Nor could she eat her chicken Kiev.
Jake, deep in conversation with Doreen and Colonel Roxborough about other people’s horses, had also drunk a great deal more than he’d eaten. Suddenly, he glanced down the table and saw little Fen staring at Rupert. She was curiously still. He’d seen that look in frightened mares confronted by stallions, terrified yet sexually excited. He’d felt the same terror, without the excitement, when Revenge was taken away from him. Rupert was not going to take Fen.
He stopped eating his steak, fingering his knife. Helen had noticed it too. Suddenly she stopped talking to Malise about Proust.
“It’s like asking me to go over to the Russians,” Fen was saying furiously, “and furthermore, I don’t like the way you treat your horses.”
“You’ve absolutely no idea how I treat my horses. You just listen to gossip.”
“You’re only sucking up to me because you think I’ll be so overwhelmed by your glamour, I’ll give you a lot of tips about how Jake rides his horses.”
But it was the helpless snapping of courtship.
Desperately, Helen turned to Tory. “What’s the name of the horse Jake’s riding in the final?” she asked.
Christ, she ought to know, thought Fen. She’s married to a finalist.
“He’s called Nightshade,” mumbled Tory nervously.
“But in the stable we call him Macaulay,” said Fen.
“How weird,” said Helen. “Rupert had a horse called Macaulay once, named after me. Macaulay was my maiden name.”
Rupert’s face was a mask.
“It’s the same horse,” said Fen, slowly spitting out every word.
“It can’t be,” said Helen, bewildered. She turned to Rupert. “He died of a brain tumor. You said he did.”
“I did not,” said Rupert in a tone that made Fen shiver.
Everyone was listening now.
“I sold him to that Sheik Kalil, who bought half a dozen horses a couple of years ago.”
“And you bought him from Kalil?” Helen asked Jake.
“No,” said Jake flatly, “I found him in the stone quarries.”
“He was pulling a cart loaded with bricks,” said Fen, “and he was starving. They don’t feed horses out there, or water them, just drive them in the midday sun till they collapse. Then they whip them till they get up again.”
A muscle was flickering in Rupert’s cheek.
“You’ve been listening to fairy stories again,” he said to Fen.
“We’ve got photographs,” hissed Fen, her fury fueled by guilt and anger because she found him irresistible. “Jake saved his life. I know you all sneer at all the medical knowledge he picked up from the gypsies, but it bloody well works. And it worked on Macaulay. He was just skin and bone held together by weals. He could hardly walk. It’s taken Jake two years to get him right.”
Helen looked appalled. “Is this true, Rupert?”
Rupert shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know? If you’re prepared to accept any cock-and-bull story. I run a yard on a very tight budget and I can’t ensure every horse I sell on is going to be mollycoddled for the rest of its life.”
“You sold him to the Middle East,” said Fen, knocking over her wineglass as she jumped to her feet. “You must have known what would happen. You ought to be bloody well ashamed of yourself.”
Bursting into tears, she fled out of the restaurant.
There was a stunned silence. Rupert picked up his knife and fork and went on eating his steak.
“What’s up with her?” said Driffield, looking at the puddings on the menu.
“Perhaps she’s eaten something that doesn’t agree with her,” said Ivor.
“Adolescent girls,” said Colonel Roxborough. “Up one moment, down the next. Overemotional. My daughter was like that. It’s their age. How old is she?” he asked Tory.
“Sixteen,” muttered Tory, staring at her plate. She detested scenes and she felt desperately sorry for Fen, but need she have gone quite so over the top?
“Probably tired,” said Malise.
“Needs a good night’s sleep,” said Doreen Hamilton comfortably.
“Needs a good screw,” said Rupert.
He hadn’t noticed that Jake had got to his feet and had limped down the table until he was directly behind Rupert.
“What did you say?”
Rupert didn’t turn his head. “You heard.”
“Yes, I heard.” Jake’s eyes glittered like deadly nightshade berries, his face ashen against the tousled black hair.
“You leave her alone, you bastard.”
“You’re hardly in a position to call me that. At least my parents were married to one another, in church too, unlike yours.”
“Rupert,” exploded Malise.
“You leave my parents out of this,” hissed Jake. “I’m warning you — keep away from her.”
“Why?” drawled Rupert. “Have you got the hots for her? If you read your prayer book you’d realize that sort of thing’s very frowned on. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife’s sister and all that.”
The next moment, Jake had grabbed Rupert’s shirt collar with one hand and snatched up the bread knife from the side table with the other.
Jerking Rupert towards him, he held the knife against Rupert’s suntanned neck.
“Keep your foul mouth shut,” he gritted. “If I catch you putting one of your filthy fingers on her, I’ll run this through you, you fucking sadist,” and very slowly he drew the blade across Rupert’s throat. No one moved, no one spoke. Everyone’s eyes were mesmerized by the knife blade glinting in the candlelight.
Then Helen gave a strangled sob.
“Jake,” said Malise quietly, “give me that knife.”
“It’s all right, Colonel Gordon,” said Jake, without looking in his direction. “This time it’s a warning, Rupert, but you heard me: you stay away from her. Next time you won’t get off so lightly.”
He threw the knife down so it fell across Fen’s red wine stain, giving an illusion of spilt blood, then limped out of the restaurant.
“Are you all right?” gasped Helen.
Rupert sprang to his feet, ready to give chase. But Malise was too quick. Leaping up, he blocked Rupert’s path.
“No,” he said sharply. He might have been speaking to a rabid dog about to pounce. “Stay — here. It was
Rupert looked at him incredulously.
“That man has just tried to kill me.”
“There’s a simple remedy to that,” said Malise. “Don’t wind him up.”
“Bloody bad form,” said Colonel Roxborough. “Fellow can’t hold his drink. Let’s have some brandy. Think we all need it.”
“I want some crepes suzette,” said Driffield.
Rupert sat down, his face absolutely still.
Malise looked round. “None of this is to go any further than this table. We don’t want the press getting hold of it. Rupert was simply taking trouble to be nice to Fen; she overreacted because she’s protective about Macaulay. Jake overreacted because he’s protective about both her and the horse. Isn’t that true, Tory?”
Blushing scarlet, Tory mumbled that Jake was probably uptight about the final and she better see where’d he got to, and, thanking Malise for a lovely dinner, she stumbled out of the restaurant, knocking over a chair as she went.
“Tory the elephant packed her trunk and said good-bye to the circus,” said Rupert.
Fen didn’t stop running until she got to the stables. It was dark now, a huge full moon with a smudged
