Country Affairs, page 14
‘Well, probably. But he was pretty sure anyway. He said you can always tell. Could you tell? Did you know before I told you?’
Mick fought the urge to look at her gently rounded stomach, which to him looked like it always had, and wondered if the infamous Irish tendency to have large families had anything to do with her assumption that he’d know. Something deep in his gut tightened as he acknowledged the look of undisguised pleasure on Lottie’s face. He wouldn’t exactly say she was blooming, but she was brimming over with something. ‘It never occurred to me to be honest.’
‘Really?’
‘Truly. I suppose I should say congratulations.’ It was the shock – once he got used to the idea it would be fine. Lottie dragging her tousle-haired toddler behind her as she inspected a cross-country course flitted through his head before he shut the door firmly on it. ‘You’re pleased, then – and he will be?’
‘Rory? Well it was his idea.’
So the man was already intent on filling Tipping House with his offspring before they’d even moved in – something that Mick had never imagined had been on the agenda.
Lottie bit on the inside of her cheek and stared at him through those lovely wide eyes of hers. ‘You think it’s a mistake, don’t you?’ She looked worried, the elation of seconds ago dimming in the face of his lack of enthusiasm, which made him feel guilty.
‘Nothing to do with me.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sure it’ll be wonderful for you, treas., if it’s what you want?’
‘We just thought it might, you know, have a settling effect.’
‘A settling effect.’ He echoed her words and was just about to say that he wanted her to stay just the way she was, when it dawned on him that something was off-kilter. ‘Why?’
‘Well after I had that accident he said he couldn’t see me getting Gold round a cross-country course in one piece.’
So the man was putting his girlfriend out to grass rather than risk her neck on a horse that was as impetuous as she was? ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to get another horse?’ were the words on the tip of his tongue.
‘Don’t you think it will work, then? Dom thought it might. And maybe if it doesn’t, then her foal will have the same jump in it, I mean that stallion is gorgeous, but much more solid and sensible than she is. I saw him jump at Hickstead and he was awesome before the accident. Coming down the bank he was just so steady. Do you remember? Did you see him?’
As she spoke, Mick could feel his heart return to its normal rhythm and the pain that had settled over his sternum like bad indigestion dispersed. ‘Gold.’ The tension slid from his body. ‘You’ve put Black Gold in foal.’
‘Yeah, Gold. Why? Who else would it be?’ Lottie gave him a funny look. ‘We haven’t got any other mares, silly.’
‘Haven’t got any other mares for what?’ Pip stomped into the tack room, a saddle in her hands and a bridle over her shoulder. ‘Here, take this will you, Mick, and put it up there. Why the hell Tab can’t put saddles away is beyond me.’
She watched critically as Mick took the saddle and effortlessly slung it up on one of the racks, and wondered if it was too early to go to the pub.
‘She had to go straight out on the next horse or she wouldn’t be finished before Rory got back.’ Lottie said reasonably. ‘Hey, guess what, we’re having a baby.’ Pip, who had by now been partly smothered by a hugging Lottie, who was also somehow jumping on the spot, raised a questioning eyebrow at Mick, then caught on – quicker than he had.
‘A baby. As in baby what?’
‘A foal, of course, Gold is in foal. Isn’t that fabulous? The vet just confirmed.’ She grinned, good humour restored.
‘Fabulous.’ Pip dipped the bit from the bridle in a bucket of water and hoped whatever had hit Tippermere wasn’t catching. ‘What is it about you lot in the countryside and breeding? I get the fornication part, but…. what with Amanda puking up everywhere, Sam going all broody and bloody Tiggy filling the country with mad spaniels. Is everybody around here set on increasing the population? I think Tippermere needs a controlled breeding programme – a limit on the number of permissible births per year.’
‘Tiggy?’ Lottie stopped mid-hop, then realised and put her foot down.
‘The spaniel. Is it something in the water?’
‘She’s not had her puppies, has she? Why didn’t you say? Oh God. They’ll be so cute, I’ve got to go and see. Come on, come on. Have you seen them already? Where’s my phone? I need to text her.’
‘I did say. Apparently they just popped out like little corks.’ Pip shuddered. ‘Later. Come on, Sam’s waiting in the kitchen.’
‘Sam?’
Lottie looked at her blankly, which was how Mick felt.
‘You’re hopeless. She’s come over so we can put together your plan of action. You know, the one we discussed after the cricket auction?’
‘Oh hell.’ Lottie glanced at her wrist, then realised that, yet again, she’d mislaid her watch, she grabbed Pip’s wrist. ‘How can it be that time already?’ In her head she’d been busy trying to put together her own plan most of the day, in between all the other things she’d been doing. And she’d been rehearsing her ‘this is what we’re doing’ speech, except she hadn’t yet hit on the perfect solution. But she’d then been so preoccupied with the vet’s visit and side-tracked by the thought of puppies and how she could persuade Rory that a spaniel would make a lovely addition to the terrier trio, that she had completely lost track of time.
‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’
‘No you won’t.’ Pip grabbed hold of Mick’s arm as he made a bid for freedom. ‘Stay. We need all the help we can get.’ She hung on, hoping that they could, just for once, do something together that didn’t involve horses. ‘Don’t we, Lottie?’
‘Why on earth would you need me?’ The shock of a pregnant Lottie had shaken him more than he liked, and now the idea of contributing to an action plan designed to set Lottie and Rory up in Tipping House, with or without a brood of children, was a step too far. He needed some distance. He needed to persuade Pip to go back to Ireland with him, where they might stand a chance of rescuing what was left of their relationship. And he could tell from the look on her face that his prickly attitude was showing. ‘Isn’t it Rory who should be there helping, not me?’
‘I’d like you to be here. And Rory will be when he gets back from the gallops.’ Pip wasn’t going to give him a let-out. ‘We’re a committee and you are on it.’
‘Says who?’ Lottie and Mick spoke in nearly perfect unison. Both alarmed for different reasons.
‘You honestly don’t have to be there,’ Lottie said, seeing her committee of four ballooning in size like badly behaved dough – if she wasn’t careful. Then she saw the frown on Pip’s face and dithered, ‘Unless you really want to, of course.’
Mick shook his head. Long ago he thought he’d accepted that Lottie would never be anything more than a friend. He’d moved on, and the relationship he’d had with Pip had been good. But lately the sparks between them had turned to shrapnel, and the lack of common interests, which had given them independence at the start, was now a chasm that became harder to cross each day.
It was easier to be apart than together and he hated it. Pip was bossy, and that had worked at first, but they’d started to act like an old married couple, nagging and niggling as they fought to share the same path. It wasn’t fun now, it was getting too serious. And as each day passed he became more certain that she wanted more from him, wanted something he couldn’t give. And he couldn’t pretend, didn’t want to live a lie. The harder she tried to pull them together, the more he became sure they were better apart.
‘Says Her Ladyship,’ Pip threw Lottie a semi-apologetic look, ‘Elizabeth.’
‘I thought I was supposed to be in charge?’ Lottie, who was in the habit of trying to avoid being in charge, suddenly realised that she was in danger of being an onlooker in her gran’s and Pip’s master plan. Which Mick thought was probably Elizabeth’s idea, to put her in a position where she actually wanted to take control.
Pip dug in her pocket and found a scrap of paper. ‘She gave me this and said she’s not lost her marbles so she wants a weekly update.’
Lottie shook her head. ‘Weekly update?’ This wasn’t how she wanted it at all. Take charge, her uncle had said. Take the reins. She wanted to, she needed to, and Gran was starting to behave like a youngster fighting the bit. She swallowed hard, then raced in. ‘I’m not having a committee, and I’ll tell her things as I decide them.’ Pip raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m really grateful everybody wants to help, but I know what I don’t want to do, and I’ve got a few ideas for what I do.’ She drew breath and Pip’s eyebrow went higher. ‘I do want to know what everybody thinks, of course.’
‘Well, she’s made a note of what you can’t do as well. I think “let bloody people stomp through the house” was top of the list. Now can we stop faffing about and get on with it?’
Lottie tried to walk, talk and read the list, which, given the spidery writing and uneven yard, made it a pretty near impossible task.
Sam was already in the kitchen waiting when they got there, with Scruffy at her feet and the terrier that Rory had left at home circling them with suspicion. Amanda was sitting opposite and was obviously being interrogated about pregnancy disorders, and Dom was standing by the Aga looking uncomfortable. Mick and Pip squeezed in, moving entry forms off chairs and Lottie realised that a tidy-up was probably long overdue.
She glanced around, and apart from the obvious solution of chucking everything in the other room, she couldn’t see any way of making the place look remotely presentable. The terrier started scratching at an old horse rug, which Lottie had brought in from the tack room, meaning to mend a tear, and Amanda sneezed as hairs were sent in all directions.
‘We’ll sit outside.’ A decision that wasn’t one of Lottie’s best. True it meant there was more room and less chance of a dogfight, but it also meant there were flies and country smells wafting their way from the muck heap, which had been due to be emptied that week, except the tractor had broken down. ‘We’ll light the chiminea.’ That would get rid of the flies, smoke always worked.
‘Charlotte, sit down. Some of us have got work to do.’ Dom looked pointedly at his watch.
Well do it, was on the tip of her tongue. She imagined he’d driven Amanda (who really wasn’t comfortable behind the wheel these days) over. ‘You really don’t have to stay Uncle Dominic, unless,’ she gnawed at her bottom lip, ‘unless Gran told you to?’
‘And some of us have pints to drink.’ Mick put a match to the contents of the chiminea, which unfortunately had been there some time, and the black smoke that billowed out threatened to get rid of Amanda as well as the flies.
Lottie tried to ignore it and spread the note that Pip had given her, now more than a little bit crumpled, on the table.
‘Did somebody mention a pint?’ Rory had arrived back at the yard unnoticed and Lottie, with a squeal, forgot all about the task in hand. She scrambled over to meet him, the precious list drifting off the table and into the dog’s water bowl.
Dom sighed and sat down next to Amanda.
‘Guess what, we’re pregnant.’ Mick cringed as Lottie jumped on Rory with glee and shared her news.
Sam looked on worriedly as all three terriers, the pack reunited, regarded her dog with interest. He, however, was unperturbed, and with a loud woof tore himself free of her hold and launched himself over the garden wall, with Tilly in close pursuit.
Disentangling himself from Lottie, Rory deftly caught one of the little dogs that was scrambling for attention and doing his best to avoid the dog’s tongue, he spoke around the bundle of fur. ‘So, why’s everybody here? Are we having a party?’ He frowned. ‘Actually, I thought you were going to come for a pipe-opener on the gallops, then we were off to the pub.’
‘Oh hell, I forgot that. But I told you I had to do this.’ The frown deepened. A short sharp gallop would have cleared her head as well as the horse’s lungs. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Not right now. ‘Rory, I did tell you. We’ve got to put together a plan.’
‘Mother felt that Charlotte might need some,’ Dom paused, ‘pointers. So she sent a list, which appears to have got,’ he stared at the list as the ink slowly blurred into one, ‘wet.’
‘Oh my God.’ Lottie fished it out and held it over the chiminea in a bid to dry it, which just made it sooty and even harder to read. ‘But I don’t need a list, I know what she hates and I wouldn’t do that anyway.’
‘Right, if you’re too busy with your lists to ride, I’m off to the pub.’ Rory stood up, Tilly the terrier, suspecting he was on the move, forgot all about her new canine friend and came hurtling back. ‘How about it?’ He made a move to grab the sheet of paper and Lottie clutched it to her chest protectively. Rory leaned in closer, his tawny eyes dark. ‘Let’s have some fun and forget the boring stuff, gorgeous. It’s quiz night and we’ve got to stuff Tom and his London pals.’ He winked. ‘You can do your lists tomorrow.’
Lottie sighed ‘I’m sorry.’ And she was. Fun with Rory was tempting. ‘But I do need to get this sorted. Stay and help? Then we can go for a drink. Please?’
‘You don’t need me.’ Rory shook his head ruefully and backed off. ‘You know I’m allergic to paperwork, darling. Come on, you’re much better at the music questions than me and Mick.’
‘But you promised to help.’ Lottie wailed. Out of all the people surrounding them, it was Rory she wanted to support her in the task and help her hold off the batty ideas. And she couldn’t do this on her own, without him. She didn’t want to.
He planted a kiss on the top of her head and ruffled her hair. ‘And you promised to come for a ride. Anyway, too many cooks and all that. Looks like girl stuff to me. You get your plan together, darling, and then I’ll look at it with you, okay? Promise. Coming Mick? Dom? Let’s show the townies what we’re made of. I’ll text you if we’re stuck.’
‘Rory.’ But he wasn’t listening, he’d blown her a kiss and was already heading for the gate. Lottie sighed and resisted the urge to run after him. Why couldn’t he see how important this was to her? ‘And texting is cheating.’
Dom hesitated, torn between his sense of duty, his wife and the knowledge that staying might frustrate the hell out of him. He was used to being in total control, taking charge. If he was honest, he would probably find it more difficult to hand over the reins to Charlotte than his mother would. At least she was taking the sensible route and keeping her distance. He unfortunately felt obliged to oversee his niece’s journey from spurs to stilettoes.
‘You go, darling.’ Amanda smiled up at him, serene and composed, understanding his predicament as she always did. ‘We’ll sort out some ideas for the event and then we can always discuss them later. And I’m sure Pip or Lottie will drop me off home.’
‘Definitely. And now can we please go back into the kitchen, Lottie? I reckon it’s still a smoke-free zone.’
At the cricket auction, after several bottles of wine and relieved that she’d survived the day, Lottie had thought Sam’s idea for a huge summer ball and auction was feasible, with a few modifications. But in the cool, and sober, light of day she’d had doubts. It wasn’t just the fact that she hadn’t even been able to keep cucumber sandwiches safe – a full-scale dinner and enough celebrities to stage a film festival would be a major challenge. Her instincts, which she always relied on when it came to horses, were telling her it wasn’t right. The trouble was, knowing what wasn’t suitable was the easy part. But hitting on what was suitable had escaped her until now. But getting a diplomatic word in to divert Sam towards something more apt was never going to be easy.
‘It will be fab, babe. A man auction.’
‘Sorry?’ How did the word man and auction go together? Lottie had been thinking yachts and tickets to the golf.
‘We can auction off the hottest men in town. I mean we’ve got Davey and the boys, and Tom must have some modelling friends who are young and hot. We can have them stripped and oiled and…’
‘No.’ It had come out rather more forcefully than she’d intended. Sam’s mouth dropped open, a very small smile tugged at the corners of Amanda’s mouth, and Pip rather uncharacteristically failed to throw in a smart comment. She was too busy pondering about Mick and his earlier uptight behaviour. It was one thing to not want to stay with her, but he’d been rather more forceful than was necessary. In fact he’d been almost as grumpy as he had been the night of Billy’s wedding.
Lottie tried a softer approach. ‘No stripping and oiling. We can’t have naked men, Cheshire Life would never set foot in the house again. Would they, Pip?’
Pip dragged herself out of her musings. ‘A lot of other people would, though.’ Lottie frowned. ‘No, sorry, you’re right. And you do need their kind of coverage.’
Sam shut her mouth, then opened it again unperturbed. ‘Well that rock-star chap that was at the auction promised me he could get the Rolling Stones.’
‘Are they still alive?’ Pip was bemused, but listening again now. As self-appointed head of PR she wanted to know just how hot the material could get.
‘I don’t think they all are,’ Lottie looked doubtful, ‘and I’m not sure they’re the hottest men in town still, are they?’
‘I was thinking more of them doing the music, babe, not being auctioned, although that song’s about not getting satisfaction isn’t it – we don’t want people thinking that, do we?’
‘We don’t, no.’ Lottie was glad there was an easy way out of that one. ‘We’ll cross them off.’
‘How about a bit of “Sex on Fire”? You like those Kings of Leon don’t you, Lottie?’ Sam giggled. ‘Sizzling steamy bits – you’d need a fireman. Oh I do love a fireman!’
