The Country Escape (45 page)

If the biblical silence that fell when Kat walked into the Eardisford Arms told her instantly that she was at the centre of a village scandal, the fact that Dawn and Dair didn’t appear to register it told her they were in the centre
of an equally big and unexpected village romance.

Mags frantically beckoned her to the bar. ‘Is it true?’ she stage-whispered, already pouring her a free pint. ‘Did he really propose?’

‘Give him a chance, they’re only just sitting down.’ Kat watched Dair holding back a chair for Dawn at the table by the unlit fire, where his obedient pointers were already
in situ
amid the resident
terriers, watching their master jealously. Was it her imagination or was Dair bowing now?

‘I’m talking about Dougie Everett,’ Mags pursued. ‘I mean, we know he was paid to marry you, but I hear he actually
popped the question
?’

‘What’d you say?’

‘She said, no, o’ course.’

Kat pulled out her biggest smile. She had an audience several earthmen deep. ‘This has been blown
out of all proportion,’ she assured them. ‘Really. It was just a joke.’

‘Not what we heard.’

‘Trying to get you out of the farm, he is.’

‘The Hon Con would be tossing in her grave.’

‘We’ll get the bastard for this.’

‘Leading a poor young girl astray, and him a Hollywood star.’

‘Did he give you one?’

Kat deflected the attention as best she could,
smile to the fore, wishing she had her own bubble to climb into as Dawn and Dair clearly had. There was a chair for her at their table, but she hung back, preferring to take her chances with the Greek chorus, however gladiatorial, than to muddy the waters between Orpheus and Eurydice.

She’d thought the drunken tête-à-tête between them on her friend’s first visit had been a one-off, but
within minutes of Dawn buying Dair a pint, the two were going heart to heart as well as nose to nose, comparing house-selling horror stories, box-set viewing tastes, quiz-show favourites and some alarmingly right-wing views about immigration. Seeing them together again, it was blatantly obvious they got on famously, Dawn providing the bubbles to Dair’s dry sophistication. And they looked good together
too, Kat was surprised to note. Suddenly Dair looked more Bruce Willis than William Hague, manning up alongside such feminine glamour; and cast against his tweedy splendour, Dawn was less a gaudy urban bird of paradise than a kingfisher.

‘There’s chemistry there.’ Mags sighed and the earthmen united in agreement as they watched Dair and Dawn laughing, body-mirroring, self-grooming, touching
fingers and drinking like fish.

‘Make a nice couple.’

‘Needs a wife, does Dair.’

‘He’s a good catch.’

‘Lovely man.’

‘Backbone of Eardisford.’

‘How can you
say
that?’ Kat lamented. ‘He’s a terrible shit-stirrer.’

‘Can’t avoid shit if you work with beasts and earth.’

‘Oh, stop being so bloody rural. This is my lovely mate. With
Dair
.’

Kat had a suspicion that Dawn saw trips to Herefordshire like the stress-busting all-night benders they’d once enjoyed as students, then later on package holidays and hen nights where different rules had applied. When Dawn let her hair down, her common sense went with it. Her dodgy male conquests had once been legendary, along with her table-dancing, gate-crashing high spirits. From what Kat could
gather, she had adopted much the same philosophy while on board the cruise ships, but with less bed-hopping and more tabletop tangoing. The last few weeks had clearly stressed her out enormously, and tonight she was letting her hair down with old-style binge-drinking bravado.

She was skipping towards the Ladies now, dark glasses on top of her head, and, to Kat’s horror, blowing a kiss to
Dair over her shoulder as she went. Just as alarmingly, he blew one back. Kat stalked hurriedly after her for a private loo consultation.

‘Kat, is that you? Dair’s offered to buy us dinner,’ Dawn said happily, through the cubicle door. ‘So kind.’

While Kat knew her friend could certainly do with something to soak up the booze, she wasn’t keen on sitting between the two if they were
blowing kisses after the garlic mushrooms and talking about claw-back agreements and
Game of Thrones
. ‘We can’t leave the dogs much longer, and Jed’s already putting us together a take-out.’

‘Don’t be a spoilsport.’ Dawn burst out to wash her hands before rearranging her breasts inside her balcony bra, her dark glasses falling back on to her nose.

‘Dair’s got a big day tomorrow.’
Kat tried another tack. ‘Best not keep him out late.’

‘Ah, yes, the Russian shooting guest. Apparently he’s a r
eally
big player. Dair says Dougie Everett’s in deep shit because he refused to take him hunting out of season or something.’

‘He did?’ She levered up her friend’s dark glasses to stare into her eyes. ‘He refused to hunt?’

‘Dair thinks he’ll be out of a job soon.’

They turned as two girl grooms bustled in for a confab, eager to claim the Eardisford Arms ladies’ sanctuary for themselves.

Dawn quickly applied more lip gloss, betraying how drunk she was when the sponge applicator shot up her nose. ‘
Please
say it’s cool with you to stay and eat here, Kat.’

‘It’s cool to stay and eat here.’ She sighed, smiling at the way Dawn’s face lit up.
‘But I do have to go and check the animals, so I’ll bring the car back to pick you up.’

‘Are you sure?’ Dawn hugged her.

‘Please have a big pudding and lots of coffee.’

‘I promise I’ll behave. No boffing while you’re gone. Shit Friend of the Year Award transfers to me.’ Her voice dropped from a whisper to a breath in Kat’s ear. ‘I
really
fancy him. That’s the one thing you
forgot to tell me when I woke up with Hopflask amnesia.’

Kat was taken aback. ‘Are you talking shag, marry or die, or really fancy?’

‘I’m talking shag him, marry him, die for him. He’s just my type. You
know
he’s just my type.’

‘I genuinely didn’t.’ She laughed, bewildered but pleased. ‘And you have every right to call this one. You have maximum respect. You swam the lake.’

‘You’ll do it. Follow my lead, remember?’ Dawn rushed for the door.

‘Nose!’ Kat called her back, fetching a hunk of loo roll to remove the lip gloss.

‘I haven’t felt so attracted to a man since before I was married.’ Dawn blotted it gratefully, pulling off the dark glasses, eyes no longer sore and red but glittering like smoky quartz. ‘I don’t even care if he sees it. It’s
like being drunk on lust.’

‘That’s just because you’re drunk, Dawn.’

When Kat headed back to the bar to fetch her bag, talk had moved on to Seth’s arrival at Eardisford.

‘You should have seen all the blacked-out cars arriving earlier – it was like one of those earth summits.’ Mags was holding court. ‘And there’ve been helicopters this evening. I thought Russ would
be casing the joint, but he’s still at nets.’

‘We all know how obsessive Russ is about cricket.’ One earthman cleared his throat.

Another chortled, ‘The only thing guaranteed to distract young Hedges from wild animals is cricket.’

Kat’s suspicions were alerted. ‘Is he really at nets?’ she asked Mags, realizing most of the village cricket team were drinking around her. It was
unlike Russ to keep such a low profile.

‘You know Russ.’ Mags wiped the bar with a cloth. ‘If he says he’s at nets, he’s at nets. He’s as honest as the day’s long, that boy. And days are long this time of year.’ She looked up, her wide face at its most cheerily blank, a round apple of life-is-rosy reassurance. ‘What are you wearing to the Bollywood party, Kat? Think I can get away with
my fox costume and a turban?’

‘I’m not invited.’

‘Course you are. Everyone is. Check your post-box, you daft cow. More cider?’

‘No, thanks. I’ve got to get back to the farm. Whatever you do, don’t let Dair buy Dawn any Hopflasks, Jägermeisters or flaming sambucas.’

Taking a deep breath, she headed to the table to penetrate the flirtation force-field. ‘I’ll be back in
an hour or so.’

‘I’ll see this lady home later, Kat,’ Dair insisted, eyes not leaving the smoky quartz come-ons.

‘That’s
so
kind.’ Dawn smiled widely, gazing straight back. ‘It would save poor Kat a journey.’

Kat knew she could never hope to police this amount of mutual attraction. ‘I’ll leave the door open. Try not to startle the dogs when you come in. Or me.’

Having paced around the mill house all evening, furious with himself that he’d junked his phone and cut off his means of contacting the outside world, including Kat, his father for legal advice and a legion of friends and contacts
to launch himself back into London life – or possibly wish farewell to it if Dollar’s ‘contract termination’ was as sinister as it sounded – Dougie was about to give up on waiting and set out to the pub when she finally appeared, glittering luminously in a dress that appeared to be made of huge pink sequins sewn together with fishing line and feathers.

‘Forgive me. I was trapped at the
party. Igor is hard to get away from.’

He was almost floored by a kiss that seemed to come from nowhere, accompanied by a full body slam.

‘I… have… been… eaten alive… waiting for this,’ Dollar gasped.

She had him pinned up against the back wall of his hallway already.

‘Whoa – whoa!’ He prised her off as best he could, whistling Quiver away as he growled underfoot. ‘We
need to get some facts straight.’

‘We will have intercourse first, talk afterwards.’ She was ripping at his belt now.

‘Let’s take this a bit slower.’ He ducked away, big charming smile coming out in self-defence. ‘I think we both deserve a quick debriefing before any briefs come off.’

‘It is admirable that you refuse to marry the Mason girl.’ Her mouth chased his. ‘I think
you and I will make a great team.’

‘Slower than that.’ He gulped. He had totally misread the obsessive technical interest she’d always shown in her calls, the deep, modulated voice so good at covering emotion. Even now, she sounded as though she was reading a quick news bulletin, as she insisted, ‘I cannot stay long. The party is proving difficult. Igor is an evil man. He has already hinted
that he wants to buy the house, and Seth would sell him anything to get this deal, but it is too early to play our best negotiating card. You and I need an exit strategy, Dougie, and I have the answer. We must kill our contracts with a suicide pact.’

Dougie cleared his throat, mind reeling. ‘That sounds drastic.’

‘It is not so difficult. We can escape together.’ She wrapped herself
around him again, lips closing in.

Caught in an uncomfortably amorous half-nelson, Dougie leaned away. ‘If Seth sells Eardisford, my job would cease to exist.’

‘All Eardisford-based staff contracts automatically transfer to the new owner in the event of its sale, like any business acquisition. You’d simply be sold along with it, Dougie.’

‘Will Seth really sell it? The paint’s
still drying.’

‘Seth is very impulsive. He buys many investments that he doesn’t keep, and some of them become a part of business deals. He has a personal connection to the estate here, but he has no great attachment to it. It was purchased to impress Igor, and Igor is already entranced by its history, its beauty and the
rusalka
he believes lives in the lake.’

‘What is a
rusalka
?’

‘It is a Russian river mermaid.’ She started to undo his shirt buttons. ‘It is a fantasy figure of great seductive quality. Igor swears that he saw one as we landed.’

Remembering that Kat had been in the lake at the time, Dougie felt his veins harden with anger. Shirt hanging open now, he retreated to the coffee-maker – which he had never used, preferring instant shaken straight from
jar to mug – and busied himself with it to keep Dollar at a distance.

‘I do not want a beverage, Dougie.’

‘I do.’ He unhooked a filter. ‘Is Igor a serious threat?’

‘If this weekend is a success,’ Dollar leaned against the millwheel window to watch him, ‘Eardisford will almost certainly become a part of the deal.’

‘What about Lake Farm?’ He looked at her over his shoulder.

‘That is not yet Seth’s to offer,’ she said softly.

He let out a sharp breath of relief. ‘And this deal Seth wants to be a part of is a bid to build simulators for the Indian Army?’

Dollar’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. ‘How do you know about it?’

‘Everybody knows about it,’ he bluffed, turning back and scooping up fresh coffee grounds. ‘Like everybody knows I
was offered a mint to marry Kat. You can’t keep a secret round here. My name is poison right now and Seth’s will be too, once the jungle drums spread the word that he’s letting Igor Talitov take pot shots at Eardisford’s protected species to broker arms deals.’

‘Is this a blackmail threat, Dougie?’

He shook his head, tamping down the coffee and slotting the filter back in. ‘It’s
just what happens round here.’

‘It is incredibly important to Seth to secure this deal. His charitable foundations in India make education possible for the poor. His colleges for engineering and technology are already producing some of the brightest graduates in the country. But there is much prejudice to battle, and a contract like this will provide work opportunities for a great many.’

‘And put Seth among the world’s richest entrepreneurs.’ Dougie was unmoved, pressing buttons randomly on the coffee-maker.

‘That is true. He could buy ten more Eardisfords if it succeeds.’

‘And if it doesn’t?’ He pressed a few more buttons and the machine started to hiss.

‘He does not see failure as an option. There’s something about Seth you have to understand. He seems
childlike, laid back and generous, like everything’s a great joke, but he is the worst loser in the world and he cannot let failure go.’

Dougie noticed how her eyes changed when she talked about him. For a woman who had just body-slammed him lustily, demanding they run away together, she spoke with extraordinary tenderness and her face, usually so expressionless, had lit up.

‘Like
you, I would very much like my freedom,’ she was saying, ‘but my contract is a lot more complicated than yours and my debt a good deal larger. I owe Seth my life. He saved me. I am called Dollar because he bought me for that amount.’

Dougie’s mouth dropped open.

‘My real name is Dulari,’ she explained, without sentiment. ‘It is not so different. I was born in Bengal, the fifth daughter
in my family and of little value to them. Ours was a very poor rural village and we all dreamed of getting out. I was barely educated when I left at thirteen with a group of young girls. We were told we would be chambermaids in big hotels in Delhi. Instead we were sold to a brothel. It was owned by an industrialist and I was offered to rich clients to sweeten their deals.

‘The other girls
survived by day-dreaming that these men would rescue them, or by prayer and drugs, but I was not like that. I fought the men and I was beaten regularly. When they could not make me work, I was due to be “disposed of”. That was when a young British businessman came to the house, a guest of the owner, who thought his girls would seal the deal. The man was very angry with what he saw, but I think
he hid it well. He asked for me. They tried to make him take another girl, but he was adamant. As soon as we were alone, he talked very quickly, as I am talking now, asking me questions in fluent Bengali with the craziest accent. It was the first time I had laughed in months because his voice was so silly, but he talked very seriously and I had to listen. He wanted to save all the girls, and he guessed
I was in the biggest danger so he wanted to buy me that night. He promised I would be safe, and I trusted him. The owner let him buy me for a dollar. It became my name. He always said it was the best deal he ever made.’

‘That was how you met Seth.’ Dougie moved closer, amazed by what he was hearing.

She nodded. ‘He could not save the other girls. The brothel owner guessed his game,
and it was all closed down and relocated within hours of our leaving, but that just made Seth even more determined to help the young girls traded from rural villages. He has always had such a kind heart, but he was very idealistic and naïve. He thought it was simply a matter of taking me back to my family. He believed they would welcome me with open arms. He had no idea then how things worked.
When he tried to return me to my parents, they refused to accept me because of the shame my circumstances brought on them.

‘He was stuck with me – a thirteen-year-old foster child with a hapless new parent whose mother still did his washing when he returned to Bradford. He took me to America to be educated. I was an A-grade student, but academic studies bored me. I was angry. I wanted to
fight. I was a serious pain in the ass, and after I graduated he agreed to send me to be combat-trained in Russia instead of hot-housed for another year at Harvard as he had planned. Now I am his bodyguard as well as his personal assistant. It is a very effective role. I am a trained killer, but people do not see me as a threat.’

Dougie was seeing her as quite threatening right now, but
kept that quiet. ‘You protect Seth from his business enemies by brainpower and force?’

‘Indeed.’ She lifted her chin with obvious pride. ‘He has been a father figure to me and – briefly – a lover, but now I have outgrown him.’ Her eyes flashed angrily. ‘I do not like the line he treads. His foundations in India create education and work for the poor, but in order to help the untouchables,
he makes deals with unspeakable men. The Russian is a spoilt child like Seth, but he is also a bad man and a bully. They are like boys playing Top Trumps. To win his patronage, Seth is willing to pimp me, this beautiful park, his faith, your career.

‘We have both been bought by Seth, Dougie. We have to get away.’ She wove towards him seductively. ‘You are the sterling to my dollar.’

‘He paid more than a quid for me.’ He backed off, alarmed to find himself cast as half of a fugitive double-act. He was struggling to take it all in, his James Bond fantasy in his wooded English hideaway shattered by a bigger world picture. Would Seth really sacrifice so much just to broker a deal? He looked at Dollar now, utterly composed and controlling, yet entirely dependent upon one man,
her loyalty at breaking point. ‘Surely he knows that the girl who risked death rather than allow herself to be used by a brothel would never allow herself to be traded.’

‘Seth is a good man, but he has been distracted choosing a virgin bride.’ Her eyes darkened furiously. ‘This deal would pay for many thousands of Dollars to be saved, and for that to happen, maybe he thinks one can be sacrificed.’
She swallowed hard, the steely composure as close to cracking as Dougie had ever seen it. ‘I must get away. You will come with me.’

Dougie retreated behind his butcher’s block uneasily. ‘Given that Seth liberated and educated you, why will he not let you leave if you want to?’

‘I left once before. I was to be married. It went wrong and I came back.’ Her beautiful face was masked
again, giving nothing away.

‘The man who taught you how to cook lobia,’ Dougie remembered.

‘He was devoted to me.’

‘You said he killed a man.’

‘Yes, that was unfortunate,’ she said coolly. ‘Seth helped me out of a very difficult situation once more, and now he doesn’t trust me not to leave again, but he knows he cannot stop me. If I demand to go, he will let me. He
has always been very generous to me. It is you he will not release so easily, Dougie.’

‘Come on, I’m hardly his best recruitment choice,’ Dougie scoffed. ‘Our mutual boss may be a big kid and a fantasist with enough money to buy the whole of Scotland as a fishing retreat, but he’ll be grateful to see the back of me. I love my field sports, but I’m not prepared to hunt illegally, and certainly
not slaughter wildlife with arrows, however many impoverished slum kids it will ultimately employ in his factories. Trying to marry Kat to get her off his land is a Bollywood twist I can’t hope to make stick, however romantic a notion.’

‘That was my idea,’ she reminded him.

‘It was a bad one.’ He leaned back against the slate surface behind him.

‘Seth is fascinated by aristocrats.
There are not many of those who can hunt with a bow and arrow, fewer still who look good and can be bought.’

‘I’m not one of them.’

‘Hock Mytton could.’

‘Who?’

‘Lieutenant General Henry “Hock” Mytton,’ she spoke the name in her newsreader monotone, ‘an arrogant bastard by all accounts, even official ones. He was a notorious misogynist and philanderer.’

‘Sounds
like my father.’

‘There are parallels,’ she agreed sardonically. ‘He had a great passion for hunting, especially big game. He was a renowned shot, but he was also a skilled archer. Seth’s great-grandfather Ram was his adjutant. He was in the 16
^th
Infantry in British-occupied India, a fearless sower – so-called because he was a cavalryman who carried a sword – and also a brilliant horseman.
With Ram’s help, Hock Mytton led legendary tiger hunts in Simla. He was the only British officer who could ever boast that he had killed a Himalayan tiger with a bow and arrow. I believe that tiger’s skin served as a rug in the main house until Constance’s death.

‘Ram was a loyal and discreet adjutant, which cannot have been easy with a man like Hock Mytton as his commanding officer. Hock
had many mistresses and relied upon Ram to cover his tracks. One of those mistresses, who was very highly strung and equally highly married, became pregnant with Hock’s child. The affair seemed destined to ruin his military career. Then she shot herself. The circumstances are very suspicious – the note she left was clearly fabricated – but her death was officially recorded as suicide. It was rumoured
that her child’s birth would have revealed the father. That she had been having an affair was common knowledge, although her lover was known only to a very few among the highest British élite. That élite closed ranks, refocusing the blame on Hock Mytton’s adjutant.

‘Ram took the blame for her pregnancy more or less as a military order. He accepted full responsibility, dutifully and without
protest. He had no choice. He was naturally court-martialled and expelled from the army for gross misconduct and his family were dishonoured. They lost their position in Indian society, expelled from the Kshatriya caste and becoming untouchable. Ram died in poverty, but not before he had sold his medals to pay for his oldest son’s passage to England.