Kiss and Tell (84 page)

‘That’s dangerous,’ Hugo snapped, feeling like he’d had another one of his loyal Rat Pack stolen.

Tash had noticed Lough’s distance, but she was far too preoccupied to try to team build, especially when Hugo was so on edge.

With Sophia increasingly on her case, she couldn’t stop the momentum of a party that looked set to rival one of Elton John’s charity balls for glamour and expense, but she was desperate to be on a better footing with Hugo before they sprang the surprise of the year. As the big day fast approached her sister went into organisational overdrive, delighted that Hugo was away from home so much because she could party-plan at Haydown without fear of detection. It was a nightmare for Tash, however, because the eventing world was hopeless at keeping a secret. If one more person came up to her and asked, in front of Hugo, how it was going and whether he’d guessed anything about his surprise yet, she would scream. He had started to get quite suspicious, and the more he asked awkward questions or cornered her, the more defensive she became.

‘Who was that?’ he demanded when she yet again hung up on Sophia because he’d walked in, this time interrupting a spat about floristry.

‘Voicemail,’ she said vaguely.

‘I heard something about roses?’

Tash, who had just been arguing vociferously that they did
not
need a thousand pounds’ worth of flower arrangements, was forced to lie yet again. ‘Just ordering flowers for Mother’s Day.’

‘To be delivered to China?’ They’d recently had a postcard from Alexandra featuring the Great Wall.

‘You’d be surprised what Waitrose can do these days,’ she blustered.

He looked at her for a long time before turning to leave, muttering under his breath, ‘You’re lying.’

She could hardly deny it. It seemed they were both harbouring so many secrets in their marriage these days, the gangplank was fast becoming impossible to lower amid the jostle of burning boats.

The following Sunday, two dozen roses were delivered with the note, ‘To the mother of all invention, from the bull in a china shop. You are perfect.’ She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, but she knew she had to build bridges fast.

At Hyam Hall trials, the weekend before the party, they shared a rare night in the horsebox and Tash packed George’s finest in anticipation. But that evening a stab of pain through her belly told her that the horny feeling which had been cooking away the previous night while Hugo was inconveniently addressing an after-dinner speech to a hunt supporter’s club in Wiltshire was now at an end. True enough, when she checked in the loo, her period had come. Hugo never minded the occasional ‘red shag’, but Tash found it embarrassing, and certainly had no intention of enacting her grand seduction with a towel on the mattress and a tampon to hand.

He’d been back over two weeks and they had yet to make love.

Wearily, she called home to check how Alicia was coping with the children.

‘I can’t get that Kraut to leave the house,’ she warbled, sounding three parts cut already.

‘She’s Czech.’

‘Yes, keeps checking them, yes!’ Alicia boomed, shouting as usual to compensate for her deafness. ‘Says she will sleep here tonight. Won’t take no for an answer. Is she staff? Do we pay her overtime?’

‘No, no – it’s fine. Let her stay.’ At least Veruhska was conscientious. Tash couldn’t help longing for her own mother. Alexandra had come to England regularly when Cora was a baby, looking after her when Tash started competing again.

‘I miss her,’ she told Hugo now.

‘Are you saying my mother can’t cope?’ he demanded huffily.

‘No, she’s great! And she has the Czechs.’

‘Quite the little domestic dream team. And let’s not forget Lough manfully keeping the home fires stoked while I was in the States.’

‘What?’

‘I must thank him for keeping you company so often. I gather you two had lots of cosy suppers together.’

‘Along with the Moncrieffs, the Stantons, the Bucklands—’

‘But not every night.’

‘Hugo, what are you suggesting?’

‘You tell me.’

‘What are you talking about? Absolutely nothing went on.’

He glared at her furiously. ‘I just don’t want to find you’re keeping any secrets from me.’

Swallowing hard, Tash thought anxiously about the two hundred guests primed to arrive at Haydown the following weekend. She found she couldn’t look him in the eye.

Tash battled hard with her competition nerves, eager to show Hugo how much she had bounced back into the saddle. It was the first time he’d seen her compete this season and she was in contention in both her sections after the dressage and show-jumping. But then across country she held too much back, riding over-cautiously on both horses and posting hopelessly slow times.

‘Stop to chat to friends on the way round?’ Hugo asked afterwards, which did nothing for her self esteem.

Lough was also competing at the trials, having travelled there in his leased Ketterer box and three of his four horses on board. When he caught up with Tash in the stable lines he gave her the sympathetic pat on the back she badly needed, and the understanding in his dark eyes was a huge boost.

‘You did a good job out there. I was proud of you,’ he told her. ‘Better to be safe but slow when you’re still building your nerve and stamina.’

She smiled at him gratefully. ‘I’ll be better after the party.’

‘Party?’ He looked blank.

She stared at him, hardly able to believe he could have been missed off the guest list. But she had left all that to Sophia.

‘You must come …’ She started to gabble about the surprise fortieth extravaganza, but after a while he held up his hand.

‘I’ll pass.’

‘Please don’t.’ She reached out to grip his arm, steering the belligerent hand down. ‘It would mean so much to me. I really want you and Hugo to get onto a better footing, and it’s always lovely to have an excuse to dress up and celebrate.’ She was certain a big party would cheer them all up, and help to break the ice between the two men.

He tilted his head to look at her fingers on his sleeve, her knuckles still dusted with scurf from being pressed nervously into her horse’s mane over every cross-country jump.

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Thanks. Good luck for your round.’ Tash squeezed his arm gratefully before dancing away, oblivious of the tens of eyes following her, hands raised to faces as the gossips started to speculate about just how close Hugo’s wife had grown to his handsome Kiwi work rider during his prolonged absence.

Heading back to his horsebox to change, Lough found Lemon entertaining Beccy. Although they appeared to be doing no more than having a cup of tea, she still bolted as soon as she saw him, dashing past with her cheeks flaming.

‘And g’day to you too,’ he muttered, looking around for his cross-country kit.

‘She’s shy,’ Lemon said breezily, standing up. ‘She doesn’t want to get drawn into the “love triangle”.’

‘The what?’ Lough started zipping himself into his body protector while Lemon made his way through to the horse area of the box to fetch tack from the lockers.

‘You’re being talked about, didn’t you know? It’s all around the course. You and Mrs B are big news.’

Lough hurried after him. ‘What the fuck have you been saying, Lem?’

‘Nothing! Not me!’ Lemon held up his hands, a bridle in each. ‘But I can’t stop other people talking. They’ve seen the
hot ’n’ smokin’
way you look at her.’ He hammed a Yankee accent. ‘No smoke without fire, after all.’

‘Only thing getting fired around here will be you if you talk like that again,’ Lough snarled, grabbing a bridle and stalking out.

This put Lemon in such a sulk that he for once didn’t wish his boss luck as he headed off across country, although Lough hardly looked as though he needed goodwill as he flew around the first half of the course. Heading to the finish to wait for them, Lemon found Beccy cooling off Hugo’s horse after his round.

‘How’d he get on?’ He fell into step alongside her.

‘Clear.’

‘Bastard,’ Lemon hissed, kicking at a divot. ‘You should have left his girth slack.’

‘I could never do that,’ Beccy gasped.

‘Of course not, Ms Goody Two Shoes,’ Lemon sneered. ‘Remind
me to buy you a new doormat for your birthday. The one on your face is looking worn out.’ He peeled away to get ready for Lough’s return.

Beccy battled tears, not realising that Tash was behind her and had heard this last comment.

‘Let’s take this chap back to his box.’ Giving Beccy’s back an encouraging pat, Tash steered her towards the stable lines, speaking in an undertone as they walked. ‘Beccy, I don’t want to interfere, but I’m really not happy hearing Lem talking to you like that.’

‘Don’t listen in then.’

‘I’m sorry. I know you two are terribly close,’ Tash went on carefully, ‘but are you really sure he’s boyfriend material? Wouldn’t it be better to take it easy for a bit?’

‘No it wouldn’t!’ Beccy flashed, making the horse start back. ‘He
is
my boyfriend, so please keep your nose out of my business and leave us alone!’ She led the horse away, leaving Tash standing in her wake feeling foolish for trying.

She was still holding the bucket of sponges, spares, wipes and sweat scraper. Suddenly it made a strange buzzing noise and started to vibrate, making her drop it in alarm, imagining a giant insect in there.

Hugo’s phone fell out on the grass, a blue light flashing away on its rim to indicate new messages.

She hastily pocketed it and gathered the rest of the things back into the bucket before darting behind the portaloos to look at his inbox.

You are riding for a fall.

Tash took a couple of moments to take this in. Then she checked the sender, but it was from a caller listed as Shadowfax, with no contact details. Scrolling through his inbox, she found half a dozen similar messages such as:
Watch your back
…
Countdown to the final farewell
and – most worrying, and sent three days earlier –
Your wife is fucking the Kiwi
. For a mad moment, ludicrous images of herself with a green fruit sprang to mind.

It came as absolutely no consolation that there was nothing on Hugo’s phone from V. That he’d never mentioned the messages appalled her.

Chapter 55

‘How is it possible to send an anonymous text message?’ Tash asked Beccy, her fount of all IT knowledge, the next day.

‘Why d’you want to know?’ Beccy looked wary, still mistrustful around Tash. ‘Can you still not work your BlackBerry?’

‘No – I just wondered.’

‘It’s easy. There are internet sites for it.’

‘Why would anybody do that?’

‘Because they
can
. It’s great for chatting up people you fancy.’

‘And threatening people.’

‘I think they legislate pretty carefully against that.’ Beccy eyed her suspiciously. ‘I wouldn’t go there, if I were you.’

Tash opened her mouth to protest her innocence, then closed it again, knowing that she had to keep quiet until she had done some detective work. ‘You’re right. I’ll just send a strongly worded letter. Thanks Beccy.’

She checked the main Beauchamp Eventing email account that day. There was a host of malicious messages, just as there had been before Christmas, but these were even worse, threatening that horses would die, calamity strike and disaster crash down on them if Hugo didn’t retire from the sport. She wondered what or who they could have upset so much, her blood running icy in her veins.

The worst email simply read:
Look after your family, Beauchamp. Those poor little bastards won’t have a Daddy much longer
.

Hugo claimed the messages were nothing to worry about. ‘We’re in the public eye and the public get very misty-eyed about horses – somebody has probably seen YouTube footage of me giving a horse a clout and now wants to exact revenge in cyberspace.’

Tash found it impossible to believe this was a random cyber-crank. ‘Somebody is seriously out to get us, Hugo. It’s not just the messages. They slashed your tyres, they kidnapped one of the Rat Pack, they could have could have cut the horsebox brakes and poisoned the horses for all we know!’ She was so terrified she clung to him like a child that night.

Hugo remained stoical. ‘I’ll guard you all like a lion. And whenever I’m away, I’ll make sure Vasilly has a bloody big baseball bat near by at all times.’

After that, he made a concerted effort to delete all the malicious texts and emails that came through before Tash could see them, but his riding and competition commitments meant he wasn’t always quick enough.

Privately, Hugo suspected Lough but couldn’t prove it. They avoided one another completely on the yard and could still be in two different continents for all the contact they had. It was only at competitions that the gloves came off. At the three-star trials in Norfolk’s Burnham Market, Lough triumphed over Hugo with a big win on his top horse, Rangitoto, and claimed another section on his second advanced horse, the little chocolate dun mare Pihanga.

A week later at the South of England trials, Hugo reversed the placings and forced Lough into second in three sections.

‘It’s not fair,’ complained Lucy Field. ‘They’re not letting the rest of us have a look-in.’

‘Stand well back,’ Gus advised. ‘With any luck they’ll have killed each other by Badminton.’

The growing press speculation surrounding the professional rivalry between Hugo and his tenant rider soon had a nasty twist to it.

In the build-up to Kentucky, totally unfounded and very damaging rumours about Hugo suddenly started spreading through equestrian internet forums. Many said he was cruel to his horses; some that he was equally aggressive and violent to his wife. Within days, stories appeared in the sporting media, with claims of malpractice that even reached the nationals, who took delight in dredging up the photograph of Debbie Double-G, topless and tantalising, kissing Hugo at the Olympics.

All the allegations were immediately retracted once Hugo got his lawyers on the case, but the timing was awful and the mud had already stuck. Eventing was a very muddy sport, and when it dried on hard it could take a lifetime to wash off. A valuable new sponsorship deal with an accountancy firm fell through, and a lucrative television contract was cancelled.