The Country Escape (17 page)

‘The position starts on the first of May, so I must have your decision this week. This is a very important position, Dougie. There’s a lot riding on it.’

‘Including you when the season starts.’

‘I will not be taking part in field sports. My faith forbids it. Riding was my great-grandfather’s passion – he was a quite
brilliant cavalryman.’ His eyes darkened and he looked away, watching through the window as a plane came in to land. ‘I prefer flying.’

Dougie laughed incredulously. ‘So why buy the best sporting estate in England and fill it with huntsmen, game and quarry?’

‘It’s business.’ He stood up and held out his arm to administer another shoulder-loosening handshake. ‘I believe in personal
contact, which might seem weird for a shy kid who earned his first million sitting in his teenage bedroom creating social gaming networks. But that was why I did it. There’s nothing like floating your first company on the stock market before you’ve lost your virginity to get you out socializing.’

‘You’re probably not too old to join the Young Farmers.’

That big smile stretched horizon
wide, glowing like a city in a night sky. ‘Dollar’s right. You’re “exceptionally well suited”.’ He mimicked his assistant’s deep monotone. ‘I want you onside, Dougie, man.’

‘You’ll have my answer by the end of the week.’

Dougie drove to the equine clinic where the vet still hummed depressingly over a dull-eyed, wheezing Zephyr and upped his painkillers, recommending a specialist
hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber in Kentucky.

‘How do I get him there?’ Dougie was almost snapped out of his lethargy by the idea of a long road-trip, a mission to rehabilitate Zephyr, an escape from LA and Kiki, which didn’t involve poncing around a glorified stately theme park teaching Chinese manufacturing magnates how to shoot arrows.

‘We’ll fly him,’ the vet insisted. ‘Least
invasive, as long as we keep the oxygen and fluids pumped in. He’ll need a specialist travelling veterinary nurse, and our sister practice in Lexington will co-ordinate.’ The cost made Dougie’s jaw drop; the oxygen treatment alone was a thousand dollars a day.

‘For that money, I’d rather fly him to England to chill out at grass with Dad’s hunters,’ he said flatly. That was where he was
planning to send his old horse Harvey, if he could ever get through to Rupe.

‘It’s way too dangerous to fly him long haul yet,’ the vet insisted.

Filled with self-reproach, Dougie tried calling Rupe as he took the cab to his friends’ house in the hills, but it went to voice mail as usual.

There were six missed calls from Kiki and a lot of messages he didn’t bother to read
as he rang her at the studio to see if he could catch her between scenes. Her PA answered.

‘Like, doh? She’s not filming today, Dougs. I know you’ve had a shit week, honey – Kiki said it was like something outta
Black Beauty
– but surely you haven’t forgotten her birthday? I heard you guys had something really romantic planned this evening.’

Dougie thanked her politely, mood blackening.
He
had
forgotten and would now have to throw air kisses at his friends before turning straight around to kiss arse. His birthday surprise wasn’t going to go down too well either. Breaking the news that he’d been offered a year’s acting work on location minus the camera and crew might be a bit left-field, but meeting Seth had finally kicked a little of the old, cocky Dougie back into touch and
he was certain he could work things out. They needed some time apart. He could salvage this situation.

The party was in full swing in the little house. It was always in full swing here, and the neighbours, who had given up complaining long ago, were partying too. The place was packed. The friends fell on Dougie as if he were a long lost soldier back from the wars.

‘Where have you
been? Heard about the fire, you poor darling – have a drink. Have you met Charlie? Of course you have. You’re old buddies.’

‘I can’t stay long,’ he insisted, but he was soon flying on Wild Turkey, several lines of Colombia’s finest and the last nullifying traces of the Xanax to stop him spiking. He didn’t bother checking his watch. He felt valued and wanted here, something badly lacking
at home. He was a huge success by the standards of many friends, some struggling to get breaks in scriptwriting and production, their lavish LA lifestyle propped up by trust funds. He was a star turn. ‘Dougie was
amazing
in
High Noon
– did you see it? He is
so
talented.’

‘We worked together on
Ptolemy Finch and the Emerald Falcon
, d’you remember?’ He had been cornered by a very pretty blonde
outside by the pool.

‘Sure! Of
course
. How the devil are you?’ Dougie kissed her cheeks, not remembering her at all. She smelt lovely and was fresh-faced, reminding him of a Swedish au pair he’d had briefly as a child who had read him Roald Dahl in a sing-song voice. ‘I’ll never forget our date.’ She giggled. ‘You were
so
funny and so hot.’

‘Wasn’t I just?’ He was pretty wasted now,
so it was hard to keep just one of her in his line of vision. She kept splitting into two, but he kind of liked that. He’d always had a fantasy about identical twins. He woozily hoped he’d been funny and hot on their date in the witty and sexy sense, rather than in the wearing-too-many-layers-and-sweating-a-lot one.

‘I remember I told you I never sleep with a man on a first date so you
called the waiter over and booked a table for two hours’ time so you could take me straight back out to dinner.’ She laughed. ‘I said it didn’t work like that. But then you fell for Iris and we never went out again.’

‘Silly of me.’ He was trying hard to stop his eyes crossing and not slur his words. ‘We must make that second date some time.’

‘I’m free tonight.’

He had a vague
feeling he had to be somewhere, but he couldn’t grasp the details. When he phoned ahead to reserve his favourite restaurant table, there was some confusion.

‘You already have a table booked with us tonight, Mr Everett, sir.’

‘Well, that’s handy! What time?’

They had over an hour to kill. He told the cab driver to go to a club he knew where they served the best whisky sours
in Hollywood, but he was so wasted he kept getting the name wrong. He also started to feel seriously nauseous as the cab crawled towards West Hollywood in heavy traffic. The cough he’d had since the fire made him sound like a tuberculosis victim. He put his spinning head in his hands.

‘Are you okay?’

A warm arm reached around his shoulders, fingers tentatively stroking his hair.
She was so soft, sweet-smelling and motherly. He remembered back to that yurdy-gurdy voice reading about golden tickets and Oompa Loompas. He wanted to curl up in her lap. ‘I think I need to lie down.’

‘My apartment’s just off the next block.’

The identical twins in the small, pretty apartment went from fully clothed to naked in less time than it took Dougie to inhale the fresh white
lines laid out in the bathroom. He suddenly no longer wanted to curl up in her lap, or in their lap, although her lap was still very much where he wanted to be. As she split in two and re-formed again, like a reflection in a hall of mirrors, he blinked hard to keep those delicious, creamy curves in one place, then walked towards them, unbuttoning his shirt and smiling widely.

It wasn’t
the greatest sexual performance of Dougie’s life. The coke in the apartment had been far purer than the stuff at the party and he thought he was never going to come, the minutes rocking by as he moved her into every conceivable position to try to get his rocks off. Yet the blonde was acting as though this was the most amazing sex of her life, groaning and moaning ecstatically from the back of the
sofa, the tabletop, all fours, up against the wall and on her knees.

‘Are you an actress?’ he asked, guessing she’d seen a few closed sets.

‘Wardrobe assistant,’ she panted, as he flipped her over on the bed and plunged in from behind. ‘I was responsible for Purple’s armour.’

That was enough. The thought of that gleaming breastplate wrapped around Iris’s fragile torso, her
tiny waist and small upturned breasts enclosed in sculpted silver brought a rush of heat to his groin.

The girl screamed something sounding suspiciously like ‘Scrumdiddlyumptious!’, which rather put him off, but he was thankfully too far through to lose momentum.

Afterwards, he was ravenous and still extremely pissed, raiding her fridge and finding only a vitamin drink and some shrivelled
salad.

‘Hey, I’m not about to let you welsh on a date.’ She laughed, rushing towards the shower. ‘I’ve always wanted to eat in that place.’

He’d forgotten about the table in the restaurant, which was a legendary celebrity haunt. At least they were close enough to walk, and Dougie badly needed the fresh air. As he tripped along the sidewalk, he spotted paparazzi hovering near the
entrance.

‘We’d better enter separately,’ he muttered, hanging back. ‘You go in first.’

When Dougie sauntered into the restaurant five minutes later, Kiki was sitting at his favourite table with a pretty blonde whose body Dougie had been penetrating from every known angle just half an hour earlier. Having been shown there by the maître d’ when she gave Dougie’s name at the door,
the blonde wardrobe assistant was puce with embarrassment, too terrified to run.

‘Thank you for my birthday present,’ Kiki said, with carefully modulated calm, her pale eyes murderous.

For once, the smooth James Bond one-liner eluded him as he muttered, ‘Oh, fuck.’

Kiki coolly removed her engagement ring and hurled it at him.

Several camera phones captured Dougie at
his most ignoble as the ring hit him in the eye. The fact that he was too proud to scrabble around for it meant he’d just quadrupled his debts as he turned to leave, yet his heart felt lighter than it had in weeks. He had made up his mind. He was going hunting.

Holed up in his friends’ house in the hills, Dougie didn’t sober up during the week that he had to prepare to leave for the UK. Nor did he pack or talk to Abe about what he was doing. And he made no attempt to contact Kiki, despite
the furious missed calls queuing up on his phone. The only thing he did was organize for Zephyr to be transferred to Kentucky for his specialist rehabilitation treatment, borrowing the money to do so from one of the few long-suffering friends he hadn’t fingered for cash in recent weeks.

He also called Rupe’s number incessantly before giving up and ringing around mutual friends to try to
track him down.

‘He’s playing polo in Argentina, I think,’ an ex-girlfriend told him. ‘It’s a shame about the team.’

‘What about it?’ His waking nightmares of the past week seemed about to be proven real. ‘Are the horses okay?’

‘He sold them all, Dougie. Some big stunt trainer near Windsor bought the lot.’

Apoplectic, Dougie phoned every animal trainer in Berkshire.
He still owned a fifty per cent share of the team horses and a hundred per cent of Harvey. And it was the grey he really cared about. Harvey was family. It was like a child being sold without his permission. The other horses were well trained, needed jobs and would work hard for anybody who knew what they were doing. Harvey was old, crabby and eccentric with a mind of his own.

At last,
he found the new owner of the six stunt-trained Friesians and three Iberians.

‘Was there a big grey?’ Dougie demanded. ‘An old hunter.’

‘Never saw him.’

Just as Dougie was preparing to go to Argentina and wring Rupe’s neck until he coughed up Harvey’s whereabouts, a message came through from Buenos Aires.
Harv on his way to you! Used some of the money from selling others to
buy his passage to LA. Hope okay. Know you said you wanted him there. Look forward to catching your next movie. When’s the wedding? Rupe.

To the surprise of the international transporters who had just flown an ugly grey hunter from Heathrow to LAX, they were asked to fly him straight back.

‘I’m afraid there’s no availability for at least two weeks,’ they explained.

Dougie
was not in a mood to hang around. ‘I’ll take him hand luggage if I have to,’ he raged. ‘He’s trained to sit and his arse is smaller than most Americans’.’ He sent a message to Dollar that he would be travelling alongside his horse as soon as the transporter found him an available slot.

Such bloody-mindedness was a deliberate form of self-destruct enacted many times before in Dougie’s life,
leading him to be thrown out of school and officer-training corps, his ability to access authority thwarted by an over-controlling father. He fully expected Seth’s assistant to call to tell him the job offer was off. Instead, super-cool Dollar arrived at his bolthole in person the following day to escort the unshaven drunken hooligan to LAX.

‘I’m travelling with my horse!’ he ranted incoherently,
as she picked her way around the hung-over, post-orgy mess in the Hollywood Hills house to gather what few possessions he had.

‘Your horse’s transport is all in hand,’ she told him, in her deep, enunciated voice. ‘I have made alternative arrangements.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘A professional groom is travelling with him. He will touch down in England in about eight hours’
time.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘And you will arrive shortly afterwards, if we can get you on to an aeroplane without the crew smelling that you are drunk. I told Seth he should have sent Deepak with the private jet.’

‘Why didn’t he?’ he asked belligerently, swaying dramatically as he tried to put on a pair of shoes and almost fell over a girl asleep on the floor in her bikini.

‘Your horse is taking that.’

When he gaped at her in amazement, she tilted her blank face to one side and sighed. ‘It was a joke. You really are very drunk, aren’t you?’

She then forced him to knock back so much black coffee that he had to pee every twenty minutes.

On the plane, Dollar handed Dougie his new contract. It was almost thirty pages long.

‘I’m not
really into long, complicated airport reads,’ he apologized, reaching into his pockets for a pen so that he could sign it.

Dollar plucked it from his hand and laid out the contract in front of her. ‘We must run through the important points first,’ she insisted.

Huffing irritably, Dougie signalled for an air stewardess to order a large bourbon, which Dollar immediately cancelled,
asking for bottled water instead.

Dougie, who had hoped for first class, was disappointed to find himself crammed into business on a packed plane, small screens beaming out entertainment all around him. One of the films on offer was
High Noon
, he noticed wretchedly. A woman across the aisle was watching it and casting him discreet, excited looks. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep as
Dollar started going through the contract and its many stipulations. Among them was a non-drinking clause.

Dougie’s eyes flew open. ‘No way!’

‘All of Seth’s staff refrain from alcohol. It is company policy.’

‘Do you blood test that?’

‘Occasionally.’

‘Jesus!’

‘We also prefer that employees’ language is non-religious in the professional environment.’

‘Does that apply to the hounds too? Because I warn you, most hunting dogs speak in tongues. That was a joke,’ he added, when her eyes flashed dangerously. ‘You really are very sober, aren’t you?’

‘No, Mr Everett, you are just not particularly funny.’ Her voice dropped to a hiss. ‘I am aware that you have had a very difficult week, and I am prepared to make allowances for your current
state. But as soon as this plane lands, you are expected to respect Seth’s values and principles.’

‘Only if I sign the contract,’ he reminded her, closing his eyes belligerently. ‘You only got as far as the no drinking and blaspheming clauses. Is my sex life also subject to employer-authorized bullet points?’

‘I shall personally oversee that side as the need arises,’ she said, without
expression.

Dougie opened one eye, glanced across in surprised amusement, guessing her English had let her down. ‘Oh, I’m sure it will arise, especially for you.’

‘That is good to hear.’ The steady, dark gaze met his with a half-smile before she returned to her notes, and he suddenly wasn’t so sure her English had let her down at all.

Having donned a pair of dark
glasses to avoid the furtive stares of all the passengers around him now watching
High Noon
, Dougie drifted into a restless sleep while that monotone voice outlined details of the hunt work at Eardisford. He dreamed that he was dressed in black tie, pursuing robot prey with high-tech laser guns, waking groggily to consume a meal that defied his body clock. With much-needed carbohydrates on board,
he eyed Dollar again, feeling more like his old self. She really was incredibly pretty, her pink tongue savouring the plastic food – the vegetarian option – which she ate surprisingly fast.

‘I must warn you, I’m now on the rebound,’ he told her lazily, pushing the shades up on to his forehead.

She put down her teacup and swiped her tablet computer into life. ‘This is to your advantage.
I have information for you to read about Katherine Mason.’

‘Who?’

‘The girl who runs the sanctuary at Eardisford.’

‘Ah, yes, the one you want me to marry.’ He laughed, not believing for a moment that she seriously expected him to try.

But her big dark eyes were glowing from her blank face, as animated and sincere as he had seen them. ‘That is correct.’

‘And is
this a part of the contract?’ he humoured her.

‘Indeed. We will cover that section now.’

‘Does Seth know about it?’

She gave nothing away, her face as serene as the Madonna’s, the tablet screen her newborn Saviour as she gazed into it, her finger stroking its cheek to reveal a blurred photograph of a girl with a huge smile. ‘I am micro-managing your role. The details are down
to me. Seth approves of arranged marriages. He will soon be entering into one himself.’ Her voice tightened slightly. ‘I have now met with Katherine Mason personally and I think she will be receptive to this approach. She is not very intelligent and is extremely juvenile, but she is attractive sexually. It will not be difficult for you to seduce her into marrying you. If you succeed in that task,
you will be paid a one-million-pound bonus, tax free.’

He laughed, shaking his head. ‘Make it a billion and I’ll think about it.’

To his surprise, Dollar came close to a smile, the corners of her mouth definitely twitching. ‘This girl could be a very good match for you. You have a great deal in common.’

‘You just told me she’s juvenile and not very intelligent.’ He peered
at the photograph again. ‘I know your lot think marriage is best sorted out on a long distance Skype call to Aunt Jamila, but I prefer something a bit more intimate.’

‘Given your track record, I’d suggest Aunt Jamila’s judgement should definitely be taken into account,’ she said starchily. ‘I believe you have already had three marriage proposals accepted and you’re only thirty.’

‘That’s nothing. My father’s been married six times. Perhaps you should get him to do this for you. Admittedly he’s not much use with a bow and arrow, especially Cupid’s, but women adore him, he’s always strapped for cash and he rules by absolute decree as well as decree absolute. I’ll give him the heads-up if you like. Dad can follow the scent of fox and money better than any hound.’

She
ignored the outburst. ‘We’ll cover your legal costs should you need to divorce swiftly. It’s all in the contract.’

‘A contract wooing. How quaintly old-fashioned. And what makes you think this woman will ever agree to marry me?’

‘That problem is reflected in your pay scale,’ she said smoothly. ‘A million pounds is a great deal of money. And you are a very attractive man, a movie
star and an English aristocrat. What impressionable girl would not want to marry you?’

‘I can name three,’ he said idly, but his ego was feeling slightly bolstered again. He moved closer and dropped his voice to an intimate purr, eager to test her sexy, humourless cool. ‘Tell me, Dollar, are you Seth’s lover as well as his PA?’

‘I am neither. My Hindi job title is
Kali
– it is difficult
to translate, but it is more of a personal protection role. And as for my lover, I’m still interviewing.’ The half-smile twitched again and the dark eyes glowed as he remembered seeing them do in the ice hotel, a lightning fast intensity that was thrilling.

He beamed back, wondering how easy she would be to wind up. ‘In that case, when are you available for dinner, or can I take you straight
to bed for the oral interview?’

It was supposed to be a joke – and he knew it wasn’t his best – but to his surprise she said, ‘I will have to check my diary. I am not interested in dinner.’ Then she turned back to her tablet. ‘However, your attraction to me is irrelevant to this conversation. Your professional interest is in Katherine Mason.’

Dougie looked unenthusiastically at his
million-pound bonus on screen, a small, scruffy redhead. On first impressions, she was absolutely not his type. In a few grainy photographs, courtesy of a
Mail on Sunday
feature about the contested will, she looked like a wannabe Anne of Green Gables. Definitely a gold-digger, he decided, cashing in on a frail and vulnerable old lady in her dying months. He’d be more inclined to accept the job
of assassin than seducer.

Dollar started to scroll down and read: ‘Miss Mason is thirty. Her father was in the army, her mother is a classroom assistant. They divorced when she was eight. She has younger brothers who are twins, now in the army. Both her parents remarried, although her mother’s second marriage didn’t last. Katherine went to school in Watford where she achieved good grades
and subsequently trained to become a nurse. She was engaged at twenty-six to a firefighter, but the relationship ended two years later when she went to work for Constance Mytton-Gough. Nobody else appears to have been involved.

‘She was the primary live-in nurse and carer at Eardisford for one year, although the job was not expected to last so long because Mrs Mytton-Gough was very ill
when she started. But it seems she responded well to Miss Mason’s care and enjoyed a happy and active final year of life. The two became very close and made an agreement in which Miss Mason would remain at Eardisford to run the “animal sanctuary” after her boss’s death. This is why she resides at Lake Farm, where she is now living with a local man called Russell Hedges.’

‘She has a partner?’

‘It is a very recent relationship, we understand, and not serious.’

‘Can’t he marry her?’

‘We do not believe he is in a position to do so. I have printed out all these files for you to read, along with your contract and purchasing brief.’

‘Purchasing brief?’

‘We have shopping to do, Mr Everett. Seth believes Eardisford needs horses as a matter of urgency. His
advisers have drawn up a shortlist.’ She swiped her screen a few more times. ‘Appointments have been made to see them in the coming days. I will accompany you.’

‘I can sort out my own horses, thanks. I’ll make a few calls later.’

‘Please do not waste your time. These are the animals we are seeing.’

‘I thought the budget was mine to spend.’ He peered at photographs of several
classy-looking Thoroughbreds. ‘And these are racehorses, not hunters.’

‘Seth would like you to compete in a local race meeting next weekend. He feels it would be a good way for you to be introduced locally and raise your profile. These horses are all proven winners that have already been entered.’

‘It might have escaped your attention, but I’m not a jockey. He should have hired Frankie
Dettori.’

‘This race is for amateurs. I believe you have competed many times in the past.’ She was swiping her tablet again to bring up a photograph of a mud-splattered Dougie in brightly coloured silks receiving a bottle of champagne from an aged landowner in a wet field.