The Country Escape (35 page)

‘That’s no accident.’

‘He was still very drunk.
He wanted to frighten me but it went horribly wrong. I got caught up in the weeds, like here, and couldn’t get back up to the surface.’ Looking out across the little lake, she started to shiver again. ‘It’s not a deep river, but there are hidden hollows where the reeds can wrap round your legs in seconds. Nick tried to drag me back up, but I was completely trapped.

‘Two runners came to
the rescue when he started yelling. I could see their legs and air bubbles everywhere. I had no breath or fight left. I must have blacked out under water. I thought I was going to die. The last thing I remember was spotting the bloody ring on the riverbed.’

‘Surely the police were involved.’

She shook her head. ‘Just medics. I needed CPR when they got me out. Nick was terrified I’d
shout “attempted murder”. He was contrite afterwards. My lungs had taken a real battering. I had headaches and blackouts for weeks as well as a vicious cough. But the worst was the panic attacks. Nick refused to talk about what had happened, but it was all I could think about. I knew I had to get away from him, but I was frightened what he might try to do if I did. That was why I planned it so
carefully. I came here, where I knew he couldn’t trace me. I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.’ She put her head into her hands. ‘I haven’t told my best friends.’

‘You told Constance,’ he reminded her, then his mouth fell open. ‘That’s why she left you Lake Farm, isn’t it? To keep you safe?’

She looked up at him through her fingers, a touch of a smile showing to either side.
‘She was amazing. She had a way of finding out one’s darkest secrets. There was other stuff Nick did, things that left far deeper scars and she —’

‘He
hit
you?’

‘Emotional scars.’ She took her fingers from her face, the smile fixed and defensive. ‘I’d rather not talk about it, but you’re right. Constance gave me a safe haven.’

‘What “other stuff”?’

‘It’s really not
relevant to riding the Bolt.’

‘Everything’s relevant, Kat.’

When she still didn’t answer, he murmured, ‘Truth or dare?’

She snorted disparagingly. ‘Do I look sixteen and caned on vodka Red Bulls?’

Dougie could have kicked himself for his tactlessness. As soon as he’d said it, he knew it was wrong, however well intended. He’d wanted to wrap a comforting arm around her
and hold her to his side while she confided more about what had led her here, but instead he’d back-slapped her with a juvenile challenge. And it was too late to retract now.

‘Forgive me. I’m not a particularly evolved life form, as you yourself have pointed out,’ he said easily. He’d slipped totally out of role again, but he found he had no desire to thrust a rose between his lips and
try to tango his way back on course for his bonus. He just wanted to cheer her up.

‘That makes two of us.’ She rested her chin on her knees and squinted at him through the sun, her red hair almost dry now and tightly spiralled like bracken fronds. ‘Dare.’

He looked at her in surprise. Then he laughed, not giving her a chance to change her mind as he saw a chance for redemption. ‘Gallop
again?’

‘Now?’

He nodded. ‘Haven’t you heard you must get straight back on after a fall?’

‘My breeches are still sopping wet.’

‘Ride without them.’

She looked at him suspiciously, but he kept the wolf’s smile from his face. ‘You’ll have to go bareback.’ He stood up to unsaddle the mare. ‘I’ll co-pilot.’

‘Your jeans are wringing wet too.’

Dougie
unbuckled his belt and peeled them off. ‘If Red Indians can ride in loin cloths, we can do it in pants.’

‘You’d seriously do this?’ She looked astonished, particularly at the sight of his cockerel-patterned ‘Crown Joules’ jockey shorts, which he was grateful his polo shirt almost covered.

‘Christmas present from my father.’ He followed her gaze. ‘The ferret ones are worse.’

Moments later, the green eyes were wet with tears as she clutched her chest and went into rapturous giggles, laughing so much that it took him a while to grasp she was accepting the dare.

Aware that his move that hadn’t done much for his masterly, heartthrob status – although it had certainly cheered her up – Dougie jumped on to Sri’s patchwork back, then reached down to help Kat up behind
him. ‘This will be seriously good for your core stability.’

Setting off at a steady canter to let her gain her balance, he knew that this was selfishly as much for his pleasure as her stability, but the laughter in his ear as they speeded up to full tilt was a magical reminder that it had a healing purpose, just as the warm, lean heat clinging to the length of his back connected him to
the woman he had started to see in an entirely new light. Evenings with Kat were a misleading Happy Hour cocktail that had promised high kicks and a huge cash bonus, but delivered conflict, chemistry and increasing respect. Today had made that mix a lot more potent, adding something Dougie’s emotional palate rarely tasted: the throat-burning, heart-speeding warmth of affection.

When he
pulled up by the woods, the mare was barely blowing and Kat, still laughing, insisted, ‘I’m going round again!’

‘Sure.’ He got ready to urge the mare forward.

‘Wait!’ She reached forwards to stop him, chin on his shoulder as she took hold of the reins, her warm breath making his skin dance. Turning his face towards hers, seeing her eyes as bright as spearmint amid the smile-widened
freckles, his mouth started moving instinctively towards hers long before his brain registered how badly he wanted to kiss her.

She turned her head away to look across the meadow. ‘Will you get off?’

‘Of course. Sorry,’ he said awkwardly, as he gathered the reins. ‘Let’s go.’

‘I meant get off the horse, Dougie.’ She laughed. ‘I’m going round again.’

Realising she wanted
to gallop solo, he had to resist an even greater urge to kiss her.

He jumped off and watched her streak around the field, laughter and pride fusing together in his chest and forcing an unfamiliar lump into his throat. It might have taken a dare that went wrong and a truth still only half told, but she’d gone from barely trusting the mare to galloping bareback in the space of an evening.

Kat Mason was a revelation. She had incredible guts and faith, and her curious beauty grew on Dougie every day: the big smile that revealed her furnace-like warmth but hid her vulnerability, those watchful green eyes and that extraordinary mane of hair he couldn’t wait to see spilling across naked freckled skin and white Egyptian-cotton pillows. Somewhere along the line a keystone of her
self-belief had been stolen from her. He wanted to be the one to restore it, and to find out the truth. Next time he tried to kiss her, he vowed she’d want it just as much. And he wouldn’t be sitting on horseback wearing cockerel pants.

As midsummer’s evening finally set into dusk, Kat rode back towards the woodland track with Dougie walking alongside, dogs at their heels and Harvey at
his side. A hare power-sprinted along the avenue of trees ahead of them, silhouette coming and going as it crossed the stained-glass arches of sunset light between the black trunks.

Dougie turned to watch Kat ride, those luscious freckled legs demure in breeches once again, although her still-damp boots hung on her saddle rings from their garter straps and her bare feet dangled out of the
stirrups. She was the only female Dougie knew, apart from his young nieces, who hadn’t had a painted pedicure, yet she had the neatest, pinkest nails he’d ever seen, like little shells. He had a sudden image of lifting them to his lips in the big claw-footed bath in his bedroom and watching the laughter and lust on her face.

‘Tell me the truth about you and Russ Hedges,’ he asked suddenly.

She didn’t look at him. ‘If I remember the truth or dare game right, it’s my call now.’

‘I always cheat.’

She was staring at the mare’s ears, one as red as the other was white. Looking at them, they reminded Dougie of the flags to either side of the point-to-point jumps he’d kicked towards when he was first trying to impress a girl in a ridiculous deer costume whom he’d thought
was a pain in the arse, especially when hers was on fire.

She pulled up Sri to turn and look down at him, the last red sun streaks stabbing through the trees behind her like an approaching lynch mob with torch batteries running low. Her voice was so rushed and quiet, he could hardly hear. ‘He helped me through a very tough time.’

‘Has he healed the emotional scars?’

She missed
a beat, glancing away. ‘Not quite.’

‘So you’re not about to take the plunge with Badger Man?’

‘Unfortunate turn of phrase.’ Kat smiled that big, crazy, heart-lifting smile that Dougie had yet to learn to read. It was a smile that short-circuited his thoughts every time, putting his foot, heart and bravado straight into his mouth.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said honestly. ‘But I want
to push the hairy bastard straight into the lake and take you to bed for a week. Trust me, you wouldn’t be able to walk afterwards.’

As she looked down at him, green gaze blistered with pain, he saw to his horror that the smile went nowhere near her eyes. She kicked Sri on and rode home without another word.

‘Still going well?’ Dollar asked Dougie when she called later.

‘Swimmingly,’ he said flatly.

‘Good. You have one month before Seth will be entertaining an important guest at Eardisford. I will remind you that we would like the Lake Farm situation resolved by then. The estate must provide total privacy for the best sport.’

‘I need more time.’ He thought uncomfortably of his most recent conversation with Kat.

Dollar clearly thought
he was referring to the sport. ‘You will be required to ensure all traditional means of game hunting are available.’

‘It’s hardly the right season,’ Dougie pointed out reluctantly, surprised by how jumpy he felt at the prospect of his idyll being invaded by marauding businessmen eager to follow hounds. When it came to field sports, he was a purist who followed rules, and his team weren’t
ready, the time of year unsuitable. The only Eardisford tradition he was really interested in right now was the Bolt and his desire to watch Kat do it, preferably followed by watching her climb into his bath to have her toes thoroughly washed and sucked.

‘We’re aware that this is precipitant,’ Dollar’s voice droned on, ‘but this man is a
very
important guest and his entertainment is of
paramount importance. Dair Armitage will make sure there is fishing and shooting available, and you will provide good quarry. And take care of the girl or we’ll need to use other means.’

Dougie had an unpleasant flashback to Dollar telling him that Kat could stay at Lake Farm until marriage or death.

‘What other means?’

But she had rung off.

‘I might as well
quit,’ Kat told Dawn. ‘I’ll never get across that lake. Does your new landlord accept pets?’

‘I had to pay a whopping deposit to get my kitten past the letting agents, and he’s neutered and house-trained,’ Dawn said apologetically. ‘I can call the rescue centre near Watford bypass, if you like?’

Kat knew nobody would want an assortment of elderly pets, horses and livestock, especially
as she would demand to be rehomed with them. She could never leave the Lake Farm animals. But Dougie Everett had unsettled her so much that her urge to protect herself and get away from the estate was now searing her skin, like the sunburn she’d got in recent days, despite slathering herself in factor fifty. It wasn’t just his insensitivity, his overt flirtation, or the way her organs rearranged
themselves when he looked at her in that hard, sexy way, or even those glimpses of extraordinary kindness, trust and good humour that were all too rare and made her lift up on her toes with involuntary joy as she tried to catch them. She just didn’t trust her body around him, and she didn’t trust him around her body. There had been a moment earlier, pulling up after the bareback gallop, when
she had wanted to kiss him very badly. The jolt of animal attraction and terror had been so violent she’d leaped back as though touched with a cattle prod.

‘Did you say you have to swim the lake for the Bolt?’ Dawn was saying, in disbelief, at the other end of the line.

‘I’ll be on a horse.’ Kat tried to make it seem achievable, but she knew it sounded as convincing as ‘I’ll have
lead knickers, concrete boots and a leaky rubber ring.’

‘I keep telling you that you don’t have to do this thing.’

‘I won’t let it beat me.’ Kat rallied, hearing Constance’s voice taking over hers. It was what she’d said about death when Kat had first cared for her, a pronouncement of such determination it had worked against all odds for more than a year.

Dawn heard it too
and laughed nervously. ‘Good to know you’re still possessed by an aristocrat who wants to drown you from beyond the grave. At least stick to dry ground until I’m with you.’

‘You’re really coming to visit?’ Kat was cheered.

‘We exchanged contracts this morning. So in four weeks’ time I will no longer be a woman in chains, property or ball-related, and you and I will celebrate with
champagne.’

‘That’s so brilliant.’

‘Isn’t it? House sold to Pervy Man, check. First husband divorced, check. Second husband identified, check. When will the elusive Seth be in residence? A dotcom-billionaire playboy ticks most of the boxes. The only question is, how do I get close enough to catch his eye?’

‘Go to Mumbai. He’s never here.’

‘Damn.’

‘I’ve heard
he might be coming for the village versus estate cricket match in July – there’s talk of him fielding half the Indian second eleven – but don’t hold your breath. Most players’ batting average is lower than their shoe size and the teas are famously awful.’

‘What’s the date? I’ll put it in my diary,’ Dawn said. ‘If not, I’ll take a square man with a third leg as compensation. How’s Dair?’

‘It’s third man and square leg. And I’ve not seen him lately.’

‘I see him in a recurring dream a lot right now.’