Country Rivals. Zara Stoneley

of Bath and that Aspinall chap have a lot to answer for, putting ridiculous ideas into people’s heads. You will never see a pride of lions here during my lifetime. Utter tosh and nonsense. Right, I’m sure it’s past your bedtime. Your push bicycle is by the front door.’

      ‘Push …?’

      ‘The police called in to say they’d seen it propped against the south wall,’ she raised an eyebrow and he tried not to smile. ‘Some chap saw you climb over, but they knew better than to follow you. More than one policeman has been peppered with shot on this estate. By accident, of course, mistaken identity and all that. One of the gamekeepers went to collect it while I brought Bertie to sniff you out.’

      ‘You knew I was there? You didn’t find me by accident?’

      ‘What do you think I am? This estate stretches for miles, and I can’t see in the dark at my age, can I?’

      ‘I suppose not.’

      ‘Be careful on the bicycle, you look a bit tipsy. Unlikely to meet any traffic but the ditches can be hazardous I’m told.’ She stood up. ‘Can’t have you killed just before Christmas can we? Your mother would never forgive us. Oh, and watch out for ghosts and wolves.’ And he was pretty sure that it was the whisky that made him think she’d winked.

       Chapter 3

      ‘Faster Worwy, faster, faster.’

      Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Steel jumped as the unexpected shrill scream echoed down the hallway and her needle came unthreaded, and disappeared between the floorboards. ‘Bugger.’

      She shut one eye and peered down the crack, wishing that they could afford to send the horse rugs to the local saddlery for mending. Impoverished landowners might be expected to make do and mend (and she definitely was impoverished), but sewing was really not her thing. She just wasn’t very good at it. She was much better at whitewashing the stables, if she was honest, and at least then she’d not be using her fingers as pin cushions.

      In fact whitewashing, and mending fences, were the type of thing she’d spent most of her time doing before she’d discovered that one day she would inherit Tipping House – and in the meantime was expected to manage the day-to-day running of the estate, and remove as much of the responsibility as she could from her elderly grandmother. Not that Elizabeth considered herself either elderly or in need of assistance. It was rather Lottie who thought she needed help, especially since her wedding business had gone up in smoke, leaving them once again struggling to make ends meet.

      But it was hard to imagine now that she’d ever thought she could belong anywhere else. When she was a child she’d always imagined that one day she’d follow in her father, Billy Brinkley’s, footsteps and enter the world of show-jumping (or at least groom his horses and be the one that educated the youngsters), and then when she’d moved in with Rory she’d imagined herself supporting his eventing career and chasing off his female fans, and the very last thing that had ever crossed her mind was that she would instead live a life rather more along the lines of her aristocratic grandmother Lady Elizabeth and her Uncle Dominic. Although whilst it all sounded rather grand, the reality was anything but. And at times she quite honestly found it hard to believe she was related to them, even if she did feel she would die rather than give up her beautiful, but demanding, inheritance.

      Whitewashing and mucking out stables, she decided, came to her much more naturally than balancing spreadsheets and sewing.

      ‘Giddy up, horsey.’

      A shrill whinny stopped her short and she forgot all about needles.

      Her husband, Rory, could often be seen cantering around Tipping House with their goddaughter, little Roxy, riding on his shoulders, but he couldn’t whinny like that. That sounded far too authentic. Lottie scrambled across the room on all-fours and leaned out of the doorway.

      It was indeed a horsey, or rather a very fat Shetland pony, coming down the hallway.

      ‘No Woxy, I mean Roxy. Oh for heaven’s sake!’ Lottie exclaimed. For a moment one of the portraits swung on the wall as the excited child caught it with a flailing arm before it came to a rest at a rather jaunty angle. ‘Stop, stop. Rory, stop before Great Uncle Albert falls off the wall.’

      Rory stopped. The pony didn’t. It ambled on past him, reached the end of the lead rope and ground to a halt a couple of feet short of Lottie. Stretching its stubby neck out, it peered down at her through long-lashed brown eyes before snorting and showering both her and the hall rug with spittle. Roxy, who was perched like a cherry on a cake, lurched in the saddle, then giggled.

      ‘Lot-tie.’ Her blond curls trembled as she waved her hands in the air in an enthusiastic greeting and she bounced on the saddle. ‘Look at me, look at me, me and Alice have got weal horseys and I’m in my best pwincess dwess. Look, look.’ But Lottie wasn’t looking at her. She was staring at her devastatingly dishy husband and trying to keep the cross look fixed on her face.

      Rory. Gorgeous, fit Rory. Clad in the tightest of breeches and sloppy polo shirt, despite the cold winter air. He tipped his head to one side and grinned, his tawny-brown eyes alive with mischief. ‘What are you doing down there, darling?’

      Rory Steel loved the children, the children loved him, and as his best horses had been turned out for a rest and the ground was far too hard for jumping, he’d been glad of the diversion that a bit of baby-sitting offered. And he also loved his scatty but occasionally bossy wife, Lottie. In fact, when her assertive side emerged he found her totally impossible to resist, as that glint in her eye worked wonders for his libido. Not that he ever had a problem that way.

      Rory and Lottie were widely accepted as the dishiest, and possibly the nicest, couple in Tippermere. Where Rory was lean and hard, Lottie was no size zero, but possessed rather unfashionable curves. As a teenager she’d been as leggy as a yearling, but she’d matured into a statuesque (she thought fat) woman, who appealed to the old and young men of Tippermere alike. Her gorgeous thick hair gave her a ‘just out of bed’ look that was irresistible, and her enormous green eyes and generous mouth made her as huggable as she was desirable.

      ‘Rug-mending. It’s not going too well though.’ She stared at the row of haphazard stitches.

      Rory also found her home-making activities quite attractive too. Well, all in all, the longer they’d been married the more he’d fallen in love with the girl.

      Lottie gazed up at him and couldn’t stay cross. She never could with Rory, well, not unless he’d been really, really bad. Like the time he’d turned up with a string of horses and organised a jump-off at her father’s wedding, in the marquee, before the cake had been cut.

      She fought the smile that was threatening to break out. It had been typical Rory – mad, fun and had signalled the end of the wedding cake. When his horse had landed on it.

      Then there had been the episode on the day she’d launched her wedding fayre business. He’d done a runner – and then turned up and proposed like some dashing and romantic knight.

      ‘I’m not sure you should bring them in the house, even if they are small.’

      ‘You’re no trouble, are you girls?’ He winked at Roxy, who giggled.

      Lottie sighed. ‘I meant the ponies not the girls.’

      She had been finding it strangely therapeutic, sat on the floor sewing (even if she wasn’t very good at it). Except when the needle came unthreaded. That was annoying. But maybe leaning out of the doorway was a mistake, with a pony on the loose. ‘Hang on.’ She clambered to her feet, the horse blanket falling off her knee, and Tilly the terrier, who’d been chewing the end of it, let go and with an excited yap launched herself down the long hallway straight at Rory. Who, forgetting the job in hand, let go of the lead rope and caught the little dog. The shaggy pony, sensing freedom, did a swift U-turn and headed for the nearest open