The Country Escape (50 page)

‘Do something!’
he yelled in Russian at Seth’s bodyguard, who was trying to fend off several goats tugging greedily at his baggy jogging bottoms.

In the woods, Dair greeted his keepers. Meat and Two Veg gave triumphant salutes as they ripped off their headwear, the celebration shared somewhat starchily with the real animal activists whose headwear they had commandeered, and who had been left holding
the horses rather than sharing the action.

Russ, who had wanted to be the hero of the hour, was most put out that the estate manager had taken over his operation to put a stop to the shooting party, but he couldn’t deny the positive result. As soon as Dair had realized the Russian was conducting his own private stag hunt, he had proved refreshingly militant, confiscating the activists’
disguises and ordering his own men to take action.

‘It is for the greater good,’ he insisted wisely, hurrying through a thicket to check on Igor’s sidekicks, who were now being held out of sight at gunpoint by Dollar. Telling Seth’s ferocious PA that he believed Igor’s men were Russian Mafia and posed a serious threat to her boss’s life had perhaps been a mean trick, Dair reflected, but
it had paid dividends. She was magnificently fierce – he’d have had no hesitation in hiring her as a gamekeeper. The estate was not a playground for redneck hunting, any more than it would ever host television costume dramas, corporate bonding weekends or celebrity weddings. He was upholding Constance’s honour.

The lake beneath the bridge was a torrent of rip tides and ripples
now. Kat and Dougie burst up through the surface again, gasping for air. They had been down twice, fingers tangling and arms entwined in the least romantic way possible as they struggled to pull Seth to the surface, battling against the weight of the weeds that had twisted like a shroud around his legs. They knew they had just one more chance. Seth was breathing only water now, no longer clawing at
them in his panic.

Kat looked across at Dougie as they gulped air to go back down, his dark lashes star-fished around the blue eyes, his face white. He looked back at her and his expression made her heart inflate like a life-vest in her chest, dragging in oxygen and hope.

‘I love you,’ he said, diving back down.

Kat’s mouth opened in shock. Following him down, she realized
too late that she hadn’t taken a breath.

Under the water, sound muffled, she saw Seth through the gloom and kicked hard to the lake floor, grasping the reed-choked weight around his legs and gripping with all her might, while Dougie wrapped his arms around Seth’s chest and pulled upwards. With an almighty whoosh of water, his feet were released from trainers and weight rings and Dougie
could carry him up.

Kat was now so desperately short of oxygen and had swallowed so much water that she feared she’d pass out, but as she broke the surface she managed to gulp enough air to control the blurred dizziness and used the reflection of the causeway to swim in a straight line until she found solid ground beneath her feet. Lungs raw and legs weak, she followed Dougie as he hauled
a worryingly lifeless-looking Seth on to the bank and put him into the recovery position.

‘What do we do next? Mouth-to-mouth or the chest-punching thing or both?’ he asked urgently, as Kat scrambled up the bank beside him.

‘I’ll do it.’ As she stepped forward to apply CPR, she was knocked sideways by a lithe, tearful figure body-slamming past them both to crouch by Seth’s head,
cupping his face.

‘If you die, my darling, I will kill them all, then commit sati upon your pyre,’ Dollar sobbed. Then she applied such vigorous CPR that they could all hear the ribs creak, but Seth spluttered back into the world with a gratifying series of belches and coughs. Soon he was sitting up and complaining that his chest hurt.

Thrusting her phone at Dougie and telling him
to call an ambulance, Dollar wrapped her arms around Seth, cradling him and soothing him in Hindi and English.

‘You saved my life,’ he gasped in wonder.

Dollar hugged him tighter. ‘I told you this was a bad place to buy.
Glar ka bhedi lanka dhayey.
Your enemies are insiders. They tried to kill you.’ She glared up at Igor, who was trying to hide his extreme bad temper behind contrition
that Seth had got caught up in the hunt.

‘Of course none of this would have happened if the
rusalka
had not interfered. It is all her fault.’ He glared at Kat, who was still too busy trying to catch her breath to notice or care. She felt dizzy and increasingly nauseous; the last dive had wiped her out.

Having called for an ambulance, Dougie sat close beside her, arm sliding round
her shoulders. ‘That was bloody brave,’ he said quietly. ‘Must have brought it all back.’

‘It probably helped lay the ghost.’ She was reluctant to admit how close she’d come to blacking out. Yet she hadn’t for a moment doubted her own survival, her determination to save a life too overwhelming to let in fear. She reached up and found his hand, sliding hers into it without thinking, the
squeeze of reassurance like a heart massage. Looking across at him, she was mesmerized by the concern in his eyes. ‘You were bloody brave too. He’d have died if it wasn’t for you.’

‘You were the one who saved his life. You’re amazing.’

She was about to protest that they’d done it together when he reached up and wiped something from her cheek. His fingers stayed there, his eyes unblinking,
and she found she couldn’t speak. They might have been the only two people in the world, back in the secret meadow, trading secrets and dares.

‘I meant what I said in the water just now,’ he breathed, his fingers sliding up into her hair, drawing her face towards his. ‘I fell in love with you the moment you set your arse on fire.’

Kat didn’t trust herself to speak, seeing such honesty
in his face yet unable to shake his great betrayal from her consciousness. He’d been paid to target her. She’d had a price on her head all along. He’d just offered to pay it over to her, but surely the fact he’d accepted it in the first place was beneath reproach. Her trust was too fragile to test her weight on it, especially not here amid such chaos.

She was suddenly aware of Dollar’s
deep voice soothing the still-spluttering Seth behind them, that same voice that had, no doubt, been whispering sweet nothings into Dougie’s ear the night before. Anger bubbled up in a familiar spurt of lava.

‘I know about you and Dollar,’ Kat whispered.

Dougie closed his eyes and groaned. ‘That badger bastard told you, didn’t he?’

‘I saw it for myself last night.’ She wriggled
away and rubbed her wet hair back off her face. She could feel the first symptoms of shock kicking in. She was starting to shake, her breath shallow, pulse jumping.

‘That really wasn’t what it looked like,’ he muttered.

Kat had turned to glance at Dollar, who was rocking Seth in her arms, covering his head with kisses, tears on her cheeks, telling him she loved him. What was more,
he was kissing her tearfully back, saying much the same thing and coughing a lot.

Kat rubbed her face in confusion. The shock was making her feel faint, her skin ice cold and clammy.

‘We must talk,’ Dougie said urgently.

From the bank above them, Dair was shouting for Dougie to come and look after the hunt horses. People were running down towards them, voices talking across
each other, walkie-talkies burbling. Someone had driven one of the big black cars down from the house to take Seth back and await the paramedics. Several voices were yelling in Russian, Igor’s sidekicks and security guards furious about the ambush in the wood.

Dougie’s eyes didn’t leave Kat’s face. ‘I have to see my beasts home and change into dry clothes. I’m sure there’ll be hell to pay
over this. I’ll come and see you later. Will you be all right?’ He looked at her worriedly.

She nodded. ‘I have my friend at the house.’

‘Dougie!’ Dair shouted. ‘We need you here NOW.’

Dougie stood up reluctantly, taking Kat’s hand to help her up. ‘Tell your friend you need sugary tea, a hot bath and a rest. Meet me later.’

Russ was bounding down the bank towards Kat,
a bearded bear-hug in a hoodie. ‘That was bloody ’mazing! D’you hear what happened, Kat?’

Dougie stepped away. ‘Usual time and place.’

Enveloped in eau-de-twenty-four-hour-camp-out – with a top note of rooibos tea – Kat was nevertheless grateful for the six-foot-four prop holding her up.

‘Think this Bollywood thing will still go ahead?’ Russ was saying excitedly. ‘I asked
the animal-liberation lads to stay on and celebrate.’

Now reunited with his loyal hunting coterie, Igor was ranting furiously at them in Russian for shaming him and ruining the day. Stepping in to calm the situation, Dair made a diplomatic apology on behalf of the Eardisford Estate. ‘There were saboteurs lying in wait for us unfortunately. It’s a damned inconvenience with British
field sports. They’ll be long gone now.’ He cleared his throat guiltily and peered across the parkland to where Meat and Two Veg were trying to round up loose horses cavorting around the ancient trees with several sheep and goats in tow. The llama had turned his attention to Seth’s bodyguard now and appeared to be chasing him the length of the lime avenue.

Dougie climbed aboard Worcester,
taking the reins of the three other hunt horses to lead them back to the stables. He gave one loud wolf whistle, which brought Harvey trotting over to follow him, like a dog. The sanctuary horses were far less compliant, cavorting rebelliously around the park rides enjoying snatches of lush grass between bursts of speed, the red faced game-keeping team panting in their wake.

Dair barred
Kat’s path as she squelched up from the lake, deathly pale. ‘Leave them to my boys to bring back,’ he told her, noticing that her teeth were chattering uncontrollably and that Igor was still eyeing her murderously, his heavies gathered around him. ‘You go and dry off. Where’s Dawn?’

‘Holding the fort,’ Kat assured him.

‘Sterling girl.’ He hid his besotted smile beneath his flat cap.

Back at the Lake Farm yard, Dawn greeted Kat with a wail of relief from the feed room, where she had been trapped for the past twenty minutes defending herself from the Shetlands with a broom and a scoop. She was still wearing her towelling turban, her face-pack cracked, like a dry riverbed. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been in
total peril
here!’

As Kat grabbed a thick forelock
in each hand and backed the little ponies out, ready to herd them back to their field, Dawn saw she was soaked. ‘Have I missed something?’

The Russian party left within an hour of returning to the house. There was no farewell or apology.

Having been checked over by medics and found to have nothing worse than badly bruised ribs and a racking cough, Seth disappeared
in a small private plane, while Dollar summoned Dair and Dougie to an incredibly high-tech office in the old library that neither man had been into before. Both had to resist gazing around like small boys.

‘Well, that was a total cock-up,’ Dollar said coolly. Once again power-dressed and blank-faced, she fixed the two men with her death stare. ‘Seth is very tempted to dismiss you both.’

‘On what grounds?’ Dair demanded.

Dougie said nothing, glancing at his watch, longing to get away. He was desperate to see Kat.

‘You are both very lucky,’ Dollar went on. ‘We have a cricket match to win, and cricket is more important to Seth than anything – almost anything,’ she corrected, two spots of colour appearing in her cheeks, the chital eyes softening uncharacteristically.
Even more unexpectedly, she flashed a ravishing smile to herself. ‘Personally, I am very glad that Igor Talitov has gone and I think you are both to be congratulated.’

Dougie looked up: he was amazed that rigid, controlling Dollar would share such a personal opinion, let alone one that threatened her boss’s business deals.

She tucked the smile away and tapped a flat computer screen
to one side of her, which burst into life with a list of files. ‘Seth wants morale to be high here at Eardisford,’ she said. ‘He insists the Bollywood party will go ahead as planned tonight.’

‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ Dair looked appalled, having been against the party for the villagers from the start, more so now that rumour would run rife about today. ‘The locals are a bloody rowdy
lot.’

‘Near-death experiences can sometimes have a euphoric and strange after-effect, I gather,’ Dollar explained, the secret smile back again.

‘Where is he?’ asked Dougie.

‘Bradford.’ Her smile fell away and she swallowed uncomfortably. ‘The doctors advised rest, but he is in a very bullish mood. He has promised to be back here in time for the party, although he still prefers
that his identity is not revealed to guests. I believe his costume will prove a very effective disguise.’

‘Is he coming dressed as a waiter?’ muttered Dougie.

Dollar’s impassive mask was firmly back in place, monotone strident: ‘The marquee for locals and villagers is arriving at any moment. The extra security staff will be staying on for the full weekend, so they will be tasked
to keep things in order and make sure that the VIP guests are safe.’

‘Masters and servants kept well apart,’ Dougie murmured, remembering Kat accusing him of double-crossing both. He glanced at his watch again, hoping she was okay. She’d been so pale when he’d left her. It was hard to take in that it was barely lunchtime. Today had been such an unholy mess so far. His timing had always
been lousy. Offering to give her the bonus money had backfired; telling her he loved her hadn’t gone down too well either. He couldn’t wait to complete the hat trick and tell her the entire, unabridged truth. If she still said she never wanted to see him again after that, he would have no choice but to honour her wish.

Dollar was droning on. ‘Dair, you will brief the security team about
all the outside areas which must be out of bounds, then speak with the fireworks people. Dougie, you will come with me.’ She stood up and headed for a bookshelf. Following her, Dougie fully expected the shelves to slide aside and reveal a hidden passageway, but instead he almost cannoned into Dollar’s back as she pulled out a foxed hardback.

Beckoning him with a nod, she led the way out
into the main hall and on through the spectacular armour-decked dining room where a catering team were arranging banqueting tables for that night, a rainbow of coloured linen and glittering gold tableware lined up ready to decorate them. Dougie was tempted to grab a pikestaff from the wall as he passed in case he had to defend himself. He’d never known Dollar as random as this, her usual rigid cool
breaking out into weird smiles and nervous tics. Given the extreme volatility that he knew simmered just beneath the surface, he wouldn’t have put it past her to throw in a sudden violent turn.

She went out on to the terrace, which was being tented and decorated with maharaja luxury. Picking her way through acres of flapping silk, she walked to the steps and perched on the top one, flicking
through the book to find a black and white picture plate featuring a pretty, elfin-faced girl sitting on a pony, surrounded by hounds, with Eardisford’s lake framed behind her.

‘Constance Mytton-Gough.’ She held it up for him to examine. ‘A very English lady. Seth would like to ask Kat more about her tonight. He is looking forward to meeting her.’

‘They already have met. She pulled
him out of the lake, remember?’

‘He is very grateful to you for your help.’

‘Does he actually know that it was Kat who saved his life? She deserves the credit.’

‘Trust me, Dougie, you and I will both gain far more advantage by taking the credit, and that includes advantages for Kat Mason.’ She pulled a ticket from her pocket. ‘This is your reward. First class to LA, leaving
on Monday. Abe Schultz will meet you at LAX. We will organize accommodation and a generous living allowance. There’s a small part for you in a very significant movie that Seth is co-funding. It starts shooting next month, after which you should have found your feet again. Somebody out there cannot wait to see you.’ She pulled out her tablet and tapped the screen. ‘We now have lightning fast WiFi
here. It is about the only thing to recommend the place.’

On screen, Kiki’s face appeared, her lips huge and scarlet. ‘Hello, stranger!’

Dougie gaped at it in horror, trying to find the off button.

‘I feel so bad about what happened. I knew that fire screwed with your head. I missed you, baby. We gotta get together when you’re back. I can’t believe you’ve got a part in
the
biggest movie of the decade. I’d kill to be in that – they say the budget’s record breaking and I’ve always wanted to work with Spiel —’

Finally, Dougie hammered enough buttons to cut the video feed, clenching his eyes tightly shut.

‘You turned it off by mistake.’ Dollar took the tablet back, trying to resurrect the link.

‘Please don’t!’

‘I thought this would make you
happy.’ She stared at him in confusion. ‘You told me just last night that you are still in love with Kiki.’

‘You brought up her name, not me. I just said there was somebody else,’ he said, staring at the ticket. ‘What about the hunt mastership? The kennel staff and the hounds?’ He swallowed the ashes in his throat. ‘The bonus?’

‘The contract is cancelled, Dougie. This movie will
earn you more than any arranged marriage and be
much
better for your image.’

‘I thought you said it was just a small part.’

‘It’s a very big movie.’

Dougie chewed his lip, staring at her in mounting horror. ‘I know you’re superhuman, Dollar, but you can’t tell me that you arranged all this between Seth getting fished out of the lake and now?’

She looked down at the
pad, smirking. ‘It was already arranged, apart from making contact with Kiki, which I did last night after you told me you still loved her and I realized I would prefer not to be a part of this.’

‘You were going to come too?’

‘Los Angeles was my getaway plan for us both. You can be a very big star, but you need a strong woman behind you. You are so easy to fall in love with on screen.
That is a very magical quality. I see you as the next James Bond – that was my goal as your manager. I asked Seth to release you from your contractual obligations here last week, when you called to say that you would not marry the girl. It was easy to persuade him that you were wrong for the job when you refused to hunt.’

So Seth had known about this last night, had been complicit in it.
Yet when Dougie had repeatedly asked about terminating his contract, he’d been given the brush-off. ‘Did he know you were planning to come with me?’

‘He knew I would not stick around once he got married.’ She looked up anxiously, pressing her fingers together beneath her chin. Her hands were shaking and the secret smile back. ‘I must tell you something, Dougie. For if this does not go right,
I will take down every sword in this house and throw it from the ramparts tonight like the goddess Kali attacking Raktabija.’

Dougie knew he’d been right to be wary.

‘Seth has flown to Bradford to ask his parents’ blessing to marry the woman he loves, a woman who is not of high birth or unimpeachable innocence, and who met their son when he bought her from a brothel for a dollar.’

‘That’s wonderful!’

She looked away, those shaking hands wringing together now. ‘If they say no, he will not disobey them and he will not marry me. He will take their choice of wife. I have simply been added to the Brides List and put at the top.’

‘You love him very much, don’t you?’

‘I would die for him – and kill for him,’ she smiled down at her hands, ‘but he wants
me to live long and be happy, so I try to give him what he needs. In turn, if I want something, Seth gives it. That is why he gave you to me in the first place.’

‘Was I the compensation prize?’ Dougie looked at the ticket in his hands.

‘We could have been a good team, I believe. Seth thought I would grow bored of you and perhaps he was right. Cerebrally I find you very limited, but
sexually you are extremely impressive.’

‘Thanks.’ He wished he hadn’t asked.

‘It is unfortunate you were a terrible gigolo. The girl clearly cannot stand you. But you are a very exciting movie star. The screen loves you. That’s what you should be doing. Seth totally agrees with me. He thinks you are a very good investment.’

Dougie snorted, remembering the comment about
Dark
Knight
being shit after the tenth viewing. He had a feeling that Seth was so devoted to Dollar that he trusted her judgement on high risk ventures, even marriage, it now seemed.

‘The one thing Seth was always very uncomfortable about was stopping you getting the part in the big network series,’ she was saying. ‘He thinks it would have made you a huge star.’

‘Maybe he did me a favour.’
Dougie gazed across the estate, thinking about the sheer pleasure he drew from its changing landscape, the delight of working with his hounds and horses. The only reason he would want to use the ticket in his hands right now, he realized, with a jolt, was to visit Zephyr, still on stable rest in a veterinary recuperation barn, having his oxygen treatment. ‘Was the fire deliberate as well?’

‘No! Seth would never harm any animal.’ Looking out across the estate, a five-hundred-year-old hunting ground for the super-rich, she hurried on. ‘You are free to go back to LA, Dougie. Seth just asks that you don’t leave before the cricket because you are captain of the team.’

He laughed in amazement. ‘I’m forgiven for fucking up his multi-billion, poverty-ending deal to build flight
simulators, but woe betide me if I let him down over the village cricket match?’

‘He’s in a forgiving mood.’ She tilted her head. ‘You just saved his life.’

‘What if I say I want to stay?’ Dougie muttered, looking across to Lake Farm, briefly imagining himself taking on Badger Man and tweedy Dair in jousting duels and tournaments, fighting for her favour.

‘There is no job
for you here.’

‘What happens to the sanctuary?’

‘It is safe for now. The estate will even pay for its repair, starting with the bridge. Seth was most insistent about that. He would like it designed like this one.’ She held up the book again and Dougie realized that she hadn’t been showing him Constance but the lake behind her, across which stretched a beautifully ornate wrought-iron
bridge. ‘When this photograph was taken, there was a far more substantial bridge. It was dismantled during the war so that the metal could be used in munitions. Only the stone pillars remain, upon which the plank causeway was built. It will significantly improve the look of the parkland for the next – incumbent.’

‘Will the estate be sold?’

‘That is not decided. Nothing is decided.’
She gripped the book so hard the picture plate snagged from its spine stitching and he saw how terrified she was, her knuckles white.

‘You guarantee Kat’s going to be safe? You won’t try to get her out?’

‘Maybe we will find her another husband.’ Dollar chuckled, not noticing his frozen face. ‘She may be able to stay here as long as she likes whether she marries or not.’ She flicked
the page. ‘The Bolt is the challenge to which she aspires, is it not? It says here that the prize for its completion is the Eardisford Purse.’

‘What is it?’ Dougie had never heard Kat mention it.

She read aloud, ‘“For the generations of Mytton men who undertook this legendary challenge, the honour of joining the ranks of the very few to achieve the near-impossible feat was far greater
than receiving the Eardisford Purse, although that prize was notable in its eccentricity. The Purse contained a signed apple wager between the participant and the estate’s owner.”’

‘What’s an apple wager?’ Dougie took the book to look at the page. ‘Are you saying they went through all that for a bag of Bramleys?’

‘It’s a local term. It’s a simplistic reward and forfeit system basically.
Seth’s researchers think it is as straightforward as “Climb that tree and I’ll give you a pound – fall off and you can give me a pound.” Constance Mytton entered an apple wager with her father over the estate, but he failed to honour it. Perhaps marrying Ronnie Gough was really her forfeit.’

He wondered what Kat would be willing to risk losing. Certainly not the farm.

‘Is Seth going
to challenge her to an apple wager?’ he asked, feeling sick at the prospect.

‘Kat’s wager was agreed with the previous owner,’ Dollar explained. ‘It was signed before Constance Mytton’s death. I do not believe Kat understood the significance of it, and it’s not legally binding in itself, but the Mytton solicitors looked into it in great detail, as have Seth’s. It could possibly hold up
in court. The old lady clearly thought it would be honoured.’