Kiss and Tell (85 page)

As the date for the Haydown contingent’s departure for Kentucky three day event approached, Hugo’s status as British pin-up and ambassador for the sport looked ever more shaky.

‘There’s a very focused smear campaign being orchestrated against you.’ Gus pointed out the obvious when he came up to
Haydown to use the cross-country course. ‘You must know who’s behind it.’

Hugo distractedly fed Gus’s horse a mint from his pocket, watching with narrowed eyes as Lough rode out of the yard with Tash, Beccy and Lemon. Although Tash was hanging well back on the nutty Lor, and Lough was at the front of the line, there seemed to be an invisible thread between them. Hugo had noticed it before when they were riding together. They never spoke or even exchanged glances, but he was certain he wasn’t mistaken. He was dreading the thought of leaving them at Haydown when he and Rory returned to the States, but he badly needed a good four-star result to salvage his reputation, and Sophia and Ben were flying out especially to support the horse they part owned. He had to trust Tash.

‘Whoever it is can throw all they like at me,’ he told Gus now, ‘but if they touch my family I’ll find them and shoot them.’

While Gus trotted eagerly back to Lime Tree Farm to pass on this latest news to his team, Hugo took a call from Mogo managing director Mike Seith that was guaranteed to intensify the enmity between himself and Lough yet further. The sponsors wanted a ride-off between the top Brit and his New Zealander team-mate. This was typical of the company, which often employed such tactics. Having at one time supported a team of six riders and started this year promising a Haydown exclusive, Mogo now planned to reduce to just one rider–ambassador – whoever ended up higher on the points board at the end of the season. Hugo was certain that Lough must have suggested the challenge. Having been away in the States at the start of the season, he was already lagging way behind.

That Rory wasn’t even being considered in the Mogo sponsorship race didn’t register with Hugo and Lough. They considered him well enough supported by Dillon Rafferty to survive. But to Rory, exclusion from the Mogo challenge spelled a very uncertain future and was a bitter blow to both his pride and pocket. Dillon hadn’t paid a bill in a long while; the papers were full of pictures of him and Sylva Frost playing happy families. Rory left endless messages to no avail. Relying on individual patrons was notoriously risky, and Rory knew that he couldn’t afford to keep paying his way at Haydown without more traditional corporate support.

Quietly getting on with his riding away from the Zeus and Poseidon rivalry, he’d scooped a decent cache of top-ten places in the spring events, but no plaudits so far this year. He wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to keep going.

He badly needed a sounding board, and Faith was the first person to spring to mind, just as she’d been on his mind when he was on the other side of the Atlantic. But long gone were the days when she would send him twenty texts by lunchtime. He’d expected to hear from her as soon as she’d checked out the URL on the cowboy postcard, but she’d been ominously quiet of late. When asked, Beccy and Lemon said vaguely that she never got any time off, but Rory suspected she had a boyfriend, one of the Moncrieff’s flash young blood City clients, or a National Hunt hell-raiser attracted to those terrifying fake boobs and her amazing vivacity. He hoped they didn’t exploit her lion’s heart.

Badly in need of advice, he turned instead to his latest fairy godmother. Marie-Clair had told him never to ring her at home even if he was dying, in case her husband answered. He left several urgent messages on her mobile, but she didn’t return his calls.

He felt so down that he dared himself to text Faith after all, risking egg on his face. But gratifyingly she responded within twenty seconds of him suggesting they meet for a drink with
How soon?

Yet even Faith had nothing great to offer in the way of wise counsel when they met in the Olive Branch for fizzy water, beer nuts and a game of skittles. ‘You’ll just have to win more, Rory. That’s how it works.’

She’d become even more brusque lately, he noted. He blamed the influence of Penny Moncrieff, who was incredibly school-marmish and ragged Gus endlessly.

‘I can barely afford the entry fees as it is,’ he grumbled. ‘I spent all my capital in America. Hugo’s been paying for everything since then,’ he revealed anxiously, firing off a skittles ball that missed its targets totally. ‘If I don’t have a win soon, he’s bound to ditch me, especially now we know Mogo doesn’t want me at the end of the season.’

‘What about Dillon?’ Faith was surprised.

Rory laughed bitterly, shaking his head. ‘Now Nell’s out of his life he’s lost all interest in me. Owning horses was all about impressing her. And Sylva just pretended to be interested in eventing to get at Dillon.’

‘That’s not true.’

He lowered his head modestly. ‘Thanks for imagining she saw more in me than a way to get at Dillon, but—’

‘Oh, that bit’s true.’ Faith waved her hand at him impatiently. ‘But Dillon certainly didn’t back you because of Nell.’

‘Whatever.’ Rory was too dejected to care. ‘He’s not backing me right now, full stop.’ He looked up at Faith again, drinking in the intensity of her gaze, the blue eyes sparkling to either side of her long noble nose like the beams of a lighthouse.

‘Only one thing for it,’ she told him dryly, selecting a skittles ball. ‘You’ll have to win the Grand Slam, starting with Kentucky.’

‘No chance of that.’

‘Why not?’ She suddenly grew animated. ‘You have a great horse waiting over there, you’ve been sober for weeks and you’re running each morning – don’t deny it because I’ve seen you. You’ve had the best coaching, support, ownership and expertise in the country at your disposal for months now. The least you can do is win the first leg.’

‘Never been a leg man.’

Faith looked regretfully down at her endless slim legs and sighed, pressing her chicken fillets together instead as she bowled out her skittles with one toss. ‘Just be grateful you’re going to Kentucky.’

‘You’re invited too,’ he pointed out, fingers strumming against his cheekbones as his tarnished-silver eyes stared at her indignantly.

She laughed. ‘Don’t talk crap. I have no money and no time off.’

‘All paid for.’

‘I have a full-time job.’

‘Time off was arranged weeks ago.’

‘Says who?’

Rory cocked his head, looking offended. ‘Your horse, of course.’

‘Eh?’

‘Haven’t you been keeping an eye on the webcam?’

‘Since when did my horse have a webcam?’

‘I
told
you about it as soon as we got back. It’s on the postcard I gave you. I wrote the address down.’

Faith didn’t have the heart to admit that she couldn’t decipher his handwriting, even after many years of reading his feed charts at Overlodes. The postcard had been propped up on her bedside table since his return so that its picture was the first thing and the last thing she looked at each day, but the reverse was gobbledegook.

When Rory dropped her back at Lime Tree Farm he insisted on coming inside to assist in firing up Penny and Gus’s ancient Mac. Showing unexpected reserves of patience throughout the technical glitches born of sluggish broadband and their combined ignorance of computers, Rory finally helped Faith locate the Johanssen’s website with its live link to her stallion in his Virginia des res.

‘This is their summer barn,’ Rory explained, clicking the mouse for her. ‘The horses all relocated there from MC’s Florida place just before we flew home. There! Looks settled, doesn’t he?’ There was a surprisingly proud catch in his voice as he watched Faith’s horse eat hay on screen. ‘I asked Stefan to put him in this stall when I heard they had a camera in there.’

‘Why?’

‘Take a closer look.’

She squinted at the screen.

Pinned above Rio’s hay manger, curling from the damp and dust, was a big sign that read:
Come and see me win in Kentucky, Mum. Your tickets are booked.

Faith re-read it a dozen times before she started to take it seriously. ‘You want me to go to America?’

‘Blued my pocket money on a ticket, so I sure hope so,’ he affected a Yankee accent.

She stared at him, realising what exactly he’d done for her. And what’s more, he’d done it weeks ago, when he was still in America. She felt giddy.

‘Why?’

‘You’re the owner.’ He patted her on the shoulder with a respectful bow of his head, before looking up winningly through his lashes, a sheepish smile breaking on his face. ‘And I need a groom.’

‘You’re not serious?’

He looked suddenly doubtful. ‘Well, I could ask Stefan and Kirsty if they can spare somebody, I guess …’

‘Like hell you will!’ she whooped. ‘I’m going to Kentucky!’

So delirious with excitement that she couldn’t think straight, Faith kissed Rory a hundred times on his face, cheeks, lips, hands and even knees until he had to bat her away and tell her to go to bed.

‘I hope your boyfriend won’t mind you being away,’ he said as he was leaving.

‘What boyfriend?’ She laughed. ‘I have no time for stupid things like that.’

‘Of course,’ he agreed heartily, ‘stupid of me to even think it.’

Faith was far too distracted to notice the relief in his face.

‘I’m going to Kentucky!’ she shrieked again, thundering up the stairs to her attic and inadvertently waking the entire house.

Riding home on Hugo’s quad bike, which he’d taken to borrowing on a regular basis, Rory also felt pretty delirious.

Lough had to tell him off for singing ‘Whip Crack Away!’ at top volume in the lodge cottage bath. He bounded into bed that night feeling as though he’d just won the Mogo sponsorship deal, not been excluded from the race.

He was about to text Faith to remind her to pack her party dress when a text message came through from Dillon, making contact after many weeks of silence:
Hope all okay with horses. Sorry money late – girls in office snowed under. Cheque on way. Good luck in Kentucky. D.
He read it in amazement, marvelling at the serendipity.

The phone rang in his hands.

‘
Chéri
, it is too bad you are so low.’ MC’s voice was a deep, sexual purr. ‘I am going to cheer you up next week,
non
? I am on the ground jury at Kentucky so I will see you there. I am looking forward to it,
chéri
.’

Rory felt a quiver of anticipation course through him.

Chapter 56

‘It’s the big party at Haydown next week,’ Sylva purred throatily at Dillon during one of their rare phone calls, which she was conducting via speakerphone in her powder blue kitchen while her documentary team filmed her. ‘Just checking you’ll be back?’

‘I’ll try,’ he promised. ‘Berry has chicken pox and her mother’s away filming, so it depends how she recovers.’

He was predictably in the States, almost his second home, where he was staying with his ex in-laws in Malibu. Sylva didn’t for a moment object to the amount of time he devoted to his daughters
and to maintaining close links with their mother’s family – she only wished her own children’s fathers were as conscientious – but it played havoc with any attempt at a normal relationship. Not that anything about their relationship was remotely normal, from the imprudent announcement of their engagement to the ongoing civility between them, while all around the press slavered for scraps and their respective families went into overdrive.

Mama was still planning the wedding of the century, spending hours poring over brochures and dress designs, ordering his and hers Swarovski Grenade rings the size of gulls’ eggs.

‘But he hasn’t really proposed,’ Sylva pointed out after Rodney and his team had left.

Mama batted the objection away. ‘It’s publicity,
ma
i
ka.
We all know that. And you
will
marry him.’

Yet, up close and personal, Sylva wasn’t so sure. She had loved Strawberry when they married. And Jonte had been exciting and a fantastic lover, if incapable of keeping his dick in his pants for more than a week on a film set. She’d cared deeply for both and borne them children. Dillon Rafferty, on the other hand, was boorish and twitchy in person, banging on about farming and food, uninterested in clubs, parties and the high life; he didn’t even drink or take drugs. He was a very dull rock star, especially compared to his father. When Sylva had met Pete she’d known instantly that he had the power to snap her lingerie straps with one come-here click of his fingers.