‘Dad,’ I protested as they both roared with laughter. But worryingly, he had a point. Although I’d ridden as a child, as a teenager I’d been a bit more interested in Cosmo than Horse and Hound. Had I bitten off more than I could chew? Hands fluttering, I gratefully accepted a glass of port from a girl proffering a tray.

‘Have you had one?’ I asked Angie.

‘Oh God, yes, three. Always do. Makes it less painful if I come off.’

‘We’re coming off?’ I said alarmed.

‘Well, not necessarily, but who knows? Depends where we go. But you stick with me, Poppy. There are a lot of idiots out today, always are at the opening meet, and those are the ones who do the damage. Cut you up at fences, refuse slap bang in front of you. And hold on tight. I don’t want to be playing nursemaid when I’ve got other fish to fry.’ Her eyes darted around. ‘Have you spotted him yet?’

‘Who?’

‘The new master.’

‘Why would I? I don’t know what he looks like.’ She wasn’t to know I had my own fish to fry.

‘Well, he’s obviously going to be in pink, isn’t he? There – on the chestnut.’

I’d been busily scanning the broad-shouldered black coats for Sam, and was unprepared, therefore, for the man in pink, the one she indicated, to lift his hat as he greeted a friend, present his chiselled profile, and for it to be one and the same.

I stared for a long moment. ‘Sam Hetherington’s the new master?’

‘Yes.’ Angie turned, surprised. ‘You know him?’

‘He’s my solicitor.’

‘Is he?’ She looked astonished. ‘Oh yes, someone said he was a lawyer. Good God – you never said!’ She rounded on me accusingly.

‘Well, I didn’t know you knew him, did I?’

She gazed at me; blinked. ‘I suppose I don’t, yet,’ she admitted. ‘I will, though. He’s gorgeous, don’t you think? All mine, by the way,’ she added quickly and not for the first time. ‘I’m landing this one. He’s divorced, apparently, and this is his manor house, and very soon I’ll be installed within, doing up the drawing room. If you’re very lucky I’ll ask you to dinner.’

God, she had had a few drinks, but so had I, and I opened my mouth to remind her that, actually, she hadn’t seen him first, I had; perhaps adding haughtily that I wouldn’t dream of getting into a fight over a man, but anything I might or might not have said was forestalled by Sam himself.

‘Can I have your attention please, ladies and gentlemen!’

A deferential hush fell instantly. He was standing up in his stirrups, smiling around in a convivial manner. I gulped. Golly. Quite commanding. As he swept his hat gallantly from his head – no strap – to reveal his springy curls, he looked sensational. I’d forgotten about that heart-stopping smile, the crinkly eyes. Angie and I gazed rapturously as he went on to welcome everybody, thanking the local landowners and farmers for letting us ride across their fields – his, mostly, which with perfect manners he declined to mention – reminding us about gates and crops, cattle, oh, and the forthcoming hunt ball. He ended by adding that he hoped we all had a jolly good day. He looked like a young King Henry on St Crispin’s Day, rallying his troops, wind in his hair, hat under his arm. As he smiled, I swear a ray of sunlight glinted on a pearly tooth.

No time to bask in it, though, because suddenly I was jolted from my reverie by a loud blast on a hunting horn and Thumper and I were shoved unceremoniously out of the way by the huntsman and whipper-in, hounds at their heels, as they set off down the drive towards open country. The rest of the field bustled about importantly, waiting to be led by Sam. With fire in my heart and port in my belly, I couldn’t help but leg Thumper through to the front.

‘Hi, Sam!’ I called, aware of shining eyes and a very broad grin. Not his.

If he was surprised, he mastered it beautifully. He touched his hat and smiled.

‘Good morning, Poppy.’

But rather than stopping for some golly, fancy-seeing-you-here chat, he was off in moments, at a very fast trot down the drive, after the hounds. Angie was beside me in a flash.

‘Always, always call him master,’ she hissed. ‘Even if you privately know him as fluffy-bumkins. Even if you’ve shared a pillow the night before!’

Many heads nodded in severe agreement at this, faces grave. I’d obviously breached a sacred code.

‘Oh, OK. It’s just we did share a pillow and he said Sam would be fine,’ I told her airily, clearly disastrously pissed.

Some people thought this was quite funny and tittered, for which I was grateful, but not Angie. She shot me a withering look and trotted off to join the thrusters at the front. Hard not to join them, actually, as Thumper surged excitedly beneath me, doing an extended trot down the drive. I managed to hold him back a bit, though, and keep some distance. As we went through a gate into pasture we all broke into a canter and I scanned the airborne bottoms of Angie’s smart crowd ahead. I recognized a local actress with pale blue eyes on an iron grey; Hugo, Angus’s grandson, on an overwrought roan, one or two mates of his from Harrow ragging alongside him. Then there were the gays who ran the garden centre and quarrelled incessantly – one was prodding the other spitefully with his whip even now; a judge Dad knew, whose horse was called Circuit so that, if anyone rang, his clerk could truthfully say, ‘He’s out on circuit’; then a very attractive couple I couldn’t quite place until … good God. Simon and Emma Harding. I nearly fell off my horse. Why weren’t they on their honeymoon, for Christ’s sake? Was she going to be everywhere I went?

I yanked hard on my left rein and sped towards Angie.

‘Angie – Emma Harding’s here!’ I gasped as I galloped up beside her. It wasn’t hard, Thumper was pulling like a train.

‘I know, bloody cheek, isn’t it?’ she yelled back, instantly on my side despite my earlier jibe, bless her. We cantered along together, the wind whipping our words away. ‘They’re having their honeymoon later, apparently,’ she told me. ‘She clearly means to stick around like a turd on a shoe – bloody nerve!’

‘I’m going to out her,’ I seethed into the wind. ‘Just wait and see what everyone thinks when they know it was my husband she was … Holy shit. We’re not jumping that, are we?’

Up ahead was a sizeable post and rails with quite a few foot followers gathered around it. I spotted Jennie, Dad and my children clustered excitedly. Clearly we were. Sam flew over it, followed by the gays, then Hugo et al., then Simon and Emma. Right. So this was my Becher’s Brook. But, boy, was it huge. Thumper pulled excitedly at the sight of it, and as Angie sailed confidently over ahead of me, I was right on her heels. Too close, actually, but too late to do anything about it because I was already airborne. I clung on to the plaits for grim death, losing the reins as we landed, so that Thumper, given his head, let out the throttle and sped away. As we galloped towards another jump, a small hedge which he took in his stride, I realized something alarming was happening here: I was having trouble staying on board and pulling the reins at the same time. I could do one at a time, but not both together, and certainly not with jumps thrown into the equation. I plumped for staying on board and clung to his mane, which meant that Thumper – who, if he hadn’t been hunting before, was loving every minute of it – had a free rein to take me wherever he wanted, at whatever speed, which was top, and straight to the front.

Spectacularly out of control I rocketed past Angie, Simon and Emma, the actress on the grey, Hugo and his muckers. Then I cannoned past Sam in pink, who shot me a startled look, then the huntsman and the whipper-in, in mustard. Finally – trust me, it didn’t take long – I shot past the hounds, who scattered like beads of mercury as I galloped through them, ensuring that in five short minutes, I’d broken every single rule in the book.

When I finally turned an enormous circle way out in the next field – the next county, probably – and headed back, Thumper galloping joyously to rejoin his new friends, Angie’s face was white and horrified. ‘What are you doing!’ she shrieked, appalled.

‘Couldn’t stop,’ I gasped, skidding up beside her and jolting to an ungainly halt, hat over my eyes. ‘Bolted.’

I wanted to die, actually. Knew I probably would soon, too. I felt green with fear, sick as a dog and way out of my depth.

‘But you’re making a complete tit of yourself!’ she hissed as, fortuitously, the whole field pulled up, pausing as they drew a copse.

‘I know!’ I wailed. ‘What shall I do, Angie? Shall I go home?’ I couldn’t look at Sam. I mean, the master.

‘No, don’t give up yet. Just keep at the back with the no-hopers. Come on, I’ll come with you.’ She turned her horse’s head.

‘No, Angie,’ I said quickly, knowing this was indeed the true hand of friendship. ‘You stay at the front, I’ll go.’

‘Well, look, see those stragglers?’ She pointed behind us with her whip. ‘The alkies and the point-to-pointers, the children – you go with them. And for Christ’s sake, don’t come up the front again.’

‘Righto,’ I said meekly, hauling on the reins, trying to make Thumper see reason; at least for long enough to let me join the hoi polloi.

As I rode towards them scarlet-faced, I realized they were laughing at me. But not altogether unkindly, and when they’d all introduced themselves, it became abundantly clear that they were not only hugely friendly, but much more accepting than the smart crowd. They didn’t mind a bit that it was my first time out and I’d broken every rule under the sun; in fact, once they’d dried their eyes and stopped holding their sides, they told me they’d all done it once, and that Angie was a complete pain in the tubes out hunting. She thought she ran the show and was only trying to get into the new master’s breeches. I laughed along rather disloyally, vowing never to be that obvious.

Off we set again, this time, happily, at a more sedate pace. Thumper, his initial gallop under his belt, seemed to settle; perhaps, like me, recognizing he’d lost the Darwinian struggle and acknowledging his true place with the novices at the back. And I had a rather jolly time of it with my new friends, one of whom was the ravishing redhead who’d stripped off at the meet, a nurse called Polly. Then there was an electrician called Sparks, on an equally sparky ex-racehorse; an old rogue called Gerald with come-to-bed cataracts; Ted the local butcher, his face like one of his cheaper cuts of beef; and my very own painter and decorator, Grant, on a huge coloured cob.

‘Grant! I didn’t recognize you in your hat! Didn’t know you did this sort of thing?’

‘Yeah, every week. I’d rather spend my money on this than send it down the red lane in the boozer. A farmer lends me his horse. Likes it exercised.’

I felt rather shamed as we cantered on. I’d always assumed hunting was the province of the hideously wealthy, but these people were not remotely privileged. It was clearly a sport like any other, and although you obviously needed the four legs beneath you to do it, they weren’t all pampered, expensive steeds like Angie’s, but shaggy, workmanlike beasts pulled in from the field, begged and borrowed.

‘My brother hunts in Ireland,’ Polly told me breathlessly when we finally drew up on the outskirts of a wood. ‘And over there the kids follow on bikes, donkeys, whatever. You don’t have to have a horse. It isn’t quite like that here, but we’re certainly not the Beaufort. You don’t have to join a queue to get in and you won’t get ticked off for not looking the part. Although I might just lend you a hairnet next time.’ She grinned.

‘Thanks!’ I grinned back thinking that this was more like it, and next time I really would look the part: no safety pins, no mud, but perhaps on Agnes, who’d be less scary. Yes, I could do this; but I’d take the slow route, not be in such a rush. The field was moving on again and I gathered my reins to go with them, but at that moment a solitary fawn-coloured hound bustled past me. Thumper, startled, lashed out with his left hind leg.