Country Rivals

Lottie wanted to do more than raise her eyebrows; she wanted to lie on the floor and scream. ‘How come you can hear somebody coming in and you don’t hear a word I say when I’m explaining why you can’t afford to bet on the horses? And,’ she paused, wondering if it was worth wasting her breath, but decided to crack on anyway, ‘buy the girls ponies.’

‘I look at it as speculating, Charlotte. And I didn’t hear him, I saw Bertie cock his ears.’

Lottie glanced down at the fat Labrador, who was flat out at Elizabeth’s feet, his paws twitching as he ran after rabbits in his sleep, little snuffles of excitement ruffling his lips every now and then. ‘Of course you did, Gran.’

From the moment he walked into the room, Lottie realised that it was going to be hard not to like James, with his willing-to-please but slightly awkward air. He was lanky, with a lopsided verging-on-cheeky grin and slightly too-long hair (in fact to Lottie’s eye he had a definite forelock). His jeans, which no doubt should have been skinny, had plenty of room in them (and looked like he’d rolled down a hill), his hoody hung off his frame and the outfit was finished off with Converses that were green-smudged.

If he had been a horse she would have had to wrap her arms around his neck, kiss his nose and tell him what a clever boy he was, and assure him that everybody would love him once she’d fed him up. As it was, kissing noses might have been misinterpreted.

Elizabeth was frowning at her – no doubt she’d read her mind again. Lottie frowned back trying to convey the message that she really, really wasn’t about to kiss anybody’s nose.

James hadn’t noticed; he was staring at the floor. God, the poor man; here she was trying to weigh him up with her best imitation of Elizabeth’s shrewd look (although Rory always asked her if she’d got something in her eye when she tried it on him) and he no doubt thought she was some haughty lady of the manor. She’d never get to grips with the whole aristocratic thing, which Gran and Uncle Dom did so well, she’d rather hug people.

‘Love the stars and stripes.’

Okay, he didn’t think she was haughty. Failed on that front, again. He was staring at her socks not the woodworm-riddled floorboards. ‘Clever to avoid convention and split them up.’

‘I never wear matching socks. Stars and stripes should be kept apart.’

‘Stars and stripes? You are not an American are you?’ Elizabeth peered at him more closely. ‘So hard to tell these days, you youngsters all sound the same. Nobody enunciates, even when one has been to a decent school.’

‘Gran!’ But Lottie knew it was useless trying to stop Elizabeth’s tendency towards Prince Philip-isms.

Elizabeth gave her a look, intended to silence her, and then cleared her throat. ‘James, this is Charlotte, who is in charge of our fundraising.’

Lottie loved the way that in one sentence her gran had managed to lower her status to that of occasional help.

‘It isn’t going too well at present, for obvious reasons.’ Incapable, occasional help. ‘She’s also my granddaughter and runs the estate.’ Better. ‘And will one day inherit it.’ She’d put a slightly unnecessary emphasis on the ‘one day’ Lottie thought (she could well sympathise with Prince Charles), but she grinned. Whatever Gran was plotting, it at least did have her in the position of heiress-in-waiting and not the home help. ‘Although, of course, she won’t inherit the title. This, Charlotte, is James Shilling. I found him in a rhododendron bush and he says I don’t know his mother.’ Elizabeth considered it her duty to know everybody within a twenty-mile radius, and everything about them.

‘Trilling.’

Lottie stared at him. What a peculiar thing to say.

‘It’s Jamie Trilling, not Shilling.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘And it’s Jamie. Everybody calls me Jamie not James.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say so, young man? Speak up, no use mumbling.’

He sighed, he obviously had said it before, but Elizabeth only heard what suited her. Lottie tried not to smile, more likely she’d done it on purpose not misheard him. Reducing him to loose change, and old currency at that.

‘That explains it, no Trillings round here.’ She frowned. ‘So where do you come from, young man?’

Jamie suddenly looked worried and Lottie could sympathise. Elizabeth knew just how to make somebody feel that their dream deal was inches away, that she valued their opinion, only to dash it with one carefully worded statement and then look at them like they were an alien life form. ‘Well, I …’

‘We’ll discuss that later. Now, tell Charlotte why you’re here. Speak up, now, we can’t sit around here all day.’ She waved an imperious finger and waited expectantly for him to perform.

* * *

Jamie looked from Elizabeth to Lottie and back again and felt like he was in front of a firing squad. This was worse than any interview he had ever had, not that he’d had many. She changed tack more often than a boat heading into the wind; Lady Elizabeth was unlike any old woman, well any woman, anybody, he’d ever met before.

He’d spent several hours on the internet after meeting her, desperately trying to find out more about the Stanthorpes and the Tipping House Estate, but had largely drawn a blank. In fact, he’d discovered more when he’d popped into the Tippermere village shop to buy a newspaper on the way over.

The woman in there had been quite chatty and had insisted on filling him in on the history of the church and local pub, as well as some rather colourful tales about Rory (that’s Lottie’s husband, such a naughty one he is), Billy (and that’s her father, the tales he could tell, won a gold medal at the Olympics, he did), a guy called Mick (he really had a soft spot for our Lottie, he did, but I reckon they’re more like brother and sister) and an Australian called Todd (you should have seen him, rode up like a knight on a charger, he did, and we all thought he was about to sweep little Lottie off her feet, but then, would you credit it, he whisked Pip off to Australia, a right character he was. Mind you, I’m not sure Elizabeth was happy, she misses that girl). In fact, by the time he’d paid for the newspaper, he felt quite dizzy, but not much the wiser about Tipping House.

Not that he was any expert at digging for facts, he was more visual, which was why he loved the job he was doing.

‘I’m a location scout,’ he told Lottie.

‘Found him loitering in the grounds in the middle of the night, didn’t we, Bertie?’

Lottie raised an eyebrow and Bertie gave a single thump of his tail. ‘What were you doing out in the middle of the night?’

‘She was in her nightie. I thought she was a ghost.’ He leapt on the opportunity to deflect attention.

‘Gran!’

‘I was quite alright, dear, had Bertie with me, couldn’t sleep.’

‘But … but … you met him, anything could have …’

‘Oh, he’s harmless.’ She waved a dismissive hand.

‘And she had a shotgun.’ Jamie didn’t want to get side-tracked onto the rights and wrongs of old ladies wandering out in their nightwear on a winter’s night.

‘Gran, you promised not to go out shooting.’

‘I wasn’t shooting, Charlotte.’

‘You had a gun.’

‘Nonsense, carrying a gun and going out shooting are two totally different things. You, of all people, should know that. I went out prepared. And Bertie doesn’t sleep properly these days, now he hasn’t got Holmes, he gets restless, poor chap. Now stop fussing and let this young man explain.’

Jamie opened his mouth and there was a loud whine. ‘That wasn’t me.’

Lottie giggled. The noise came again, along with a sound like scrabbling rats. ‘It’s Harry, he’s found me.’ There was a loud bark as the dog heard his mistress’s voice, followed by more frenzied scrabbling at the door interspersed with snuffles and whimpers.

Elizabeth pursed her lips and frowned.

‘Shall I?’ Jamie moved towards the door.

‘I wouldn’t—’

It was too late, he’d thrown it open and been swept off his feet by an ecstatic spaniel and a whirlwind of brown and white fur. After trampling over the visitor’s body in his rush to see Lottie, Harry went back, his back end wagging to apologise. Followed by the terriers, who, rather than apologising, treated the boy as an obstacle to run over and round. Harry then set off again, his nose to the ground, the pack following in his wake.

‘He’s good at sniffing things out.’ Lottie shrugged apologetically as Jamie sat up, rubbing a bruised elbow. ‘He doesn’t like me leaving him.’

‘Seb is never going to believe this place.’

‘Seb?’ Lottie passed him a gin and tonic, which he rather felt he needed, and started to prepare a new one for Elizabeth.