Zara Stoneley - Country Rivals

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 doorway.

‘Look, Lottie, I’m widing, I’m widing Woopert all by myself.’ Roxy grinned, forgot about hanging on to the saddle or the reins and clapped her hands excitedly. ‘Take a picture, picture for Mummy.’

‘Crumbs.’ Right now Lottie wasn’t interested in capturing the moment for prosperity, she was more bothered about damage limitation. Sliding in her socks on the polished floorboards, she skidded after her goddaughter, grabbing the lead rope just as the round-barrelled pony opened its mouth to take a bite out of the flower display. The pony retaliated with a loud burst of wind (it could have been worse, Lottie decided, much worse) and Roxy giggled.

‘Is that a new fashion statement, darling? And on the catwalk today we have Lottie in green breeches with purple horse blanket artistically attached.’ Rory had wandered in to the room after them and was now leaning against the pony, one arm around Roxy, looking thoroughly amused.

‘What?’ Lottie glanced down, confused. ‘Oh bugger.’ She was towing the blanket with her. She’d been concentrating so hard on neat stitches that she appeared to have sewn right through the blanket and her breeches. And she also appeared to be towing a terrier.

Tilly, spotting a moving object, had forgotten all about her master, Rory, and had taken chase. She now had her teeth firmly attached to the end of the blanket that had been trailing on the floor.

‘Should we put Rupert back, Auntie Lottie?’ The softly spoken, but perfectly enunciated, words drifted through the chaos and Lottie looked up to see her little cousin Alice (though she thought of her more as a niece, due to the age difference) standing in the open doorway, her dark hair drawn back into a perfect sleek ponytail, a very solemn look pasted across her pretty features.

Although only a few months separated Alice and Roxy, they were as different as night and day. Roxy was a born giggler, the spitting image of her own mother, the gloriously over-the-top Samantha Simcock, with a dash of her energetic footballing father thrown in, but Alice saw life in a far more serious light.

The polite and shyly pretty Alice was the perfect blend of her parents – Dominic Stanthorpe, Lottie’s uncle, who was precise and perfect in everything he did, and his wife, Amanda, who had always been poised and beautiful. Except when she was pregnant. Now, that, Lottie thought, should have been enough to put anybody off ever starting a family. Except poor Amanda had decided to put herself through the ordeal again and was currently back at the puking stage. Which was why Lottie had offered to look after Alice for the afternoon. Which meant she couldn’t say no when Sam had asked if Roxy could join in the fun, could she?