photo-spread. This week’s issue was emblazoned with the lines ‘Skinny Sylva Denies Anorexia Jibes – “I am just a healthy, campaigning and hard-working mum in search of true love” she tells
Cheers!
exclusively from her lovely Cotswolds retreat.’ On the front cover was a heavily airbrushed photo of a coppery, fake-tanned Sylva beneath a fluffy baby blue Cossack hat, her arms around two small, fluffy-hatted boys and in front of her, for the first time, an exquisitely pretty girl in a pink Cossack hat on which Sylva was resting her chin. Inside were pages of her fake château shot from lots of flattering angles in the snow with Sylva and her kids tobogganing, playing snowballs and looking like a re-enactment of an Abba video.

Her cabbage water, green tea and vitamin tablet diet had gone rather too well and now she was in danger of emaciation. Barely even a size four, and now weighing just under seven stone, she knew she had to start eating soon. Her periods had long since stopped, her face was getting hairy and her breath was starting to smell of acetone. Any more punishment and her very expensive veneers would begin to fall out. Her sex drive had vanished, but that was no bad thing as her ambition to bed a pop star had also diminished. In fact, she hadn’t eaten a full meal since Dillon had come to lunch all those weeks ago.

The
Cheers!
team had done a good job, however. She certainly looked incredibly slim, but despite the hollow cheeks, lollipop head and unnaturally tiny frame, a combination of clever styling and winter layers made her look more captivating than ever. The newly dark hair worked fantastically against winter whites and her trademark baby blue. Sylva was pleased with the results. Mama, however, was not.

‘Dillon Rafferty should be in these pictures by now!’ She threw the magazine back at Sylva when shown it.

Sylva sucked her teeth. ‘I think he is not the right husband for me, Mama.’ She’d found their play-date lunch wholly tedious. ‘My campaign is a big success. The Rockfather has agreed to open all his paths and donated woodland to the local people. He has been so very generous.’ She dared herself to say it. ‘I think maybe we have chosen the wrong Rafferty?’

‘Nonsense!’ Mama was incensed, astounded that her daughter would dare question her judgement. ‘The plan is perfect as it is. Saddle the horses,
ma
i
ka.
You will ride to the farm now. The villagers in Oddlode post office say Dillon’s at home this weekend.’

‘The horses have already gone out,’ Sylva sighed, having long since handed over the reins of now pony-mad Zuzi’s daily hack to a deputy.

Dillon had done nothing but drive his new scramble bike around his farmland for days on end.

He sped out of the orchard in a flurry of mud and zipped along the headland of the biggest pasture field towards the woods at the far edge of his boundary, where a gate accessed a neighbouring farm’s overgrown water meadows. Taking the gravel track alongside the low-lying marshy wasteland, he headed up towards the public byway that led to the ridge.