Page 22 of Polo Fever
The corners of his lips twitch. He’s fighting a smile.
‘Trust me, Mateo,’ I say, leaning forward on the table myself, ‘if you think that working in a polo stables is hard, you should try working in the fashion industry. I doubt you’d last a day.’
That does it. He can’t fight the smile any longer and as it creeps across his lips, I sit back, satisfied.
‘Well, I can tell you are Jasper’s sister,’ he says, amused as he drops his hands from the table. ‘There were people who didn’t think he had it in him to take over this pub when he first arrived, but he had plenty of fight in him.’
‘We’re not afraid to rise to a challenge,’ I confirm.
‘I see. So youaretaking the job then?’
I hesitate. While I formulate an answer, we’re interrupted by someone calling his name across the garden. His eyes flicker over to the girl standing in the back doorway to the pub, beckoning him to come back and join everyone inside. I glance over my shoulder to see who it is. It’s a different woman to the one I saw in his car. This girl is blonde too, with charcoal-lined eyes and an unimpressed expression, wearing a butter-yellow maxi dress and cropped white blazer. When I turn back to Mateo, he offers her a polite smile but doesn’t seem in any urgency to move.
‘I think your girlfriend wants you,’ I say when he doesn’t budge.
‘A friend,’ he corrects.
‘What are you even doing out here?’ she cries. ‘Fitz has just bought another bottle of champers. He wants to toast the team. Comeon.’
‘One minute,’ he responds, unaffected by her efforts of persuasion.
She huffs and spins round, stomping back inside.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I say when he shows no intention of following her.
‘Please.’
‘Did you come out here to persuade me not to take the job? Is that what’s happening?’
He raises his eyebrows at the blunt approach, but doesn’t flounder at it. ‘No. I didn’t know enough about you to persuade you one way or the other. And it’s not up to me to make that choice for you.’
‘But now that you know I have no experience, your worst fears have been confirmed.’
‘As I said, I wanted to make sure that if you were to decide to become a Maycourt groom, you understood the weight of the role.’
I wrap my hands around my mug of tea, lifting it to my lips. ‘I understand.’
He watches as I take a sip. ‘Good. In that case,’ he swings his legs out from under the table and stands up, ‘I will see you on Monday morning.’
‘I haven’t said whether I’m taking the job,’ I remind him as he walks round the table.
His lips tug into a small, secretive smile as though he knows something I don’t. He sticks his hands in his pockets and wanders back into the pub to join his friends.
Seven
I’m still wondering if I’m making the right decision when I shut the door of Jasper’s Land Rover on Monday morning and watch as he trundles back down the long drive of Maycourt.
‘You can do this,’ I whisper to myself, tugging down on the hem of the smart blazer I’m wearing, trying to ignore the butterflies flitting around my stomach as I force my feet to walk in the direction of the stables.
Straight away, I step into a pile of horse muck, grimacing as I shake it off my barely worn Chelsea boots. Taking a deep breath, I regroup, and then continue across the yard. Reaching the stables, I walk in and look down at the rows of ponies, their heads hanging over their half-doors staring at me. The smell in here, an earthy mix of hay, dust, leather and horse hair, is at once nerve-racking and comforting, haling me right back to the time I spent in stables as a kid when I didn’t want to be anywhere else, yet still felt like I didn’t quite belong. The latter part still rings true. A horse whinnies down the way, the sound echoing around the stables.
‘Can I help you?’ a clipped, formal voice says behind me.
I jump, spinning round to see a girl standing behind me carrying some kind of rope. Her light-blue eyes peer out from beneath a fringe, her brown hair tied back into a ponytail. She’s about my age or a bit younger and wearing a t-shirt and faded blue jeans.
Her wrist is in a sling.
‘Are you Julia?’ I ask, brightening at finding the person I’m supposed to.
