The Country Escape

by Fiona Walker

Genres: General Fiction; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Hidden amid lush parkland, Eardisford is the ultimate English country retreat and it's just been sold for the first time in its history. Romantic daredevil Kat Mason has been bequeathed the estate's lakeside sanctuary, Lake Farm, until she dies or marries. But the new owners want her out now . . . In rides charming playboy Dougie Everett, the man hired to sweep Kat off her feet and off the property. Dougie loves nothing more than the thrill of the chase, but does he risk losing his heart along the way?

Release date: June 5, 2014

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 609

Sample

‘Is this thing working?… I think it is. The red light’s on. Blast… get off the recorder, Daphne. Lie over there. No, not on the Telegraph – I haven’t finished the crossword. That’s better. Good girl. Where was I? Ah, yes, Katherine. Hello, Katherine. This is Constance Mytton-Gough.

‘I was intending to compose a letter to you “to be opened in the event of my death” – such a wonderful, self-indulgent sentence to write because it affirms one is still alive – but as you know my wretched fingers are too arthritic to hold a pen for long nowadays and I don’t trust that girl from the solicitor’s to take this down verbatim – she’s always adding whereforeins and whenceforths. I’ve borrowed this recording apparatus from dear Miriam, whom I trust to be utterly discreet in passing my message on to you. You must listen very carefully – I’ve always wanted to say that too, what fun! Where was I? No, Daphne, leave the cushion alone. Ah, yes, my death. We won’t dwell on it, but when one reaches one’s ninety-fifth year it is rather closer than it is in one’s ninety-fourth, and I need to get my ducks in a line before I go. Where was I? I have a list somewhere.

‘Ah, yes. As you know, the animals will all need looking after when I’m gone – yes, that’s you, Daphne, and you two, my darlings, along with your disreputable lurcher chums wherever they are, plus the horses, of course, and all the other stock here, which is why I have made provisions. It’s all legal and signed and, of course, you and I have spoken about it often, Katherine, but this letter… recording, whatever it is, will help verify my wishes should anybody contest the will, and I rather fear they might. The solicitors are clearly convinced I’ve lost my marbles. You are totally over-qualified to take on this role, but you were also over-qualified to come here and look after me, and we both know why you did that. Ignore the doubters who say a nurse from the suburbs cannot be a Herefordshire small-holder. You are young and strong and quick to learn. You love animals and are frightfully practical. Gosh, this is exhausting. I must take a breather.’

 

‘… must be this one, eh, Daphne? There we go. Red light.

‘Katherine, I do have several additional wishes that I want to – Hello? Oh, you’re here. How awkward. Is it the yardarm already, Katherine? What joy! Set it down over there, will you?… What? This thing? It’s a Dictaphone. Now, take these dogs out for a run, there’s a good girl.

‘Good. You’ve gone. That rather interrupted the flow, but while I remember please do something about your appearance. It’s easier for you to hear this when I’m dead. One hates to criticize so take this as a back-handed compliment. You’re a very pretty girl, but you give out a rather wanton message, not to mention a frightful colour clash with all that ridiculous cherry red hair and whatever it is you use to make your skin orange. Scrub up, have a bob and knuckle down to country life. Male suitors will distract you, especially at first. They’ll all be circling once I’m gone and you’ve got Lake Farm, but I’ve thought of a way of protecting you on that front. Marry and you lose the lot. Tough but fair, I feel.

‘Where’s that blasted piece of paper? Ah, here! This must be to do with it…

‘Unlike the rest of my estate, which will pass to my heirs… Lake Farm to be held in trust after my death… blah… managed by the Constance Mytton-Gough Memorial Animal Sanctuary charity… for the purpose of caring for the family pets and other domestic animals that survive me so they may live out their lives in peace amid familiar surroundings… blah… looked after by my former nurse Miss Katherine Mason, who has the right to live in the property known as Lake Farm until such time – This isn’t my Letter of Wishes. This is the change in the will. You know about that. The Wishes are just as important. Ah, yes. Here they are.

‘First, and forgive an old bat a frightful romantic indulgence here, you must promise me that you will only marry for love. You may think me quite unreasonable insisting upon it, but it’s such a simple thing and I regret not doing it. The clause about losing the farm in the event of your marriage is rather counter-intuitive – but it’s a forfeit you must be prepared to pay, and is only there for your own protection.

‘My second wish is rather more eccentric and requires a great deal of dedication on your part, but I think it will be the making of you. Blast. I do wish we had a bit more time to train you up, Katherine. Think I’ll enjoy my snifter now.’

 

‘… think I’d remember how to turn on the wretched thing by – ah, light!

‘The Bolt. Katherine, you must ride the Bolt! It’s in the Letter of Wishes. I know you said you want to do it before I die, which is terribly sweet of you, but it’s jolly hard and quite dangerous and you have to learn to ride first. I want you to do it for a greater reason than my entertainment, or for the Eardisford Purse, which naturally is a part of the reward. I want you to do it because it will set you free. You will understand what I’m talking about when it happens.’

Kat dodged Daphne the dachshund’s cold wet nose as she tried to change as close to the halogen heater as humanly possible, its glow making her pale skin appear curiously orange. It made her think of the weekly Fake Bake ritual she’d once endured, her freckled body smelling faintly of burning tyres while it transformed to Mediterranean bronze. When her friend Dawn had left nursing to retrain as a beauty therapist, she’d used Kat as a guinea pig and taken over the task of copper-plating her with professional zeal, first at a boutique spa, and later at her own salon above a Nascot Village florist, where Kat had also enjoyed cut-price manicures, pedicures, facials and waxing. For a long time, she’d been the glossiest, smoothest, most unfeasibly conker-skinned redhead in Watford.

Today she would be seeing Dawn for the first time in two years and worried she was now the palest, scruffiest yokel in Herefordshire, although at least she had clean jeans and a new fuchsia pink fleece, courtesy of a local promotional printing company that donated overstock and seconds to the sanctuary. Kat’s new hoodie had Fresh’n’Up Thrush Relief emblazoned on the back, but its warmth was all she really cared about. On windswept and bitter February days, Lake Farm felt as though it was held together with ice. She hoped Dawn had brought plenty of layers.

A quick check in the mirror confirmed that pink definitely didn’t go with cherry red hair, a trademark she refused to surrender amid the russets and olives of country life, although her natural copper would have been perfect camouflage. Kat had inherited it from her father. She sometimes wondered if that was why her mother had treated her so diffidently through childhood, this visual reminder of a failed marriage. Kat also shared her father’s rebellious, daredevil streak, and entirely lacked her mother’s flirtatious glamour. The many boyfriends coming and going through the Mason household during tomboy Kat’s teenage years had been her mother’s. It wasn’t until she’d met Nick that she’d briefly become a swan.

A loud splash immediately outside the front windows made the terriers shrill with alarm, joined by enraged door-snarling from the lurchers. The splashing grew louder. Kat hurried to her gumboots: no Canada goose could generate such noise unless it weighed six hundred kilos. There was only one creature around here capable of making a splash of that magnitude. ‘Please tell me I shut the gate to the spinney!’

She rushed outside, dogs at her heels, pulling on her hood against the chill wind.

It was blowing a gale, branches groaning and the roar from the millstream weir as loud as busy traffic. Black rainclouds were muscling around overhead, the lake already pitted with the first drops of a downpour as Kat scanned its choppy grey surface, seeking a familiar face.

There she was, limpid eyes glazing ecstatically as she wallowed in the shallows. Usha the water buffalo – ‘the lady of the lake’, as the locals called her – had been in residence on the Eardisford Estate for almost twenty years. Dating back to an experiment in farm diversification in the nineties, Usha had declined to leave Eardisford when the rest of the mozzarella-making herd were deemed unprofitable and sold on. Instead she’d waded into the deep oxbow lake and refused to budge. Admiring her tenacity, landowner Constance Mytton-Gough had decided to keep her as a parkland curiosity and estate mascot. The old buffalo still spent a great many of the summer months in the lake, wallowing contentedly, but in winter she sheltered in a wooded enclosure with two cheery alpacas, a cantankerous llama and a few determined pygmy goats that guarded the hay feeder jealously. This meant that she spent a long time staring over the post and rails to the lake, plotting her escape back into the water she loved.

‘It’s far too cold for you in there!’ Kat shouted, remembering with horror that the last time Usha had done this she’d ended up with colic.

When rattling a bucket of pony nuts from the bank did nothing to coax the old buffalo on to dry land, Kat realized she’d have to take more drastic measures. The sanctuary’s self-appointed animal expert, Russ, would no doubt suggest a patient approach. He was very hot on mimicking species’ natural behaviour to try to befriend the animal kingdom – the only monarchy he acknowledged – but Kat knew there was no time for that. It had recently taken him ten hours to catch the Shetland ponies using his intelligent horsemanship techniques when they’d escaped into a field of winter wheat, and Usha was a lot more stubborn. Kat was already running late to meet Dawn’s train.

‘I’ll use the rowing boat.’ She was already running towards the jetty.

The terriers crowded around her feet on the slippery boards, tripping her, as she untied the boat and tugged it alongside the wooden walkway. The wind was now so high and bitter the boat was slamming against the jetty.

Kat looked into the boat and across the lake, the familiar panic rising. Last time she’d taken the boat to shoo Usha out – many weeks ago when the water had been much warmer – she’d only made it to the first island, where she’d been forced to wait until rescue arrived.

Legs like jelly, she clambered in, shooed the terriers away and pushed herself from the jetty with an oar. Usha was only a few metres away and she drifted alongside her easily.

‘Get out!’ Kat pleaded, splashing the surface with the oars.

Watching her with interest, raindrops bouncing off her head, the water buffalo was already looking uncomfortably cold.

‘Scram!’

The dogs barked furiously from the jetty. The rain was hammering down now and Kat could hardly see.

Usha’s thermostat finally kicked in. With a bad-tempered bellow, she flailed towards the bank, sending up such a rip tide that the boat shot backwards, prow rising out of the lake like a giant shark’s fin.

‘Shit!’ To Kat’s horror, she was capsizing. Heart pounding, she lunged towards the front, dropping the oars. At the same moment, half a ton of alarmed water buffalo reared overhead as Usha charged back to her wooded harbour, knocking the boat neatly up the bank and tipping Kat out on to dry land.

Drenched and muddy, she lay deeply stamped into the soft bank like a cake decoration in chocolate icing, winded and disoriented. Then she heard laughter and realized Russ was watching her from his bicycle.

‘’Mazing! How ’mazing was that?’ He was pedalling towards her. ‘You can take that back about not being an animal communicator. Kat Mason, you’re a natural!’

‘You’re late,’ she grumbled, squelching her way upright to shoo Usha back to her enclosure, embarrassed that he’d seen her, yet again, struggling to cope alone.

‘Are you okay?’ He abandoned his bike and loped alongside. ‘I know you’re scared shitless of water.’

‘I’m fine.’ Russ’s dark eyes were anxious so she raised her smile to its brightest setting, reluctant to admit just how terrified she’d been. Kat’s smile was a lethal weapon, a thousand watts of positivity and kindness that hypnotized all-comers. By contrast, Russ never smiled unless he found something genuinely funny or moving. When they’d first met the previous summer his hair had been dyed white with a black cross on it – something to do with a protest he’d staged with some friends outside an embassy – and she had found it absurdly funny. Russ didn’t find it easy to laugh at himself, but her irrepressible giggles had captivated him and the two had shared hours of mirth over pints in the Eardisford Arms.

Officially Russ was a sanctuary volunteer. Unofficially he was much more. Theirs was still a fledgling relationship, from the laughter-laced high summer five months earlier, through an autumn of burgeoning friendship to a winter of mounting flirtation. The two had been crowned Eardisford’s Wassail King and Queen in the apple orchards on Twelfth Night, sharing their first kiss after drinking a cup of spiked punch procured by Russ’s uncle Bill, who was eager to see his nephew settle down at last. Russ was the black sheep of the cider-making Hedges dynasty, a free-spirited music lover, conservationist and sometime animal activist who lived in a caravan amid the fruit trees he lovingly tended.

‘It’s dangerous here on your own. I’ll stay over.’

‘I have Dawn coming.’

‘You’ll hardly know I’m here.’

‘Is the caravan leaking again?’

‘Like a sieve. Don’t worry – I’ll kip on Uncle Bill’s sofa.’ He dipped his head, smiling up at her. ‘You need your space.’

The dye had almost grown out now, leaving amazing white tips at the end of his dark brown mop, rather like a pint of Guinness. It should have looked ridiculous, but the effect was edgy fashion shoot, setting off the unique square beauty of his jaw and the fierce ursid eyes. Russ was full of visual contradictions: the neatly trimmed beard was theatrically cosmopolitan, the wild mane urban jungle, the clothes rural vigilante and the dark eyes martyred. Some locals found him frightening, and his face certainly had a devilish quality, but he stood out as much as Kat did.

‘No, stay. You’ll like Dawn. We’ll all go out later. God, I’m running so late.’ She looked down at her mud-caked torso and legs. ‘I thought you’d forgotten about helping this afternoon.’ Russ wasn’t the most reliable sanctuary volunteer, often going AWOL for days on end. By the same token, he wasn’t a standard-issue boyfriend, but that suited Kat, who was wary of being tied down. He called himself a ‘free-range lover’. When he was in situ, which was increasingly often now the weather was colder, he was a hard-working ally and an aficionado of sensual shoulder rubs and long, breathless kisses, as he demonstrated now.

He was an extraordinarily skilful kisser: tall, sweet-tongued and tactile, with a way of putting both hands to her face when his mouth sealed softly with hers, thumbs beneath her jaw, that drew down her insides with desire. She’d once thought beards off-putting, but Russ’s was so soft and the long hair that framed his face so heroic that it was like being kissed by a medieval hero, her own Robin of Sherwood. She just wished she wasn’t going to be quite so late.

‘I’ve been here ages,’ he pointed out, as they surfaced for air. ‘I was putting feed in the woods for wildlife. Mags gave me a load of bar snacks that were past their sell-by date – the badgers love them.’

Kat eyed him suspiciously. ‘Was it you who left the gate to the spinney open?’

He looked shifty. ‘I know better than that.’

But Kat had no time to cross-examine him as she raced inside to change again, diving into a broken-zipped bomber jacket with Official Event Farrier on it and her only remaining clean trousers, the ageing green velvet joggers she wore to run her fitness and Pilates classes in the village hall.

 

Kat could no longer drive up through the parkland as she once had: the vast wrought-iron gates at the end of the lime walk on her side of the lake were now kept padlocked by order of the Big Five, denying her access to the tracks that ran around Herne Covert to the old stableyards, coach houses and kennels and on to the Hereford road gatehouses. Instead, she was forced to off-road through the woods that ran alongside the millstream.

The Big Five were the main beneficiaries of the late Constance Mytton-Gough’s estate, her four daughters and only son. The quintet were all well beyond sixty and based across several time-zones with children and grandchildren of their own. None had shown any desire to take up their late mother’s mantle by returning to run Eardisford, instead rushing with near-indecent post-funeral haste to have the estate catalogued and discreetly marketed to the few of the world’s super-rich able to afford the eight-figure asking price.

Selling the historic Herefordshire house and its ten thousand acres was a monumental challenge, even setting aside the endless legal clauses protecting the integrity of the estate and its many tenants. Too far from London to appeal to Arabs, too expensive for pop-stars and too decrepit for corporate use, sceptical locals predicted that Eardisford would languish on the market for years. The great house’s contents had been stripped out and sold to cover inheritance tax and feed the Big Five’s appetite for a return from their mother’s long life. In the year since her death, interested parties had come and gone, but it was clear that one thing more than any other was putting them off. Among the minefield of codicils in Constance’s will that prevented Eardisford being broken up was one that had bequeathed a farm in the middle of its magnificent parkland to the Constance Mytton-Gough Animal Sanctuary, now in the care of her former nurse and occupied by the elderly animals that had survived her.

The sanctuary – known locally as the Hon Con’s Zoo – had an elected committee, a constitution, audited accounts and charitable status, but the Big Five knew that this was just a legal force-field to protect it from their attempts to fight Lake Farm’s exclusion from their mother’s estate. The ancient steading – part parkland folly, part historic monument – was in direct view of the main house. Purchasers clearly had no desire to look out at a cherry-haired figure feeding pensionable pot-bellied pigs and decrepit horses.

The legacy might have been disastrous, were Kat not so hard-working, adaptable and uncomplaining. She genuinely loved the unique peace of Lake Farm and its elderly, demanding occupants. For the past year, she had learned on the job, sought help where it was needed and weathered real and virtual storms.

The Big Five had made it clear from the start that they wanted Kat out, so when attempts to take their battle to court failed and Kat refused to be paid off, they’d resorted to bullying. Isolated and prone to flooding, the farm was reliant upon the Eardisford Estate for services, utilities and access, all of which were denied to Kat during one of the wettest autumns on record. For weeks, she had survived on borrowed generators and bowsers, forced to access her home via public footpaths, the villagers rallying to her aid while the committee fought to get her rights reinstated. When her erstwhile ally, estate manager Dair Armitage, had turned traitor, paid by the Big Five to launch a campaign of intimidation, she’d confronted him in the Eardisford Arms and demanded it stopped.

Fearless in her determination to protect the animals, Kat had never contemplated giving up on Lake Farm. She believed that the sanctuary could eventually take in old and abandoned animals in need of care locally, but she still had a lot to prove. Keeping it running was about day to day survival, and this winter had been harsh. She was aware that the jury remained out on her suitability as a farmer – her sheep-handling skills had reduced James Stevens, the debonair vet, to tears of laughter – but nobody could fault her tenacity.

Driving out through the woods that divided the estate’s old hunting grounds from its farmland, she got tantalizing glimpses of the big house she had grown so familiar with during her time there as Constance’s nurse.

The stately pile had never been given a precise title – hall, manor, house or castle; it was simply Eardisford, which often caused confusion because the village that abutted its park shared the name. The sub-division to Upper and Lower distinguished the local community from the main house, and many of its cottages were still tied to the estate.

The Tudor origins of Eardisford remained on show in its half-timbered courtyard, but its east-facing front was a serious Jacobean makeover, which had added vast wings and an extra floor topped with a lantern tower, along with Dutch gables, corner turrets and an elaborate quoined, strapworked porch. The Georgians had tarted it up more, the Victorians had twiddled with Gothic touches, and a party-loving Edwardian had almost burned the lot down, wiping out one wing along with the original fifteenth-century chapel. The house remained, though, a splendid showcase of the best of British building artistry, framed by thousands of acres of parkland, gardens, farms, woodland and the erstwhile feudal village.

The Eardisford Estate had been owned by the Mytton family for several centuries. Its last chatelaine, Constance, had remained there until her death, having outlived her husband, Ronnie, who had added ‘Gough’ to the family name.

Kat’s enduring image of Constance was at the first wassail she’d attended in the Eardisford orchards. Constance had not witnessed the ceremony in more than a decade but had insisted that her nurse must enjoy the show and that she would accompany her. Wrapped up against the frost in an ancient fur coat, several checked blankets and three dogs warming her knees, she’d arrived in grand fashion in the old golf buggy, which she complained that Kat drove far too slowly.

Now a lump rose in her throat as she remembered the nonagenarian joyfully spiking the wassailing cider with fifty-year-old calvados fetched up from the hall cellars, the golf cart weighed down with bags of mince pies and sausage rolls to hand around, as well as her ubiquitous oxygen cylinders. Constance had enjoyed the evening tremendously, telling everyone she was looking forward to coming again next year.

Instead, the toughest and funniest patient Kat had ever worked with had contracted a chest infection the following autumn and died quietly while the village gathered around the giant Bonfire Night pyre on the Green. Her five children had been at her bedside, drawn back from all corners of the world, and, as deaths went, it had been magnificently dignified and peaceful.

You’re not thinking about my death again, are you? a voice demanded in her head. How jolly morbid. And how many times have I told you what a bad lot that Hedges boy is? Frightful leftie. Brake!

Kat grinned as the car slid to a halt amid the leaf mulch and she jumped out to open a gate. She had known Constance for little more than a year, yet she’d been more inspired by her than anyone else she’d ever met; she still missed her terribly and often heard her voice in her head. Right now it was demanding to know what on earth she thought she was wearing: You’re such a pretty girl, Katherine (never ‘Kat’ – Constance had thought abbreviating names the height of ill manners), but you have absolutely no idea how to make the best of your looks. I was exactly the same before I met Ronnie. I would have lived in jodhpurs if I could. Thank goodness he had exquisite taste, and would take me to London at the start of each season to pick out some new pieces. Every girl needs a Ronnie. We must find you a real man, not a beardy weirdo with a vegetarian dog.

She wondered whether to risk the flooded ford track or the top one, which was on the private estate and Dair’s gamekeepers had been patrolling with border-guard vigilance all winter.

Dogs make far more reliable bed-warmers than men, and are much easier to kick off, Constance lectured. In fact, they’re absolutely essential for preventing guests freezing to death in English country houses. You must lend your guest Maddie. Border terriers have terrifically warm coats.

The elderly canine companions that had outlived Constance were now in Kat’s care. Of them all, her closest allies were the pair that their late mistress had stubbornly referred to as ‘the terriers’ although dachshund Daphne was technically more hound (‘She behaves like a terrier and so I call her one, in the same way I called Edwina Mountbatten a boho leftie. It’s not just about breeding,’ Constance would say); there was also a contented old Labrador who divided his time between impersonating a hearth rug and a doormat, and a brace of over-bright lurchers who specialised in theft and escapology and preferred outdoor life. Kat had banished all of them from the spare bedroom this week.

‘Dawn’s not a big dog fan.’

Why on earth did you invite her? Send her back. Better still, lend her the beardy weirdo. Kat imagined she could hear the delighted barks of laughter now, so genuine and unstoppable, like naughty sneezes of amusement, particularly if she was feeling confessional after her six o’clock Glenfiddich. In India, we girls dreamed of marrying a charming army officer and returning to England to run a large country house and have families. As soon as we did, we longed to be back in the heat. Making a match is such a terribly difficult thing, isn’t it?

‘I’m not making a match, Constance. I’m free-ranging.’

As she pulled out of the narrow farm track on to the village lane, she waved at ageing glamour-puss and sanctuary-committee stalwart Miriam, who was walking with local roué and hunting fanatic Frank Bingham-Ince, both carrying guns as casually as Sunday newspapers, dogs at their heels.

 

‘Pretty little thing. Still talks to herself non-stop, I see.’ Frank watched the car speed away. An inveterate flirt, the pepper-haired Lothario of the mounted field had a particular weakness for redheads. ‘Heard she’s learning to ride. We must get her out with the Brom before the end of the season.’ He and Miriam were joint masters of the Brombury and Lemlow foxhound pack, known to all as ‘the Brom and Lem’.

Miriam, who had been successfully hunting hounds and husbands for at least thirty years and had plans to share more than just the mastership with Frank, wasn’t about to let him jink on to another scent. ‘The girl’s not really a natural in the saddle, Frank. Would’ve packed it in months ago if it wasn’t for Constance insisting she had to learn as a part of the legacy. Besides, I can hardly see young Russ approving of her following hounds, can you?’

‘Ah, you’d be surprised.’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘He’s been following our hounds through Wednesday country all season. Hadn’t you noticed? Of course, he calls it monitoring. Tell me, what is it about Russ Hedges that women find attractive?’ Frank’s teenage daughter’s highly inconvenient conversion to vegetarianism was down to a crush on the village renegade.

Miriam flicked back her silver blond mane, kept in a rigid Duchess of Cornwall pith helmet of flick-ups. ‘He’s terribly sexy for an anti. And being with Kat lends him credibility. She’s far too good for him, of course.’ She sighed. ‘My godmother would have disapproved enormously, especially all that nonsense he spouts about hugging wildlife.’

‘Hope to God whoever buys Eardisford still lets the Brom and Lem hunt it,’ Frank said. ‘Oldest recorded coverts in Herefordshire – terrific fox country.’

‘To lay trails through,’ Miriam reminded him, with a wise look.

Frank lowered his voice. ‘Is it really true there’s a buyer lined up?’

‘So I gather.’ Miriam batted her eyelashes at him as she stage-whispered, ‘Cash. The Big Five are ready to sign on the dotted, but naturally there’s still a lot of fuss about the Lake Farm covenant.’

There was a roar of diesel engine as Eardisford Estate manager Dair Armitage blasted out of the track in his Range Rover, pulling up beside the dog walkers and buzzing down the nearside window. ‘Did you see Kat Mason drive past here?’ The upper part of his face was concealed as usual by a flat cap. A short, broad-shouldered Scot with a chin almost as wide as his neck, he was carrying a walkie-talkie in one hand from which a voice with a strong Herefordshire accent was shouting, ‘Lost visual on Red Kitten. I repeat, I have lost visual on Red Kitten, over!’

‘We’ve seen nothing,’ Miriam said innocently.

‘If I catch her crossing estate land in a vehicle without permission again, she’s —’

‘Ah, Dair, just the man.’ Frank stepped forward with an ingratiating smile. ‘What are these rumours about a buyer for Eardisford?’

‘I’ve been told nothing.’ Dair was typically brusque as he tilted back his head so that he could glare at them from beneath his cap. Then he spotted the guns.

‘I hope you’re not rough shooting on estate land?’

‘You know my godmother was always happy for me to take something for the pot occasionally.’ Miriam was indignant.

‘You won’t be able to do that now.’

‘So they’ve signed already?’ she gasped. ‘Who is it? An oligarch?’

The cap was swiftly lowered. ‘A Seth. Into big game. But you didn’t hear it from me.’

‘Isn’t a Seth some sort of Egyptian god?’ asked Frank. ‘Is he Middle Eastern?’

‘Yorkshireman.’

The two-way radio crackled into life. ‘I now have visual on Brown Bear. Repeat, visual on Brown Bear. He is hanging round the pheasant hoppers. Looks like he’s throwing Scampi Fries around.’

Dair bellowed like a furious Highland bull. He loathed Russ Hedges more than most, the smooth running of Eardisford’s commercial shooting and fishing interests being regularly undermined by the man’s vigilante activities. He buzzed up the window and drove off.

‘How thrilling.’ Miriam shivered. ‘Do you suppose the new owner’s single?’

‘You look fabulous! Your hair’s so long! And you’ve lost weight!’ Dawn managed three compliments as she burst off the train to gather Kat into a hug, then added the kindly backlash, ‘A bit too thin maybe,’ as she leaned back to study her friend’s face. ‘Where’s the makeup? You’re so pale. Man, look at your hands! You need me!’

Kat laughed. ‘You look amazing too.’

‘Twelve months on the high seas, babe.’ Tall, curvaceous and currently bombshell blonde, Dawn was knock-out. She’d been back in England for a fortnight and the glowing Caribbean tan was not out of a bottle, the ultra-toned body shapelier than ever. With the whitest of bleached teeth and longest of French manicures, she radiated bootyliciousness, although there was something odd about her usually grey eyes.

‘Are those coloured contact lenses?’ Kat asked.

‘Purple-tinted. Aren’t they great? They’re back on trend. Remember when we wore them first time round and blinked all night like we had conjunctivitis? These are much better – you can even sleep in them. You wait till you see the turquoise ones. I brought them with me in case we go clubbing. I’ve got the most sensational new dress from Topshop. Man, this weather is biblical.’ She peered at the sheets of rain cascading down. ‘Hurricanes might hardly ever happen in Hertfordshire and Hampshire. As for Herefordshire, well… I still can’t believe you came out here because of a typo.’

When Kat had first come to Eardisford she’d been so desperate to get out of Watford that she’d taken the first job she was offered, even though a form-filling blunder meant it was a hundred and fifty miles from her chosen area: Herefordshire had appeared instead of Hertfordshire on the nursing agency’s books. Before coming here, she’d never believed real villages filled with ancient half-timbered houses existed beyond fairy tales, or night skies uninterrupted by light pollution. Rain, however, was a universal British staple.

‘You did bring boots and waterproofs, like I suggested?’ Kat asked anxiously. Turquoise lenses and Topshop dresses would offer scant protection against Lake Farm’s damp chill.

‘I’ll borrow something off you. I packed my old riding gear, though. I can’t believe you’ve taken it up – you always said you preferred the gym. Remember that place I used to go to every week out near Chesham because I fancied the instructor? He was lush. Turned out to be gay. There’s a retail park there now. I miss my dressage.’

Kat wasn’t sure what Dawn would make of the sanctuary’s unrideable pensioners, blind Sid and his lame companion, or Sri, with her curling ears and evil moods.

‘It’s mad I’ve not been to see you until now,’ she was saying, as they headed along the platform, dodging puddles, ‘but of course your boss had just died when I was on leave last year, and then there was all that fuss about the will and where you were going to live. All sorted now, though?’

‘Pretty much. The farm’s beautiful. I can’t wait for you to see it.’

‘Shame you’re not in the big house any more – I was dying to have a butcher’s. Don’t suppose we can sneak in?’

‘It’s all closed up.’

‘I bet you know a way in. We’ll stick on a couple of hard hats, pretend we’re from the Endangered Bats Trust and no one’ll notice.’

‘I bet you’d be noticed.’ Kat laughed. ‘You really do look fantastic.’

‘I’ll show you the pictures of the ship when we’re back at yours – I’ve got literally hundreds on iCloud.’

‘We’d better grab a coffee then.’ She steered away from the station car park. ‘There’s no phone signal or internet in the house, or anywhere in the village, really. Everyone on the estate uses walkie-talkies.’ Russ used his to listen to the gamekeepers in case they were tracking the wild boar or planning an illegal badger cull, but they mostly seemed to discuss the contents of their sandwiches.

‘That’s bloody medieval.’ Dawn extended the handle of her shiny pink wheelie case and followed her across the road to a new café that had recently opened boasting fair-trade coffee and free WiFi. ‘On the cruise ship, I couldn’t see land for miles but still had crystal clear reception and five megs connection.’

‘We’re too far from the exchange apparently.’ Kat ordered a flat white. ‘The villagers are clubbing together to get a transmitter on the church spire.’

Dawn eyed the waitress, purple eyes glittering. ‘Double half-caff, half-decaff skinny soy latte, and no foam.’

‘Sure.’ The waitress nodded, reaching for the soya milk.

‘All us spa girls drank them on the liner,’ she told Kat, who knew it had been a test of yokelness: Dawn thought anything west of Heathrow was Wales.

‘We’re closer to London than you were in your floating five-star, you know.’ She affected a West Country accent as they found an empty table by the window.

‘Could have fooled me. If I’m still sitting on a moving train when I reach the last page of OK! I’ve travelled beyond civilization. I could have flown to the Med faster.’ She looked out at the traffic whooshing by in the rain. ‘I miss having a car. I’ll get a new one when I’m sorted, but everything’s up in the air until we’ve sold the house.’

‘So you’re definitely selling?’

‘Prices are up again. Dave’s keen to get his cash out.’

When Dawn’s marriage had ended amicably but painfully in formal separation, she and plumber Dave had rented out their little Victorian terrace in Watford’s town centre, unable to face the trauma of selling it.

Dawn was always determinedly upbeat about the break-up, claiming everybody had seen it coming for years – a direct contrast to Kat’s split from fiancé Nick, which had been as sudden as a car crash – but Kat still felt bad that her friend had gone through it without her there as support, particularly when her Nascot Village beauty salon had gone bust after a huge hike in the rent not long afterwards.

Ever the optimist, Dawn had formed a plan to save money by working for a year on cruise ships so that she could buy out Dave’s share of the house, then set up as a mobile beauty therapist in an area where she already had many contacts and old clients. The house was Dawn’s pride and joy, lavishly decorated to her colourful taste, with bright pink feature walls and statement furniture.

Beneath the glossy veneer, Dawn looked drained and sad. ‘Dave’s fed up of waiting, and I can’t afford to take on his share, even with the amount I’ve saved. The house is worth a lot more than we paid for it – trust us to live in a recession-proof area. I need all my savings to buy equipment and set up the mobile business. I can’t face another cruise contract, Kat.’ She leaned forward and whispered, ‘It’s like working in a floating old people’s home. You know I joked I’d meet a rich husband? Well, I met hundreds, and their wives, average age seventy.’

‘You don’t want another husband yet!’ Kat feigned horror. ‘You’re the party girl, Dawn. Live a little. Play the field. Get divorced.’

‘Fair point.’ Dawn laughed. ‘It’s been two years since Dave and I split, but it feels like a lifetime. We’re going to get an internet divorce – it’s as easy as shopping on Ocado.’ The purple eyes glittered. Together for almost a decade, she and Dave were a long-term double act, but they’d grown so far apart in the final years of their marriage that they’d been in separate orbits. Now she wanted to explore whole new galaxies. ‘I’ve moved back in now the tenants have gone so I can smarten it up a bit for viewings. Mum’s helping after a fashion. She’s bought a steam cleaner off QVC. It’s like a sauna in there most days. The sofa’s dripping wet and the wallpaper’s all falling off. She sends her love and asks when you’re coming back to visit.’

‘Soon enough,’ Kat deflected, grateful to be spared an interrogation: Dawn had caught sight of her reflection in the window and let out a shriek before heading off to the loo to repair her rain-flattened hair.

Dawn had always been pernickety about her appearance. She’d also always asked a lot of questions; she joked she was Davina McCall in another life. The two friends had met at sixteen when Dawn was part of an influx from local Watford schools that had joined a bigger comprehensive’s sixth form to study A levels. Totally lost in a labyrinth of corridors between lessons on her first day, she had fallen gratefully on Kat’s help when the small, smiling redhead had bounced around a corner and said brightly, ‘Follow my lead,’ before taking her straight through the maze to their biology class. There, they’d bonded over a cow’s eyeball they’d had to dissect together. To Dawn’s awed admiration, Kat had plunged her knife straight in, before winking one green eye and admitting, ‘We did this at my old school last term. Half the class fainted.’

‘You mean this is your first day here too? How d’you know where to go?’

‘I just guessed.’ Kat had shrugged. It was true: finding the right classroom had been a combination of deduction and pot luck.

The two girls had gone on to train as nurses together and were part of the same close set of friends. Dawn was no shrinking violet, but she’d frequently followed Kat’s lead – everybody did. Brave, generous and not at all self-conscious, Kat was often first to volunteer to try a procedure or be the guinea pig in training, first on the dance floor or to the bar, first to try the water sports or eat local food on holiday, and the first to get her heart broken. Her early romances were legendary lessons in disappointment.

But it was Dawn who had been the first to get a serious boyfriend – jovial, football-mad Dave. She had dragged Kat along on endless double dates to try to match her up with Dave’s jolly, football-loving mates before admitting defeat. Kat preferred her men edgy and challenging.

She checked her Gmail account on her phone while she waited for Dawn to come back from the loo. It was packed as usual, mostly rubbish, but an official-looking communication from the estate’s solicitor made her heart lurch. She read the first few lines and snorted with irritation at the pompous tone.

‘Bad news?’ Dawn sat down, hair four inches higher, purple eyes repainted with mascara and liner.

‘The solicitor’s in a tizz. It’s a letter about the estate’s sale that I have to show to the charity committee. The one they sent in the post must have got lost, and they’ve been trying to ring me but our landline’s not working.’

‘And to think I get jumpy on my own even with a 4G signal on my iPhone in central Watford!’ Dawn looked horrified. ‘You mean you have no phone or internet or post and you’re living alone in the middle of nowhere?’

‘It’s only temporary.’ Kat smiled as the waitress brought over their order. ‘The overhead cable was running too close to a listed horse chestnut so —’

‘Hang on, trees are listed?’

‘Really old ones are. There’s a yew on the estate that’s at least four hundred. Anyway, someone official took the telegraph pole down and nobody’s put it back up yet. They’ve promised the line will be working again next week, and if there’s an emergency, I can usually get mobile reception in the tree-house.’

‘Is that in the listed tree or is it ex-directory?’

‘Ha-ha.’ Kat grinned. Not having the internet beyond a glacially slow dial-up connection didn’t bother her much, except when it came to keeping in touch with old friends, like Dawn, who weren’t easy to call by old-fashioned means. In the past year, their once-regular catch-ups had become frustratingly occasional and often second hand. Under cross-examination now, she remembered why it was sometimes a relief not to have hours of FaceTime with a friend who specialized in awkward questions.

‘What exactly is the deal with the farm?’ Dawn demanded, studying the bags beneath Kat’s dark green eyes. ‘I thought your old boss left it to you.’

‘It’s in trust. I’m just the tenant.’

‘But you’re safe to stay there as long as you want?’

‘Technically, yes, although it depends who buys the estate. Russ thinks they’ll try to find a legal loophole to get me out.’

‘Is he the hippie guy? The one who rescues badgers and foxes?’

She nodded, taking a sip of coffee.

‘You thought he might be a bit of a Communist freeloader.’

‘Not at all! Did I really say that?’

‘Didn’t he hijack the village cricket match to make some sort of revolutionary speech on your first date? Then he turned over the tea tables and made you pay for his supper later.’

Kat had forgotten the long email she’d written to Dawn about it. ‘That was the villagers versus estate workers match, and he thought the umpire was bent.’ It was the day Russ had swept Kat off her feet (almost literally as she’d been helping serve teas when he staged his Jesus-in-the-temple act with the trestles). ‘He still scored a hundred. Then he asked me out, but he left his wallet in the pavilion so I ended up paying. I really didn’t mind – he only ate the soup,’ she remembered fondly. ‘He told me cricket was invented by shepherds who played in front of tree stumps, so it’s a working-class farm labourer’s game.’

‘And does the working-class farm labourer still bowl you over?’

‘He’s a qualified arboriculturalist, actually.’ She knew she sounded chippy and defensive. ‘You’ll meet him later. He’s staying in the house.’

‘You’re living together?’ Dawn looked at her sharply. ‘Are you sure you’re ready?’

‘It’s been two years since Nick too.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘It’s only a temporary thing. Russ respects my need for space. We have separate rooms and he only stays over occasionally. He’s a free spirit – and he’s good company,’ she insisted, reluctant to admit that Russ – whose caravan was far from watertight – had stayed often in recent weeks, along with his dog Ché. He had also moved in a lot of musical equipment and amplifiers that blew the fuse-box on a regular basis. For a man who insisted he travelled light, he had a lot of stuff and liked to be surrounded by beautiful things. Unearthing a chest full of saris, floor cushions, tassels and decorative bandhanwar door hangings that dated back to when Constance had used Lake Farm as a retreat, he’d converted a corner of the sitting room into a Hindu love temple.

‘He’s into Tantric sex,’ she whispered to Dawn, whose eyebrows shot up.

‘Is that like Fifty Shades of Grey?’

Kat giggled. ‘No, that’s BM.’

‘Tantric sounds like copulating in a spray-tan booth – hang on, I think I’ve read about it somewhere, some shamanic foreplay thing that Sting did between saving rainforests.’

‘It’s a spiritual process that leads to the most mind-blowing sex of your life, apparently,’ Kat assured her in an undertone, not wanting other coffee drinkers falling from their chairs in shock. ‘He says it’s a way of retraining the mind so that the body can let go and reach the highest plateaux of pleasure.’

‘How are your spiritual pleasure plateaux?’

‘It’s early days. He doesn’t want to rush me.’ So far the Tantric sex experiment had seemed to involve a lot of meditation and listening to one another’s breathing while fully clothed, and no physical contact beyond holding hands.

‘You’re not feeling crowded?’

‘Quite the opposite, except perhaps when Mags and the band come round.’

‘Who is Mags?’

‘An old mate of Russ’s. They’ve played music together for years.’

‘Is he fit?’ Dawn asked hopefully.

‘He’s a she,’ Kat laughed. ‘And she’s scary but cool. She’s found me lots of volunteer helpers, so it’s a fair trade letting them rehearse in the house when the pub’s skittle alley’s busy. The sanctuary can be pretty all-consuming, especially in winter. Russ is helping teach me about animal behaviour and stuff, as well as how to live as self-sufficiently as possible. He believes at least eighty per cent of the food we eat should be home grown or foraged. I’m even learning some vegan recipes – you can cook pulses, but nothing with a pulse.’

‘He’s clearly nothing like Nick, I’ll hand you that.’

‘He is nothing like Nick,’ she agreed flatly.

Dawn was wise enough not to push the point. ‘What would Constance Mytton-Gough have made of an animal-rights vigilante in her sanctuary?’

‘You sound like Miriam.’

‘Who’s Miriam?’

‘Constance’s goddaughter – she’s one of the trustees of the charity. She’s a bit of a do-gooding bossy boots, but means well, and is a total expert on anything with feathers. She’s really helped me out – they all have. There’s Tina, who’s been teaching me to ride and is brilliant with the horses – everyone calls her “Tireless Tina” because she has three kids under five, a layabout husband, God knows how many horses at home and still manages to fund-raise for the hunt, the school and now the sanctuary. There’s scary Pru, who’s ancient but used to farm Hereford cattle and knows lots about the livestock, and her sister Cyn, who’s much gentler – imagine Judi Dench in a Husky – and has a real knack with the feral cats. The queens wouldn’t come near Lake Farm at first and hung about the main house, but Cyn lured them over with a trail of home-cured ham. Ché kept eating it, which drove Russ mad.’

‘Ché?’

‘Russ’s dog. He’s vegetarian.’

‘That’s cruel.’

‘Depends how you look at it. Russ says pet food doesn’t have the same labelling requirements as human stuff and that “meat and animal derivatives” is basically anything scraped up off the slaughterhouse floor, and that “EC permitted additives” covers four thousand chemicals banned for human consumption.’

‘Remind me to pass on the Chappie next time.’

‘Apparently greenhouse gases coming from meat stock now outweigh the emissions of the entire global transport system.’

‘And what about the bullshit vegan arboriculturalist cricketers give out?’

Despite trying to look offended on Russ’s behalf, Kat cracked and confessed, ‘I give Ché tripe sticks when Russ isn’t looking.’

Dawn was unimpressed by the scale of the rebellion, eyeing her old friend worriedly. She’d not forgotten how Kat had changed during her relationship with Nick, the gradual decline from extrovert to introvert, the Stepford Wife transformation during which her bright, opinionated friend had become subjugated by fear and misery, regurgitating Nick’s opinions as though she had none of her own. When she’d finally plucked up the courage to leave him, Dawn had prayed that the old Kat would come bouncing back, but she was worried that the damage was still much too deep for her to surface, her need for attachment still too great. When she had been the old lady’s carer, Kat had become a mouthpiece for antediluvian opinions dating back to the Indian Raj – her emails and Facebook messages had been peppered with ‘frightfully’, ‘jolly’ and even ‘bang on’. Now she sounded like a member of the Animal Liberation Front.

Like most of Kat’s friends, Dawn had been utterly bowled over by Nick at first, not to mention wildly jealous: he was incredibly good-looking, confident and poised, an old-fashioned hero whose character came through action as much as talk, from his gallant firefighting career to adventurous free running and arduous marathons. He raised money for charities, had loyal friends of bromance proportions, loved his mum and dad and worshipped Kat. He could even cook and actually liked hanging around outside changing rooms taking his girlfriend shopping. Kat grumbled about his penchant for impractical tailored dresses and high heels, but when a man so sexy was flashing the plastic why complain? her friends had countered. Besides, they’d thought she looked fantastic.

Always the laughing daredevil of her crowd, Kat had never been a very girly girl, but with Nick she became ultra-feminine, never losing the kindness or that reckless streak, yet blossoming into an irresistibly sexy, sassy woman. She’d radiated good living and loving. The couple ran together, worked out together and clearly pleasured together non-stop. Her friends, including Dawn, were green with envy.

Kat and Nick, Dawn and Dave would often go out in a group – the boys became great golf friends – and Dawn realized that the effect loved-up Kat had on people was mesmerizing. Men had started to notice her in a way they never had before she was with Nick, hitting on her all the time. In turn, Nick noticed them, and occasionally hit them back, which horrified Kat, who was happy to shrug off the advances good-naturedly and get on with life. Dawn now suspected that was where the relationship had started to show its first signs of stress fractures, although she hadn’t noticed back then. Nick had a jealous streak, and was very controlling. Kat’s easy-going, happy-go-lucky kindness made her vulnerable. She grew quieter, more withdrawn, letting Nick take over, both physically and emotionally. She was increasingly obsessive about exercise and lost a lot of weight, and while she still looked fantastic, she was on the borderline between ripped and skinny. Nick said she’d never looked more beautiful,. . .