Well Groomed (75 page)

‘Why?’ Gus gave her a puzzled look.

‘Oh – no reason,’ she said brightly. ‘I just thought you might be holding out – to be, er, polite.’

After Gus and Hugo had ploughed through dessert and were debating what sort of coffee to go for, another ploy struck Tash and she yawned widely.

‘I’m bushed,’ she apologised rather hammily. ‘I might just wander back to the forge and crash out – it was a lovely meal. Thanks, Hugo.’

She paused for a beat, waiting for him to offer to walk her home. But Penny got in there first with a far less welcome suggestion.

‘Good idea – I’m shattered too. Come back with me to the farm for a tea, Tash, and collect Beetroot. We’ll leave the men to talk horse.’

Tash inwardly cursed. She’d forgotten that she’d left Beetroot with India and Ted. She should have asked for a double espresso.

Penny said little on the walk back, although Tash had a strange suspicion that she was waiting for some sort of confession from her. She was feeling far too irritated and frustrated to talk much anyway. Dictating the pace, she marched to the farm so quickly that Penny was panting to keep up. Skirt flapping, Tash slammed her way through the front door, eager to grab Beetroot and scram.

Zoe and Niall were embracing by the fridge. Despite the awful setting – the mess, food debris, scattered tea-towels, hovering dogs – it was as tender and earth-shattering a kiss as he could ever dream of acting out on film. Tash stopped and stared in wonder.

Only Beetroot, growling furiously by the Aga, hackles up as she eyed Niall, was not a rapt member of the audience.

‘I wish you’d go slower, Tash! I’ve been—’ Penny puffed in behind her and then stopped in shock.

Instantly, Niall and Zoe swung around in horror, their faces utterly appalled as they realised that Tash was there.

‘This is a Tash French farce,’ she joked, echoing Gus’s words earlier that day. ‘Talk about fridge magnetism.’

‘Christ, angel, I’m sorry!’ Niall rushed towards her. ‘We didn’t want you to find out this way. Truly we didn’t. I’m so—’

‘I already knew, Niall.’ She stopped him, stretching up to cover his mouth, watching the tragedian’s face registering surprise, the melting brown eyes blink, the flop of black curls shadow his creased brow. She almost laughed. She had known he would react exactly like this. To the word, expression and gesture.

‘I knew,’ she repeated. ‘And I don’t mind. Honestly. I think you’re both lovely.’ Backing slowly away and whistling for Beetroot, she walked out on them.

Unexpected tears washed her face as she stumbled down the lane, trying to absorb what she had just seen. She might not be surprised, might not be particularly jealous or angry – she had no right anymore. Yet she still felt a great dam-burst of emotion that the affair was finally showing in Technicolor on a screen near her. Niall loved Zoe – it was written all over his face like a punk’s tattoo. It was why he had been avoiding Tash so much lately; he was ashamed by the haste with which he had raced from being her fiancé to Zoe’s lover. Niall had always been like that: he so loathed being alone that he sought a lover wherever he went, even if they only ever made love in his imagination. But Zoe was more than that. She suited him so well it must have been like an itch he’d wanted to scratch for months, and now it had been allowed to develop into a great blushing rash. Despite his guilt, Tash could forgive him the speed. After all, he had forgiven her the ultimate infidelity, hadn’t he? He had forgiven the fact that in all the time they were in love, she had loved another more, however she’d tried to deny it.

‘I love Hugo,’ she said aloud, to test herself. Beetroot, trotting beside her, looked up eagerly. She seemed to approve, so Tash said it again. Several times. She even shouted it once, but they were passing the swanky mill house at the time and the heat-sensitive security light came on so she shut up.

She knew that in many ways Niall was the better man, the kinder man, the brighter man, yet her head could not reason with her unruly heart. She even loved Hugo for being scornful and headstrong and utterly spoilt, because beneath his glib, unyielding exterior there was such generosity. It surfaced at the oddest moments so that sometimes she barely noticed it, yet it was steadfast and unswerving and surprisingly selfless. Because once someone, or something, won his respect, Hugo never, ever let them down, though earning that respect seemed harder to achieve than a brass-rubbing of the Holy Grail.

Earning his respect was perhaps harder for Tash than anyone else. For two summers ago in her mother’s garden in France, he had made a pass at her and she’d committed the ultimate faux pass. She’d kicked Hugo right where it hurt most – in his pride. Coming anywhere near his closely guarded emotions again was definitely trespass.

Yet even his increased nastiness had been a terrible, heart-pinching clue. She’d uncharitably assumed that his backing off and sniping simply coincided with her success in the sport they shared; but, looking back, their friendship had only really cooled off when Niall had rented the forge and they had moved in together. And Hugo had become even more explosive since the announcement of the engagement. Those terrible, spiteful passes he had made, demanding to know exactly how she felt about him and whether she still hawked her crush around in her heart like a battered keep-sake. She’d thought he was playing a game with her, when all along it seemed he’d been desperately trying to understand the rules. Being Hugo, he had wanted to lose no face by admitting his feelings and had consequently played his cards so close to his chest that even he had difficulty seeing them.

Yet tonight Hugo had said he was so mad for her he couldn’t sleep: the words still rang in her ears like campanologists on an all-night ringathon. She wouldn’t stop hearing them for hours, remembering that soft, deep, drawling voice, shivering as she recalled the electric reaction she’d experienced when she’d realised what he’d just said. Despite everything that was going on, he had said it.

She stood stock still as she realised that she was still officially marrying Niall in thirteen unlucky days. In all her excitement, her pre-Badminton nerves and fridge snogwatching, she’d practically blanked out the reality of the situation.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING TASH watched Hugo ride the eager Snob around the small course of solid fences that the Moncrieffs had erected years ago, and held her breath with admiration and envy. Snob respected this rider, with his longer legs, heavier body-weight and firmer aids, and he was clearly revelling in the change. At first he put up a spirited battle when he realised that he wasn’t going to get his way, snatching the bit and dipping his head as of old, but it didn’t take him long to settle and Tash found herself wishing he’d put up a bit more of a fight just to show Hugo what a bugger he could be.

But it seemed that he and Hugo were on their best behaviour.

‘You’ve really taught this nag some manners,’ he complimented her. ‘And you must work him out more than Mr Motivator – I’ve never known a horse so fit and supple.’

‘Lots of sex,’ Tash said levelly.

‘What?’ Hugo gaped at her and then started to laugh. ‘Oh, yes – ha! Definitely.’ He rode off, sitting easily on the unfamiliar horse, his long legs with their battered black suede chaps barely moving as he set Snob into a long, liquid canter. Tash wished he hadn’t worn those chaps; they made her go weak at the knees. She preferred him in a manky old pair of cord breeches and a bad temper. Later, when they all piled into the kitchen for a bread and cheese lunch, she deliberately spilled salad dressing on them, desperate to provoke some sort of reaction. Normally Hugo would have hit the roof. Instead he just brushed it off with a long thumb and laughed.

‘Now I’m even better dressed,’ he said, smiling at her and moving away to chat to Penny about transport the following day.

If anything, he was behaving more courteously to her than ever before. She was utterly confused and her confidence started to ebb again.

She knew that he had a ridiculously short space of time to acquaint himself with Snob, and was stupefied that he barely sought her advice at all, always deferring to Gus when he had a query.

‘He’s my horse,’ Tash pointed out rather huffily.

‘And I’m grateful to you for warming the seat for me,’ Hugo told her as nicely as he could. ‘But I’m on board now, and I really can’t abide back seat drivers.’ It was the nastiest he had been all day, but even that was said with a gentleness and warmth that totally threw her. She wanted him to yell and spit – at least that showed he cared. She longed to corner him on his own and demand to know what he had meant by his confession in The Olive Branch, but the yard was buzzing with activity and it was impossible to get a moment alone with him.

The year before, Tash had been caught up in all the pre-Badminton excitement at the yard even though she hadn’t taken part as a competitor – grooming for Gus instead as Snob was not sufficiently experienced to qualify that year. This time, she was involved as a rider and the excitement was even greater. It was the biggest event in the professional calendar and as such there was a special kind of atmosphere that surrounded it. The day before they travelled to Gloucestershire, Lime Tree Farm was in a roaring party mood mixed with jangling nerves, so that everyone fell over everyone else, argued about where to find a certain piece of equipment, checked and re-checked the wall-plan that Gus had made out and talked about nothing but the big B.

The plan was for India – who was on half-term – to groom for Tash and Hunk, whilst Ted looked after both Gus’s ride, Fashion Victim, and Kirsty’s old mare, Betty Blue. Penny was coming along too, but as ever was far too nervous to trust herself to look after the horses and had decided instead to be general liaison and score-watcher. Franny, who should have been helping as she was now practically one of the staff, refused to come at all since Hugo was riding one of the yard’s horses. She could barely bring herself to speak to Tash once the news had been broken, only muttering darkly that if she wanted Snob destroyed it might have been simpler to let him loose on the M4.

‘That might well happen at the wedding,’ Rufus joked. ‘Penny thinks he’ll head there once he’s pulling that carriage.’

No one commented on this. The subject was strictly off limits.

Only Zoe missed out on the excited anticipation as she and Enid were barely seen for the entire build-up phase. Normally she was at the hub of the action, co-ordinating and keeping everyone calm, but this year, she was steering clear. She had taken to sleeping in until after all the breakfast gatherings had cleared, and then marching Enid out on a long, long walk which Tash suspected took in the film shoot at Maccombe. Returning fleetingly in the afternoon, she would borrow whichever car was available and disappear once again, leaving Enid to sulk on her bed.

Nor had Niall been seen since the night before. Tash had to face the brunt of the questions about whether the wedding was on or off, and what would happen to Lisette’s party if it was indeed, as the farm mob assumed, off.

She deflected them all with shrugs and finally yelled at everyone who asked that she didn’t want to talk about it, but she knew that things were getting desperate.

She returned to the forge on Monday evening to find that Niall had made a lightning visit and taken enough clothes to last him a few days, leaving a note to wish her luck at Badminton and say that he would be in touch before the party, which Tash found difficult to believe as one followed straight after the other. He had written in his loopy, scrawling hand:

I can’t apologise enough for all this. I am, as ever, behaving like a cowardly shit, but I need time to straighten my head out. I think it would be best all round if I beat it for a while, so I’m putting up in the cast hotel for a few nights. Please try to keep going until Sunday. I’ll love you for ever for it.

Again the phone rang almost incessantly. This time, Tash resorted to pulling it out of the socket and spending the night watching all Gus’s old videos of Badminton and blanking her mind to all but the competition ahead. Hugo was out to dinner with his sponsors so she knew it couldn’t be him calling. Yet again he had spent all day being killingly polite and dodging all her attempts to corner him on his own. She was starting to doubt his motives, and to suspect he was proving as devious as ever. If Hugo felt that he had achieved victory already by duping her into thinking he loved her in order to borrow her horse, the least she could do, she realised, was beat him on the day and win on Hunk. That night, it became her sole obsession and ambition, eclipsing all her churning panic about the wedding.

Henrietta settled herself in the breakfast room and, checking that James was suitably preoccupied with his recently purchased sit-on mower, she dragged out the aerial on the walkabout phone and called France. James normally confined these calls to after six as he had almost fainted on espying the last quarter’s phone bill with the Saumur and Paris exchanges listed over forty times, but Henrietta could not and would not wait this time.

‘Sophia’s just called me,’ she breathed as soon as Alexandra picked up.

‘Me too,’ Alexandra whimpered. ‘I guessed she was calling you, darling, because you’ve been engaged for the past twenty minutes. Do you think she can be telling the truth? I mean it’s simply appalling.’

‘Lord only knows, but she seems utterly convinced. Have you tried getting hold of Tash?’

‘For days, darling. There’s never any answer.’

‘When are you coming over to England?’

‘Well, we were planning to arrive a week on Wednesday, but I think I should come over straight away, and then Pascal and Polly can follow on.’

‘You can stay here.’

‘Won’t James mind?’

‘Of course not. This is an emergency.’ Henrietta looked out of the window again and grimaced as she realised what she had just said.