There was no relieved crying out and comforting arms when they found me. Only furious voices, accusations of being slow like a little worm, and a smack on the back of my legs.
After that I learned to do it deliberately. Run away and hide from them, and wherever possible find my own way home. Eventually they stopped taking me out anywhere, even if it was for a day, sometimes a night. I preferred the empty house.
I am doing it now. Sitting very still. Not hiding exactly, but weighing up the relative safety of dying out here of cold and starvation, or being found and bawled out for injuring the horse.
I’m not sure I can put weight on this foot, either. I try to move it and it twinges.
Now fear is replaced by anger, and I force myself upright, holding onto the nearest tree for support. The horse glances up at me. She is fine. And there are no bones sticking out of my bruised skin. It’s not broken after all. But it’s badly twisted.
I click my teeth at the horse. She chews disdainfully, her eyes pitying over her working jaws. Rage surges through me in a tidal wave. What is Gustav playing at?
I’m about to scream for help when I sense rather than hear hooves drumming nearer. Twigs crack, leaves rustle, and at last Gustav hurtles back into the copse, stopping with a dramatic rear up on the hind legs like Clint Eastwood galloping into a dusty town.
‘Serena! What happened to you? We’d gone miles before I realised.’ His hair swings rebelliously across his face. He looks even more like a rampaging bandit.
‘No you hadn’t. You left me behind on purpose.’
He jumps off the horse, sweeping his hair back off his face. He looks as if he’s fighting back a smile. A few moments away from me seems to have restored his spirits.
‘Well, I could have noticed sooner, admittedly. I mean, if you got lost in these mountains you would never get out alive. But you looked so strong and sure I forgot that I was supposed to be looking after you.’
‘I am strong and sure if I know where I’m going. I can outride you any day. Just don’t disappear and make fun of me when it’s getting so dark.’
‘Take it as a compliment, Serena. I don’t treat you as my guest any more.’ He takes out some more sugar lumps and feeds his horse. I watch her thick black lips nibble at his gloved fingers. I know that his eyes are on me. ‘I thought we could work up a sweat. I wanted to put clear water between us and that awkward reminder.’
‘Awkward reminder?’ I snap. ‘You were rubbing my nose in it. Come and look at the cutesy chapel where I married my wonderful wife.’
I fuss with my sore ankle. He walks across the gloaming. There’s that insouciant swagger again, the slight sway of his slim hips, the macho yet gymnastic control of his walk which is totally different from the reined-in stride of the man back in London. The tight breeches and boots make him move in that sinuous way. My eyes are drawn again to the muscled contours of his thighs in the black fabric, my gaze dragged towards his enclosed crotch. Is the bulge there bigger than before?
Am I ever going to wind my tongue in?
Gustav steps over me, apparently unaware of how close his groin is to my gawping face. He gives my horse some sugar lumps, too. His long fingers in their black gloves move over her nose to stroke it thoughtfully.
‘Not cutesy. Not wonderful. Not rubbing your nose in anything. But I should have been more sensitive.’
‘So much for seeing clearly at last.’
‘I wanted to share my favourite view with you, that’s all. If I’m honest I wanted you by my side when I drank it all in for the last time.’ He closes his eyes and leans against the horse’s forehead, his black hair mingling with her chestnut forelock. Her huge eyes blink down at me as if asking, you any idea what he’s banging on about? ‘I’m glad you were there.’
‘Well, I’m not glad,’ I snap. ‘It is a stunning view. But it’s your view. Your history. Your house. Your past. Your wife. Not mine.’
The horses chomp on their sugar. Mine pushes cheekily at Gustav, so unexpectedly that I hear his teeth bite together as her bony forehead knocks him. He rubs his cheek, already coming up a livid red, but he barely flinches.
‘Should I be flattered? I mean, that you feel hurt? Jealous, even, or am I wide of the mark?’ His voice is low, almost as if he hardly dares ask the question. A spot of blood trickles from the corner of his mouth where he must have bitten his tongue. ‘Do you really care about me that much?’
My insides churn, sharing the anxiety I can see burning in his eyes. The furrowed emphasis of his thick eyebrows casts a shadow over his face. He’s still unaware of the blood smeared on his lip. I so want to wipe it off for him. I’m so afraid of all this. I’m so afraid of what he’s doing to me.
I take a breath, wonder if my eyes are reading his correctly. Wondering if he can read mine.
‘You brought me to Switzerland to help you. But seeing that chapel, feeling like a tiny dot on this vast landscape, I can’t be any use to you.’ I struggle to wring the words dry of emotion. ‘And I feel a long way from home.’
He senses the wetness on his lip at last and wipes the blood, staring at it gleaming red on his upheld finger. ‘While you were working yourself into a froth about some stupid chapel, I was thinking how ready I am to find a new view, Serena. A new horizon. One that we can enjoy together. I was just about to say so when – I’m sorry. Yet again I’ve handled this episode badly.’
My horse swings her head up at the same time as I do. She is obviously equally astonished at this unheard-of apology.
‘And what’s more you should discipline your horses better!’ I yank off my helmet and let it bounce across the ground as I brush mud and leaves off me. ‘She threw me off. Admittedly I’m out of practice, but she bucked. There was nothing I could do. I’m bloody livid with you, Gustav. And to cap it all I think I’ve twisted my ankle.’
‘Mea culpa. Let me take a look. Let’s see if you can put weight on it.’
He offers his hand. I hesitate, then let him pull me to my feet. Our hands are sexless in the riding gloves, but they still conduct the heat between us. I’m level with his darkly stubbled chin, his mouth, half open, tiny spotlets of blood on his lower lip.
He takes his red scarf off and wraps it round my neck and shoulders to warm me. I’m stunned afresh by the tenderness in his eyes, in the gesture. I also realise I’m shivering with shock and pain.
‘Another apology, even if it is in Latin!’ I mutter. ‘Why can’t you just act like a normal person for once in a blue moon?’
There are red flashes in his cheeks, and not just where the horse bashed him. Anger, remorse, or the bite of the wind? He leans back against the tree and folds his arms.
‘Ah, that’s more like it. The rude girl I know and – the stroppy girl I met on Halloween night who thinks nothing of hurling the odd insult at her master.’ He lifts up my gloves. ‘The master who holds her future in his hands.’
‘We both signed that agreement, remember?’ I exchange sulky looks with my bemused horse. ‘I’ve delivered my work. I’ve let you tie me with that silver chain. I’ve given you as much pleasure as you’ll let me. You’re still bound to honour your part of the bargain.’
He turns my face towards his serious, pale features. So close, so close. His dark eyes are blurring as he tugs me closer, a coal-like gleam. That mouth, oh, that sexy, half-open, mocking mouth. ‘What am I going to do with you, Serena?’
We half-stumble against