The Country Escape (43 page)

Dawn looked incredibly pleased with herself. ‘That’s why you’re going to leave the committee and volunteers in charge here for a week and come on holiday with me. I knew I was right to plan something! Here,’ she fished in her bag for a brochure, ‘I still get a hefty discount from the cruise company so
it’s going to be my treat.’

‘I can’t abandon the animals.’ Kat took it and then started to laugh as she read
The Love Boat Experience
. ‘Dawn, this is a matchmaking cruise!’

‘It’s the solution to all your problems,’ Dawn insisted. ‘We’re
both
going to find rich husbands. Yours will buy you a beautiful farm to run the sanctuary, preferably a lot nearer Rickmansworth.’

‘I hope
this is your idea of a joke.’ Kat read the brochure, giggling at the photos of elderly couples on deck in sunset clinches.

‘You have to marry to fulfil your promise to Constance,’ Dawn reminded her, hurt by her lack of enthusiasm. ‘And, trust me, there’s no way you’ll find a husband buried away in the middle of nowhere.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ Kat was still laughing, reaching
for her glass and tipping it up to her lips, not even noticing that it was empty. The wine had gone straight to her head and her freckled cheeks were very red. ‘I received a marriage proposal only recently.’

Dawn’s eyes widened in amazement. ‘Not Russ?’

‘God, no.’ She fought to calm the giggles.

‘Who then?’ Dawn was agog.

Kat was shaking her head, the laughter dying
now. ‘It meant nothing. It was just a dare thing.’

‘Dair?’

‘That’s right. A very stupid dare.’

Misunderstanding, Dawn thought the Dair in question was the bald, butch estate manager vying for her friend’s hand. Having secretly been very excited at the idea of finally reacquainting herself with him and finding out whether the Vin-Diesel-meets-Sean-Connery man of her dreams
matched the man she’d spent a drunken night with in Eardisford, she felt the wind dropping out of her sails.

‘He must be smitten,’ she said in a frozen voice.

‘It was just a wind-up.’ Kat glared at her empty glass. ‘I was tempted to call his bluff and say yes, but some dares aren’t worth the humiliation.’

‘You were
tempted
?’

‘Only to see the look on his face.’ She shrugged,
trying and failing to play it cool. ‘The trouble is, he thinks he can get anything he wants by snapping his fingers. I know he’s the hottest thing round here for miles – half the village ladies have burning crushes, and he’s going to inherit a small fortune, according to Russ’s cousins who are front of the queue – but I’m not playing truth or dare with him any more. They can all fight over
him.’

‘I had no idea he was so popular.’

‘They’ll all be after him at the Bollywood party.’

‘What Bollywood party?’ Dawn perked up.

‘We’re not invited,’ she waved a hand drunkenly, ‘although I’ve been dabbling with the idea of gate-crashing.’

‘I’m game for that,’ said Dawn, who had once sneaked into Jonathan Ross’s Hallowe’en fancy-dress party, thanks to three
pumpkins, a bin bag and a lot of chutzpah.

‘Have you brought your riding kit?’ Kat snorted.

‘Eh?’

The giggles were ripping through her again, and Dawn regretted doling out the wine quite so fast. In the old days, they’d be on their fifth vodka Red Bull before Kat reached the weeping-with-laughter stage. She was already wired, and not warming to Dawn’s millionaire-cruise suggestion.
Dawn was struck by how much happened in Eardisford compared to Watford. Suitors seemed to be as abundant here as hops, apples and cattle.

‘You need a real man,’ she said, ‘not some jumped-up Dair-devil, or that hippie drop-out you’ve adopted like one of the animals.’

The giggles had abated and Kat’s green eyes glittered. ‘I do
not
need a man, Dawn, even less a husband. Constance
didn’t order me to get married from her deathbed like some ancient Mrs Bennet on a bender, trying to palm me off on the first bloke with enough money to keep the dogs in Bonios. To her generation of women, marriage was a social requirement, and to ours it’s a choice, but she passionately believed in it. She told me to marry for love, remember.’

‘Because she didn’t?’

‘She married
for the love of Eardisford.’

‘Lighten up, Kat.’ Dawn reached for the brochure. ‘It’s just a fun holiday. I’m not really about to dash back up the aisle.’

‘I
am
light. I’m very light. Mine is the unbearable lightness of being single. I see the light!’

‘Would you like a coffee?’ Dawn asked. Kat was on inebriation fast-forward. She’d moved swiftly through the strident-debate
to the surreal-statement stage without drawing breath. Soon she would adopt the excited look she always wore when she was about to do something dangerous, but first came the burst of fury.

‘Who the fuck says love’s such a great thing anyway? It just hurts you. That’s why they call it falling in love. I’ve fallen a bit too hard lately, and it’s bloody painful.’

‘You’re
in love
?’ Dawn
gasped.

‘Of course not! Infatuated, maybe. Stupidly infatuated. Oh, shit, Dawn. All the time I’ve played truth or dare, I’ve been lying to myself
.
’ Leaping up, she hauled a saddle from a rack in the kitchen and reeled outside towards the yard.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Playing the forfeit. Bolting before the stable door’s closed.’

Dawn hurried after her friend, who was
lurching into a stable with an alarmed-looking horse that Dawn recognized as the evil two-tone one with the funny ears.

‘Kat, are you going riding?’

‘Yup.’

‘I hate to criticize your hosting skills, but I’ve only just arrived.’

‘I promise I won’t be long.’ Kat tacked the mare up clumsily, Sri now blinking in blue-eyed astonishment, curly ears flicking back and forth.
‘In about twenty minutes, you need to be standing by with the rubber ring, Dawn.’

Dawn stood back as she led the mare out into the yard. ‘Is that a bit of stable equipment?’

‘It’s a life-saving device.’ Kat grabbed her hat from a gatepost and crammed it on. ‘There’s one hanging up by the lake. I am
so
grateful for this, and I promise I’ll make it up to you. Wish me luck and make
sure the dogs don’t follow me.’ Kat mounted drunkenly and trotted away, almost falling off before she even got through the gate.

‘Er… how?’ asked Dawn, as several four-legged friends shot in Kat’s wake. Only the fat, milky-eyed Labrador stayed behind, waddling back into the cool of the house to try to work out how to get at the steaks.

Realizing she’d forgotten to say it – although
she had no idea what Kat was trying to do – Dawn raced after the fast-disappearing horse. ‘Good luck!’ she yelled, sprinting through the gate and turning to look down the track. ‘Good – Fuck!’

A huge shiny Range Rover grille was coming straight at her.

Seconds later, she found herself lying across a car bonnet. Through the tinted windscreen, she could see two worried eyes peering
at her from between the rims of dark glasses and the peak of a flat cap. A song she recognized was booming out of the stereo.

‘“Beautiful Dawn”,’ she gasped.

Kat felt as if her veins were filled with pure liquid courage. Suddenly she understood why all those mounted hunt followers swigged vast quantities of alcohol in order to gallop across country. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?
Riding the Bolt would be easy. Sri was super fit; she was ready. All Kat had needed was Dutch courage. Dougie had told her she had the talent and ability to do it and he was right.

They jogged through the coppices and along the headlands to Duke’s Wood at the far end of the estate and on to the folly. She tried not to think about the kiss they’d shared here, a kiss that had, for a brief
moment, made falling in love the most exciting and delicious freefall of her life – until minutes later when she had fallen off and landed back in reality with a bump.

As soon as she heard the clock ring out the quarter-hour, Kat urged the mare into a gallop. ‘We’ll do it, Sri. We’ll show them!’

She’d already ridden this part of the route at breakneck speed, but as soon as Kat set
off at full tilt, she knew she’d made several fundamental errors in deciding to ride it drunkenly on spec. One was her inability to see straight or steer; the other was that most of the gates were still shut. She was in serious danger of literally gate-crashing.

‘Whoa!’ She hauled Sri up at the first, clambered off to open it and lead her through, dragged it shut again, then hopped around
for what felt like minutes trying to get on again before pounding back into a belting canter, determined not to regret this, however dizzy she was feeling.

‘Are you all right?’ Dair had leaped out and now reached across Dawn sprawled on his bonnet to check for signs of life. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘I’m okay,’ Dawn assured the rugged, tweedy man, whom she didn’t recognize, although
she immediately clocked a vintage Rolex on his wrist that was probably worth more than she’d just sold her house for, along with a signet ring on his little finger that had an enticing crest on it. She definitely recalled them from her drunken night in the Eardisford Arms.

‘It’s Dawn, isn’t it?’ he was saying, tilting his head down to line up with hers. ‘Remember me? Alasdair Armitage?’

‘Dair! Fancy bumping into you like this.’ She beamed at him, and found herself looking at her own reflection in his mirrored dark glasses. Not bad for a crash victim, she decided, as she took in the casually tousled mane, wide eyes and car-show-model stance. He looked pretty impressive too – at least, the chin, which was all she could see, was fabulously square and manly.

‘I am
so
sorry,’ he was apologizing, offering his hand to help. ‘I was swerving to avoid the peacock, then thought I spotted a horse heading off the public bridleway. I simply didn’t see you running out.’

‘Honestly, I’m cool.’ She took the hand – lovely strong grip – but found she couldn’t get herself off the bonnet.

‘You
are
hurt.’ He reached up to pull off the dark glasses. His eyes were
the most amazing shade of caramel hazel and really rather kind. What was it Kat had called him? The hottest thing round here for miles?

‘Really, I’m fine. You were only doing about five miles an hour – I was probably the faster-moving object.’ She admired the leather interior through the windscreen at close range. It was immaculately tidy, she noted approvingly. Dave’s van had always been
a tip, which she hated.

He tugged a bit harder, but still she stayed put.

‘I think my bra straps have got caught up in the wipers,’ she explained, flapping her arms to demonstrate. ‘I’m trapped.’

Out of sight, Trevor let out a sympathetic cry as he strutted towards a wheel to give hell to a hubcap, pecking at Dair’s calf as he passed.

Dair jumped sideways. A nervous
smile flashed on and off. ‘I’m afraid I’m somewhat averse to large birds.’

‘I’m only a bloody size ten.’

‘I was referring to the peacock.’

‘Whoa!’ Kat dragged Sri to a halt again and jumped off to open another gate leading into the conifer woods. As she did so, she realized the wine had not only made her fearless and light-headed but had also gone straight through
her. She needed a wee urgently.

Hanging on to the reins with one hand and fumbling with her breeches with the other, she squatted between a mound of pine needles and a fringe of bracken. Sri regarded her with blue-eyed impatience, eager to get on, tugging back just as Kat got her knickers to her ankles so she keeled over into a patch of nettles. ‘Ouch!’

Alarmed by the shriek, Sri
pulled away further, and this time Kat was forced to let go of the reins. The mare stood a few feet away, watching disapprovingly as Kat hurriedly emptied her bladder.

At first, she thought the stinging around her knees and thighs was from the nettles, but then she saw her legs were crawling with wood ants, furious that she was weeing on their nest and determined to march across her bare
bits to enact revenge.

‘Ouch! Get off!’ Still mid-flow, she moved away in a crab-like walk, brushing them off frantically. As she did so, Sri threw her head up and whickered, ears pricking.

‘Oh, heck.’ Kat stumbled backwards as she heard hoofs approaching, catching her heel on a root and crashing back into the nettles once more. The ants were still everywhere. ‘Ouch!’

‘Kat?’
It was Dougie’s voice, dropping to click and coo as he caught Sri. ‘Are you okay? Did you fall off?’

‘Fine! Stay back!’ She fumbled frantically with her breeches, tipping off to one side and into a bank of ferns, the ants still clinging on and nipping angrily.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Just dropped my whip. Won’t be a sec.’

She burst out from the undergrowth to find him
looking down from an unfamiliar chestnut horse that backed away in alarm. The little Indian groom Gut was further back on a wiry Thoroughbred, alongside kennel man Rack on Worcester.

‘You’re not supposed to be here. This isn’t a bridle path.’

‘I was bolting but I’m too slow.’ She could hear the church clock ring out the next quarter, mocking her failure. The wine was still coursing
through her veins and the ants stinging, making her feel tetchy and belligerent as she glared up at him, all the more furious because he was so heart-turningly, stomach-kickingly good-looking, posing about in her life with those perfect cheekbones, jaw-line and straight nose, as though he was fresh from his trailer and a film camera was about to swing past on a wire at any moment.

‘What
the fuck possessed you to try now?’ His face hardened. ‘It’s way too dangerous.’

‘You told me to!’

‘Not like this. Not today.’

‘Well, I didn’t get too far as you can see.’ She clenched her buttocks tightly together as she felt an ant stinging its way beneath her pants.

‘Have you been drinking?’ he asked, watching in confusion as she shook one leg and did a few small
jumps.

‘Just a stirrup cup – you taught me the benefits of that,’ she bluffed as the ants grew increasingly aggressive and she had to jump up and down harder, throwing in a few leg stretches to make it look as though she was warming up. ‘I’ll ride on if that’s okay. I might not have made the time, but I’ll carry on with this run as far as the farm, unless you’re going to arrest me for trespass?’

‘Of course not.’ Dougie cleared his throat and glanced back at Gut and Rack, who were watching the encounter with interest. Turning to face her again, he eyed her warily before peering into the undergrowth behind her as though suspecting she’d been wiring up a hidden camera. ‘You mustn’t be seen here. There’s a lot of extra security this weekend.’

‘For Seth and his guests.’ With a
final few bunny hops, she took Sri’s reins back and remounted. ‘I know. It’s all right. I’m going. Gotta keep galloping.’

He looked anxiously at his companions. ‘I’ll ride with you.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ she muttered. She was desperate to get out of sight somewhere private, then remove her breeches and pants to shake the ants out. They were eating her alive now.

For a
moment Dougie’s horse barred her way, along with the intense blue eyes that chased hers for contact.

‘Your flies are undone.’

‘Thanks.’ She did them up and cantered off with as much dignity as she could muster, given she was still carrying a small colony of stinging insects in her underwear.

‘“Beautiful Dawn”.’

The two words rendered Dawn momentarily speechless.
Being wrestled manfully from the bonnet of a Range Rover by ‘the hottest man in Eardisford’ was alarming enough, but she couldn’t be entirely sure that he hadn’t just sung to her. It could be his accent, she reasoned, as she admired the cleft in his chin. He was taller than she remembered, and broader. And there was just one of him while there had been ten or twenty all spinning around last
time she’d looked.

‘It’s great to see you again.’ A shy smile appeared below the flat cap. ‘You’ve changed your hair colour.’

‘Do you like it?’

‘“Beautiful Dawn”.’

Oh, God, he
was
singing. Dawn had never admitted to music-snob friends like Kat that she’d played the James Blunt song on a loop on her iPlayer at the gym for months.

The man’s only just proposed to
your friend, the swine, Dawn reminded herself sternly. ‘Are you here to see Kat?’

‘I came to remind her about the ash dieback.’

‘Sounds like a colour treatment.’

‘It’s a tree disease. Need to check she knows about the felling this weekend. Dangerous to go near Duke’s Wood. Lots of big trees coming down.’

‘Timber!’ She beamed, admiring his neatly ironed checked shirt,
its contents pleasingly flat-stomached and lean-hipped. Surely if Kat had turned him down, it would do no harm to flirt. ‘I’ve always wanted to know more about lumber-jacking. Perhaps I can come and watch.’

‘Definitely not. It’s not something for ladies’ eyes.’

‘I’ve seen plenty of wood in my time.’

‘I’m sure you have.’

‘But of course there’s leather against willow
this weekend, which will be a sore sight for ladies’ eyes. I love cricket. I bet you’re a demon at the crease, aren’t you, Dair?’

Dair smiled stiffly. ‘I’m working all that day. Simulated game shooting.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Clay pigeons.’

‘What a shame. I love a man in whites. Would you like a drink? There’s a bottle of Prosecco open and I’m sure Kat won’t be long.’

He
glanced at his beautiful watch and grimaced. ‘I have to meet a plane. Will you and Kat be in the pub later?’

‘You can bet on it.’ She gave him the umpire signal for ‘six’, both hands in the air, fingers pointing up.

Bottom on fire with ant bites and nettle stings, head throbbing, Kat trotted back to Lake Farm and found Dawn in a state of squiffy agitation as she rushed outside
to meet her, wine glass in hand, having cracked into the second bottle. She was carrying the rubber ring.

‘I’m here!’

But Kat had already jumped off, landing on the ground and bouncing up and down as though the concrete yard was a trampoline, desperately trying to loosen the invaders from her knickers.

‘Aren’t you swimming?’ Dawn asked, as Kat quickly untacked Sri and pulled
out the hosepipe to wash her off.

‘What’s the point? I thought I could rise to the challenge with a bit of fire in my belly, but I might as well face the fact I’ve got no backbone left.’

‘Bollocks!’

‘I’m sorry, Dawn. I’m a shit friend. You know the stupid things I do when I’m drunk. It was selfish to leave you here.’

‘I always love the stupid things you do when you’re
drunk, Kat. And I’m
so
grateful you left me here. Really. It’s one of the best things you’ve ever done, buggering off like that. Hooray for doing stupid things when drunk. I will follow your lead.’

‘Sorry?’ Kat didn’t hear as the water jetted out of the end of the hose in loud splurting hiccups and she ran it across Sri’s patchwork body, bringing out strange blue freckles in her white sections.

Watching it pouring down on to the cobbles, Dawn remembered cheering Kat as she emerged pale, freckled and dripping from lakes and rivers to don a helmet and shoes ready to leap on a bike and pedal away furiously. The friends had swum together at the leisure centre two or three times a week when they were both nursing. She now turned to look out across the lake.

‘What if
I
cross it
first?’ she asked, seeing a way to help, and to feel less guilty about chatting up Dair.

‘You are kidding, right?’

‘Why not?’ She turned back. ‘What are you doing?’

Kat had the hose end in her breeches now, shuddering with cold and relief as she doused the ant stings in a soothing flow of water. She didn’t think Dawn was serious for a moment, knowing her tendency to talk things
up, then back out. But she hadn’t accounted for just how much wine Dawn had poured into an empty stomach.

‘If you see me doing it, you’ll know there’s nothing to be afraid of.’ Dawn pulled off her top to reveal a frilly red bra. ‘I still swim every week. I’ll leave the horse out of it for now, and I could do without that buffalo being around, but I don’t mind. I’ll be across it in two minutes.
Then we’ll do it together.’ She threw her T-shirt over a stable half-door, then took off her skirt.

Kat started to laugh. ‘You really are going to swim, aren’t you?’

‘Follow my lead!’ she shrieked, running towards the bank and diving in.

She resurfaced amid pond weed and alarmed duck calls. ‘Jesus! It’s cold!’

Kat switched off the hose and raced towards the bank. ‘You’re
mad! Come out at once!’

‘You’ll have to come in and get me.’ Dawn was already swimming out into the deeper water. ‘Fuck, my contact lenses have gone funny! I can’t see where I’m going!’ She started swimming in a loop, heading blindly towards the causeway and the weirs that took water down towards the millstream.

‘Turn left!’ Kat yelled, pulling off her wet breeches and cursing as
she tripped towards the rowing boat, the dogs running after her.

There was a frantic honking from the lake as one of the regular pairs of Canada geese started to warn Dawn not to get closer to his clutch of goslings.