Country Lovers Read online

  Outside, Blair was summoning his dog pack with a sharp whistle. He held open the stable door, still watching Carly and her brood heading off in the direction of the turnout paddocks, craggy face amused. ‘I’ll hand it to you, Lester, you’re full of surprises. What d’you get for a tenner these days?’

  ‘Give them an inch they take a mile, her sort. She’s a lot to learn.’ Lester headed for the mounting block, affronted because he’d paid all the stud could afford.

  The Australian held his offside stirrup. ‘You keep a close eye on O’Brien, yeah?’

  ‘That goes without saying, Mr Robertson.’ He settled in the saddle.

  ‘I’m here if you need me, mate.’

  Surprised to find himself grateful for this unlikely alliance, Lester gave a nod, tightened his girth, then checked his watch. Ronnie had been speaking on the phone a long time. And Pax should be back by now. He remembered the owl shrieking on the house roof before dawn, thought about the phone call from the threatening American, and felt the cold press of unease again.

  ‘I need to speak with Mrs Ledwell before I go.’

  *

  What are those almond croissanty biscuits called? Bridge messaged her husband in Poland. When I google Rickylicky I just get a load of weird shit.

  Rogaliki, Aleš messaged back. I will bring you some home. And licky. He added a tongue and doughnut emojis, which Bridge was feeling too hungover to find funny.

  Need them this morning. Hungry. She added a few smiley emojis with heart eyes to make sweet nothing of her hangover.

  He sent a lot of winking ones winging straight back. I am just hungry for your body.

  Yawning, Bridge matched his winking faces, wrote Miss your tongue, baby and raised him some tongue-out winks before flipping screens to google rogaliki biscuits.

  His reply chimed as she scrolled through the ingredients.

  Want it now? He’d sent drooling emojis, plus a peach and an aubergine.

  Wondering if they had enough ground almonds in the larder, she distractedly gave him ten kissing emojis and multicoloured love hearts. It’s licking me in my mind.

  Aleš replied before she could navigate back to the recipe screen, his message bubble containing several thumbs-ups, okay hands, phallic-looking aeroplanes and a squinting face with its tongue out. I am coming, kochanie!

  What did that mean? Bridge looked at it curiously. Had he just self-pleasured? Had they been having emoji phone sex without her realising? She scrolled back up to the doughnut and decided perhaps it had been.

  Electing to be kind, she gave him a row of open-mouthed emojis and a Me too!

  It was only after pressing send that she spotted that her autocorrect had given Me Too a hashtag and made it look like a protest.

  *

  In Lester’s cottage, tethered to the wall by the tangled phone flex, Ronnie was fielding a call from her furious son-in-law. ‘Tishy has taken a stun gun to our marriage, fully intending to cut its throat and bleed it out!’

  Sounding like David Tennant playing the fifth act of a Shakespeare tragedy, and demanding to speak with his wife between long self-pitying monologues, he’d been banging on for ten minutes now, mostly self-aggrandised descriptions of what a good husband and father he was, with brief blasts of Othello rage. ‘I have done nothing to her and she’s destroyed us!’ Getting a sensible word in edgeways was like trying to parallel park a tank in a battlefield.

  ‘You know all about this, didn’t you?’ Mack was ranting.

  ‘No, I—’

  But he was off again, cutting across her to shout that he knew Ronnie was covering for her. She could only imagine at Pax’s frustration if this was what she had to deal with behind closed doors. Although mother-and-daughter talks were strictly verboten to Ronnie, she’d guessed Pax’s marriage was in trouble, unable to find her way across the glacier-filled chasm that still divided them. ‘Mack, I’ve just this moment got back. I’m not even sure where Pax is.’

  ‘With her fucking lover, fucking each other probably!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I heard him. Dad spoke with him! They’re together. Don’t deny it. They spent last night in a hotel.’

  ‘Gosh.’ Good for Pax.

  Cue another unstoppable tirade, extolling how virtuous he’d been – ‘there’ve been plenty of offers, Veronica, many temptations of the flesh laid in my path’ – and how Pax had no such qualms given all the marriage vows she’d broken in the last twenty-four hours.

  Ronnie turned as the cottage door opened with a blast of cold air. Blair came in, dark eyes questioning. She grimaced, listening as Mack as described his suicidal call to Pax while another man was in her room, and again that morning. ‘She gloated about it, Veronica.’ It didn’t sound at all like Pax, but Mack was reeling off times and soundbites. ‘She freely admitted that she’d picked up a complete stranger and spent the night with him!’ And now he started laying into her character, punching out words. ‘She was living like a slut when I first met her, so I might have guessed she’d revert to type. She’s not been herself for months. Not since you came back on the scene.’

  ‘Whoa, or this phone’s going down, Mack.’ She looked at Blair, who was holding up his hands and backing out. She held out a hand to stop him. ‘Are you saying that Pax has left you?’

  ‘At fifteen-eleven on Christmas Day, your daughter said, “This marriage is over”. A week later, she rubs her infidelity in my face. Make of that what you will.’

  She was still frantically trying to gather fact from vitriol. She’d never once imagined that Pax – so damning of her mother’s desertion, so determined to make amends by making her own family sacrosanct – would pull the plug on her marriage, let alone involve another man. It was a red rag to a bully like Mack.

  ‘She’ll never see Kes again!’ he raged. ‘When you see her, tell her I’ve taken legal advice and she is finished as a mother; Kes needs to be protected from you both!’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mack, let’s be sensible about this.’

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk!’ came a piercing interjection and Ronnie realised that Pax’s puritanical mother-in-law Mairi was sharing the call on speakerphone. ‘You abandoned your wee family. And that’s just what your silly girl is doing to hers. The sins of the mothers.’

  ‘This is not about me, Mairi,’ Ronnie snapped. Blair was beside her now, a warm hand on her shoulder.

  ‘This all started the moment you came back into her life!’ Mairi was still shrilling.

  ‘Pax is a grown woman.’ She mouthed ‘Where is Pax?’ to Blair. He mimed hands at a car steering wheel, then threw them wide in an aeroplane impersonation, which didn’t exactly help.

  Meanwhile, the voice in her ear had dropped an octave to a chilling alto. ‘Oh, you’re not getting out of it that easily, Veronica. Let’s talk straight, mother to mother. She will lose that wee bairn as surely as you lost yours if this ends in divorce. I’ve watched her, and it’s no way to raise a child. D’you know how much she drinks? If you ask me, you need to care for your own daughter a wee bit more and worry about the gee-gees less.’

  ‘I’m aware she’s been unhappy,’ Ronnie said carefully. She’d seen the light draining from behind her daughter’s eyes, the glass walls around her thickening, but theirs was such a fragile bond there was no possibility of rushing in to help, the sinner in her glass house unable to cast the first stone.

  ‘She’s an alcoholic!’ Mack bellowed. ‘If you can’t see that you’re an even lousier mother than I took you for.’

  Ronnie could hear Mairi hushing him. She felt a steel blade of fear, cold and familiar, run up through her. The sins of the fathers too. She’d guessed Pax drank too much, but to name it as a disease out loud made it feel far bigger, far more out of control.

  She took Blair’s hand, square fingered and calloused from riding and breaking horses, his fingers comfortingly familiar between hers as she pulled its weight onto her shoulder and leaned into him.

  Ronnie had no great
affection for her son-in-law, a man of her own generation, who was at best a well-meaning bully and at worst a judgemental control freak, but she knew silence bred mistrust in a break-up faster than bacteria. ‘Come back and talk it through with her, Mack. Your train’s booked for tomorrow, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’ll not be on it unless she agrees to give up whoever that bastard is. I’m willing to make a go of things for the sake of the boy and forget all this happened if she is.’

  ‘That’s not up to me to say…’ Ronnie hesitated.

  ‘Will you help save this marriage, Veronica?’ Mairi demanded.

  Ronnie remembered her own escape so vividly. She’d never wanted to go back to Johnny, not for a minute. But if anybody had offered her a way of keeping her children, however duplicitous, she’d have taken it without hesitation.

  ‘I’ll help in whatever way I can,’ she said.

  ‘In that case I’ll call back when you’ve spoken with her.’ Mack hung up without a farewell.

  Groaning with frustration, Ronnie turned to press her face gratefully into Blair’s chest, his collarbone hard against her forehead.

  His arms tightened around her. ‘She went to the airport to get your Horsemaker friend.’

  ‘He’s supposed to be in Ireland.’

  ‘Diverted in the fog, Lester says.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’ She closed her eyes. ‘That’s who Mack’s accusing her of spending the night with.’

  ‘Fast worker.’ Blair looked delighted.

  ‘Don’t even joke.’ She tried not to let her mind run with the idea, but it had already mugged it, remembering Luca’s wild reputation when she’d first known him in Germany, his effortless charm, the girls who hung on his every word, his skill with the most damaged hearts. He’d even tried to seduce her once, a very mannerly Lothario, rebuffed with no lost friendship. But that had been years ago. He’d surely calmed down. And Pax was in no fit state. Alcoholic… The word made her shudder afresh.

  ‘No, it’s absolutely not possible,’ she said, shaking her head sharply. ‘Oh, poor Pax. She’s going through hell and I land Luca on her.’

  ‘His plane made it onto the runway; I don’t think the fog was that bad.’

  ‘I always love your bad jokes in a crisis.’ She lifted her face to look up at Blair. ‘Goodness, I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘I’m not stopping,’ he reminded her, brow creasing regretfully.

  ‘Not even for one night?’ She reached up to stroke one of her own blonde hairs from his cheek, the curved bow of his lips ever tempting. Nobody kissed like Blair. But even with adultery, he was an all-or-nothing man.

  ‘You’ve enough going on here,’ he reminded her. The dark eyes glittered.

  She dismissed another spike of unease. ‘I could use a friend.’

  ‘What about your Horsemaker?’ A muscle ticked in his cheek. Much as he loved the idea of Luca tangoing her daughter straight from the arrivals gate to a Travelodge, his jealousy had played with the name too much to believe it either.

  ‘Nobody has an ounce of your…’ She lifted her other hand to his hair, letting its peppered weight slide between her fingers, beneath her nails. ‘You-ness.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he scolded gently, jerking back his head and beckoning her outside. ‘You’d better put Lester out of his misery. He’s waiting out there to speak to you.’

  She looked up at the clock; hounds would be moving off from the meet soon. It had to be life or death.

  The old stallion man was waiting beneath the clock-tower archway, rigid with impatience, creased face set in deepest disapproval, cob standing four square.

  Ronnie smiled up to him. ‘You look very smart. Sorry to keep you waiting.’

  ‘I’m concerned about Pax, Mrs L— Ronnie,’ he corrected himself with effort, still uncomfortable with first names.

  ‘She’s fine,’ she insisted brightly. ‘She and Luca are on their way, I gather.’

  ‘There was another telephone call for Mr O’Brien earlier.’ He cleared his throat. ‘An American gentleman, I think. He didn’t leave his name, but he was rather angry. He threatened to kill Mr O’Brien, in fact.’

  ‘Goodness, how alarming. Did he say why?’

  ‘Something about his daughter. I thought it best to mention it.’

  ‘Thank you, Lester. We must let you go or you’ll miss your sport.’ She dismissed him with a nod.

  ‘Jesus,’ Blair muttered under his breath as Lester clattered away, ‘perhaps I should bloody stay.’

  ‘Says the man who escaped one aristocratic father’s shotgun by running naked across a parterre full of Japanese tourists,’ she reminded him, not betraying the hard thudding of her heart, worrying about Pax again. ‘You won the advanced section the next day, as I recall.’

  ‘He’d better ride as well as you say.’ He looked at her incredulously.

  But Ronnie was watching Lester trot away stiffly, ordering Stubbs back to the yard which the little dog did with his ears back, joining them as his master disappeared behind the walled garden, velvet beagle hat bobbing as he kicked into a canter towards the path up through the orchards to the old drover’s track. ‘Poor Lester’s nose is terribly out of joint over all this.’

  ‘There’s more out of joint than just his nose. That man’s in a lot of pain.’

  ‘Oh God, you think so too? It’s his hips. I keep telling him to see a specialist. He’s terrified they’ll stop him riding. Lester will die in his boots.’

  ‘Sooner than you think if he doesn’t get himself fixed up.’

  ‘Maybe if I offered to pay for his op…’ Ronnie rolled a lip anxiously beneath her teeth. Lester’s endurance was spectacularly, nobly self-destructive.

  ‘You’re broke.’

  ‘I have a credit card.’

  ‘They’ll be hunting snowmen in hell before he takes your charity.’ He glanced across at the sleet-filled clouds rolling up along the horizon. ‘He’s that sort.’

  ‘My father called Lester the original iron man.’

  ‘He’s rusted.’ He reached for her hand and squeezed it in his calloused one. ‘I get that you need a rider. I’d just rather you’d chosen a different one.’

  Ronnie did too. The one rider she longed to share this place with was standing beside her. She leaned into Blair’s side briefly, breathing in his strength, needing her iron men more than ever, especially with her father gone and Pax’s marriage unravelling.

  Intuitive to her mood as always, he set off across the yard, taking her along with him. ‘Show me how that dun colt’s looking before I go. See if he can convince me to leave off retirement for another decade.’

  Ronnie followed, grateful for the brief diversion and its hidden message: they both knew the colt was their point on the horizon, a shared dream that might just outlive Blair’s marriage and her family rifts.

  As they approached the field, he swiftly let go of her hand. The dun colt was having a conversation with Carly Turner over the far fence at the far end of the farm track where she’d parked her buggy, the young mum holding up her chubby, pink-cheeked baby to talk to him while her two other children fed carrots to their big, battle-scarred dog.

  Like many ageing eventers accustomed to parking up in stately piles each weekend, Blair was an inveterate snob. ‘You’ll never get rid of that one.’

  ‘Why would I want to?’ Ronnie’s censorious look won her a brisk nod and crooked smile.

  ‘I swear she was hawking the fork at Lester earlier.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Soliciting.’

  ‘Good luck to her if she was.’ She waved at Carly, marching onwards. ‘You know better than anyone that the greatest talents need to set themselves impossible challenges. Like saving the stud for this chap to stand here.’ They both tilted their heads to admire the colt who, shaggy-coated and muddy, looked far from a future superstar. But to their trained eyes, he was pure gold, and one of the reasons Ronnie was determined to turn the family fortunes. He could be the best horse
her father had bred in a lifetime.

  ‘I still think you should sell me a leg,’ Blair complained. ‘It’d pay for an old man’s hip.’

  ‘Lester would never stand for emotional blackmail, ha ha.’ She ignored his groan with a defiant smile. ‘He agrees with me that we’re keeping every hair of this one in the Percy family name.’ Now within Carly’s earshot, she called out to wish her a happy new year.

  The young blonde was smilier than Ronnie had ever seen her. ‘Lester tell you I helped with the yard work this morning?’

  ‘How marvellous.’ She was pulling silly faces at the baby, then looked up as it registered. ‘Really? That’s so kind.’ She’d hoped she might volunteer.

  ‘He paid me,’ Carly added quickly.

  Ronnie felt her smile stiffen.

  ‘A tenner,’ Blair told her, which cheered her up again.

  ‘In that case, we’ll have to see if we can offer you something regularly.’

  Carly opened her mouth then closed it again.

  They all walked back together, Carly carrying her baby while Ronnie pushed the toddler in the buggy and earned a wry look from Blair. Perhaps she was overdoing fostering the young mum a little. But as well as bringing the welcome babble of small children’s laughter, Carly did have the makings of a rare, raw talent – that obsession for horses and the workaholic perfectionism, those extraordinary hands – which Ronnie knew her industry ran off, essential to her team. Lester was getting too old, and Luca never stayed anywhere long. Pax, who had possessed so much talent as a teenager, had made it clear there was no going back. Best of all, Carly was keen and cheap.

  ‘It’ll be lots of fun when Luca’s here,’ she promised, hoping Lester’s curmudgeonly management style hadn’t put her off helping again. ‘He’s generous to a fault and always the life and soul. This village will adore him; he even plays a fiddle.’ And all the husbands with pretty wives had better watch out, she added silently.

  ‘A fully loaded Celt,’ Blair glowered, grumpy once more.

  ‘Oh, I love the Irish!’ Carly looked pleased. ‘My friend says it’s all about the craic.’