Kiss and Tell Read Online Free PDF

had been a thrilling time. The media had gone into overdrive following the glamorous husband and wife duo on the road to what was seen as almost guaranteed glory. They had been invincible for the two years beforehand, winning every principal event, rivalling one another for top slot and taking the sport into a new realm of popularity. Together they had endorsed endless products with lucrative sponsorship deals, written two best-selling training books and a double-headed autobiography, held sell-out lecture-demonstration tours on both sides of the Atlantic, featured in their own TV series on a specialist countryside channel, sold countless DVDs on the back of it and become universally known as the Beauchampions.
    Then, amid all this furore, they had gone to the Olympics and returned empty-handed. It was a crashing blow to mutual andnational pride. Tash’s superstar stallion The Foxy Snob, veteran of World and European Championship teams, had boiled over in the dressage, unable to handle the atmosphere and floodlights, which meant that she was too far from the top ten to make her score competitive, despite the double clear that followed. And Hugo, far more humiliatingly, had fallen off at one of the smallest fences on the course on cross-country day, live on worldwide satellite television streaming, catapulted from the saddle when his horse left a knee and pitched over, a fluke accident that could have happened to anyone. The resulting elimination – and the fact that his horse had then buggered off at speed back to the stables to leave him with a very long walk home to his team-mates – obsessed him to this day. Selected to represent Great Britain again at the upcoming Games, he was determined to defend the family’s honour as well as that of his country.
    ‘It’s a nice sort of sideline, being pregnant,’ Tash told her step-sister carefully. ‘I only wish I could be there to support the Brits and Hugo this time, but he insists I am far too close to giving birth and I’d only make him nervous.’
    ‘Too right.’ Beccy gave the monster bump another horror-filled glance across the table, noticing that Tash had to sit with her knees apart like an old man, vast belly thrust out between her and the table.
    ‘Besides, I’m needed here.’ Tash sighed, distractedly watching a piece of French bread fly off her plate in a gust of wind and land in Beccy’s hair. Given all the other beads, ribbons and clips adorning the colourful dreads, it blended in quite nicely.
    ‘I thought you just said you couldn’t do anything around the yard?’ Henrietta helped herself to more smoked salmon, which whipped around on the end of her fork like a jaunty orange flag.
    ‘I can’t physically do much, but I can oversee things. Jenny is going to be with Hugo and we’re really short-staffed right now so we’ve got a couple of agency people along with the part-timers from the local villages and I’ll have to muddle along as best I can.’
    ‘That’s exactly what we wanted to talk to you about—’ Henrietta tried again, but again Beccy interrupted her.
    ‘I’m glad your baby’s going to be a Leo,’ she told Tash, fingering the talismans around her neck. ‘They’re so positive and determined. Cora’s an Aquarian like me, isn’t she? We have a terrible time deciding what we want from life. I wanted to be a dog groomer for years, didn’t I, Mum? James could never understand it.’

    ‘And then a vet,’ Henrietta concurred, ‘then a riding instructor and an event rider, which is what we were going to—’
    ‘I remember that!’ Tash laughed. ‘You did a stint with the Stantons as a working pupil, didn’t you?’
    Beccy nodded, eyes flashing.
    ‘They’re a lovely family.’ Tash was hugely fond of the big local clan that had competed for several generations and were as synonymous with dressage and event riding as the Whitakers were with show-jumping.
    ‘I didn’t stay long enough to find out,’ Beccy said