Glittering Fortunes. Victoria Fox

monstrous car appeared around the corner. The last thing she saw was a pair of dumbstruck faces, bone-white in the burgeoning dusk, before she was thrown from her saddle and after that there was nothing.

CHAPTER FIVE

      ‘DEAR GOD, WHAT in heaven’s name was that?’ There was a sickening crunch as the wheels bumped over something. Susanna’s hands flew to her face. ‘It’s a ghost! We’ve hit a ghost! Did you see her? A girl! We’ve killed her!’

      ‘Don’t be insane, woman.’ Cato stopped the vehicle and climbed out. ‘Put those ruddy lights on, will you?’ He’d said he didn’t need them, knowing the place so well. Perhaps it was a deer. They had deer here, didn’t they? Deer who rode bikes?

      Susanna flicked on the headlamps to aid his investigation and patted her headscarf with fear. ‘Should I come?’ she called, praying they wouldn’t be confronted with a corpse. Imagine the headlines! LORD & LADY LANGUISH BEHIND BARS.

      ‘All right, all right, Mole,’ came the impatient response. ‘Are you with us, sweetheart? Ah, there you go. Bump on the head, that’s all. What’s your name?’

      It sounded like it was in the land of the living, whatever it was. Susanna joined him on the track, the engine purring behind her. Her heels click-clacked on the stones.

      ‘Oh.’ She was surprised to find Cato bending rather too willingly over a girl, who was youngish, early twenties at a guess, and who was rubbing a wild nest of curls. The girl wore a flummoxed look and Cato was rubbing her shoulder.

      ‘Look what we’ve done, old thing,’ purred Cato. ‘Frightened the poor angel half to death! See if there’s a blanket in the boot, would you? She must keep warm.’

      I’m sure she’ll manage fine with your arms clamped around her, Susanna thought uncharitably. And since when had he called her old thing?

      The trunk offered up little more than a spare tyre and a leaking vat of windscreen wash. ‘No luck!’ she sang. ‘Shall we get her in the car?’

      ‘We’ll have to try,’ answered Cato. Goodness, how handsome he looked. Rugged and wild against the trees, his eyes glinting like a night-time beast’s, but at the same time irresistibly polished and carrying the scent of safety, of warm hotel rooms, of expensive restaurants and the interiors of chauffeur-driven Mercedes. Part of Susanna felt bilious at Cato’s attentions being lavished over another woman; part of her was madly turned on by it. Just wait until they were in their four-poster tonight.

      ‘Shall I take her legs?’ asked Susanna.

      ‘She’s not a blasted plank of wood!’ Cato scoffed, turning to address the casualty with a far gentler: ‘Are you able to walk?’

      ‘I—I think so.’ The girl had a very sweet English accent. How pretty was she? It was difficult to see.

      ‘We’ll take you up to the house,’ decided Cato, helping her to her feet.

      ‘I’ve just come from there.’

      Cato’s voice changed. ‘Charles’ girl, are you?’

      ‘No! I—I came for a job. I’ve never been here before. But I have to get home; I told my mum I’d be back …’

      ‘Come now, one step at a time.’ Cato steered her towards the vehicle with gut-wrenching tenderness. When was the last time he had treated Susanna in such a way? She was overtaken by the desire to find the nearest main road and toss herself under a passing truck—see if that got him prioritising his attentions.

      Once the girl was installed in front and the bike parked by a tree, Cato drove the rest of the way. Susanna was able to get a proper look at her before the interior bulbs faded. She was plain, which was a relief. Her hair was a mess and her skin could do with a California tan. She was wearing a blue dress, too short for those legs.

      Relegated to the back seat, Susanna stared glumly out of the window, feeling miserably like a forgotten-about child. She tried to blot out her lover’s ministrations as he chatted kindly to the girl, no doubt aware that a report of this type would do little for his precious PR. Right now she wanted nothing more than to run a very deep, very hot bath and sink into it with a glass of chilled Sancerre. It had been a long drive from Heathrow. Cato’s mood—at least until now—had been frightful, and Susanna, usually adept in keeping her pecker up (as Cato would say) had in turn become tired and irritable. Couldn’t they have taken a helicopter? It was infinitely more civilised.

      Yet as they skirted the final corner, the Usherwood approach she had pictured so many times, the magical house at last appeared. Its details were tricky to decipher in the creeping dusk, but, oh, it was so definitely there, solid and timeless and noble, and when Susanna let the window down she was met by a fragrance of floras and honeysuckle, heat-soaked after a day in the sun, the quiet rush of a stream and the first faint glimmer of stars high above them in the lilac sky.

      A single flare glowed downstairs. She wondered if they still used candlelight! It would be most charming if so.

      Cato halted the vehicle, emerged from the driver’s side and immediately bolted round the bonnet to assist their ward. Susanna tried to open her door but it wouldn’t budge. She battered the window and Cato was forced to return to release an absurd child lock they’d had fitted—the humiliation!

      ‘Good evening, my lord.’ A large, flustered-looking maid came rushing out. She had a scribble of grey hair and a rubicund complexion, and Susanna was assailed by the unsavoury suspicion that she could have hidden her entire body behind one of the woman’s haunches, like someone hiding behind a tree trunk.

      Barbara. Unfortunately for the housekeeper, she was just as imagined.

      ‘It’s good to have you home,’ offered Barbara, with a half-bob. Seeing Susanna, she added warmly, ‘I’m Mrs Bewlis-Teet, welcome to Usherwood.’

      ‘Baps,’ barked Cato by way of greeting (a private amusement: Barbara heard it as ‘Babs’), ‘regretfully we’ve had an accident. Bloody pothole back on that drive, Charles really ought to get it looked at; the damn thing’s a liability. Threw me right off course—Olivia here almost went under the wheels!’

      Susanna didn’t think they had gone over any potholes.

      Baps went to help. ‘Oh, dear me, you must have had a terrible shock.’

      ‘I’m fine!’ said Olivia, who was pale as a sheet and clearly disorientated. Her arm was bleeding. ‘Really, I’d like to go home.’

      ‘Listen to Baps,’ proclaimed Cato, ‘she’s a wise old goose.’

      ‘But I’m OK.’

      ‘There is to be no argument.’

      ‘Please, if I could just—’

      ‘Absolutely not—you’re concussed: you haven’t the faintest clue what you’re saying.’ Cato draped his arm across her shoulders. ‘I won’t let you out of my sight, little one.’ His teeth flashed white. ‘That’s a promise.’

      Susanna heaved her suitcase from the boot.

      ‘This is Mole,’ Cato tossed over his shoulder, before sliding through the door.

      Susanna put her hand out. ‘Susanna,’ she said cordially.

      Baps shook it, and curtseyed ever so slightly in a way that made Susanna’s heart tremble with pleasure, for it had to be due to her imminent Usherwood status rather than her celebrity: Baps didn’t look like the sort of woman who would have seen one of Susanna’s movies, which were typically about twenty-something city cliques on the lookout for Mr Right; she looked like the sort of woman who thrashed through undergrowth with a walking cane and made blackberry jams from scratch.

      Through the entrance it was huge and echoey. The great black hood of a fireplace