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Chapter Four

Tuesday June 17th

Brockmore Manor House Party

Programme of Events

Performance of Aerial Dexterity by

the Legendary Alexandr Vengarov

‘This looks like a perfect picnic spot. What do you think?’

‘Perfect,’ Katerina agreed, though she was looking at Fergus rather than their surroundings. Dressed in a bottle-green riding coat and leather breeches with top boots, there was none the less an unmistakably military air in the way he sat imperiously astride his horse. The mount which Cade Retton, the Duke of Brockmore’s discerning Master of the Horse, had selected for him was a huge, highly strung stallion, but Fergus had brought the massive beast to heel with remarkable ease. Katerina had been relieved when Mr Retton graciously provided her with a docile, impeccably behaved mare.

They had set out mid-morning, riding across country, skirting the little estate village of Brockmore, through narrow lanes redolent with the scent of honeysuckle, past fields of wheat and hops waving lazily in the breeze. Now, in the shade of a little copse, where a shallow stream burbled contentedly along its pebble-strewn bed, they dismounted, Fergus loosely tethering the horses while Katerina spread a blanket out on the grassy banks that flanked the stream.

He took off his coat and sat down beside her, stretching out his long legs in front of him. ‘I hope I’ve not bored you to tears with my stories of home.’

The skirts of her blue riding habit were brushing his leg. The hairs on the back of his hand were golden in the dappled sunlight. He was so close, and not close enough. When he smiled at her, as he was doing now, she found it hard to concentrate. ‘I’ve never been to Scotland,’ Katerina said. ‘You make it sound so beautiful.’