Venus Envy (25 page)

Ah, the country. How restful. How peaceful.

I hate bloody horses. I hate them Bastards. All they do is whisk their stupid tails and eat grass and fart, and .then stop to take a massive crap while everybody else s miles ahead of you.

My ass was numb, my thighs felt like I’d used a thighmaster and it had got locked at the widest point. My hands were white with straining on the reins. And I was also spattered with mud and I was sore and tired.

e’d gone up hill and down dale. Even though the woods were tinder-dry, we still managed to hit the only filthy patch in Gloucestershire by riding along ‘the banks of the stream’, as Mrs D kept enthusing. I was last in file, because Coach - obviously short for Slowcoach - refused anything faster than an amble and kept stopping to feed. And she was not a fussy eater. She had a go at twigs and branches and bushes. Whatever. She was Ellen’s spiritual horse. Being last meant everybody else’s animal had churned up the ground to liquid shit, and then their nasty little hooves kicked the mud up at me.

And everyone kept yelling, ‘Buck up, Alext’

Of course, the rest of the Sloane Rangers were

‘ having the most wonderful time. Dolores was riding up front with Seamus and Mrs D; at least I didn’t have to worry about him right now. Although what he said did make me queasy. It wasn’t easy getting the lousy job I had. Could he truly get me fired? With a dreadful reference, who’d take me on?

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Snowy and Charlie were locked in it. Flirting away like mad. Every time Snowy pulled ahead, she rose and fell in the saddle like real riders do. I was convinced it was just to give Charlie a better look at her butt.

‘Look at Dolores and Seamus. Isn’t it sweet?’ she said. Charlie nodded. ‘So marvellous, a good marriage.’ ‘Mmm, you’re lucky. To be so sure, I mean. How awful, if you picked the wrong person! You’d be stuck with them for the rest of your days.’

I couldn’t hear Charlie’s reply, but he looked thoughtful.

Gail was trotting along with Tom. My God, she had him spellbound.

I yanked Coach’s reins a bit harder, trying to pull her on to the bridleway. It was overgrown with bracken and thorns and there were midges everywhere.

‘Look at the marvellous blackberry flowers,’ said Mrs Jones loudly.

Charlie whipped his head round to encounter the freezing gaze of his motherin-law. ‘I ought to ride with Dolores Mahon,’ he muttered reluctantly.

‘Do whatever you like,’ Snowy whispered back, ‘but faint heart never won fair lady.’

.’You’re right. By God,’ Charlie said, and pulled his horse a little closer to Snowy’s. Maybe they didn’t realise how their words were carrying. I prayed that Coach wouldn’t decide to go for a late burst of speed, and drag me right into the middle of it. I supposed I

should have been more shocked, but I was beginning to think I’d been a bloody fool. Maybe all men were like this. Maybe none of them knew how to keep it in their pants.

When a man tells you it’s Tuesday, you should check the calendar, right?

‘You ought to have a little fun while you still can,’ Snowy said, her voice risen by a good octave, and she was breathing hard like she’d jus-t finished a marathon.

Her tits were swelling like a summer sea.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Well. After the wedding, you won’t be able to. Freedom will be a thing of the past.’ Charlie looked a

bit green. ‘But think of all the advantages,’ Snowy , went on, ‘your own wife to make love to every night.’

‘It’s not like that. Our - er - relationship, it’s not that physical,’ Charlie mumbled.

‘Mmm. How disappointing. If you were my husband, I’d insist on my conjugal rights.’

‘You would?’ Charlie stammered. His jodhpurs were beginning to strain with the most enormous erection. God, I couldn’t tell you how huge it was. You couldn’t exactly miss it, against the tight beige fabric. For a stupid second, I wondered if Tom was equally well endowed.

Oh well. What was I supposed to do about it? Fortunately Mrs Jones was riding slightly ahead, pointing out the lovely squirrels and the lovely butterflies, and Seamus and Dolores were still fighting, and Tom was dancing attendance on Gail. Coach decided she wanted some mouthfuls of bracken, which gave me a second.

Hmm. Seemed Ellen’s perfect wedding wasn’t so perfect after all, I thought triumphantly. Why should I be the only one whose lovelife was a crashing failure? Why should Ellen and her dragon of a mother and her coven of married harpies triumph over me and—

Suddenly I felt a little thrill of fear pass right through me. The bloody horse was speeding up. She paid no attention to my tugs on her bridle; in fact she started trotting, faster and faster. Oh shit.

Then suddenly she neighed loudly, ducked her head between her knees and gave a huge, plunging buck,

making me grab tight to the pommel of her saddle. ‘Bugger it, careful,’ shrieked Gillian Loman.

‘Alex! What the hell are you doing?’ squealed Gail, taking the opportunity to cling passively to Tom like a damsel in distress.

I would have said I was sorry, but I couldn’t speak in case all that came out of my mouth was a terrified moan. I squeezed my knees harder and harder round her podgy little stomach, but the nasty brute wouldn’t pay any attention, and turned the trot into a canter.

I couldn,t ride. I hated this. Shit! My breath was coming in Snowy-like gasps and I wanted to puke up. Slow down slow down oh God can everyone see me panicking?

Isn’t it amazing how you always fantasise yourself as calm and resolute in moments of terror, when what you actually are is a gibbering mass of cowardice?

I always have morbid deathbed fantasies. One of my favourites is being seated on a jumbo jet when both engines cut out, and as the plane goes down, and everybody’s screaming, I turn to my neighbour with a rueful smile and engage him in a passionate, defiant kiss.

Of course, my neighbour is always a handsome, single man. Not like in real life, where he is a fat bastard with bad breath or a spotty teenage mother clutching a puking baby. Also, in real life, I find I get reduced to tearful jelly at the slightest bit of turbulence (‘I don’t know why you’re gripping your arm-rests and pulling that rictus face,’ Gail sniped the last time, calmly reading her Vogue while our plastic spoons

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were jittering off the edge of the tray. ‘It’s not going to

keep the plane up’).

So there I was, wishing the hateful horse was dead

and thinking about Christopher Reeve, and trying to cling on, and not look down - when the galloping (OK, cantering, but it felt like galloping) shuddered to a crashing halt. I screamed as I was jolted forward, but a solid bulk blocked me, holding me still.

I squealed. Maybe I was a bit hysterical.

‘Easy! Easy,’ said a deep voice, and I glanced up and

it was Tom. He had my mount’s reins twisted in one hand, and was steadying me with the other. ‘It’s OK, Alex, you’re all right now.’

‘What do you mean, all right? Your fucking horse

‘ nearly killed me!’

‘I doubt you were in any danger,’ Tom soothed me,

with an annoying grin.

‘She wouldn’t slow down,’ I said tearfully, ‘I was squeezing and squeezing, she was going to bolt any minute, she’s a psycho.’

Tom tried to bite back a smile. ‘I thought you loved

those Jilly Cooper books.’

all’I do. In Jilly Cooper the ponies are all sweet. Not psychos like this thing.’

‘Uh, Alex - when you squeeze a horse’s tummy with your legs,’ Tom said gently, ‘you’re telling him to go faster. If you want him to slow down, you have to sort of lean back in the saddle and stick your legs out either side.’

He shows me this ridiculous ‘Farmer Giles of Ham’

type pose.

‘So I was making it go faster? It would have bolted

off?’ I asked urgently, because the others were catching

up now.

‘Maybe. She thought you wanted a gallop,’ Tom

said gravely, ‘but don’t worry, I knew you weren’t in control.’

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‘How?’ I snarled.

‘Because I know you,’ Tom said, looking right at

me.

To tell the truth, my emotions were seething. I was so relieved I could have cried, but I’d be damned if I came over all girly in front of Tom. I was grateful but resentful. Who would want to feel thankful to him?

I looked around me. We were in the middle of nowhere. Just a few feet ahead of me, the ground cut away. It was an old quarry. The Cotswold stone sides plunged a hundred feet straight down, but the horse probably wouldn’t have noticed that ‘til we were over the edge.

Tom saw my stricken face.

‘You weren’t going over that, Wilde.’

‘Tell that to Coach.’ A cold sweat had doused my body. ‘Yoaa saved me rushing into that.’

That sentence caused me such a fever of embarrassment I could scarcely look at him. It came out pretty begrudging, but so what?

It could have been worse. I could have betrayed the sudden, utterly ridiculous sensation rocking through me. Desire. Primal desire, actually, naked lust like I hadn’t felt in a long time. Not the mist-shrouded, gift wrapped mooning I had for Seamus, but something so dark it surprised me. Amazed me. A vivid picture of Tom Drummond, naked and solid, nothing romantic in his build, just a strong male animal with too much testosterone. Arrogant, yes, chauvinist, sure, but kind of sexy all the same. Like Mr Darcy. in those britches, or Sean Bean in Sharpe.

A type of bloke I’d always despised. And I wasn’t interested in Tom, I knew I wasn’t. This was just that feeling I’d read about, the life-urge, or something. You know, whenever you have a near-death encounter, you’re supposed to want to have sex immediately afterwards just to affirm you’re still alive.

That’s what this was. Hormones.

‘Hey.’ Tom looked down on me. His horse was taller than mine (and I’d have liked to make mine smaller still, about the size of some cans of Winalot), and he was rangy himself. Tom’s dark eyes were locked on to me with a curious light in them. ‘I

couldn’t do without the maid of honour.’

‘Yeah, whatever.’

‘And I’d have hated to upset the beautiful Gail.’ Gail, of course. How silly of me to think he didn’t used to fancy her, when we were at Oxford. Obviously he was just being polite. Why wouldn’t he fancy Gail? She weighs the same as a thistledown and she’s as delicate as a cobweb. Pure sexist gits like Tom are made for Gail. She would quit her job in a nanosecond and settle down to wearing Chanel and Philip Treacy hats, and having the odd baby for a nanny to look after.

‘Maybe she wouldn’t have been too upset. Black’s a great colour for Gail,’ I said bitterly.

.’A little sisterly disapproval?’

‘None of your business. I think we should be getting back,’ I told him, looking away. Yes, I definitely fancied him. I must have been going mad from the country air. Maybe it was the pesticides on the fields, because if I had been in my right mind I wouldn’t have given a damn about him hankering after Gail.

‘Let me check you first,’ he said, and before I could stop him he was running his hands across my body. Very sharp and professional, like he was still a soldier and he was looking for a concealed gun. His fingers were dry, precise. They didn’t pat, they didn’t stray, more’s the pity - now where did that come from? I didn’t truly want this rich egotist pawing me, did I?

Tom lifted his stubby fingers and tilted my face towards his. Oh man. The dry stroking, and now this. Thank God my jean jacket was more roomy than

Charlie’s jodhpurs, because my nipples had stiffened despite myself, and it was too balmy out here to pretend it was the wind.

He stared at me. Minutely. It was crying out for a kiss, this was, and for a second I thought he was going to do it, to tilt that square jaw down to me, but then he pulled back suddenly, like he was afraid of giving me the wrong impression.

‘You don’t look bruised.’

‘Not on the outside,’ I muttered.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Look, we have to get back, they’ll be worried. If you can tow this damned pig of a horse.’

‘Not much of a reader of Horse and Pony, I take it?’ Tom released Coach’s reins and moved round behind her. ‘Let’s have a look at her rump.’

I was pralysed with mortification at the thought of him having a look at mine while he was at it. Not that I cared, exactly, but let’s face it, my bottom is so big it’s twinned with a small village in France. It was probably spilling out over the saddle in a squishy and disgusting manner right then.

‘That’s one hell of an ass,’ Tom chuckled.

I pulled myself up to my full height, as far as it went. ‘You can talk, mate! You’re no Adonis yourself, you know. Besides, if I want personal comments I’ll ring my mother. Thank you .very much.’

There was a stupefied pause. ‘Not you, you nitwit, the horse!’ Its backside is covered in scratches. No wonder she bucked, she must have torn it on some brambles.’ .’

‘Oh,’ I replied lamely. Gail would have passed it off with casual insouciance, I’m sure, but I couldn’t be that cool.

‘Easy, girl, easy,’ Tom murmured, and pulled around to caress the horse’s ears. She snorted excitedly, the kiss-ass. If she thought I’d forgiven her for

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bolting just because of a few pesky stings, she was mistaken. That was how our cavalry troops beat the Cossacks, or whoever it was, was it?

I wouldn’t be coming round to her stall with a handful of Polos, I can tell you.

‘We’d better get her back and call the vet. He can

give her a shot for the pain,’ Tom told me. ‘Well. I need a shot for the shock.’ ‘What of?’ Tom asked blankly.

‘Brandy or whisky,’ I grinned, but Mr We Are Not Amused failed to crack a smile.

‘I hope you’re not going to get drunk and fling yourself at Seamus Mahon.’

‘Going to threaten to chuck me out again, are you?’

,

I asked nastily. ‘I thought we’d gone over this, Tom. I don’t need your lectures.’

‘Christ, will you listen to me for once?’ Tom ran a big paw through his thick dark hair. ‘I saw you earlier, locked in it with Seamus. And I’m not the only one, Alex. Everybody else saw you too - including Dolores.