The Country Escape (34 page)

‘The flat in Rickmansworth’s still available,’ Dawn told Kat when she called her for another after-bath debrief. ‘And Pervy Buyer’s had a cash offer,
so we’re back in business. I definitely think we should live together again. We had such a laugh as students.’

‘I’m going nowhere. This is the best fun I’ve had in ages.’

‘Just don’t forget how truly terrible Dougie Everett’s reputation is.’

‘Like the grey mare’s,’ said Kat, still reliving the feeling of pure power beneath her. ‘She just gave me the ride of my life.’

‘As soon as the house sale completes, I’m coming up to Herefordshire to see you,’ Dawn insisted. ‘Don’t do anything silly before then.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not nearly ready to ride the Bolt.’

‘I wasn’t talking about the Bolt.’

On the morning of the summer solstice, Kat found speckled grey Harvey in with her herd again. He was standing quietly beside the old hunter, nose to tail like two commuters on a tube train.

As she crossed the field to catch
him, Harvey bobbed his freckled face as though nodding in welcome, his eyes incredibly wise. Kat knew he was just shaking off flies, but there was something almost human about him – she half expected him to bow courteously again. When she led him back along the lime avenue and up the parkland ride to the estate stables, she heard him grunt as he walked, like an old man humming under his breath.

At the Eardisford yard, Gut managed an energetic mime to thank her for bringing the horse back and explain that Dougie and his kennel man were out with the hounds. But by lunchtime Harvey had broken back in with the retired herd again and was nibbling the old hunter’s withers.

This time when Kat took him back, Gut mimed that Dougie was at the feed merchants, although it could have
been that he was at lunch or possibly even committing hara-kiri.

An hour later, Kat heard excited whinnies from the horse field and groaned. She went to the gate to find Harvey and the hunter racing around like a pair of youngsters.

The klaxon was ringing to alert her to a land-line call, and she found Dougie on the line, profuse with apologies. ‘He’s with you again, isn’t he?’ His
voice was fabulous on the phone – that husky, clipped timbre like warm oil in an aching ear. ‘The old grey bugger can get out of any field or stable if he sets his mind to it.’

‘Perhaps he should stay with me for a bit,’ Kat suggested, quashing a ridiculous suspicion that she was being set up, especially when Dougie said he’d personally bring him Berwick Cockles as well as paying for his
keep. But Harvey’s presence seemed to soothe the old grey hunter, which had now stopped charging lamely alongside the rails and hedges in search of poor Sid. Exhausted after his grief-stricken week, he was happy to nod off under the big chestnut tree with his new chum, ears flopping, one hind hoof rested on its toe.

‘He can stay as long as he likes.’ She was glad that her herd was happy
again.

Feeling guilty that she’d refused to offer Dougie a drink the previous evening, Kat brought cake and home-brewed cider in a backpack, which she and Sri reduced to fizz and crumbs as they jogged all the way to the hidden meadow, anticipating a full-throttle gallop. It was only when she was almost there that she realized Harvey had jumped out of his newly adopted field and
followed them.

Dougie was on foot for once, standing knee-deep in grass that was as golden-blond as his hair in the evening sun, and from which Quiver the puppy bounded to catch the old tennis ball he was throwing for him. He laughed as Harvey loped up and nuzzled his jeans pockets for mints. ‘Let him watch if he wants to,’ he told Kat, who was shrugging off her backpack while Sri danced
sideways. ‘Give her five minutes’ warm-up then take her for a gallop and see how you do.’

‘On my own?’

‘I think it’s having another horse with her that winds her up so much. You’ll be riding the Bolt on your own, so it makes sense to find out now. Would you like me to take her for a pipe-opener first?’

‘No, I’m fine,’ she insisted, too proud to admit how wimpy she suddenly
felt. ‘What about Harvey?’

‘Harv’ll stay where the cake is.’ He settled back in the grass to share some of the sweet crumb rubble with the grey horse. ‘This is seriously good. Did you make it?’

Kat was too anxious to discuss her baking prowess as she let Sri trot round, half listening to Dougie chat easily about his hounds. ‘People see the pack as a whole entity, but they’re wildly
differing characters, all such amazing individuals. Humbug is the joker, Horace the old pedant, Hawthorn the flirt. There’s one called Honour reminds me of you. Her coat’s unbroken chestnut, which is unusual for a hound. She’s always getting into scrapes, setting off on her own course.’

Kat found being compared to a wayward hound strangely cheering compared to his usual heavy-handed flattery,
although as he watched her, she was aware that her hair, which hadn’t been washed for three days, was a matted tangle in a lumpy plait secured with a post-office elastic band.

‘We need to take this a lot faster.’ His tone changed and he stood up. ‘Move her into canter and get up off the saddle so I can admire that gorgeous arse of yours, which remains my primary motivation for coming here,
although the cake is a revelation. You’d be a very easy woman to fall in love with, Kat. I’m halfway there already.’

Kat was too flustered by the charm attack to notice that Sri didn’t buck once. ‘Do you flirt with everybody?’

The big smile revolved as she circled round him. ‘Do you ever flirt with anybody?’

‘I can flirt.’

‘I dare you.’

She glanced at him, wishing
her body didn’t leap each time he issued a challenge. ‘Why would I want to encourage you?’

‘Because we’re attracted to each other,’ he said simply, turning faster now as he watched her careering around him. ‘You can’t deny it.’

Kat said nothing, aware that she was blushing furiously. She could feel her nipples hard as bullets against the hefty strapping of her sports bra, grateful
that it was thick enough to hide the obvious double thumbs-up of agreement.

‘I think you’ve warmed up enough.’ He grinned. ‘Off you go.’

Delighted to escape the flirtatious interrogation, Kat laced her hands through the chestnut and white mane as she turned the mare to face the open arc of the meadow, closing her eyes tight and urging Sri onwards. Only too happy to oblige, she surged
into action and this time stayed on a straight line. As they pounded across the turf, Kat opened her eyes, looked through those curved ears and whooped. The sunset was in her sights, warm air rushing past her face. It was heaven.

Leaving Dougie far behind, Quiver’s excited barking fading away, they thundered along the springiest stripe of turf, sending up skylarks in front of them and great
divots in their wake as they ate up the ground between the millstream track and the nursery lake.

Then the water came closer, a sheet of gleaming gold guarded by the rows of newly planted maple whips, like spears. Kat tugged ineffectually at the reins, but nothing happened. They slalomed through the little trees, plastic wraps rattling against the mare’s legs.

‘Whoa!’ she bellowed,
heaving all her weight against the slipping reins, but that just made Sri plunge her head around and increase her pace.

Dougie had taught her how to go fast, Kat realized, but not how to stop. The mare seemed blinded by the sun, not knowing what lay ahead.

On the brink of the lake, Sri suddenly saw the water and swerved dramatically right. Kat flew from the saddle and saw the water
come towards her like the sky turned upside down.

The cold, whooshing suffocation that engulfed her stopped all thought. Eyes closed, ears muffled, breath halted, she let herself sink, let the heavy cage start to form round her stultified body.

Then, like a harpoon flying in her wake and spearing her consciousness to register pain, the fight came bursting out of her, legs and arms
thrashing, water roaring in her ears, eyes blinking through the weed-choked gloom for the light.

As she fought her way back to the surface and erupted through it, she saw Sri’s wall eyes gazing down at her worriedly, joined seconds later by a far brighter, long-lashed blue pair as Dougie rushed to the edge of the lake.

Her first, illogical, thought was, how on earth had he got there
so fast? Then she felt a tremendous tug from below as the reeds dragged her down again.

She thrashed away from them, resurfacing with a desperate gasp for air as Dougie was hauling off his sweater and tearing off his shoes to dive in, sending a great bow wave over her so that they both disappeared beneath the surface. She saw his arm flail past in the gloom, his legs kicking away the reeds
that entwined themselves around him too as he swam towards her.

But Kat was already at the bank, the water turning opaque with mud as she scrabbled out, coughing up great lungfuls of water.

Dougie dragged himself up alongside her, pulling her to his side, rubbing her cold arms. ‘It’s okay. You’re fine. Ssh. What the fuck happened?’

Kat looked up into his eyes, so blue and
intense. His lashes were all wet, she noticed. She tried to say, ‘I couldn’t stop,’ but it came out as gobbledygook because her teeth were chattering. To her embarrassment, she started crying.

It took Dougie a while to piece together what she was saying, all the time trying to warm her, the sweater he’d abandoned on the bank now swamping her narrow shoulders, her water-filled boots
and sodden breeches pulled off and baking in the evening sun. He’d never known anyone shake as much.

It hadn’t quite been the heroic rescue he’d envisaged during those last lung-burning, mind-racing yards of sprinting to the lake. Kat had saved herself long before he could be of use. But the incident had taught Dougie two things: first, that Harvey still relished being ridden and was remarkably
healthy – the two had galloped the length of Lush Bottom faster than Pegasus, both burping cake all the way – and, second, that he cared enough about Kat Mason to risk life and limb for her. His own safety was something he gambled on a regular basis, but risking Harvey meant that Kat had now got beneath his skin.

‘You can’t swim?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m a strong swimmer. Something
happened when I was a kid that meant I took every life-saving and swimming award I could. I thought it would make it better.’

Kat’s parents hadn’t allowed her pets: the restrictions of army life in her early childhood had meant too many moves and unsuitable accommodation, and then, after the divorce, her mother blamed lack of money and time. But when they had settled in Watford, she’d been
allowed to walk the neighbours’ small, cat-hating elderly Heinz 57 dog after school.

‘My friend and me used to take him along the canal towpath in Cassiobury Park.’ She drew her knees up to her chest, pulling the jumper over them and down to her ankles. ‘One day there was a barge going down in the lock that had a cat sun-bathing on the roof. I was busy talking and didn’t even see what happened,
but he must have lunged at it because the next thing he was between the boat and the side of the lock, with all the water coming in through the lock gates, six feet below me. I jumped in after him, but he’d gone under the barge in the water swell and I couldn’t reach him, couldn’t stay under long enough. Then the boat moved against the side wall and trapped him down there. The people on board
didn’t know what was going on until my friend raised the alarm, but it was too late by then. The dog had already drowned. It was my fault.’

‘Of course it wasn’t! You risked your life trying to save him. You were just a child.’

‘I started taking extra swimming classes afterwards. I even competed for my local club in open-water races and triathlon. I used to have a bit of a reputation
at school for being fearless.’ She looked at the lake with a sad smile at the irony of it. ‘Give me an extreme sport and I’d try it. Dare me, and I’d do it. Adrenalin was my addiction, but water remained my enemy, however many times I took it on.’

‘And you’re still afraid of it now?’

She pressed her white-knuckled fists to her mouth. ‘It’s one of the reasons I came here.’

‘Funny place to escape from water.’ He followed her gaze across the lake. ‘You practically live on an island.’

‘I hadn’t realized Constance would set me up quite so royally with aversion therapy, once she found out why I’d left Nick and how screwed up I still was about it. She insisted I just needed to jump straight in,’ she remembered with a wry smile. ‘She was probably right. I’m still
here, still trying. I swear Sri’s her ghost sometimes.’ She glanced across at the mare standing companionably with Harvey. ‘That move just now was pure Mytton.’

‘Nick was a boyfriend?’ he asked, already feeling illogically jealous.

She nodded. ‘We were engaged.’

‘What made you break it off?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s the past. I’ve buried it.’

‘Not if it makes
you terrified of water.’

‘I’ll be better next time.’ She stared at the lake. ‘It was the shock, that’s all.’

But Dougie wouldn’t let it go. If whatever had happened had made her run here from Watford, it had to have been serious, and the bastard who was responsible deserved to suffer. ‘Did your fiancé hurt you?’

She didn’t answer.

‘My guess is he tried to drown you.
Where was it? In a lake like this? Out at sea? At home in the bath?’

‘It was an accident,’ she said quickly.

‘Now you have to tell me.’

She turned to look at him, green eyes unblinking, realizing she’d fallen into a trap. She didn’t have to tell him, of course, but Dougie knew she would. She possessed that brand of honourable honesty in common with his closest allies.

‘We’d been at a boozy Sunday lunch in the pub with some friends.’ Her voice was flat and hurried, dispensing with any preamble. ‘They’d been badgering us to name the day, and Nick was all for it, joking that we were planning an extreme sports wedding. I’d known it wasn’t working out for months, but Nick was in total denial and just refused to listen. He’d become really overbearing and aggressive.
I was frightened of him. That day he’d talked all over me yet again and I’d had enough. We’d had a lot to drink and it gave me the courage I needed. When we went to Cassiobury Park to walk off the wine, I told him I wanted to call off the engagement.

‘He tried to make out it was all a big joke, but I just kept repeating myself until it went in. It was only when I gave him the ring back
that he knew I was completely serious. Then he got really mad, and accused me of trying to humiliate him. He was apoplectic. He made a big gesture of throwing the ring into the river before remembering it had cost almost as much as his car, so he waded in after it. We were by the reed beds, not far from the point where the river and canal merge near the lock where I’d jumped in after the dog as a
child. Nick knew all about that, of course, and started shouting at me because I wasn’t helping him, goading me that I’d tried to save a drowning dog but not our relationship. He kept diving down to look for the ring. Then he disappeared right under and didn’t come up. When I swam out to save him, he pulled me under and held me there.’