Tilly Bagshawe - The Bachelor - Racy, pacy and very funny!

‘Thanks. This is Whiskey and this is Soda. They’re good girls but they’re Henry’s dogs really.’

‘I like them less already.’ Barney grinned. It was odd. She really was incredibly pretty, yet for some reason he found himself talking to her like an old friend, without the usual pit-of-the-stomach nerves that usually plagued him when he fancied a girl. When he first met Maud, he’d barely been able to string a sentence together.

Why was he thinking about bloody Maud again?

Barney’s girlfriend of just over a year had recently dumped him, for good this time it seemed. By email.

‘I can’t support this charade any longer,’ Maud had written. (As if she’d supported it up till now!) ‘You’re not a novelist, Barney. You’re an unemployed corporate lawyer, fannying around on a computer. Throw away your future if you want to, but don’t expect me to come with you.’

Barney had begun at least eight different drafts in response. He wasn’t throwing away his future, he was following his heart; a concept Maud might understand better if she had a heart of her own.

‘Not everything can be measured in pounds and bloody pence!’ he started one note. But, of course, he hadn’t finished any of them.

Maud was right. How could he call himself a novelist when he couldn’t even finish a sodding email?

Turning his attention back to Eva’s dogs, he asked, ‘How do you keep them that shiny? I mean, are they even real?’

Eva giggled.

‘I’m serious. How many times a day do you have to wash them? Or I daresay you have live-in dog-washers up at the castle, do you?’

‘Not quite.’

It was nice to run into this funny, chatty Irishman. Nice to get out of Hanborough and clear her head. Eva had believed Henry earlier, about the flirty WhatsApp message. But, walking through the woods alone, doubts had already begun to creep in.

About a year ago, Henry had had a string of affairs. Well, more one-night stands really, but they’d still wounded Eva deeply. She’d just plucked up the courage to leave him when he’d broken down in tears, promised to change his ways for good, and proposed. That was the first proposal, and it had taken all Eva’s willpower to refuse. At that point, Henry’s remorse was just words. But in the months that followed he’d bought Hanborough, moved to the country (out of temptation’s way?), and proved his devotion to Eva in myriad ways, both small and large, culminating in a second proposal, complete with a mahoosive eight-carat diamond. This time Eva had said yes.

Now she was here, planning their wedding and helping Henry’s designers pick out wall colours and fabrics. She simply couldn’t face it if the cheating started again.

‘Well, I’m heading down towards Brockhurst,’ said Barney. ‘I’ll see you around, I’m sure.’

‘I’ll walk with you,’ said Eva, slightly to his surprise, falling into step beside him. It occurred to Barney that perhaps she was lonely. Maybe it was true what they said about supermodels being so intimidating that nobody ever spoke to them? Then again, she lived with her hotshot, heart-throb fiancé, so maybe not.

‘I’m not really out here for the exercise,’ Barney admitted, making sure he kept Jeeves on a tight lead as they picked their way down the steep slope.

‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘I like to say I walk for inspiration. I’m a writer, you see. But I’m actually just skiving off the book.’

‘You write books?’ Eva sounded impressed.

‘Theoretically,’ said Barney. ‘I’m supposed to be writing a book.’

‘A writer and a photographer?’ Eva looked at the Nikon hanging around his neck. ‘That’s pretty cool.’

‘Oh, no.’ Barney flushed. ‘Photography’s just a hobby.’

‘Oh my goodness!’

At that moment, seemingly out of nowhere, a pack of foxhounds erupted all around them, followed by a thunderous clattering of hooves. Pulling Whiskey and Soda close, Eva flattened herself against a tree, watching awestruck as the red-coated riders swarmed through the copse and then out again into open countryside. She recognized her brother-in-law-to-be, Sebastian, leading the charge, but he was far too focused on his quarry to notice her.

‘Don’t they look marvellous?’ Eva turned to Barney breathlessly, as one by one they galloped off across the Downs, the hounds crying frantically in front of them, obviously close to a kill. ‘We don’t have anything like this in Sweden. Did you see the fox?’

‘No.’ Barney looked considerably less enthused. ‘But I hope the poor little sod got away.’

‘Oh. You don’t like hunting?’

‘I hate it. It’s cruel, it’s riddled with snobbery, and it’s downright bloody dangerous. They practically trampled us to death back there.’

Eva said nothing. This was clearly an exaggeration, but there was no mistaking the strength of Barney’s feelings. She wanted to change the subject, to return to the easy, chatty conversation they’d been having before. But, before she had a chance, Barney abruptly announced he had to get back to work, turned around and left her, with only the most cursory of goodbyes.

Eva watched him go feeling curiously deflated. He’d seemed so nice before.

Whistling for the dogs, she turned around herself and began the long tramp back to Hanborough. It was weird to think that this time tomorrow she’d be in Milan on a shoot, in a world about as far removed from this one as possible.

Perhaps it would do her good to get away for a while? The whole text thing had left a sour taste in her mouth. And things always improved between her and Henry after they’d spent some time apart.

Graydon James sighed with relief as the bellboy showed him into his suite at The Dorchester.

It wasn’t his beloved Manhattan. But at least he was in London, free from the cloying silence of the Swell Valley, with all its ghastly green hills and sheep and fresh air. How did people live there? Young, beautiful people in the prime of their lives, like Henry Saxton Brae? It was a crime against humanity that that boy was straight, but even Graydon knew a dead horse when he saw one. He was too old for futile flogging. Too old, as well, to cope with Guillermo’s relentless bitching and whining about being ‘left out of the process’ at Hanborough.

‘He only ever talks to you,’ Guillermo had pouted at Graydon last night in bed, sulking like a toddler about Henry’s preference for the organ grinder over the monkey. ‘He’s never once asked my opinion on anything. Not the plans for the master suite, not the Venetian finishes, not the fabrics. Nothing! It’s like he thinks I’m your lackey.’ He gazed down sullenly at his taut, dancer’s abs, his huge cock lying limp and slug-like between his legs, sulking like its owner.

‘Well, you are,’ Graydon shot back nastily. He’d had enough of tiptoeing around Guillermo’s ego. He had the damn job, didn’t he? ‘Like it or not, I’m the boss. Clients like to deal with the boss. It makes them feel they’re getting what they paid for. If you can’t handle that, you’re in the wrong job, sweetheart.’