Kiss and Tell Read online

  Fiona Walker lives in Worcestershire with her partner and two children plus an assortment of horses and dogs. Visit Fiona’s website at www.fionawalker.com

  Also by Fiona Walker

  French Relations

  Kiss Chase

  Well Groomed

  Snap Happy

  Between Males

  Lucy Talk

  Lots of Love

  Tongue in Cheek

  Four Play

  Love Hunt

  Copyright

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 978-0-748-12116-8

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 Fiona Walker

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  For the Horseman with whom I ride night and day;

  with all my love.

  Contents

  Also by Fiona Walker

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Cast List

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Epilogue

  Introduction

  Eventful Lives – and Dirty Weekends

  You have to be an optimist to want to gallop half a ton of super-fit horse over fences shaped like saw-mills, shotgun cartridges, boats, animals and houses. Brave, tough and incredibly upbeat, the event rider is a breed apart and quite the sexiest of all horsemen and women which, in a very sexy pastime indeed, makes them irresistible …

  Eventing is an equestrian sport originating from the cavalry Militaire, and is now hugely popular worldwide. Comprising three disciplines – dressage, cross-country and show-jumping – eventing is the definitive test of both horse and rider, requiring immense stamina, skill, versatility, finesse, dedication and, above all, guts. On a competitive level, riding across country is one of the greatest adrenalin fixes known to man, woman and horse; on a social level, it’s like attending a country house party every weekend with your closest chums all around you, gaining access to the most stunning estates in the country and partying in the park every night.

  By day, combinations are set three tasks to show their supremacy, like knights and their steeds at a medieval tournament. First they must perform a courtly dance, gymnastic floor exercises set out in a precise pattern, leaping and twirling exactly on the allotted marks and lines while judges all around narrow their eyes and look for faults; this is dressage. Then they must run a gruelling assault course within a given time, leaping huge obstacles, crossing gullies and risking life and limb; that’s the cross-country phase. Finally, exhausted now, they enter a gladiatorial arena filled with flimsy jumps to vault over accurately while the clock ticks down – the show-jumping phase. The prize money in eventing may vary dramatically – at some competitions winning barely covering fuel costs, at others the victor gets many tens of thousands – but glory is always magnificent, and the perks are sublime.

  Governed by British Eventing in the UK and the FEI (Fédération Equestre Internationale) internationally, affiliated horse trials are graded in difficulty from entry level (BE90 and BE100), through novice and intermediate to advanced. A CIC (Concours International Combiné) is a one- or two-day event ranging from one star (novice) to three star (advanced), and the stages are run as dressage, show-jumping and then finally cross-country. A CCI (Concours Complet International) is a three day event also of one, two and three stars, with the exclusive additional four-star level being the most difficult; the phases are run on successive days in the order of dressage, then cross-country, with show-jumping last. In actual fact, dressage often runs over two days, thus making it a four-day event, but that’s typical of eventers, who always give that little bit extra.

  Despite a reputation for upper-class elitism, it’s a refreshingly egalitarian sport in which men and women of all ages compete equally on horses of unique bravery and talent, in which princes and paupers ride side by side, where intense rivalries are matched by lifelong friendships, camaraderie and old-fashioned sportsmanship that’s rare in the modern world. Set against idyllic backdrops of grand country houses, ancient parkland and rich farmland, sunshine and mud, tight breeches and loose morals, dogs and wellies, toffs, farmers and tradesmen, silver spoons and shoestrings, horsepower and four-wheel drives, it’s the ultimate countryside fix at home and abroad with competitions held all over Europe, the States, Canada, Australasia and beyond.

  Here, it’s as British as a Range Rover full of black Labradors, a Pimm’s picnic on a checked blanket and sunshine and rain in June, with gung-ho galore and plenty of naughtiness behind the scenes …

  The UK horse trials season runs from March until October, with some international trials and special events taking place year round. Many event riders and their grooms spend much of the competitive season on the road, with their horseboxes acting as second homes, some luxuriously complete with wet rooms, flat-screen televisions, king-sized beds in slide-out pods and even wine coolers. Others offer little more than a sleeping bag on
straw bales. Horses are often stalled at events in temporary stabling, much like a military encampment, harking back to the sport’s beginnings, although with up-to-date security and state-of-the-art care.

  Despite its traditional roots, eventing is a thoroughly modern sport, employing a vast array of groundbreaking expertise, research and ever-more stringent rules. As in any high-risk sport, like skiing or motor racing, fatalities are regrettably inevitable, and much has been changed by the governing bodies to increase safety, from breakable cross-country fences to the introduction of inflatable body protectors for riders. Everything possible is done to make it safe, but nothing can take away from the sheer thrill of riding at speed across solid timber on a super-fit horse that can also perform a balletic dressage test and jump an obedient round over coloured poles.

  Event riders have a reputation for living fast, partying hard and making merry, along with their owners, supporters and trials organisers. The horses can be pretty badly behaved too – but what else can one expect from a sport that demands that extra red-blooded sparkle of genius?

  Cast List

  Hugo and Tash Beauchamp – the eventing world’s premier couple, based at Haydown in West Berkshire with their young family

  Alicia Beauchamp – Hugo’s mother, living on gin and Rothmans in the Dower House

  Beccy Sergeant – Tash’s stepsister, an inveterate drifter, just back from finding herself

  James and Henrietta French – Tash’s golf and gardening mad father and stepmother, enjoying retirement in Surrey

  Em and Tim – Henrietta’s older daughter and her husband, living with many young children and much stress in South London

  Faith Brakespear – a talented young dressage rider

  Anke and Graham Brakespear – Faith’s mother, a former Olympic rider turned bookshop owner and her haulier husband, living in the pretty Cotswolds village of Oddlode

  Magnus and Dilly – Faith’s brother and his girlfriend, rising musicians now living in Hackney

  Chad – Faith’s little brother, going through a permanent difficult phase

  Kurt and Graeme – Faith’s ‘gayfathers’, the dressage world’s premier couple, living in Essex

  Fearghal Moore – Faith’s birth father, an Irish horse dealer based in County Mayo

  Ingmar Olensen – Faith’s batty maternal grandfather

  Rory Midwinter – pewter-eyed young event rider and hell-raiser, proprietor of Overlodes Equestrian Centre

  Truffle Dacre-Hopkinson – his dilettante mother, currently between husbands

  Diana and Amos Gates – Rory’s sister and her husband, custodians of the Gunning Estate

  Spurs and Ellen Belling – Rory’s cousin and his wife, busy making babies

  Nell Cottrell – scourge of the young Lodes set, mother to baby Gigi, now dating Dillon Rafferty

  Milo – Nell’s long-term lover, impossibly married to his wife and career in Amsterdam

  Pete and Indigo Rafferty – the music industry’s legendary Rockfather and his young model wife, who is addicted to adopting orphans

  Dillon Rafferty – Pete’s son, a singer-songwriter turned Cotswolds organic farmer, currently enjoying a hugely successful comeback. Owns several event horses

  Pom and Berry – Dillon’s daughters, who live with ex-wife Fawn Johnston in the States

  Jules – a long-standing music industry friend, Sapphic muse and horse lover

  Sylva Frost – self-publicising pop-singing WAG turned Britain’s favourite single mum, constantly reinventing her fame

  Koloman and Hain – her two young sons

  Mama Szubiak – Sylva’s super-ambitious Slovak mother

  Hana and Zuzi – Sylva’s halfsister and her daughter

  Rodney Dunnet – long-suffering producer of Sylva’s reality TV show

  Lough Strachan – sexy New Zealand event rider, known as the Devil on Horseback

  Lemon – his head groom, a jokey failed jockey

  Alexandra and Pascal d’Eblouir, Polly – Tash’s mother, her French husband and their daughter, living in bohemian decrepitude between Paris and the Loire Valley

  Sophia and Ben Meredith, Lottie, Josh and Henry – Tash’s ex-model sister and her husband, the Earl of Malvern, and their family

  Matty and Sally French, Tom, Tor and Linus – Tash’s older brother, an earnest documentary maker, his bubbly wife and their children

  The Vs – The Beauchamps’ uncommunicative Czech au pairs, Vasilly and Veruschka

  Jenny – the Beauchamps’ cheerful head girl

  Franny – Hugo’s irascible former groom

  The Bells and the Carrolls – the Haydown tenant farmers

  Alf Vanner – Haydown’s woodland manager

  The Seatons and the Bucklands – owners of some of the Haydown event horses

  Penny and Gus Moncrieff – old eventing cronies of the Beauchamps, based in nearby Lime Tree Farm, perennially bickering and broke

  Angelo and Denise – landlords of The Olive Branch in Fosbourne Ducis

  Niall and Zoe O’Shaughnessy – Penny’s sister and her actor husband, parents of young twins

  India and Rufus Goldsmith – Zoe’s children from her first marriage

  Marie-Clair ‘MC’ Tucson – France’s first lady of eventing, living part-time in the States with her wealthy husband

  Stefan and Kirsty Johanssen – Swedish event rider and his Scottish wife, based in the States

  Lucy Field – the UK’s top-ranking female event rider, a flirty blonde

  Brian Sedgewick – Team GB’s three day event chef d’équipe

  Julia Ditton – ex event rider turned BBC commentator

  Venetia Gundry – Haydown’s most lascivious livery

  Gin and Tony Seaton – keen event followers and erstwhile owners

  The Bitches of Eastwick – the Beauchamps’ lazy Labradors

  The Rat Pack – Hugo’s terriers

  The Roadies – the Haydown guard dogs

  Beetroot – Tash’s ancient, eccentric mongrel

  Event horses Sir Galahad and gutsy Oil Tanker, plus home-bred siblings The Fox, Cub and Vixen, Tash’s kind-hearted mare Deep River, fearless Cœur d’Or, beautiful stallion Rio, faithful old White Lies, the brilliant Humpty, and far too many others to mention …

  Prologue

  Melbourne Three Day Event, five years earlier

  The mare was not the easiest of rides. She pulled hard, skewed left over fences and spooked away from the crowds. It was like riding a small, charging rhinoceros.

  In Melbourne as part of a whistle-stop tour to promote their training manual, Be Champions the Beauchamp Way, Tash and her husband Hugo had taken up Australian rider Sandy Hunter’s offer of rides at Victoria’s legendary three day event, the second oldest in the world. Sandy had been sidelined by injury at the last minute and her horses, fit and ready to run, were at the Beauchamps’ disposal. It was an irresistible offer; a top-ten result would be great for publicity. Hugo loved the challenge of chance rides, but Tash far preferred piloting her own horses, whom she knew and trusted after years working together.

  Snort, snort, snort, thump, thumpety, thump – jump! The little mare was a rubber ball that bounced around before take-off and never landed the same way twice, but boy could she jump. She ballooned a fairly inconsequential ditch and wheeled left, leaving Tash dangling for a moment, all her weight off centre before those famously long, grippy lower legs and those iron-girder stomach muscles set her right and she kicked on towards the big crowds around the water.

  Riding high on adrenalin and positive energy was familiar territory to Tash. She and Hugo had been on the crest of a wave all year, and today was no exception. As soon as she had finished riding across country they were booked for radio interviews, a lecture demonstration and then a sponsors’ dinner, at which they would speak. Tomorrow morning they would sign copies of their book before the final show-jumping stage of the competition. As soon as that was over they were flying out to Perth to continue thei
r book tour on the west coast. Garnering publicity was still an alien concept to Tash. This was what she knew best.

  Snort, snort, snort. Snatch snatch snatch. Head flying up, duck, dart, crouch.

  Utterly focused, contained between leg and hand, the mare prepared to take off at the big log in front of the water. Then, at the last minute, she spotted the wet expanse beyond and seemed to hang in the air, momentum dropping away from her, reluctant to get her feet wet.

  With an almighty combination of willpower, voice and inner prayers, Tash propelled the black mare far enough forwards to tip her athletic body into the drink and through it in several sloshing strides until they were out the other side, skewing over a narrow log that would have unseated a lesser rider.

  The spectators gave an appreciative roar and whooped applause at the sight of such good horsemanship.

  Tash, who loved the Australian eventing crowd – so raucous yet knowledgeable – patted the mare on the neck and then held up her hand in gratitude to the banks of cheering faces just a few feet away, flying past as she galloped away.

  A girl ran out of the crowd, the press later reported. A pretty girl: blonde, dressed in a vest, skirt and flip-flops, not the normal hardy spectator on a brisk June day. She ran straight in front of the mare.

  All Tash could remember was a blur of blonde hair and pale skin in her path. She heard her own cries of warning, the crowd gasping and shouting, and felt the wrench of the rein in one hand as she pulled the mare sharply left and the contradictory twist of half a ton of muscle, momentum and power beneath her as the mare swerved right. The girl was almost underneath them, so close that she must have felt the heat of the horse’s skin and breath. The mare stumbled, flailed on her knees and struggled to stay upright.

  A man in an All Blacks hoodie hurled himself from the crowd just in time to grapple the blonde girl to the ground and pull her away from the mare’s dancing legs, the two of them rolling across the muddy turf to safety.

  Thrown off balance, Tash was only stopped from falling over the horse’s left shoulder by her solid black neck swinging suddenly upwards and smacking her firmly on the crown, knocking her back into the saddle as the mare scrambled to her feet. Disoriented, yet still moving forwards in a lurching canter, they carried on towards the next fence while the girl and her dark saviour disappeared into the throng as quickly as they had appeared. Soon another competitor was splashing through the water to distract the crowd.