Riders (64 page)

“Bliss,” mumbled Billy.

“And does that hurt?”

“If you stroke them gently like that, it’s heaven.”

She was so excited that neither of them ever discovered whether she had a hymen or not. Twined round him like a monkey, riding him so lightly, she exhorted him to please go on, go on. In the end he forgot to be gentle, driving into her with all his strength.

“Oh, it was magic, magic,” she whispered afterwards.

“Are you sure? Are you really sure?”

“Didn’t hurt at all,” she said, snuggling into his arms.

“Look,” said Billy, “the British flag is creaking up the pole.”

Suddenly she heard him singing, slightly shakily, “God save our gracious Queen. Long live our noble Queen,” until there was furious banging on the wall.

Fen gave an ecstatic sigh. Billy’s singing again, she thought.

To Billy, the following weeks came as a revelation. While Janey had exuded sex appeal, he always had the feeling that, although she enjoyed sex, it was more for her own gratification and her own ego. He was never irresistible to her. With Fen he felt he held the key to paradise. She quivered with excitement whenever he touched her. She wanted to touch him all the time, she adored everything about him and everything he did to her was perfect. She was the most unselfish person he’d ever been to bed with, always thinking of his pleasure before her own, massaging his back when he was tired, happy to stroke and caress him for hours.

They talked horses endlessly, but unlike other riders, she was prepared to spend hours discussing how his horses might be improved, not permanently waiting to engineer the conversation on to her own.

Having stabled Macaulay and Desdemona at Fontainebleau, they stayed an extra day there, wandering through the forest and enjoying a magnificent French dinner in the evening, to make up for not being able to eat anything except risotto in Rome. Then they flew home to take Laurel and Hardy, and a couple of Billy’s new horses bought by Mr. Block, to Windsor. Then on to Paris, Barcelona, and finally Lucerne, where at each place the British riders were invincible. Bugle was jumping brilliantly, so were Desdemona and Macaulay. It was also perfectly apparent to the rest of the team what was going on between Fen and Billy.

“You pipped me to the post,” said Rupert ruefully, but he couldn’t help being glad to see Billy so happy.

Malise, turning a blind eye, was delighted too. He was very fond of Billy and had hated to see him so down and lacking in confidence. He was also thrilled by the success of the team. Billy and Fen were obviously madly in love. They were discreet in public, but you only had to see the way he carried her cases for her and she turned to him for advice, and how they drifted together and always seemed to be echoing each other’s thoughts and laughing at private jokes. Fen had cheered up the team too. Humpty had replaced Griselda for Lucerne, and he and Ivor and Driffield were all mad about Fen. She was their team mascot, and as a team they had never been more united. They had not lost a Nations’ Cup this year.

Fen lay in a bubble bath. A champagne cork ricocheted off the steaming walls of the bathroom in their hotel at Lucerne.

“To your first Grand Prix,” said Billy, filling up a toothmug and handing it to her.

“I can’t drink the whole bottle,” protested Fen as Billy put down the loo seat and sat on it, watching her.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Aren’t you glad you’ve beaten everyone?”

“It feels like the end of the holidays.”

He came and knelt down beside her, soaping her breasts and kissing her damp neck.

“Sweetheart, it’s only the beginning. We may be going home, but I’ll be seeing you at Crittleden next week, and then at the Royal and the Royal International.”

Fen looked down. The soap was beginning to disperse the bubbles.

“I know, but it won’t be the same.”

“It’ll be even nicer, I promise. Come on; we’d better buck up. Malise wants to leave to go out to dinner in twenty minutes.”

She didn’t tell him that that afternoon a telegram had arrived at the hotel for him from Janey, congratulating him on yet another double clear in the Nations’ Cup. Rupert had torn it up before Billy saw it.

“Last thing he needs at the moment, and don’t you go telling him either,” he’d said to Fen.

She hadn’t said anything, but it terrified her. Throughout the past month Fen and Billy had avoided talking about Janey. She felt like a broken ankle that didn’t hurt if you didn’t walk on it.

As well as her Grand Prix money, Fen, as leading lady rider of the show, had won a full-length fur coat. She disapproved passionately of fur in principle, but when Billy had dried her after her bath, she couldn’t resist putting it on as a dressing gown, feeling the silk lining caressing her hot naked body.

Billy stopped in the middle of knotting his tie and came towards her.

“God, that’s sexy. Just looking at you gives me a hard-on.”

He took her face between his hands. She was so beautiful. All the bruising and swelling had gone.

“You don’t realize what you’ve done to me,” he said. “Given me back my faith in life. I never believed I could wake up in the morning again with such a ridiculous sense of excitement.”

Fen parted the fur coat, so she could feel his cock nudging against her belly button. She laid her head against his chest.

“I’m not saying this to make you feel old, but I’ve never had a real father. My own father died when I was eight, but he divorced Mummy long before that and Colonel Carter was a twerp and, although Jake’s been wonderful, he’s
not a cuddler;
too austere. Apart from dogs and horses and guinea pigs and hamsters, you’re not only the first father, but the first thing I’ve ever been able to love.”

Looking down, Billy realized he must never, never let her be hurt.

“I know I’m carrycot snatching, but I can’t help it,” he muttered into her hair.

Anxious to get back to Tabitha, Rupert flew home to Penscombe after the Lucerne Grand Prix. Over a year old now, Tab could walk several steps, but usually crawled forward with a curious sideways gait like a crab, with one leg sticking out. She was wearing blue pajamas; the top had fallen off one shoulder. She was so enchanted when he walked through the door, she could hardly get a word out.

“My darling angel,” said Rupert, extracting her from a swarm of excitedly barking dogs and holding her above his head until she crowed with laughter. She was so pink and blond and beautiful.

“Daddy’s brought you lots and lots of presents.”

The best present for Tab was obviously seeing her father again. She snuggled up to him like a kitten.

Helen came into the hall warily, holding Marcus by the hand.

“Hello, darling,” she said, kissing him. “Had a good trip?”

“Great. We won the Nations’ Cup and Billy’s really back on form. Christ, he’s jumping well.”

“I’m so glad. Not back on the booze, is he?”

“No, no. He’s utterly bombed on Perrier and love.”

“Love?” said Helen, surprised.

“Little Fenella Maxwell. Best thing that ever happened to him.”

“But she’s not eighteen yet; just a child.”

“So’s he. She mothers him like an old mare. They’re really sweet together, and at last he’s got someone who can talk to him about horses.”

Unlike me, thought Helen bitterly. “I’m having lunch with Janey tomorrow,” she said.

After the four hundred-mile drive from Lucerne, Billy and Fen stayed near the coast and took a lunchtime ferry the next day. The grooms had lunch. Billy booked a berth for three hours and took Fen to bed, dreading the separation ahead as much as she was. They reached Gloucestershire, about sunset. It was one of those magical evenings when they had both the lorry windows open and the air was heavy with the scent of elderflowers and wild roses.

Fen sat glued against Billy, hand on his thigh, any pretense that they weren’t having an affair abandoned. It was only ten miles to Penscombe now. Once there she would borrow one of Rupert’s trailers and drive Macaulay and Desdemona on to the Mill House, arriving about midnight.

Tracey was fast asleep on one of the bunk beds. Sarah was emptying out the fridge. Billy and Rupert’s horses were beginning to stamp and whinney as they recognized the familiar scents of home.

“Will you do me a great favor?” said Billy, staring fixedly at the road ahead. She could feel how tense he was.

“Of course.”

“Will you stay the night with me at the cottage, then I’ll drive you back in the morning?”

Fen was almost speechless with happiness. Billy needed her, he really needed her. She reached up and kissed his cheek. “I was wondering how on earth I was going to drag myself away from you this evening.”

“I rang Mrs. Bodkin from Lucerne and told her to clean the place up and make the bed. I’m a big boy now. I can’t go on living with Helen and Rupert forever, and anyway,” he looked at his watch, “I haven’t fucked you for at least seven hours. Will you mind a few of Janey’s things lying around?”

“Not if you don’t,” said Fen.

She rang Tory from Rupert’s tackroom. “I’ve got as far as Rupert’s. I’m utterly jiggered. Helen’s asked me to stay the night. Do you mind awfully? Billy, or someone, will drive me back in the morning.”

I’ll be punished for lies like that, she said to herself as she put down the receiver.

It was dusk by the time they’d settled the horses. All that was left of the day was a saffron glow on the horizon. Billy, who knew the path along the edge of the woods, led the way, holding her hand, with Mavis racing in front chasing rabbits. He longed to kiss her, but both were conscious of not having cleaned their teeth since morning. The night was so warm they could smell the honeysuckle and syringa a hundred yards away.

“What an adorable place,” said Fen, in ecstasy. “Gosh, you’re lucky to live here.”

In the gateway Billy put his arms round her, holding her like a balloon that might float away at any moment.

“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I’m here to look after you.”

As he opened the front door, Mavis shot ahead, squeaking with excitement. He turned on the light and went into the kitchen, dumping the cases. Fen followed him. “It looks lovely,” she said.

“Mrs. B.’s been working fantastically hard,” said Billy. “Christ, I wish we could have a drink.”

“I’ll make some coffee,” said Fen, picking up the kettle.

“Are you hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Then let’s go to bed. I need to lay you and the ghost.”

Fen went into the hall. Behind the door opposite, she could hear excited squeaking and scrabbling.

“Mavis must have shut herself in.”

She opened the door and switched on the light, then gave a gasp of horror. In front of the fire, thin, beautiful, and menacing in a black sleeveless T-shirt and the tightest black leather trousers, stood Janey.

“Hello, Fen,” she said with a twisted smile. “It’s been amazingly kind of you to look after Billy in my absence, but I’d like him back now.”

Fen gave a sob and turned on her heel, bumping into Billy as he came out of the kitchen.

“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No, I’ve seen a real live person. Go into the drawing room and see.”

As she fled down the garden path she heard Billy calling her to come back, but she kept on running along the woodland path. Once she stumbled and fell over, cutting her hands but not even feeling the pain. She didn’t stop until she reached Rupert’s front door. It was open. The dogs surged forward, barking. Rupert came out of the kitchen, a large whisky in one hand, a letter in the other.

“Hello, duck. Had a tiff?” Then he saw her dirty grazed hands and her stricken face. “Angel, what’s the matter?”

“It’s J-Janey, she was waiting for us at the cottage.”

“Fucking hell, how did she get in?” He led Fen into the kitchen and poured her a large drink.

“I don’t want anything.” Her face crumpled.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. He won’t take her back.”

“He will, I know he will. He only had me as a stopgap.”

“Rubbish, I’ve never seen him happier.”