A Bitter Feast(62)

“She needed to see there was no one here for her. She’s got me now.”

“I thought Mark was taking care of her.”

“That’s just because she belonged to him once. He won’t want to keep her for good.” Grace sounded mulish again.

“Well, right now, Bella’s really upset.” Taking the lead from Grace, Kit walked slowly towards the dog, saying, “Hi, Bella, you’re a good girl,” in a singsong voice. He took a few more steps. “Shh, that’s it, you’re a really good girl, everything is going to be okay.”

Bella stopped pawing at the door and looked at him, but she was still panting and wild-eyed.

“Shh, that’s it, that’s a good girl.” When Kit was almost within touching distance, he said, “Bella, sit,” in his dog-training voice, and she did. Another step and he slipped his fingers round her collar and clipped on her lead. Dropping to his knees, he stroked her head and murmured to her until he felt her relax. “Okay, then,” he said, standing and patting his leg. Bella moved into place by his knee. “Let’s go,” he said to Grace.

“She’d have been okay,” Grace muttered as they walked back towards the lane. “She’d have given up and she wouldn’t have wanted to come back here anymore.”

“Maybe,” Kit said, not wanting to argue with her. “But right now I think we should take her back to the pub.”

“Can we go just a bit farther? I don’t want to go back. And there’s something cool I was going to show you.”

Kit considered as they reached the lane. The dog seemed calmer, and Grace hadn’t asked him for the lead back. “Okay, but let’s not go too far. We’re supposed to be going back to London after lunch.”

“Okay.” Grace gave a little skip, curiously childlike for someone who was trying to be so grown up. As they walked on, the lane began to climb and the sun grew warmer. Kit was ready to say it was time to turn back when Grace stopped and pointed at a barred gate on the right. “That’s Mark’s farm, through there. It’s really big.”

Beyond the gate, a drive crossed a deep rill carpeted with fallen leaves. Trees arched overhead, forming a tunnel that after a few yards opened up to a green field and farm buildings of golden Cotswold stone. Bella’s ears had pricked up again and he hoped they weren’t going to have a repeat of the scene at Nell’s cottage. He tightened his grip on the lead. “I really think we should—”

“No, wait. Just a little bit farther.” Grace walked on up the lane and stopped after a few yards. There, an impenetrable hedge gave way to another barred gate, and beyond it Kit could see a field. “Look, here,” said Grace, pointing to a hollow under the gate. “We can go over and Bella can go under.”

“But that’s somebody’s field.”

“It’s Mark’s, actually. And he doesn’t mind. The sheep are all in the other pastures just now. We can cut across and pick up the public footpath.”

“And that goes back to the village?”

“Well, yeah, obviously. Along the river.”

“Okay, then,” agreed Kit, happy not to take Bella back past the cottage. Grace climbed over the gate and he followed, holding tight to Bella’s lead, then urging her through the muddy dip under the gate.

They crossed the field at an angle, managing another gate on the far side the same way they’d done the first. “See, the footpath,” Grace said, leaving him to manage Bella as she slid down a steep bank. “And there’s the river.”

Kit and Bella scrambled after her. He would have called it a stream, he thought as he looked round, but she was right. It crossed under the path, then ran bubbling along on their left. The water was shallow and so clear it reflected the trees overhead like glass.

“It’s the River Eye. It used to be spelled E-Y, not E-Y-E. It runs into the Windrush and the Windrush runs into the Thames, so this water ends up in London. I like to think about that.” She glanced at him as they walked along. “What’s it like, living in London?”

Surprised, Kit said, “It’s okay, I guess. But I used to live in a village a lot like this and I liked it, too.”

“Why did you move?”

Kit really didn’t want to answer this, but after a few minutes, he said, “My mum died. I went to live with my dad.”

“Did you know your dad before?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Were they divorced or something, your mum and dad?”

“Well, yeah, they were, but it was . . . complicated.” There was no way Kit was explaining any further.

“So Gemma’s your stepmother?”

The question always took Kit aback. He didn’t think of Gemma that way—what did “step” mean, anyway? It somehow made their relationship seem like second best, and he didn’t think Gemma loved him any less than she loved Toby. Or Charlotte, and Charlotte wasn’t related to Gemma or his dad. “Yeah, she is,” he answered at last.

Picking her way ahead of him along the track now, Grace said over her shoulder, “You’re lucky, then. Gemma seems nice.”

“She is,” Kit said, puzzled. He’d thought that conversation was finished. “Why would you think she wasn’t?”