I pushed myself on with the job in hand, trying to stop the cogs turning in my head. Beauty, being the perceptive horse she was, stood uncharacteristically stock still for me. She always seemed to be able to read my mood and today, thank God, was no different. I had combed out the loose hair and was now brushing in short strokes, allowing her to feel the bristles I knew she loved.

‘There, Beauty. Stand.’ I patted her flank gently as she started to fidget and put my forehead down to her warmth. ‘You understand, girl, don’t you?’

God knows how my mum was getting on with him? I could see him in my mind’s eye, pacing a straight line from east to west and back again in his wooden panelled study, as he questioned my mum with words that he expected no answers for. She would sit quietly and patiently, acting like the demure lady he required her to be, just waiting until the appropriate moment to add in a small comment in my defence. Although I hadn’t told her of my plans before the letter arrived, I knew she would take my side for as long as she thought she could.

I had waited for the postman that morning at the end of our long, gravelled drive, kicking the toe of my shiny black riding boots into the stones, creating dust clouds that rose up into the early morning mist, just to occupy my time. I knew the confirmation would arrive today and I needed to be the one to intercept it. I wanted to open the offer letter on my own. I knew that once I placed it into my father’s hands, I might never see it again. If I had one of those new phones I had seen Katy and other people in the village with, I would have taken a photo of the crisp white paper with its embossed gold seal. So, on occasion in later life, I could look back upon it and wonder what could have been.

I knew it was going to come as a bombshell to him the moment I passed the envelope over his desk, but I needed something more than the perfect life he thought he had mapped out for me.

Given his way, I would be married by now, with probably four children and another on the way. Family was everything to him and growing that family was his life obsession. I understood, family was everything to me as well. I was an only child and with that title I had the weight of all his ambitions on my shoulders. It would have been easier if my parents’ only surviving child was a boy, but it wasn’t to be. Instead, they got me. Six pregnancies my mum had lived through. The loss of each and every one of my five siblings had taken a little more of her vibrant personality with them, and each time she lost another child my father wept and swore. She, on the other hand, bled away another piece of her heart and soul with the dreams that had once again been ripped so unceremoniously from her body.

I knew they both loved me, they loved me beyond measure. But they each showed that love in a different way. My mum was English by birth and having grown up in a children’s home, wanted me to have everything she’d never had. My father was Eastern European by birth and his ideas about family life were absolute, and by contrast completely different to my mum’s.

My father loved me in his own way, he had provided us with everything. We lived in a virtually brand new, mock-Tudor farmhouse, surrounded by the rolling hills of the North Downs. I had Beauty and my dog, Fox, who was named for his red colouring. We went on many holidays each year with our extended “family,” and I had seen parts of the world in my twenty-four years that other people could only dream of seeing in their lifetime. I knew just how lucky I was.

I had everything I could possibly wish for, except a life of my own.

I had one friend outside of our family. I had managed to meet her by chance at the shop in the local village, when my mum had been unwell and I’d gone to pick up some bits she needed. Katy had been an infusion of life into my otherwise dreary existence. Her hair was dyed a different colour, sometimes several colours, each time I managed to meet up with her. Additional piercings and tattoos seemed to be added on a weekly basis, and she wore clothes that I knew my father would, without a doubt, hate on sight. She added colour to my brown reality and we had immediately clicked. She was my first real friend and I craved her comradery. A few months ago, we had discussed the possibility of me continuing my education, as she was at university and absolutely loving it. Hearing her stories and laughing with her about the people she was mixing with, I knew I needed to try. Although I had been home schooled, I had achieved excellent A-levels in maths and sciences. My father’s growing business, the business that one day I would inherit, needed that expertise. Well, that was the way I had tried to sell him my plan over two and half hours ago.

I finished brushing down Beauty and placed all her tack away. I knew that I had waited long enough. I had to go back inside and face the music.

‘Wish me luck,’ I whispered to her as I held my face to her muzzle. She whinnied her response and I moved away, leaving her to her hay.

‘Come on, Fox.’ I patted my jodhpur-covered thigh and he immediately jumped up and came to heel.

I walked as slowly as I could, hanging on to my dream for as long as possible. It was a wonderful fantasy, but one that I knew was probably going to be permanently crushed within the short space of the next ten minutes. I walked through the back door into the house, taking off my boots in the utility room and washing my hands in the huge Belfast sink. Features like this sink were important to my father when he’d had the house built. Anything he could think of that had “British history” to it, he had incorporated into the design. Maybe he wanted to show how much he had embraced his new country’s traditions?

The door to the kitchen opened.

‘There you are. Come on, Lily, your father is waiting.’ I hurriedly dried my hands on the cotton towel and clicked my fingers over Fox’s basket, showing that I wanted him to lie down. My father didn’t allow any of the dogs in his office and now was not the time to push that decision. Without looking my mum in the eye, I followed her through the house listening and watching my stripy-socked feet as they padded across the Parquet flooring. The longer I ignored her expression, the longer I could live within my dream, and as it was due to expire very soon each fleeting second it survived in my heart was a bonus.

I walked into my father’s dark, imposing office and only once my fingers found the edge of his desk, did I start to lift my head.

‘Well, Princess, this is an interesting turn of events you have placed in my lap this morning.’ I loved his deep voice, spoken with a perfect upper-class English accent that he had paid thousands of pounds for.

I let my gaze wander over his perfectly ordered desktop, with its green leather trim, and up his suited torso to reach the unreadable expression he had on his face.

‘I just thought that maybe I could gain a credible…’ There it was, the one word that I knew would cause my father to sit up and take notice. I carried on. ‘It would be a credible qualification that I thought would be helpful to our business, Father.’

‘Mmmm.’

Okay, so here it comes, the resounding “no” that I had been mentally preparing myself for all morning. No, that’s a lie… I had been preparing myself for that answer since the idea was first hashed out with Katy.

‘I know you’re our only living child, but I won’t be burdening you with the family business…’

‘But…’ I proffered.

My father held up one index finger, signifying for me to wait until he had finished talking, and being the obedient daughter I was, I shut my mouth and complied.

‘When you have married Anton and I have passed, he will take over the day-to-day running of our family business. You, my daughter, will be busy being his wife, and mother to your children.’

‘But, Father, he has his own family’s business to run and I know that ours and theirs run hand in hand, but surely for me to be able to give my all to our marriage, if I had some of your business acumen I could help him even more. Just at least until our sons are ready to assist him.’ And there it was, my trump card, so to speak.

‘Mmmm, let me think on it and I’ll give you a definitive answer in, say… an hour.’

The antique phone rang. I felt the vibrations travelling through the grip I had on my father’s desk. Knowing it was business, my mum and I retreated from his office and closed the door behind us.

There was nothing more I could do. No amount of pleading or, God forbid, shouting and screaming would sway him one way or the other. I just had to cling on to hope while I waited the hour out. I knew, without even thinking, that he would take the full hour before he summoned me back to his office to give his verdict.

‘I think you and I deserve a hot, milky chocolate. Perhaps, with grated chocolate on top? What do you think?’ My mum slid her arm companionably through mine and together we walked to the kitchen. I knew she wouldn’t discuss my plans with me as she would never go against my father, or be seen to go against him. So, instead we discussed my early morning ride, the weather, and what a good dog Fox was. All the while, I watched the hands as they moved on the overly large, round clock that dominated one of the bare-brick kitchen walls and sipped at the large mug of creamy goodness that I held in my hands. When I had finished my drink, I continued to sit at the breakfast bar and waited, until eventually the turn-of-the-century bell system rang from my father’s office, signalling that he wanted our attention. I looked up again to the clock and sure enough, as I knew it would be, the hands on the clock showed exactly one hour had passed.

I jumped down off the bar stool and made my way silently back to his domain. And so, to find out my fate.