Well Groomed (54 page)

‘What possible good can this do?’ She limped furiously up to him. ‘Me getting flung off just encourages him to misbehave.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ Hugo patted Snob and checked his legs for heat. ‘From where I’m standing he’s getting more careful and you’re less terrified every time he dips his head to take a pull or lets out a happy buck. You know the reins will drag you off if you check too hard, so you let him get on with it.’

‘Bollocks! Without a saddle on, I fall off every time he lets out—’

‘Not
every
time,’ he corrected. ‘And when you do stay on – which you certainly would if you had a saddle between you and his back – you are so pleased to have sat through it that you trust him to get over the fence without jabbing his mouth.’

‘God, you’re the sort of man who throws babies into swimming pools to teach them to swim, aren’t you?’ she muttered.

‘Only some babies.’ He smiled right into her eyes and she suddenly remembered with a great body-blush that one of the first conversations she had ever had with him – bang in the middle of the worst excesses of the Crush – had ended up with her falling into her mother’s swimming pool.

‘Are you saying I jab Snob in the mouth?’ she spluttered, trying to remain furiously indignant about her bruised behind.

‘Yup, but you can’t really help it – it’s a natural reaction to his pulling, but it’s habitual and the one leads to the other. You think he’s going to pull so you take a tug, and check and panic and check until he’s off balance and dragging you into a fence like a bolting bison – it’s no wonder he can’t settle between fences, because he’s so worried about what will happen when he gets there. It’s why you keep having to put him in stronger and stronger bits, because he keeps fighting through them.’

‘Oh.’ Tash blinked. She suddenly realised that she’d only caught about two-thirds of what he’d been saying. She’d been watching his mouth, those curling lips, cool white teeth and healthy pink tongue. She wondered what it tasted like.

‘Er . . .’ She tried to remember what he’d been driving at. ‘Well, it never happens with Hunk,’ she said lamely, noticing that Hugo’s eyes were the same searing blue as a Savlon tube. She would never look at a Savlon tube the same way again, she decided.

‘That’s because you don’t do it with Hunk,’ he was saying calmly. ‘It’s largely about the mental attitude of your partnership, and you and this guy need some serious marriage therapy. Now get his saddle on again and we’ll go once around the course here to cheer you both up before calling it a day.’

Hugo rode around with her on one of his novice hopes, The Broker. They stopped after every fence to discuss how she’d taken it and, if Snob had charged into it, what she had done wrong. Tash found his advice immensely useful, although she continued to grumble and gripe and eye him up like mad when he wasn’t looking. By the time they walked away from the last fence on a long rein, the sky was darkening ominously overhead and there were already lights on in Hugo’s house.

‘Is that Stefan?’ Tash looked up at the beautiful building, its climbing ivy fat and vivid from late-spring growth, like a revitalised perm.

‘Probably.’ Hugo rubbed his nose with the nub of his crop. ‘He’s been with the blacksmith all afternoon. You off out with Niall to celebrate your birthday tonight?’

Amazed he’d remembered that it was her birthday, she shook her head. ‘He’s still in the States.’

‘Oh.’ He looked across the valley, where the last reds of the sun were fading into the mackerel sky above the ridgeway crest.

Tash watched him in profile for a second, drinking in the straight nose, well-defined chin and long-lashed eyes before turning to stare fixedly between the two red points of Snob’s ears.

‘You looking forward to seeing him again?’

‘No, I’m dreading it,’ she snapped sarcastically, and then instantly regretted it as he shot her a scornful look.

They rode on in silence for a few minutes, listening to the mournful two-tone call of a distant cuckoo and the jangling of Broker’s snaffle as his head bobbed while he walked.

As they squelched up Twenty Acres in sombre silence, Tash felt a long nail of skin-splitting dissatisfaction claw at her spine. I don’t want to marry Niall, she thought wretchedly.

Then she almost fell off as she realised the implications of her thought, her hand flying to her mouth.

She wasn’t sure if Hugo noticed, but thankfully he said nothing, instead whistling for his terrier, Plod, who was snorkelling a hole behind them.

In the floodlit yard, Jenny and another groom were giving the horses their penultimate hard feed and supervising two youngsters from the village who came in to clean tack for pocket money.

‘Good session?’ Jenny looked up at Tash from beneath the brim of a baseball cap shaped like a banana.

Trying to stop Snob from taking flight as he clocked the cap, Tash shot a sideways look at Hugo and nodded. ‘Very constructive.’

‘Meaning he yelled at you a lot?’ Jenny winked.

‘I was a perfect gentleman.’ Hugo jumped off Broker and led him alongside Snob who was preoccupied with gaping at the banana. ‘D’you want to come in for a drink?’

Tash felt a little skip of longing in her belly as she watched him pull off his crash cap.

She looked at the ever-blackening sky and shook her head, relieved. ‘I’m risking it hacking back in this light as it is. Can I borrow some reflective stuff?’

‘Nope.’ Hugo scratched Snob’s nose and looked up at her.

‘You haven’t had your present yet,’ he said, watching her with amusement.

‘My present?’ Tash asked in confusion.

‘It is your birthday today, isn’t it?’ he laughed.

‘Yes, it’s my birthday.’ She grinned rather goofily because she was so pleased with this new, nice Hugo with whom she wanted to loll around all evening.

‘In that case you must have a present,’ he said. ‘Everyone should have a present that really means something on their birthday.’

Tash quailed, aware that her – rather dull – gift for his thirtieth had disappeared into Niall’s stomach.

‘You don’t have to give me anything,’ she said, to let him off the hook. ‘I mean it’s not as if . . .’ She trailed into an awkward silence, her pride getting in the way.

‘As if what?’ he asked gently.

‘As if you knew today was my birthday until India mentioned it yesterday.’

‘Of course I knew,’ he said matter-of-factly, leading Broker off to the boxes in the far yard which were out of sight.

After he’d gone, Jenny took off her banana cap and sighed, fanning her face with it.

‘You’re so lucky, Tash.’ She leaned across to give Snob a pat, face dreamy. ‘I do envy you.’

‘Why?’ Tash was preoccupied watching Plod the terrier trotting towards the far yard to follow his master. She longed to do the same thing. She really had to get a grip on this resurgent crush, she told herself. She was a mature, enlightened woman and should act like one.

‘I wish Hugo was as nice to me as he is to you,’ sighed Jenny again, suddenly looking terribly young and insecure. ‘He’s hell to work for really. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t fancy him so much.’

At that moment, Stefan loped out of the tack-room on his long spidery legs. Pretending to be devastated, he groaned, covering his face. ‘What do I do wrong?’

‘You’re just too nice, Stef,’ Jenny shrugged. ‘And too promiscuous – everyone here knows you’re called “Groom Service” because you sleep with all the prettiest stable girls, whereas the only passes Hugo makes are in the dressage ring – more’s the pity.’

Empathy drenching her every pore, Tash smiled at Jenny and shook her head.

‘You don’t want Hugo really,’ she told her rather unconvincingly. ‘I used to have a honking great crush on him myself,’ she confessed. ‘Years ago now – before Niall,’ she added quickly. ‘I used to moon around at my elder sister’s house staring longingly at him from behind bits of furniture. He still laughs about it.’

‘You fancied Hugo?’ Stefan gaped at her. ‘He’s never even mentioned it.’

‘Hasn’t he?’ Tash was surprised. ‘I was Jenny’s age – younger even.’ She glanced at Jenny in embarrassment, desperate not to sound condescending considering her own recent hormonal crisis. ‘It’s a bug most young women who meet him get, and it’s a sign of great taste.’ She smiled and then, deciding that was perhaps not strictly true, rushed on, ‘I suppose fancying Hugo is like spots – you have to suffer them at one time, and they seem like they’ll never go, but they do.’

‘You still have them,’ Stefan said with a wicked grin.

‘I what?’

‘You still have spots,’ he pointed out. ‘Well, one big one on your chin at least.’

‘Thanks, Stef – no one can say you knock spots off other men.’ Tash jumped off Snob and loosened his girths, suddenly longing to slope off to a loo mirror and examine her chin.

Then she spotted a streak of grey passing through the courtyard beyond and caught her breath.

The next moment the dividing gate had swung open and, with a loud clatter of hooves on flagstones and a nervous whinny, Mickey Rourke appeared through it with boggling eyes and clumsy feet that flattened Hugo’s in his wake.

‘Ow – get off, you bugger!’ he wailed, eyes watering.

Looking confused, Mickey stood stock still and gazed worriedly around him, his dinner-plate hoof still pressing down on Hugo’s foot. He was wearing an over-sized glittery ‘Happy Birthday’ gift tag like a rosette on one side of his big white face, obscuring most of one wall eye.

Tash let out a brief whimper of joy. Spotting her, Mickey’s vacuous eyes lit up and, chortling a volley of whickers from deep within his throat, he broke free of Hugo and clattered across the yard to see her, sending two feed buckets and a wheelbarrow flying before he could dive for her pockets and head-butt her shoulders, almost pitching her into the tack room in his relief at seeing her.

Realising that Snob was looking furiously put out and gearing up for a fight with the hapless Mickey, Stefan hastily took hold of the jealous chestnut and led him away. Tash barely seemed to notice as she read the gift tag on Mickey’s headcollar in near-disbelief.

‘Happy Birthday,’ Hugo drawled from the yard gate. ‘Now don’t you dare look in his mouth.’

Pressing her face into Mickey’s huge grey cheek, Tash tried not to cry, knowing that her déjà vu crush was making her a risky emotional cocktail right now.

‘You can’t just give him to me, Hugo.’ She pulled back as Mickey spotted a discarded feed bucket and clattered off to investigate, the rope from his headcollar tripping him up as he went. ‘You paid tens and tens of thousands for him.’

‘He’s the clumsiest, stupidest horse I have ever encountered,’ Hugo confessed as Mickey picked up the entire bucket between his teeth and turned to face Tash proudly. ‘I don’t know how the hell you got a tune out of him, but I’m going nowhere very slowly every time I get on him. He’s all yours to ride on my behalf.’

‘Ohmygod – thank you!’ Tash raced over to him.

But Hugo hurriedly held out his arm to stop her hugging him. ‘I’m not saying I’m handing over a twenty-grand horse just like that,’ he went on. ‘I’m technically still his owner, but you can train and compete him for me. I’m hoping the Mogo team will take on the cost if they sign you up, but that’s still up in the air. I mentioned him to them, though – playing down his stupidity, of course – and they certainly sounded interested.’

‘Oh, thank you so much!’ Tash bounded forward and succeeded in giving him a clumsy hug.

Clearing his throat and backing away, he wandered towards the tack-room door. ‘Jenny can take him back to his box while I phone the trials secretary for tomorrow’s start times.’

‘Shit, I forgot!’ Stefan looked at his watch in horror.

‘I know.’ Hugo gave him a withering look. ‘I just hope to God she’s still around. Then we’d better all push off to the pub for a drink – it’s far too dark for Tash to hack home now. Snob can stay here tonight – I’ll let Gus know. Could you do him after Mickey, Jen?’

Nodding and donning her banana cap once more, Jenny shot Tash another dreamy, disbelieving look of envy and persuaded Mickey to part with his bucket.

Once they had clattered out, Hugo headed into the tack room to make the calls, Plod still at his heels.

Lounging against an open box door-frame, having taken in all the proceedings with a passive thoughtful smile, Stefan handed Snob’s reins back to her. ‘Happy birthday, darling.’

‘Thanks.’ She tickled the chestnut’s twitching ears to cheer him up, goofy grin now impossible to lose.

‘Why d’you think he did that?’ He slouched back against the frame again and watched her closely.

Tash totally failed to notice how loaded the question was.

‘He said why.’ She was still reeling happily from the idea of having darling, ebullient Mickey back to ride. ‘He says he can’t get a tune out of him.’

‘Sure.’ Stefan let out a dismissive breath, the smile fading from his face. ‘And you know Hugo – he’s always handing over rides from the goodness of his heart.’

Not quite certain what he was driving at, Tash squinted across the yard and watched as Jenny led Mickey back to his stable, a plastic bucket handle still poking from his mouth like a belligerent teenager being hauled out of a raucous party by a concerned parent.

‘Jenny’s great with the horses, isn’t she?’ she mused. ‘She has a lot more heart that Franny. I know that’s mean to Franny, but she was sometimes—’

‘I asked you why he’s letting you have Mickey back, Tash?’ Stefan straightened up. ‘He’s only had the horse a month. It’s madness quitting so soon. Please think about it. For me.’ He walked towards the house.

Tash buried her face in her hands for a moment, trying very hard to do just that. She felt as though she had been held upside down today and shaken until all her silly, preconceived ideas about Hugo had dropped out of the top of her head. Yet with the tragedy of only the best of badly timed ironies, this had coincided with her exploding hormones and dreadful, aching yearning of old. How could she hope finally to befriend the man she had coveted all those wasted years, she reasoned, when the coveting itself was making her blind again?