Authors: Jane Lovering
met them. But, I don't know, there seemed to be some sort
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of
connection
between us, when I saw you standing there in
front of the photos of Thistle...and...you seemed...it was
almost as though you
knew
me when you looked at me. Like
a flicker of recognition. I'm sorry. That sounds really pathetic,
doesn't it? But I knew that I didn't want you to disappear off
to wherever it is that you come from. Not without my at least
having the chance to talk to you."
My foot chose that particular moment to shoot into a rut.
My leg gave way. I stumbled and lurched forward a couple of
strides before I pitched to my knees in the dust. Great. I
wanted to come over suave and sophisticated and here I was
impersonating Frankenstein's monster's trial run. But there
was an advantage. Leo lifted me to my feet by my upper
arms. He was much more muscular than he looked, that black
T-shirt must contain a decent body. As he placed me back
upright, his hands lingered for a moment, and I felt the hairs
along my forearms react. He was so close I could smell the
scent of hay and horses from him, also something spicy and
definitely sexy. I was feeling quite ridiculously hot and
wondered how I was going to talk myself out of this.
"Oh, look." His voice had the breathless, dreamy quality
that I normally associated with men when they were about to
suggest that I might like to dress up in a rubber catsuit.
"That's Sophia."
"Who?" We'd emerged from the lane and now the trackway
was crossing an open field, well moonlit, but I couldn't see
any sign of anyone else. "Where?"
"There. Isn't she beautiful?"
I looked where he pointed. "What? Behind the horse?"
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"Pony. Sophia is my champion Section A mare. In foal to
Cleavers, if everything works out right." We continued
walking, uphill now, past the grazing pony, towards a
stupendously lovely house which was gleaming yellow in the
moonlight. "I'm sorry. I get a little bit carried away about my
animals, sometimes. They've been everything to me since—
well, for a long while now." We walked on, around to the front
of the house, which made me stop for a second and catch my
breath. It was a large Elizabethan building with high
mullioned windows and arched doorways. A proper gravelled
driveway led off between neatly clipped lawns into the
distance.
"Gosh. The last time I saw anything like this, it was a re-
creation on
Time Team
."
"It is rather lovely." Leo pushed open a door which bore
more metal decoration than your average body-piercing
enthusiast and led me into an enormous hallway. I followed
him through into a kitchen. A large range took up most of one
wall and a huge butler's sink occupied a greater portion of the
other. A scrubbed table stood in the middle and the corners
were occupied by dogs' beds, horse rugs, saddlery and
assorted piles of papers, boxes and bottles. It was a mess.
But, I was pleased to note, there were absolutely no feminine
touches around the place, not even so much as a rag rug to
warm the chilly stone flag floor. If he
did
have a wife, she was
a complete domestic slob.
Leo glanced around at the empty dog beds. "I wonder
where the terriers have got to?" He opened a door. I admired
his back view as he took a few steps out of the kitchen. My
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subconscious checklist of desirable male features was sagging
under the weight of ticks—the way his hair curled slightly
over his collar, the broad line of his shoulders, the neatness
of his buttocks. All this and the sensual frisson which had
definitely slithered between us when he'd helped me upright.
He was, without a doubt, what Florence would call
fit
.
Florence. She'd be back from wherever-it-was that Piers
was taking her by now, surely? Especially with an exam to sit
tomorrow.
"Hey, Mum!"
For once she sounded pleased to hear from me. "Is
everything okay, darling? Are you back at Dad's?"
"Yeah, everything's cool this end. What're you up to?"
"Well, I'm sitting in an Elizabethan mansion chatting to a
rather nice man."
A snorty kind of laugh. "Yeah, right. And I just pulled the
Arctic Monkeys."
"No, I am. Honestly."
A pause. "What, a man? A real one?" There was a sudden,
frantic amount of whispering off-mouthpiece as Florence
relayed this piece of information to someone else.
I heard Piers say, "Is she all right?"
Piers obviously thought the only way I'd ever be in contact
with a man would be for one to have abducted me. "It's all
fine. Look, I'll be back tomorrow. Ask Piers to bring you home
in the evening, if he doesn't mind."
There was a lot of rustling at the other end, then Piers's
voice. "That'll be okay, Alys. I'll bring her back around nine.
Will you be in?"
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"If I'm not I won't be too late. Thank you for running her
around, Piers. I hope it's not interfering with your life too
much."
"Well, you know, things are kinda quiet at the moment."
We were silent at each other. I heard Florrie say, "Let me
talk to her again," petulantly, as though Piers had been
withholding the handset. "Mum, you don't have to come back
on my account, you know. It will be fine for me to stay with
Dad a bit longer."
"No, I'll come back tomorrow. I've got to work. Bye
darling!"
Florence muttered me a goodbye, another set of plans
obviously thwarted by her evil mother, and I laid the phone
down. Leo was standing just inside the door.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have realised."
"Realised what?"
"I...umm..." His eyes headed for the ceiling and began
following the contours of the walls. "I'm afraid...I'm...oh
bugger it. I should have realised that you weren't available.
My fault. Sorry." His eyes continued to roam somewhere
above head height, but the rest of his face assumed a wry
expression. "I hope I haven't compromised our...friendship by
saying that." He'd obviously heard the tail end of my
conversation, all
Piers
and
darling
.
"Oh, but I am," I said. "Available, that is." Aware that this
made me sound like Tart of the Century, I hastened in with,
"I was talking to my daughter. I'd promised I'd ring. But apart
from her—oh, and Grainger, he's our cat—well, there's
nobody." Then, because that gave the impression that I was
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Billy No-Mates, "Nobody special, that is. I mean, I see people,
of course I do, doesn't everyone, but not men. Well, some of
them are men, obviously, at least half, but I don't see them, I
mean, I
see
them, otherwise I'd fall over them all the time,
but not in that way. If you see what I mean." It had finally
dawned on me that I was gabbling.
"In other words, you don't have a significant other?"
"I don't have any kind of other." And forgetting everything
Isabelle had told me, "What about you? Married?"
Leo sank suddenly into a chair. "I hope you'll excuse me."
He put his head in his hands for a moment as though he was
very tired. "I
like
you Alys, but there are things I find quite
difficult to talk about. I'm not naturally a very open person."
"I think most poets aren't," I said without thinking, then
blushed a bright and unflattering shade of cerise.
"How...?"
"Isabelle." I dropped his sister firmly into the cesspit of
fraternal relations. "She mentioned that you wrote poetry
sometimes. A lot of poets aren't good at verbalising
relationships and things. They put everything into words in a
different way." Because I was panicking slightly and his
expression was a bit blank, I added, "W.H. Auden was exactly
the same!"
"Ah. Was he?" Leo got up and went to a cupboard, which
turned out to be rather satisfyingly full of wine. "Drink?"
We drank. Talked. Leo seemed to talk a lot but without
giving much away. He told me about the stud, his five
champion stallions and the mares. I tried to ask intelligent,
nonprobing questions but it was really awkward. Curiously,
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this made him more exciting, more inscrutable, like a
wrapped parcel under the Christmas tree.
Eventually we both sat back and yawned in tandem. "Do
you realise it's nearly three o'clock?" He rubbed his hands
over his cheeks. "I need a shave. And a haircut. I do
apologise, Alys, for being such a scruffbag. You deserve
better and next time we meet I shall try to be a little more
presentable."
"I think you look"—I couldn't meet his eye—"great."
Understatement of the year. "You don't need to do anything
on my account."
"But I'd like to." Leo leaned across the table, put a finger
under my chin and gently tilted my head so that I had to look
at him. "May I, Alys? May I see you again? I admit, I've got
no idea how, but all I know is that I'd like to, very much."
"Yes," I almost whispered and hoped that he'd take the
pleading expression in my eyes as an invitation to kiss me.
Whatever he took it as, he didn't kiss me. Didn't even close
the gap between us, just let go of my chin and sighed.
"It's late. I'll show you to the Green Room, I think you'll
like it. I'll run you through to Exeter tomorrow to get the
train, but I'm afraid I'll probably not see very much of you
before that. I'm up at six to start on morning stables."
I followed him up the most stunning flight of stairs ever
seen outside a forties Hollywood musical, and along a twisted
tangle of corridors and landings. At last Leo stopped in front
of a door. "This is the Green Room. Bathroom is down the
corridor there. Good night, Alys. Sleep well."
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I half pursed my lips in expectation of a kiss, but he was
gone, striding away into the darkness. I went into the
bedroom and undressed, then lay and cursed. Maybe I should
have asked Leo where his room was? Maybe he'd appreciate
being swept off his feet, maybe he didn't know
how
to make
the first move. But Leo struck me as a man who liked to do
the gentlemanly thing and, let's face it, sleeping with a
woman you've only just met who's largely off her face on
white wine is hardly gentlemanly. I didn't really know
how
to
make the first move—not these days. Anyway, hadn't I
secretly preferred him as a dead man?
If only he wasn't so
damn sexy.
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"And this," Leo continued, as I gritted my teeth to stifle a
tiny bubble of yawn, "is Charlton Persephone." He leaned over
yet another stable door and rubbed the neck of yet another
small grey pony. "All my mares have women's names and the
stallions are all named after plants, as you might have
noticed."
I had noticed. I had also noticed that Leo was clean
shaven this morning, was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt
and a worn pair of denims and that he smelled of Aramis. He
leaned companionably close over the half-door, and I became
very aware that his shoulder was touching mine. I turned
around to hold my face up to the sun, letting the urgent light
burn away some of the heavy-lidded desire for more sleep. To
my gratification he turned too, then stood in front of me
forming a shadow which blocked almost all the rays. Enough
light was getting past him, however, to mean that I could
only look at him through half-closed lids.
There was a moment of silence. The blinding light meant I
couldn't see his expression, only the outline of his head.
"Excuse me," he said softly. "Do you mind if I just—" His head
came forward, a hand reached out and cupped the back of my
head. I closed my eyes waiting for lip impact. Instead I felt a
brief fiddle at the front of my hair, and he pulled away again
causing the sunlight to strobe across my face. "You had a
piece of hay caught."
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My lips slammed together. "We'd better get going," I said
rather tersely. "I don't want to miss my train."
"Plenty of time." Leo moved on to the next stable. "Come
in here a second."
He unlocked the door and I followed, into a loose box full
of straw but no pony. "What?"
"Oh. Only this." He grabbed me very firmly by both
shoulders and kissed me deeply. I'd got used to being kissed
by men who made the event feel as though my face was