Country Lovers
Contents (7)
By Fiona Walker
French Relations
Kiss Chase
Well Groomed
Snap Happy
Between Males
Lucy Talk
Lots of Love
Tongue in Cheek
Four Play
Love Hunt
Kiss and Tell
The Love Letter
Sealed with a Kiss
The Summer Wedding
The Country Escape
The Woman Who Fell in Love for a Week
The Weekends of You and Me
The Country Set
The Country Lovers
COUNTRY LOVERS
Fiona Walker
www.headofzeus.com
First published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Fiona Walker, 2019
The moral right of Fiona Walker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organisations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Typeset by Silicon Chips
ISBN (HB): 9781784977276
ISBN (XTPB): 9781784977283
ISBN (E): 9781784977269
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Head of Zeus Ltd
5–8 Hardwick Street
London ECIR 4RG
WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM
Contents
Welcome Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Prologue: 2012
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Part 2
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part 3
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part 4
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part 5
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
To the OM Sisterhood: SP, LB and HB (my brilliant divorce lawyer), on all of whose wise shoulders I cried more than once while writing this, in laughter as much as frustration.
Map
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Luca O’Brien: a globe-trotting rider and Irish charmer with a heart-breaking reputation, known throughout the equestrian world as the Horsemaker.
Veronica ‘Ronnie Percy’ Ledwell: chatelaine of Compton Magna Stud, a fast-riding blonde whose ill-fated marriage to handsome Johnny Ledwell ended with a swift exit in a lover’s sports car.
Alice Petty: her estranged daughter, a bossy Pony Club stalwart.
Tim Ledwell: Ronnie’s son, a debonair wine merchant with a complicated love life in South Africa.
Patricia ‘Pax’ Forsyth: their younger sister, the family peacemaker whose marriage to tough Scot Mack is a battlefield.
Kes: their five-year-old son.
Muir and Mairi: Mack’s parents, granite-faced puritans.
Lizzie: Pax’s friend from junior eventing days.
Lester: the stud’s tight-lipped stallion man, dedicated to his horses, his routine and a quiet life.
Blair Robertson: craggy Australian three-day-event rider known as ‘Mr Sit Tight’.