Jilly Cooper - Riders

“I am when I’m with you.” He put his hand between her legs, pressing gently. “That must have been one of the most glorious fucks I’ve ever had. If I wasn’t absolutely knackered, I’d drag you back to the caravan for another go. D’you ever get away to London, or Gloucestershire?” he asked, as she drew up at the showground.

“Sometimes, usually with Charlie.”

“There’ll be next year’s show.”

“Charlie’ll probably be here next time.”

He took her face in his hands and kissed her.

“We’ll get together again sometime. I won’t forget you in a hurry.”

Laura watched him walking across the dew-laden grass, with that lovely athlete’s lope, red coat slung over his shoulder. As he turned and waved, she thought it was a very good thing Charlie was coming back. The boy was quite irresistible. Underneath the macho exterior, he was very vulnerable. I could straighten him out, she thought wistfully.

Rupert headed for the stables. He couldn’t ever remember having been so tired in his life. Due in court at nine, he must get a couple of hours’ sleep beforehand. He hoped the press weren’t going to make too much of a meal of it. He might even get suspended for a year. Malise would be charmed.

No one was about yet. Belgravia and Mayfair were lying down. Macaulay, however, who missed life at the barracks, welcomed any interruption and stuck his head out, nudging Rupert for Polos.

“From what I can remember,” Rupert told him, “you jumped bloody well yesterday. Over the next few months you and I are going to raise two hooves to Malise Gordon, until he can’t afford not to have us back in the team. We’d better think up a new name for you; perhaps we ought to call you Bridges.”

But as he walked wearily towards the caravan, remembering the day he had bought Macaulay, he felt kneed in the groin with longing for Helen. It must be tiredness that made it hurt so much. His resistance was weakened. Bloody hell, there was a light on in the caravan. Billy must have gone to bed drunk. He found the key behind the left front wheel, where it was always left. He let himself in cautiously. Billy might be shacked up with Lavinia.

For a minute he thought he was hallucinating. For there, lying in the double bed, apparently naked, dark blue duvet over her breasts, lay Helen. There were huge circles under her eyes, and she’d obviously been crying. She looked waiflike and terrified. Not a muscle flickered in Rupert’s face. For a few seconds he gazed at her.

“How did you get in here?” he said coldly.

Then, as the tears began to roll down her cheeks, he crossed the caravan, taking her in his arms. After Laura’s opulent curves she felt as frail as a child.

“Sweetheart, it’s all right.”

“I’m so desperately sorry,” she sobbed. “I know you g-got drunk, and into that dreadful fight, because I was real mean to you the day before yesterday.”

“You weren’t.”

“I was, too. You were down because you’d been dropped, and all I did was come on sanctimonious and blame you. I should have been supportive and kind. You’re right; I am a prude. I don’t love Harold at all. I love you and and it’s stupid to pretend I don’t.”

She was crying really hard now. Rupert got out his handkerchief, then not able to remember whether he’d used it to clean up Laura Bridges, shoved it hastily away and grabbed a handful of Kleenex from the box on the side.

“You can make love with me whenever you want to,” she said.

“Only if you want to,” he said gently.

“I do,” her lip trembled, “more than anything else in the world. I’m just so scared of losing you.”

Rupert tightened his grip on her. “You’re not going to.”

“I want you so much now,” she pleaded.

Christ, Rupert said to himself, I come home smelling like an old dog fox, and I’m so pooped I can’t do a thing.

He took her hands. “I respect you far too much to force you,” he said gravely.

“You don’t have to be kind. I really want it.”

“It wouldn’t be right.” Then he had a brainwave. “Why don’t we get married?”

“Married?” she whispered incredulously.

“Why not? It’s different.”

“Are you sure you’re not still…”

“Drunk? Not at all, I haven’t had a drop since yesterday lunchtime.” He pulled off his boots, then collapsed into bed beside her.

Then, removing his signet ring, he slid it onto her wedding ring finger. “That’ll have to do, ’til I get you an engagement ring.”

She gazed at it, speechless, turning it over and over.

“You really mean it?”

“Really.” He lay back and laughed. “I was so mad at you yesterday morning, I even changed Macaulay’s name. Now you’ll be changing yours, perhaps I’d better call him Campbell-Black. Christ, you’re beautiful. I can fall asleep for the rest of my life counting freckles.”

Next minute he was fast asleep.

He was woken by Helen an hour before the court case.

“My God,” he said, startled. Then, seeing his signet ring on her finger, he gradually brought the last few days’ events into focus.

“Rupert,” she said, frantically twisting the ring around and around, “when you came in this morning you asked me to marry you. But honestly, I’ll understand if you’ve decided against it.”

“Darling.” As he pulled her into his arms he could smell toothpaste and clean-scented flesh. She must have been up for hours. “Of course I meant it. There’s only one obstacle.”

“What’s that?” she said, going pale.

“I don’t remember you accepting.”

Helen flung her arms round his neck, kissing him fiercely. “Oh, yes, please. I promise I’ll be supportive. I’ll learn about horses and be a real help in your career.”

Rupert looked alarmed. “You don’t have to go that far. I must go and have a pee.”

When he came back her arms closed round him like a vise. He pushed her away. “Wait. I want to look at you first.”

She was so so shy, hanging her head, as he admired the slender arms, the tapering waist, the jutting hip bones. Very gently he stroked the little snow white breasts.

“They’re beautiful,” he murmured.

“Too small,” she muttered. “I wish I had a wonderful forty-inch bust, the kind like pillows you could fall asleep on.”

“Nanny always claimed it was much better for one’s back to sleep without pillows,” said Rupert. Then, realizing it was not the time for jokes, he kissed each chestnut nipple, waiting for them to stiffen under his tongue.

With a colossal feeling of triumph he pushed her back onto the bed and began to move downwards, kissing her ribs, then her belly.

“No,” she gasped, grabbing his head.

Firmly he removed her hands. “Shut up. You’re mine now, to do exactly what I like with.”

Feeling her quivering frantically with desire, he progressed down to the ginger bush. Then, suddenly, he encountered a sticky, lacquered mass, like a hedgehog.

“What the bloody hell?” he yelled. “Are you trying to poison me?”

“It’s only vaginal deodorant,” stammered Helen.

“It is bloody not, sweetheart, you’ve used hair lacquer by mistake.”

Picking her up screaming, he carried her into the shower and held her under until he washed it off, then threw her dripping onto the bed.

“Now, let’s get one thing straight. I like the taste of you. And I don’t want it diluted by any damned deodorants. I’m going to wipe out that New England puritanism if it kills me.”

In court he got off with a hefty fine. His lawyer, used to Rupert’s scrapes, had traveled down overnight. Mr. Campbell-Black, he said, had had a row with his girlfriend the day before, which had upset him so much he’d proceeded to get drunk. Now the row was made up and he and his girlfriend were planning to get married. His client was very sorry. It wouldn’t happen again. The press were so captivated by the news that they concentrated on the engagement rather than on the fight.

Later, between classes, Rupert bumped into Laura, who introduced her husband, Charlie. Conversation was very amicable. As Charlie moved on to talk to some friends, Laura said in a low voice: “I’m so glad you’re getting married to her.”

Rupert grinned. “Will you sleep with me again as a wedding present?”

Laura looked reproving. “Your new wife wouldn’t like that very much.”

“Ah,” said Rupert lightly, “she’ll have to take me as she finds me, if she can find me.”

Nearly two years later Helen stood in the middle of her bedroom at Penscombe, tearing her hair and trying to decide what she should pack for Rome and then Madrid. She and Rupert would be away for nearly three weeks, so she would need at least three cases to carry all the different clothes for sightseeing, swimming, sunbathing, watching Rupert in the ring, and for the string of parties and dinners which always coincided with international shows abroad. She had started a hundred lists, then scrumpled them up.

But even clothes littering every available surface couldn’t detract from the beauty of the room with its high ceilings, huge Jacobean four-poster, old rose walls, pale yellow and pink silk striped curtains, and fluffy amber carpet. On the dressing table and beside the bed were great bunches of yellow irises. The general effect of a sunrise provided the perfect foil for Helen’s coloring. Or so the woman from House and Garden had said last week when she came down to photograph the house and the dramatic changes Helen had made to it.

On the primrose yellow silk chaise longue lay a copy of this month’s Vogue, with a photographic feature on the new beauties. Most beautiful of them all was undoubtedly Mrs. Rupert Campbell-Black, showing Helen, huge-eyed, swan-necked, her Titian hair spread by a wind machine, Rupert’s diamonds gleaming at her ears and throat. Also on the chaise longue were guidebooks for Rome and Madrid and Italian and Spanish phrase books. Helen took her trips abroad very seriously, sightseeing and trying to learn as much of the language as possible. Beside the books lay Helen’s journal. It was the same dark green notebook she’d had in Regina House. She was ashamed that since she’d married Rupert she’d filled in less than a half of it, only sketchily recording events in what had certainly been the most exciting years of her life. But she’d been so busy living, she didn’t seem to have had much time to write about it.