English Lord On Her Doorstep. Marion Lennox

was a boy learning to drive the estate’s four-by-four across the vast estates of Ballystone Hall, his father had told him never to swerve for an animal. ‘You’ll lose control,’ he’d told him. ‘Animals can usually judge distance and speed. If you swerve, they’re more likely to be hit, not less, and there’s a possibility you’ll kill yourself, too.’

      But this hadn’t been a farm-vehicle-savvy calf, darting back to the herd, or a startled but nimble deer. This dog was a trudger: a dirty white, mid-sized mutt. It had been square in the centre of the country road, head down, looking almost as if a car coming around the bend would be doing it a favour by hitting it.

      So of course Bryn had swerved, but the road was rain-washed and narrow. There hadn’t been time or space to avoid it. Now it lay on the grass at the roadside, its hind leg bloody, its brown eyes a pool of pain and misery.

      Bryn stooped over it and those eyes were saying, ‘Kill me now.’

      ‘You didn’t think of taking pills,’ Bryn said, but he said it gently. He liked dogs. He missed them.

      But the dogs at home were currently being cared for by his mother and by the farm staff who valued them as they deserved. Not like this one. This dog looked as if it had been doing it tough for a while.

      What to do?

      He was trying to beat a storm that threatened to close the country down for a couple of days. A line-up of lawyers was waiting to meet him in London. He needed to get away from this mess and get back to Ballystone Hall, to the farm, to the cattle, to the work that filled his life. He also needed to finally accept the title he hated, and he still wasn’t sure how to do that. The dreariness of the last months had hauled him close to the blackness he’d fought ever since...

      No. Don’t go there. Focus on getting on that flight.

      But there was a dog. A bitch. Lying on the road. Bleeding.

      It was a twenty-minute drive back to the last town. It was twenty-five minutes to the next.

      It was eight o’clock at night.

      The dog was looking at him as if she was expecting him to wield an axe.

      ‘It’s okay,’ he told her, fondling the bedraggled ears. Forcing himself to think.

      This was farming country, west of Melbourne. Where there were farms, there’d be a vet. He could ring ahead to warn he was coming, and pay whatever was needed to pass over the responsibility of taking care of her wounds and finding her owner.

      But first he had to get her off the road. It was raining already and the distant rumbling of thunder threatened more.

      The dog was bleeding. Blood was oozing rather than spurting, but it was enough to be worrying. He needed towels.

      He was travelling light and a towel wasn’t included in the sparse gear he carried. He was in Australia to try and distance his name from his uncle’s financial mess. The debt collection agency was due to collect this car from the airport’s valet parking tomorrow. It’d be a great look if they found it smeared with blood, he thought. That’d add even more drama to the mess that was his uncle’s life.

      ‘A pill would definitely have been easier,’ he muttered to the dog, but he was already shrugging off his jacket, figuring how to edge it underneath so he could carry her. Then he headed back to the car to find a spare shirt to wrap the leg.

      ‘Okay, dog, hopefully it’s only your leg that’s damaged,’ he told her as he worked. ‘I’ll ring ahead to the next town and have the vet meet me. Let’s get you safe and warm before the eye of this storm hits. I might need to break the odd speed limit but I can still catch my plane.’

      * * *

      Charlotte Foster—Charlie except when she was with clients—didn’t like storms, though maybe that was putting it too lightly. In her neat little interior-design studio back in Melbourne, with solid town houses on either side, she could pull the blinds, put something loud on the sound system and pretend storms didn’t happen. Here, though, she was in a dilapidated farmhouse with a rusty tin roof, she had no neighbours for miles and she was surrounded by dogs who were already edgy.

      If Grandma were here she’d sneak into bed with her. How many times had she done that as a little girl? This place had been her refuge, her time out. Grandma had scooped her up every school holidays and brought her back here, surrounding her with dogs, chaos, love.

      She sniffed.

      Charlie wasn’t a sniffer but she’d been sniffing for weeks now, and sometimes even more than sniffing.

      Grandma...

      There was a hole in her heart a mile wide.

      The dogs, too, were acting as if the bottom had dropped from their world, as indeed it had. In the weeks she’d been here Charlie still hadn’t figured what to do with them. They were rejects, collected over the years by Betty who hadn’t been able to say no to anyone. To anything.

      Charlie still didn’t know what would happen to them. There was no way she could take six dogs back to her studio-cum-bedsit—seven if you counted Flossie, although she’d almost given up on Flossie.

      Betty’s note was still haunting her. That last night...she must have felt it coming. Pain in her chest? Breathlessness? Who knew? Whatever, instead of doing the sensible thing and calling an ambulance straight away, she’d sat down and written instructions for Charlie.

       You know most of this but just to remind you of details.

       Possum is a sort of fox terrier. Nine years old. Loves his black and white sock more than anything. There are spares in my bottom drawer in case of disaster.

       Fred’s a part-basset, part-vacuum-cleaner. He’ll eat anything on the basis he can bring it up later if it’s not edible.

       Don’t let him near Possum’s sock!

      And so on.

      But then, at the end...

       Flossie’s a sweetheart, but needy. You met her last time you came. She’s only been with me for two months, dumped on the road near here. I need to keep her secure because any chance she gets she’s off down the road, trying to find the low life who abandoned her.

      Charlie had spent the last weeks caring for the dogs and other animals. Trying to figure a solution to the financial mess. Wanting to kill the scumbag who’d fleeced her grandma. Trying to block out the memory of her own stupidity, which meant she had no resources to help now. Her grief for the gentle Betty had been a constant ache throughout, but adding to it was the fact that when Betty had finally called the ambulance, the paramedics had left the gate open.

      Somewhere out there was a lost dog called Flossie.

      Charlie had enough on her plate with six dogs she needed to rehome. Flossie surely must be someone else’s problem by now, but, still, she’d searched. She’d hoped. Betty would expect her to. Now, as the storm closed in, the thought of a lost Flossie was breaking her heart.

      ‘You guys can all come into bed with me until it’s over,’ she told the dogs, who were getting more nervous as the sound of thunder increased.

      Flossie... She’d be out there somewhere...

      ‘I’ve looked,’ she said out loud, defiantly, to a grandma who could no longer hear. To Betty, who she’d buried with grief and with love ten days ago. ‘I’ve done all I can, Grandma. Now it’s time for me to bury my head under my pillows and get through this storm without you.’

      * * *

      Yallinghup was the town ahead. It had a vet who was currently somewhere in a paddock with a cow in labour. He could hear the sound of wind in the background when she answered the phone. ‘I can meet you in an hour or so,’ she’d said brusquely. ‘Probably. Depends when this lady delivers. I’ll ring you back when we’re done.’

      Carlsbrook