“Right,” the hunt master said. “Firstly, they’re not called dogs. They must always be referred to as hounds. Secondly, we are not hunting foxes. No fox has ever been hunted on Kirkwood land – we hunt an aniseed lure and no animals are killed for our pleasure. And as for being civilised, I find it is always good manners to greet your host before you begin to rain torrents of abuse on them for crimes they have not committed.”
Georgie felt her stomach do a flip-flop. She’d just made a major mistake.
“Georgie,” James sighed, “I didn’t get the chance to introduce you. This is my father.”
The huntsman extended his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, young lady,” he said in a tone that indicated it was anything but. “I’m Randolph Kirkwood.”
Mrs Kirkwood arrived home from Paris late that afternoon. Georgie noticed that James and Kennedy greeted their stepmother in the same detached manner that James had used with his father on the front lawn, as if they were mere acquaintances rather than family.
Patricia Kirkwood swept into the house wearing high heels and a sharply tailored black suit, her jet-black hair swept up into a chignon and lengths of gold chains roped around her neck. She was a consultant for a major fashion house in Paris and divided her time between her office in France and the Maryland mansion.
“Working in fashion must be so glamorous,” Georgie said when they were introduced.
“It’s a juggling act,” Patricia replied. “I can be in jodhpurs on Friday riding across our estate, and back in haute couture gowns on Monday choosing fabrics for the new collections.”
Arden and Tori, who were both fashion-obsessed, made sure they were sitting next to Patricia at dinner and spent the whole time quizzing her about fashion trends.
Kennedy looked outrageously smug when Mrs Kirkwood announced that she would be taking her stepdaughter to see the runway shows next season. James however, seemed less impressed.
“I think she hates it really,” he told Georgie as he watched his stepmother flitting in and out of the dining room, her mobile phone glued to her ear, throughout the meal. “All the endless runway shows and high heels, the air kisses and back-stabbing. She works for Fabien, that French designer who wears the ridiculously big shoulder pads? Patricia is his muse. Apparently he adores her and can’t design the range without her – but the rest of his staff can’t stand her. They call her Hamburger Patty because she’s American. I think the only reason she keeps doing the job is to avoid us. She’s hardly ever home and when she is, she’s out hunting.”
It seemed that hunting was an obsession for the Kirkwoods. Patricia had returned from Paris to prepare for the hunt the next day and during dinner she was constantly distracted with preparations for tomorrow’s activities, snapping orders at various members of staff.
Mr Kirkwood, meanwhile, never appeared at dinner at all. “He’s down at the kennels with the hounds,” Frances told Mrs Kirkwood when she asked after her husband. Georgie was relieved to hear it. After her misguided outburst she didn’t really fancy sitting down to dinner with him.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was your dad?” she groaned to James.
“I was having too much fun watching you,” James grinned. “Dad was totally stunned to have someone disagree with him. It doesn’t happen very often.”
Neither Mr or Mrs Kirkwood seemed to show much interest in Georgie – or in any of the teenagers, including their own children.
“This house is so big,” James told Georgie, “I came home once for mid-term break and it took them the whole week to realise I was even here!”
He’d meant the story to be funny, but Georgie thought how awful it would be to come back to an empty mansion and for no one even to notice you were home.
James had given her a quick tour of the ground floor before dinner and Georgie had been overwhelmed by the luxury and size of the mansion.
“Don’t leave me behind,” she told James as she trailed after him. “I may never find my way out of here on my own.”
“Guests have been known to disappear,” James agreed with a wink.
The maze of corridors was so confusing that when it was time to go to bed, Georgie had to rely on Frances as a guide. Georgie followed the clack-clack of the maid’s court shoes on the parquet floor as she led the way. At the end of the main hall they climbed the grand staircase that led to the west wing of the house. Georgie’s guest room was the fifth on the left and had its own bathroom and dressing room.
“You’ll find some of Kennedy’s old hunting clothes in the wardrobe,” Frances said as she turned down the bed. “She told me you would need something to wear for tomorrow.”
Like the other rooms in the house, Georgie’s guest room was completely over the top. It was as if several interior designers had been hired at once and had fought it out with no clear winner. The chairs were cloaked in animal prints – leopard, zebra and tiger stripes, the cushions were floral, the furniture was French antique and there was baroque wallpaper hung with Chinese tapestry. If this was how Patricia Kirkwood decorated her house, Georgie shuddered to think what she might put on a catwalk!
In the dressing room she searched through jods and jackets hanging on the rails, choosing herself a suitable outfit for tomorrow. Georgie had never hunted before, but she knew that young riders were meant to wear tweeds and thankfully there were several suitable things to wear here. She selected a buff tweed hunting coat and cream jodhpurs, both of which looked like they would fit, then she rummaged around in the cupboard and found a hunting stock that was the same shade of cream as the jodhpurs. Georgie decided she would wear her long black boots to complete the outfit. Then she laid them all carefully on a zebra-print chair, ready and waiting for her.
A heavy mist hung over the estate the next morning. Georgie looked out her bedroom window and was greeted by the magical sight of horses and riders in scarlet coats milling about on the front lawn. By the time she had showered, pulled on her hunting clothes and raced downstairs there were already nearly a hundred riders gathered on the pebble forecourt, their horses breathing steam from their nostrils as they waited for the hunt to throw off.
The horses were classic hunters, stocky types with thick strong legs and chests that were deep through the girth. Georgie loved the way they had been clipped so that it looked as if their top and bottom halves actually belonged to two entirely different horses, joined together in the middle.
The riders all looked far more dressed up than Georgie had expected and despite the early morning hour they were drinking port, sipping away at the stirrup cups that were handed to them by servants carrying silver trays. Patricia Kirkwood, dressed in a black velvet hunting coat and lace cravat, was holding court amid a group of shrill and overbearing riders who were behaving more like they were at a cocktail party than a hunt.
“Avert your eyes!” There was a whisper in Georgie’s ear and she turned around to see Damien Danforth standing behind her. “If you stare at one of those gorgons directly you could turn to stone,” he deadpanned.
“Watch it – they might hear you!” Georgie was taken aback.
“Who cares?” Damien sniffed. “If you had to spend ten minutes in a room with Patricia’s awful friends you’d see I’m simply telling the truth.”
He gave Georgie a dark look. “I blame you, you know. You British were the ones who invented all this hunting nonsense and made it seem classy. Now every nouveau riche moron in Maryland wants to join the Kirkwood hunt. Honestly, I don’t think half of them know one end of a horse from the other.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Georgie smiled.
“I’m