become almost fond of it, of all it represented. It was against its trunk that she and Mark had made love the very first time, its splintery bark scratching like blunt fingernails over her naked behind.
No matter. Mark and all this were behind her now, but she still managed a little smile for the man who had made her happy, and might even do so again in the future. Mark, like any rejected male, had put on a brave face, but she couldn’t tell if he was sad or merely impatient to bury his regrets and his cock into her replacement.
She turned away. Like precious stones, she folded her memories away. Her life was about to take on a whole new course, even though she had some regrets about leaving his hard body and his very satisfying prick behind her.
The tailboard was finally bolted up. The horses nickered gently, snorting as they pulled hay from the temporary nets fastened inside. They sounded to her ears as though they were urging her onwards, telling her that pastures new – where grass was more numerous than weeds – would be welcome to their tender palates.
She turned back to Mark. Their goodbye was brief, though she did detect a hint of jealousy surge momentarily.
‘Never mind,’ she whispered as he nibbled a last time at her ear. ‘Jackie will look after you.’
Over her shoulder, green eyes looked out from a mass of bubble blonde hair and full breasts strained against a black jersey. Jackie, her understudy for the past month, she guessed was already contemplating the pleasures to come now Penny, her rival, was out of the way.
Mark patted her bottom with as much pleasure as he did his prize stallion. Penny wriggled against it, savouring the pleasure for the final time. Then he helped her up into the rattly Bedford horsebox. His hand cupped one cheek of her bottom, which was tightly enclosed in her dark-blue breeches. Then his hand slid to the cleft in between as he pushed her up into the cab.
She wriggled against it and murmured with pleasure – after all, it might be some time before she got the opportunity to have some of that, though of course she had no intention of letting the grass grow under her feet.
‘Hope this old crate gets us there,’ she said as she turned the key.
‘Last time,’ he answered in an offhand, sarcastic kind of way. ‘Mr Beaumont will no doubt have your new box already waiting for you with his company name emblazoned along the side. And all you have to do for it is your very best.’ He smiled sardonically. Suddenly she knew she’d have to work hard not to miss him. Either that or swiftly find her own replacement – singular or plural.
As the engine sprang into spluttering life, she took a deep breath and put on her own brave face. She smiled down at him and winked.
‘I will,’ she said as she thought of Ariadne and everything she had told her. She was unable to control the spreading smile that made her cheeks bunch into pink apples. ‘I most certainly will.’
Foot to floor, she pulled away, eyes straight ahead. On this occasion, at this moment in time, she could not look back.
Suddenly the seduction of Alistair Beaumont was of great importance, like going after a new trophy, a whole new wedge of prize money. A new life and new experiences beckoned. And now, she reckoned, she was ready for them.
‘Alistair Beaumont, I’m coming for you,’ she muttered to herself as the old horsebox rumbled out of the gate.
Built in warm, red brick at the latter half of the nineteenth century, the stable yard at Beaumont Place was entered through a curved archway surrounded by rich boughs of drooping purple wisteria.
The gravel crunched beneath the tyres as the horsebox came to a stop in the middle of the yard. Penny’s eyes surveyed her new surroundings as she turned off the engine and pulled on the brake. Blank windows stared back at her. Those, she guessed, hid offices and storerooms behind their dusty facade. The other three sides were given over to loose boxes, a tack room