Time to Pay (46 page)

So began the most exhilarating ride of Gideon's career. Fences loomed, one after another, with bewildering rapidity: post and rails, hedges, walls, ditches and tree trunks. Low branches were dodged, muddy gateways floundered through and even a stream forded. Mud flew, coating all of them in turn as the running order changed and changed again; horses stumbled in the rough ground, slipped on the turns and occasionally bumped one another over the narrower fences, but somehow they all stayed on their feet and their riders remained, more or less, in control.

Blackbird was in his element and, as they approached the last two obstacles on the run in, speeding up all the time, his competitive spirit rose to the fore and he put on a spurt to take the lead. Gideon let him run, putting his trust in the horse's sure-footedness, and Blackbird didn't let him down. They crossed the finish line with all four horses more or less in line and pulled up laughing, swearing, mud-splattered and out of breath, to hear the loudspeaker announce that the Stour Grapes had, at the moment, gone into second place.

Moments later the four team members had dismounted and were exchanging hugs, kisses and slaps on the back, the horses trailing at the ends of their reins, flanks heaving and bodies wet with sweat.

Caught up on a high, Gideon and Pippa embraced and kissed.

‘You were brilliant!' she cried, her eyes shining. ‘And wasn't Blackbird wonderful?'

‘You weren't so shabby yourself,' Gideon told her, laughing, and suddenly it seemed the most natural thing in the world to take her in his arms and kiss her soundly.

Moments later, still standing close, they looked each other in the eye and Gideon bowed his head.

‘Oh Lord,' he said. ‘Sorry.'

‘Are you?'

Gideon looked at her again.

‘No,' he said, slowly. ‘No, I'm not. But we can't, you know. Not just now.'

‘Eve?'

‘Yes; Eve. I won't hurt her, you know.'

‘No, you mustn't.'

Blackbird interrupted, rubbing his sweaty face on Gideon's arm and shoving him violently sideways in the process so that contact with Pippa was broken.

‘We should see to these horses,' she said, practicality surfacing once more. She turned towards the others, who were reliving the round, fence by fence.

Back at the lorry, with the horses washed down, rugged up and pulling at haynets, Gideon remembered his good-luck gift from Eve that morning. He climbed up into the cab and retrieved a boxed bottle of Moët et Chandon from behind the seats. Pippa dug out plastic mugs from the picnic hamper and set them out in a row on the step.

Opening the box, Gideon found a twist of pale gold paper attached to the neck of the bottle with a ribbon. Mystified, he removed it, passing the bottle to Steve to uncork.

It was a sheet of paper, such as might be torn from a writing pad, and the words on it were written in Eve's stylish hand. Gideon read it, his heart beating suddenly faster.

Gideon, my love, I'm going with Trevor. I'm a free spirit who needs to stretch her wings again. I have loved you but I'm not leaving you, for you were never mine. Pippa needs you now, and she can give you what I cannot. I was right, you know – it was too perfect, but this way nothing will ever spoil it. Goodbye, my gentle giant!

Eve xx

He read it through again, struggling to take in the words.

Eve had gone.

Eve, tall and willowy, effortlessly elegant in shades of gold and bronze silk; she'd gone, leaving him free, and in that moment he probably loved her more than he ever had before.

‘What's wrong?'

Pippa was beside him, holding out a green plastic mug, a smudge of drying mud on her nose.

Wordlessly he handed her the note and watched her read it, seeing her hands begin to shake. Finally she looked up at him, her hazel eyes glistening with tears.

‘She knew,' she said. ‘How did she know? And what was it she couldn't give you?'

Gideon remembered Eve's reaction to the news of his sister's pregnancy and hesitated, meeting Pippa's gaze with his own.

One step at a time, perhaps.

‘I'll tell you, one day,' he said, and raised his plastic mug of champagne. ‘To Eve!'

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Epub ISBN: 9781409065852

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Copyright © Lyndon Stacey 2006

The right of Lyndon Stacey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

First published in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson in 2006 with the title
Six to One Against

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