Jilly Cooper - Riders

“I’m starving,” said Maureen. “Thank God I had a cooked breakfast. We’re all rendezvousing at the Spotted Cow at one o’clock.”

Helen, who had had no breakfast and only scrambled eggs the previous night, had visions of gins and tonics and pub steak and kidney pudding. The plowed brown fields in their evenness reminded her of mince. Perhaps there’d be shepherd’s pie for lunch.

But in the end, they only stopped at the village shop to buy oranges and some Perrier.

“Can’t squander the saboteurs’ funds on food and drink,” said Nigel, offering her his bottle of Perrier.

Helen suddenly thought how much she’d prefer to share a flask of brandy with Rupert Campbell-Black. If she’d been out with him, she figured, he’d have made sure she was properly looked after.

The saboteurs were parked outside the Spotted Cow as the hunt came past, looking understandably bootfaced after such an abortive morning.

“Pull the choke out,” whispered Paul. “It’ll muddle the hounds.”

On the other side of another wood, the hats of the riders could be seen moving ceaselessly back and forth.

Another posse of saboteurs moved in from the right, view-hallooing to distract the hounds and throwing in a couple of firecrackers, which set the already excited horses plunging.

“Pa, pa, pa, pa,” came the tender melancholy note of the horn.

“Oh, good. I mean, oh dear!” said Helen. “They’ve found a fox.”

“That’s Paul,” said Maureen smugly. “He can blow a horn as well as any huntsman.”

Two women supporters in green quilted coats and tweed skirts parked nearby and got out of their car.

“Bloody Antis,” said one, incongruously smoothing a wildlife sanctuary sticker on her windscreen.

“Have you heard how the Paignton-Laceys” dance went?” said her friend.

“Fiona’s not up yet this morning, but I saw Primrose, who said it was frightfully good. More chaps than girls for a change. Rupert Campbell-Black disgraced himself as usual. Got off with Gabriella. Evidently they disappeared for hours and hours. Charlie got quite frantic. They’ve only been married a year.”

“Better than Marcia’s dance,” said the first one. “Evidently he got simply plastered and docked the tails of all the yew peacocks; I mean they’ve taken literally hundreds of years to grow. I’d have sued the little beast.”

“He gets away with it,” said the first one, “because he is so frightfully attractive.”

Suddenly she gave an enraged bellow as Nigel and Paul, spattered with mud, their hands cut and bleeding from the under-growth, tore up the hill with the heavies hot on their trail, and leapt into the car.

Taking off, Paul shook off the heavies, finally stopping at the edge of a beech wood looking down a valley. In the back, Nigel was noisily sucking an orange. Getting out of the car, Helen caught her breath, for there, slowly riding up the hill, came Rupert Campbell-Black, his gleaming bay mare and his red coat the only splashes of color against the greens and browns. Gaining the top of the hill, he paused, trying to work out which way the hounds might run. The sun, which had been hovering in the wings like an actor waiting to make an entrance, broke away from the clouds, warming the brown fields. Nigel got out of the car, wiping his hands on his trousers.

“ ‘To one who has been long in city pent,’ ” he said pompously as he edged towards Helen: “ ‘ ’Tis very sweet to look into the fair and open face of heaven.’ ”

Helen, who privately thought it would be much sweeter to look into the fair and very close face of Rupert Campbell-Black, edged away again.

“I think they’re going to draw this covert,” said Nigel, vanishing into the beech copse, followed by Paul.

A hound spoke. Then the triumphant chorus rang out and there was the wild cry of the true horn. Suddenly, with the master cheering them on the line, hounds streamed down the valley in a dappled cloud. Then came the field, galloping, jumping, barging through gates with a clash of stirrups. There was Rupert, looking in a completely different class to the others, riding so easily and fluidly, almost nibbling his horse’s ears as he seemed to lift her over a huge hedge.

“Wire on the other side,” he yelled back to Billy, who gathered his black cob together and cleared it just as easily. There was a clattering of hooves as they jumped into the road and out again, and set off towards the beech copse, which had been liberally sprayed with pepper and Anti-mate. As they entered the copse, Nigel and Paul stood on a nearby fence and started to blow a horn concerto, utterly muddling the hounds who, distracted by the pepper and the Anti-mate, charged around, frenziedly zigzagging back and forth, whimpering with frustration as they tried to pick up the scent.

Helen suddenly felt furious with Nigel and Paul. What right had they to spoil everyone’s day? She and Maureen were standing in the field skirting the copse when suddenly Nigel came hurtling out of the wood, followed by Paul. The next minute Rupert Campbell-Black galloped around the corner, riding straight at them, his eyes blazing.

“He won’t touch the girls,” screamed Nigel, promptly plunging his horn down Helen’s new dark green cashmere jersey, stretching the neckband, and disappearing over the hedge. “Chivalry will prevent him,” he called over his shoulder.

Chivalry prevented Rupert doing no such thing. He rode straight up to Helen, reined in the plunging mare, and, before Helen could stop him, leaned over, put a warm hand down the front of her jersey, and retrieved the horn.

“A good-looking Anti,” he said in mock-wonder. “I never expected to see one. What’s a pretty girl like you doing, getting mixed up with a desiccated creep like Nigel?”

“How dare you?” gasped Helen, hand to her breast as though she’d been violated.

“How dare you ?” said Rupert. “This is private property. You’re trespassing. I’d go back to London and not get involved with a lot of rent-a-crowd lefties.”

“All right, Helen?” asked Nigel, emerging from the under-growth.

“She’s not getting much help from you, you little rat,” said Rupert. “She’s got a very good body, though.”

Blushing crimson, hopelessly aware how unbecoming it was with her red hair, Helen gazed fixedly at Rupert’s highly polished boot.

“Don’t you insult my girlfriend,” said Nigel, striding up, slipping in a cowpat and putting his arm round Helen’s shoulders.

Equally furiously, she shrugged him off.

“On the contrary,” said Rupert, pocketing the horn. “I was being excessively polite, telling her she’s the only decent-looking girl I’d ever seen out with the Antis.” He nodded in Maureen’s direction. “What d’you use that one for, breaking down lift doors?”

For a second he made the mare plunge towards Nigel, who retreated into the hedge, then, wheeling round, he was off.

“I’ll get even with you,” screeched Nigel.

As they set off again, Helen sat in the back, stunned. Rupert was simply the most wrong but entirely romantic person she’d ever met. She was appalled how violently she felt attracted to him. She could still feel the warmth of his leisurely hand and remember the way the brilliant blue eyes had moved over her, assessing, absorbing data like a computer.

“ ‘My only love sprang from my only hate,’ ” she whispered.

As Rupert cantered back to join the despondent remains of the hunt, Gabriella, who’d earlier helped herself to his hip flask, caught up with him.

“Coo-ee, darling, where have you been?”

One of the added irritations caused by the saboteurs, thought Rupert, was that it had been impossible to shake Gabriella off. Last night, belonging to someone else, with her magnificent white bosom rising out of plunging black lace, she had been a far more desirable proposition. He had taken her in a cordoned-off bedroom, hung around with tapestries. In the middle, a long line of foot-followers had actually congaed unknowing through the room, whooping and yelling and reducing them both to helpless laughter. Today, red-veined from an excess of wine, with her makeup running, her hair coming down in a lacquered mass, and her bulky thighs in too-tight breeches, she had lost all her charm, though none of her ardor. Rupert had a sudden yearning for the whippet-slim Anti, with her hair the color of the bracken still strewing the rides.