I spotted Chad and Hope immediately on a pair of placid-looking bays. Naturally they were immaculately turned out, although the crash hats with industrial-sized chin straps slightly detracted from the look, I decided. The old and bold, I noticed, had just rammed velvet caps on their heads and to hell with health and safety.

‘I know them,’ I told Dad excitedly, standing up in my stirrups and waving enthusiastically.

Chad caught my eye, looked surprised then smiled delightedly. He seemed about to ride across but when he alerted Hope, she turned, gazed flatly, then gave me a thin little smile before turning back to the glamorous girl on the grey she’d been talking to. Chad looked undecided a moment, waved over-heartily and stuck by his wife.

‘They’re busy,’ I told Dad, sinking back into my saddle.

‘Ah.’

Luckily I’d spotted Angie, looking drop-dead gorgeous in skintight jodhpurs and a dark blue hunting coat, blonde chignon netted and tied with a velvet ribbon. Ah yes, hairnet, I thought, aware of my own locks tumbling rather luxuriantly down my back. If she had the sartorial upper hand, however, she nearly fell off her horse when she saw me.

‘Poppy! Good God. Whatever are you doing here?’ She muscled her classy chestnut through the throng towards me, open-mouthed.

‘Surprise!’ I grinned. I was feeling slightly pissed now, courtesy of that hip flask. ‘Dad lent me a horse. I thought I’d see how the other half live.’

‘Well, you might have told me! I could have lent you some clothes,’ she said gazing at my jacket, somewhat aghast.

‘D’you know, I wish I had,’ I said, leaning forward confidentially, meaning it. ‘It’s all been a bit of a nightmare. What with keeping Thumper in the back garden and –’

‘You didn’t!’

‘No, but almost. And I could have popped him in with yours, couldn’t I?’

‘Of course you bloody could! Oh, honestly, you are an idiot, Poppy.’ Her eyes were still bulging, though, which was quite satisfactory. ‘Can you ride him?’ She jerked her whip at Thumper.

‘Of course I can,’ I said confidently, remembering now why I’d wanted the element of surprise. I’d quite forgotten. I straightened up in the saddle. ‘Don’t forget I grew up with horses, Angie. You remember my dad, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’ She smiled down, seeing him for the first time. Dad raised his flat cap. ‘Hello, Mr Mortimer. I imagine you were in on this, then?’

‘Peter,’ he told her with a grin. ‘Yes, all the way. And Poppy’s quite right, she did grow up with them, but very much in the proximate sense. They were in the paddock and she was in the house doing her mascara. She took a great deal of interest from the window.’

‘Dad,’ I protested as they both roared with laughter. But worryingly, he had a point. Although I’d ridden as a child, as a teenager I’d been a bit more interested in Cosmo than Horse and Hound. Had I bitten off more than I could chew? Hands fluttering, I gratefully accepted a glass of port from a girl proffering a tray.

‘Have you had one?’ I asked Angie.

‘Oh God, yes, three. Always do. Makes it less painful if I come off.’

‘We’re coming off?’ I said alarmed.

‘Well, not necessarily, but who knows? Depends where we go. But you stick with me, Poppy. There are a lot of idiots out today, always are at the opening meet, and those are the ones who do the damage. Cut you up at fences, refuse slap bang in front of you. And hold on tight. I don’t want to be playing nursemaid when I’ve got other fish to fry.’ Her eyes darted around. ‘Have you spotted him yet?’

‘Who?’

‘The new master.’

‘Why would I? I don’t know what he looks like.’ She wasn’t to know I had my own fish to fry.

‘Well, he’s obviously going to be in pink, isn’t he? There – on the chestnut.’

I’d been busily scanning the broad-shouldered black coats for Sam, and was unprepared, therefore, for the man in pink, the one she indicated, to lift his hat as he greeted a friend, present his chiselled profile, and for it to be one and the same.

I stared for a long moment. ‘Sam Hetherington’s the new master?’

‘Yes.’ Angie turned, surprised. ‘You know him?’

‘He’s my solicitor.’

‘Is he?’ She looked astonished. ‘Oh yes, someone said he was a lawyer. Good God – you never said!’ She rounded on me accusingly.

‘Well, I didn’t know you knew him, did I?’

She gazed at me; blinked. ‘I suppose I don’t, yet,’ she admitted. ‘I will, though. He’s gorgeous, don’t you think? All mine, by the way,’ she added quickly and not for the first time. ‘I’m landing this one. He’s divorced, apparently, and this is his manor house, and very soon I’ll be installed within, doing up the drawing room. If you’re very lucky I’ll ask you to dinner.’

God, she had had a few drinks, but so had I, and I opened my mouth to remind her that, actually, she hadn’t seen him first, I had; perhaps adding haughtily that I wouldn’t dream of getting into a fight over a man, but anything I might or might not have said was forestalled by Sam himself.

‘Can I have your attention please, ladies and gentlemen!’

A deferential hush fell instantly. He was standing up in his stirrups, smiling around in a convivial manner. I gulped. Golly. Quite commanding. As he swept his hat gallantly from his head – no strap – to reveal his springy curls, he looked sensational. I’d forgotten about that heart-stopping smile, the crinkly eyes. Angie and I gazed rapturously as he went on to welcome everybody, thanking the local landowners and farmers for letting us ride across their fields – his, mostly, which with perfect manners he declined to mention – reminding us about gates and crops, cattle, oh, and the forthcoming hunt ball. He ended by adding that he hoped we all had a jolly good day. He looked like a young King Henry on St Crispin’s Day, rallying his troops, wind in his hair, hat under his arm. As he smiled, I swear a ray of sunlight glinted on a pearly tooth.

No time to bask in it, though, because suddenly I was jolted from my reverie by a loud blast on a hunting horn and Thumper and I were shoved unceremoniously out of the way by the huntsman and whipper-in, hounds at their heels, as they set off down the drive towards open country. The rest of the field bustled about importantly, waiting to be led by Sam. With fire in my heart and port in my belly, I couldn’t help but leg Thumper through to the front.

‘Hi, Sam!’ I called, aware of shining eyes and a very broad grin. Not his.

If he was surprised, he mastered it beautifully. He touched his hat and smiled.

‘Good morning, Poppy.’

But rather than stopping for some golly, fancy-seeing-you-here chat, he was off in moments, at a very fast trot down the drive, after the hounds. Angie was beside me in a flash.

‘Always, always call him master,’ she hissed. ‘Even if you privately know him as fluffy-bumkins. Even if you’ve shared a pillow the night before!’

Many heads nodded in severe agreement at this, faces grave. I’d obviously breached a sacred code.

‘Oh, OK. It’s just we did share a pillow and he said Sam would be fine,’ I told her airily, clearly disastrously pissed.

Some people thought this was quite funny and tittered, for which I was grateful, but not Angie. She shot me a withering look and trotted off to join the thrusters at the front. Hard not to join them, actually, as Thumper surged excitedly beneath me, doing an extended trot down the drive. I managed to hold him back a bit, though, and keep some distance. As we went through a gate into pasture we all broke into a canter and I scanned the airborne bottoms of Angie’s smart crowd ahead. I recognized a local actress with pale blue eyes on an iron grey; Hugo, Angus’s grandson, on an overwrought roan, one or two mates of his from Harrow ragging alongside him. Then there were the gays who ran the garden centre and quarrelled incessantly – one was prodding the other spitefully with his whip even now; a judge Dad knew, whose horse was called Circuit so that, if anyone rang, his clerk could truthfully say, ‘He’s out on circuit’; then a very attractive couple I couldn’t quite place until … good God. Simon and Emma Harding. I nearly fell off my horse. Why weren’t they on their honeymoon, for Christ’s sake? Was she going to be everywhere I went?

I yanked hard on my left rein and sped towards Angie.

‘Angie – Emma Harding’s here!’ I gasped as I galloped up beside her. It wasn’t hard, Thumper was pulling like a train.

‘I know, bloody cheek, isn’t it?’ she yelled back, instantly on my side despite my earlier jibe, bless her. We cantered along together, the wind whipping our words away. ‘They’re having their honeymoon later, apparently,’ she told me. ‘She clearly means to stick around like a turd on a shoe – bloody nerve!’

‘I’m going to out her,’ I seethed into the wind. ‘Just wait and see what everyone thinks when they know it was my husband she was … Holy shit. We’re not jumping that, are we?’

Up ahead was a sizeable post and rails with quite a few foot followers gathered around it. I spotted Jennie, Dad and my children clustered excitedly. Clearly we were. Sam flew over it, followed by the gays, then Hugo et al., then Simon and Emma. Right. So this was my Becher’s Brook. But, boy, was it huge. Thumper pulled excitedly at the sight of it, and as Angie sailed confidently over ahead of me, I was right on her heels. Too close, actually, but too late to do anything about it because I was already airborne. I clung on to the plaits for grim death, losing the reins as we landed, so that Thumper, given his head, let out the throttle and sped away. As we galloped towards another jump, a small hedge which he took in his stride, I realized something alarming was happening here: I was having trouble staying on board and pulling the reins at the same time. I could do one at a time, but not both together, and certainly not with jumps thrown into the equation. I plumped for staying on board and clung to his mane, which meant that Thumper – who, if he hadn’t been hunting before, was loving every minute of it – had a free rein to take me wherever he wanted, at whatever speed, which was top, and straight to the front.