The Country Escape (48 page)

‘And bodyguard.’

‘That too,’ he acknowledged, with a sideways nod. ‘I want to set her up in business of her own, but she claims she wants to be a wife and mother. I just can’t see it, man. She did get engaged once,’ his eyes blackened to boiling tar, ‘but she broke it off when the bridegroom killed my bodyguard. He died saving me. Dollar said
protecting me was her job, so she came back.’

‘Her fiancé tried to kill you?’ Dougie stared at him, things starting to add up in his head.

‘The press reported that it was a bungled contract killing, but it was a straightforward crime of passion. Dollar’s fiancé found out she was in love with another man and he wanted to kill that man. It happens.’ He picked up the claymore sword
from the table and lifted it to his shoulder, fixing Dougie with a death stare. ‘If I see dollar signs in somebody’s eyes, I want to terminate the acquaintance too.’

Dougie knew exactly what was going on. Slotting the lobia-cooking murderer into the picture had been the final decisive clue. This was not just about avenging the distant past: it was about a love affair that was still being
played out, and he had stumbled into the middle of it to be used as a weapon. Seth had played Pygmalion to Dollar and given her extraordinary opportunities, but however great his success and riches, he could never marry her without incurring the wrath of his family. Dougie knew that his father would strongly advise him to refrain from comment at this point, but he heard Kat’s voice in his ear, forthright
and generous.

‘She’s in love with you.’

‘Everyone loves me, man!’ Seth looked away, his bravado acting as covering fire. But the need to stand up in the open and defend his territory was too great. ‘Dollar is beautiful and fearless and much cleverer than me. I’ll destroy anyone who hurts her again.’ He slotted the sword back on the wall, running his fingers along its shaft, his voice
quiet and earnest. ‘I could never have achieved what I have without her. We’ve travelled the world together. We even lost our virginity together. She’s more than a wife to me. She knows I’ll give her anything she wants except marriage. I’ve tried to explain to her that business deals and marriages are much the same thing. You must look beyond them to see a bigger picture.’

‘She sees a bigger
picture. She thinks you’re offering her to Igor, along with Eardisford.’

‘She should know me better than that.’ Seth swung round furiously. ‘I’d never trade Dollar. You’re the one risking the girl by backing out on a deal, mate. If Igor takes on this place, they’ll be digging little Kat’s grave alongside all those other pets the Mytton family loved so much. He’ll have no scruples getting
rid of her. She won’t stand a chance.’ His voice dropped to a hiss. ‘If you won’t marry her for the money, do it for her safety. Call it a rearranged marriage.’

The biggest Eardisford stag was far too wise and wary to be tracked easily, but the man with the radio mic who had him in his sights was among the best in the world. Small, stealthy and hugely experienced, he had been called out by
his boss many hours earlier, enabling him to track the beast into woodland close to a small farmstead, clearly a favourite spot where it munched tree bark and shoots, helping itself to the contents of a pheasant feeder before locating a well-shaped tree to rub its forehead and antlers.

The tracker checked his GPS to whisper his co-ordinates back to base.

When Kat woke up
to feel steam billowing across her face, she imagined she’d been brought a mug of tea in bed – a very rare treat – but then she opened one eye and spotted a bowl of piping hot water into which Dawn was dropping essential oils before soaking a flannel.

‘What time is it?’

‘Just after six. I haven’t been able to sleep for thinking about Dair, so I thought I might as well get up and
give you a steam facial. I know you’re always up early, and those pores have to be mucked out before the pigs.’

Kat groaned and rolled over to bury herself into the cool side of the pillow. ‘Much as I admire your dedication to your work, I’d rather sleep for another half-hour.’

‘I’m here to make you look a million Dollars.’ Dawn swept aside the curtains in Kat’s room and came back
to scrutinize her sleep-creased face. ‘Either you’ve been crying again or you have hay-fever. I can deal with puffy eyes, and your brows are crying out for my finest threading, plus those lashes need a tint. Then I’m on the case with that fluffy upper lip.’

‘What fluffy upper lip? They’re freckles. I’m a redhead.’

‘Yeah, you and Yosemite Sam. You are getting the full Beautiful Dawn
treatment this morning. Beautifu —’

‘Whatever you do,
don’t
sing it.’

‘Thinking about it, I might have enough facial hair bleach to strip off that horrible tint.’ She peered at the top of Kat’s head where the temporary dye had left it dull brown. ‘There’s henna in your bathroom cupboard. It’ll be tricky to get right, but it’s worth a go.’

‘There I must draw the line. Last
time you bleached my hair, it took four hours and ended up white.’

‘Looking a million dollars can’t be rushed, and white is very on trend. All the top models have it this year. Dougie Everett has pretty classy taste – Kiki Nelson is platinum blonde. Sorry, I made you cry again.’

‘It’s hay-fever. Why would I cry over a man I’ve only kissed once?’

‘One kiss is sometimes all
it takes, trust me. Dair is
such
a good kisser. I love the little gap between his front teeth.’

‘Too much information.’ Kat groaned again, closing her eyes. ‘I am not bleaching my —’ Her protests were cut short as a hot wet flannel landed on her face.

In Duke’s Wood, Russ and his vigilante team had taken up their positions just before first light, hiding out around the day
nests of a big sounder of female wild boar and their weanlings, which would make easy pickings for the hunt party. The nets they had strung across the paths and tracks were already spun with spiders’ webs jewelled with dew. They grew stiff and uncomfortable as they crouched behind the curtained canopy of an old hazel thicket, trying to keep up their spirits with a Thermos of rooibos tea and a packet
of vegan biscuits, but inevitably arguments broke out over tactics – a common theme between them – and the activists divided over the decision not to drive all the game from the woods before the guns arrived.

‘This isn’t a little forestry shoot in the Cotswolds,’ Russ hissed. ‘This is the Eardisford Estate. It’s bigger than Cheltenham. Imagine chasing a drift of pigs round that.’ They shut
up.

Dair’s Range Rover was first to arrive, pulling the canvas-sided shooting trailer in which dogs and guns were being transported. Having spotted some of the activists’ nets, a furious Dair sent off his keepers to remove them while barking into a small piece of technology that appeared to have broken. He got increasingly frustrated with it until one of the guns pointed out that he hadn’t
turned it on.

‘Which is the Russian?’ breathed one of Russ’s companions.

‘I don’t think he’s joined them yet.’ Russ scanned the assorted faces.

It seemed they were all waiting for their guest of honour. While his comrades bickered about who would get the last biscuit, Russ edged closer to try to listen in.

‘What have you done, Dawn?’ Kat wailed, looking at
her reflection. One eyebrow had recently been an expressive little arch but was now a thin ginger line surrounded by inflamed, reddened skin.

‘It’ll settle down in a bit. You always had sensitive skin. I need to do a patch test before I do your lashes and upper lip.’

‘I really don’t have time. I have about a million things to get on with. Everything needs feeding, Usha’s fence needs
mending again and I haven’t let the geese out. I can’t waste all day lying around having beauty treatments.’

‘I’m just trying to help.’

‘I know, Dawn, and I’m incredibly grateful, but I don’t think I’m going to sort my love life out with reshaped eyebrows alone.’

‘Where are you going? I’ve only done one!’

‘I’ll be back after I’ve fed the animals.’

The
stag was on the move again, squeezing his way through some broken stock fencing and into more sparse woodland skirted by pasture that was being cropped by a raggle-taggle of mixed livestock, all clearly used to their visitor. Watching over a further fence, a horse bobbed its head and whinnied a welcome.

The tracker followed, guessing the stag was looking for somewhere to lie up for the
day before the sun rose too high. As soon as it did, his boss could spring a surprise.

‘Looks like it’s going to be a walk-up shoot,’ whispered one of the Bristol sabs, as they watched the guns hanging around the trailer drinking tea and glancing at their watches, excited dogs milling underfoot. ‘Can’t do much about that. Boar and muntjac are legal game even at this time of year.’

‘These are all estate staff,’ Russ noted, as one of Dair’s gundogs came perilously close to the saboteurs’ hide-out and pointed helpfully for his master, only to be called back with a sharp reprimand. ‘There are no invited guns here. I still smell trouble.’ He turned to watch as an incongruously glossy black Land Rover Defender with blacked-out windows appeared along the track. ‘Here we
go.’

A glamorous Indian girl leaped out, whom Russ recognized as Dollar, although he had only ever seen her through the mill-house windows with most of her clothes off. She was immaculately dressed in lightweight tweeds and country boots but looked totally out of place and extremely disgruntled as she picked her way through the dogs to have a word with Dair.

‘You bloody
what
?’ the
estate manager exploded, pulling off his flat cap.

Eager to find out what was going on, Russ edged his way further along behind the cover of a bank of bracken. As he did so, there was a furious squeal behind him. With lightning response, he grabbed an overhanging tree branch and pulled himself up so his legs were out of the way as the boar charged past. But the hefty female wasn’t interested
in him, he realized, as she charged out of cover, teeth and tusks bared, to warn off Dair’s dog, which gave a terrified yowl and ran behind his master’s legs.

Dollar was directly in the boar’s path. With even faster reactions than Russ, she pulled out a handgun and aimed it between the sow’s eyes. But Dair was already making a heroic lunge to pull her out of the way, grabbing her as her
fingers closed over the trigger and causing her to misfire across the clearing.

‘Ouch!’ came a furious wail, as a figure in a balaclava dropped out of a nearby tree. ‘You just bloody well shot me. Oh, Christ, there’s blood everywhere.’

As the sow screeched off into the undergrowth, Dollar holstered her gun and ran with Dair to check on Russ who was now wailing, ‘Somebody call an
ambulance!’

‘No need.’ Dollar pulled aside the backpack, which was strapped to him and gushing hot tea everywhere, the Thermos inside it having taken a clean shot. ‘He is not hurt.’

After a sleepless night spent trying jealously to come to terms with the fact that Kat was in a tempestuous love triangle that he was honour-bound to square off, his father and Seth having urged
him to push his seven-figure suit for her sake – the facts of which would no doubt convince her once and for all of his tarnished morality – Dougie blazed a path to Lake Farm just before seven. He could see no way of offering Kat a clearer signal of his love than offering this to her. It was all he had to sacrifice; his pride was already surrendered. This would secure her future even if he couldn’t
be part of it.

As he drove into the yard, Kat emerged from the feed room, scoop in hand, wearing her pyjamas, plastic clogs and a surprised expression, one brow lifted curiously. He’d never known her more beautiful. No wonder she had all the men on the estate wooing her.

‘We have to get married, Kat,’ he said.

‘Hi, Dougie. Good to see you too. Would you mind running that past
me again?’

‘You
must
marry me, Kat. You’ll get a million pounds and you’ll be safe.’

‘Again.’ The eyebrow was still riding high.

‘When I took this job, I was offered a million pounds if I could persuade you to marry me. Seth will still honour that. I checked. You can have it all.’

‘One more time would be great.’ She was shaking her head, eyebrow higher than ever.

‘I’ll give you the lot. My father suggested splitting it, but I’d rather do it this way. We’ll divorce straight afterwards, of course – or go for an annulment. By then you’ll have the pay-out, so you and the sanctuary will have a secure future.’

‘I think I’m up to speed now.’ She nodded slowly. ‘Thanks. I’ll think about it.’ Turning away, she stomped back into the feed room.

Dougie waited a moment, then dashed after her.

Kat was deep-breathing into the pig-nuts bag, trying to regroup her grand plan. In her many fantasies about Dougie striding up to sweep her off her feet – and last night there had been many, all revolving around a Cinderella moment gate-crashing the Bollywood ball – she hadn’t ever imagined a dodgy deal brokered in a farmyard. She’d
envisaged passion, contrition, laughter, forgiving mistakes and retrieving hope – possibly involving a death fight with Dollar on the Eardisford ramparts – and instead she’d just got the cash offer. Anger was knitting her ribs together, stealing her breath and twisting her vocal cords.

His shadow loomed in the door and he cleared his throat. ‘I appreciate this is probably coming as a bit
of a shock, Kat.’

‘Telling me.’ She tried to breathe, but she was almost suffocating with indignation now.

‘I told you the truth in the meadow. I said I was asked to target you. I tried to warn you.’

‘Thanks for that,’ she said tightly, scooping out enough pig feed to make the Vietnamese pot-bellies explode. ‘It always makes for a romantic proposal.’

In the half-light,
Dougie couldn’t read her face clearly, although her skin was flushed a becoming pink, he noticed, and that raised eyebrow was still doing its ironic thing above eyes showing a lot of white.

‘Actually, you haven’t given me an answer yet,’ he reminded her. ‘You said you’d give it to me when you’d ridden the Bolt.’

‘That’s not going to happen today.’ Her voice was strange, all breathless
and tight. He hoped that meant she was overcome with emotion. She turned to look at him over her shoulder. She still had one eyebrow raised, he noticed. And her bottom in those pyjamas was ravishing. ‘I’m sure it hadn’t escaped your notice that Duke’s Wood is full of Russians swigging Bloody Marys and taking pot shots at wildlife – which we’re all supposed to believe is tree felling.’ She cupped
a hand over her ear, listening for bangs.

‘So you’ll definitely think about it?’ He peered into the gloom.

‘I think we can safely say it’ll be on my mind. Is that all you came to see me about? Only I have a lot to do.’

‘Will you come to the Bollywood ball as my guest? Not the fancy-dress servants’ bash in the marquee, the big black-tie masters’ do in the house. Free upgrade.
That way you can meet Seth. He’s a sly bugger, but it might help to talk to him face to face about this place. You might not even have to marry me.’ He gave an ironic laugh that was met with stony silence.

Kat’s first, hopelessly shallow, reaction to the ball invitation was to wonder what on earth she’d wear, but then the red mist descended once more.

‘I’ll come back for
an answer later, shall I?’ He showed no sign of leaving.

‘Probably best.’ She was blind with anger now, as inarticulate and blood-boiling as a punch. She kept seeing him with Dollar, pressed against the window. My heart is worth more than money, she wanted to scream, but the sanctuary’s future held her anger tightly in check.

His silhouette hadn’t moved from the doorway. She could
almost swear he was breathing as crazily as she was.

‘Is it true you refused to hunt this weekend?’ she asked.

With the light behind him, she couldn’t see his eyes. His answer was clipped and defensive, covering all emotion: ‘I won’t hunt out of season. Almost as bad form as marrying for money or cheating at cricket.’

Another hot blade of anger entered her side as she remembered
Russ saying that Dougie’s refusal was just a smokescreen to cover the illegal goings-on. She couldn’t shake the image of him in the mill last night, Dollar wrapped around him, as urgent and carnal as one of Nick’s porn movies. ‘I don’t want to go to the ball, Dougie. I don’t want a free upgrade. I don’t want a million-pound upgrade. In fact, I don’t want ever to see you again. I just want to
be left alone here to get on with my life.’

‘You can’t stay here, Kat. That’s the point. You have to —’

‘I’m not a servant or a master,’ she interrupted hotly. ‘And I won’t honour and obey a hypocrite who thinks he can double-cross both, not even for five minutes. You represent everything I’ve always hated, Dougie. I could never trust you. If you have any respect for me at all, please
just go away.’