by Lucy Gillen
‘Oh, I’m used to all kinds,’ she told him with a laugh. ‘A secretary has to be.’
‘I guess so.’
They walked in silence for a while, side by side, with the warm summer silence enveloping them and the soft wind stirring Tarin’s dark hair and cooling her forehead. She always thought of Stonebeck as a kind of miniature Paradise, and wondered if Conrad Stein shared her enthusiasm for it.
It was some time before either of them spoke again, and Tarin did so then only because she could see another rider coming their way and recognised him, even at a distance. It could only be Darrel who rode like that, coming at such breakneck speed through the springy heather on the same big brown stallion he always rode. The animal’s strength stretched to its limit, tail and mane streaming in the light wind.
‘I think we’re about to have company,’ she said quietly, and tried desperately to do something about the rapid hammering of her heartbeat as she watched him come.
There was something almost savagely beautiful about the whole scene. The man and the flying horse and the softly beautiful hills and glens as a background for their furious haste, and she felt her senses respond to it urgently. It was at once both frightening and blood-stirringly exciting to witness the skill of the rider and the superb sure-footedness of his mount, especially when she knew that one moment of doubt could send them both hurtling down to serious injury or worse.
‘Just look at him go!’
The half-whispered admiration was involuntary, Tarin thought, for the expression on Conrad Stein’s face was not as friendly as she would have expected. In fact he looked as if Darrel Bruce was the last person he wanted to see at that moment.
Such an exhibition would have been showing off if anyone else had had the nerve to do it, Tarin mused ruefully, but Darrel would scorn the need to do anything so childish. He rode like that because he enjoyed the challenge and the sense of power it gave him, she felt sure. He would actually enjoy risking his neck by riding at that furious pace just for the sheer thrill of it.
He came straight for them and she saw a faint frown on her companion’s face when she spared him a glance. ‘What’s he done with Gloria?’ Con said half under his breath, and Tarin pointed to the distance, some hundred yards or more behind Darrel’s speeding figure, to another rider, coming less recklessly fast.
She needed no one to tell her that the figure crouched over the horse’s neck was Gloria Stein, and her laughter was instinctive as she watched the American girl trying to catch up with Darrel. It reminded her of the old days when as a schoolgirl she had worshipped him from afar and seen him so many times outpace a younger Gloria Stein with his horsemanship.
‘She never could catch up with him!’ she declared with such obvious relish that Conrad Stein turned and looked at her curiously for a moment.
‘Couldn’t she?’ he asked quietly, too quietly, and Tarin realised at last what she had said and how tactless she had been in the circumstances.
‘I remember when I was here as a child,’ she told him, trying to make some sort of explanation. ‘I used to see DarrelâMr. Bruce, riding then, and your sister was often trying to keep up with him, but I don’t think I ever saw her do so. He rides too fast!’
‘He’s good,’ he said quietly and rather grudgingly, and Tarin wondered yet again why he sounded so much as if he disliked his host. She hadn’t seen him as so unfriendly towards him the last time they met.
It was only moments later that horse and rider joined them at the lochside. The brown stallion was reined in hard, tossing his head and breathing deeply like some mythical creature, with vapour issuing in jets from his flared nostrils, and the ripple of muscle in Darrel’s long legs left no doubt as to who was in command.
‘Hello, Tarin.’
Both the quiet voice and the steady brown eyes excluded her companion from the initial greeting, and Tarin knew without doubt that Conrad Stein resented it, as he resented the intrusion of someone else into their quiet walk.
‘Hello, Mr. Bruce.’ Tarin’s reply was brief and she sought for reasons why she should feel so nervous and uneasy just because he had found her in the company of the American.
‘How are your hands?’ he asked, then gave her no chance to reply before he interrupted with another question. ‘You haven’t been using them, have you?’
Tarin shook her head. ‘No, of course I haven’t!’
‘There’s no of course about it,’ Darrel retorted. ‘If you felt like using them then you would, no matter how foolhardy it was! I know you!’
She gave him a swift, scornful look from under her lashes and stuck out her chin as she answered. ‘Not as well as you think you do, obviously!’ she replied shortly, and was not really surprised to see him smile.
‘Obviously!’ he echoed softly, and at last spared her companion a glance. ‘I wondered where you’d got to, Con,’ he told him. ‘Couldn’t you keep up?’
Conrad Stein’s resentment, both of Darrel’s arrival and his manner, showed plainly in the slightly sulky expression he wore. ‘I wasn’t trying to keep up,’ he told him in a rather hard, flat voice, and the hand holding the reins showed bone white at the knuckles. ‘I had ideas of my own.’
‘So I see.’ Darrel again looked at Tarin, and it was evident from the way his brown eyes watched her, narrowed and faintly curious, that he was uncertain just what he had interrupted. ‘I hope I didn’t interrupt aârendezvous,’ he said quietly, and Tarin’s first instinct was to deny it hastily, but she had no opportunity.
‘Now you know you did,’ Conrad Stein said in that same flat voice, ‘why not get yourself lost again?’ The grey eyes had a bright challenging look that made Tarin uneasy. ‘You can’t still keep guard on your secretary, you know,’ he went on with obvious relish and gaining confidence from the fact that so far Darrel had made no attempt to interrupt him. ‘This isn’t your office, Darrel, out here Tarin’s a free agent.’
She rather dazedly noted the familiar use of her Christian name and wondered if she should do something to correct the impression he was bound to give if he went on in the same vein. Darrel was still watching her and it gave her a curiously vulnerable feeling to have him scrutinising her so closely, almost as if he suspected she did not share her companion’s dislike of his appearance on the scene.
‘Tarin’s always a free agent, as far as I’m concerned,’ he said quietly. ‘Have I ever suggested otherwise, Tarin?’
‘Not to me.’ She looked up at last and saw the glint of surprise her answer caused, and the raised brow.
‘Who else?’ he asked softly, and she hastily and quite inadvertently glanced at Conrad Stein before shaking her head.
She remembered that Conrad Stein could prove a useful boost to her self-confidence the next time Darrel got the better of her, and she hesitated to betray the fact that he had said as much as he had to her, so she shook her head and said nothing, leaving him to guess what confidences they had exchanged before his arrival.
‘I see!’ he said shortly, obviously needing no verbal confirmation of the betraying glance. ‘I’m sorry I interrupted!’
Tarin made great play of being offhand and shrugged carelessly.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told him casually.
He regarded her for a moment longer with curiosity and she saw the way his lip curled slightly, as if he either saw through her pretence, or despised her for meeting his wealthy American guest on the sly. He looked as disturbing as ever he did, up there on that great, fire-breathing animal, and she despaired of her self-control when her heart pounded so heavily in her breast as she looked up at him briefly.
Cream trousers hugged those long legs today and a pale blue shirt showed off the deep mahogany tan to advantage, the open neck revealing the strong column of throat and neck and, below, the first broad smoothness of his chest. Short sleeves bared his arms to the sun and his broad brown hands lay eased slightly on the reins now that his mount was resting after that furious gallop.
‘Aren’t you with Gloria?’ Conrad asked pointedly, as if he was unaware of his sister riding furiously in their direction, and Darrel’s smile showed that he recognised his motives.
‘She’s coming,’ he said quietly. ‘I wanted to go flat out and her Bunty isn’t up to Tarquin’s standard.’
Instinctively Tarin turned and looked across to where Gloria Stein came swiftly across the heathery turf towards them. It would be nice to be able to ride so that she could come flying across the moorland too, but an expressed wish to learn now would almost certainly be misinterpreted, at least by one of them.
‘Do you ride, Miss McCourt?’ Conrad asked, reverting to the formality of her title, but possibly foreseeing the chance of further meetings if she rode.
The possibilities open to her were endless, Tarin could see that, and it appealed to her immensely at the moment. She could not only ride with Conrad Stein, but perhaps, when she was good enough and he had the patience, she could accompany Darrel. Scarcely giving the thought time to dwell in her mind, she dismissed the latter part as highly unlikely.
But still it was possible that she could learn and it would open up the countryside to her. She was aware suddenly that she had not yet answered his question and she shook her head hastily. ‘I never learned,’ she confessed.
‘Oh, but you should,’ Conrad insisted earnestly. ‘You’d love it.’
She was aware that both Darrel and Conrad were watching her with definite interest and her heart was banging away at her ribs as she thought over the possibilities. ‘Living all my life in a town,’ she explained, ‘I’ve never had much opportunity to learn.’
‘Do you want to learn?’
She was not really aware of watching Darrel as she replied, but briefly she met the curiously glittering look in the brown eyes and it stirred her pulses into the inevitable response. ‘IâI’d like toâ’
‘I’ll teach you!’
The words left Darrel’s lips only a fraction of a second before Conrad said, ‘If you’d like to learn, I’ll willingly teach you,’ and there followed a long, uneasy silence while Tarin sought for words to fill itâand failed.
It was typical of Darrel, of course, to make his offer a statement and not merely a suggestion, as Conrad had done. It would not even occur to him that she would refuse, and there was a hint of laughter in the brown eyes when he looked down at her, his wide mouth just tilted at one corner.
‘Offers from all sides,’ he mocked softly. ‘It seems you have a choice, Tarin.’
It was an embarrassing position to be in and Tarin suspected he realised it well enough and found it amusing. Conrad Stein, on the other hand, looked faintly sulky, as if he lacked Darrel’s confidence and was quite sure which of them she would choose to let teach her.
The temptation to turn to Darrel was almost irresistible, but she resisted it firmly, prompted by the certainty that he would be a hard taskmaster in that as in everything else, and she would hate to have him scorn her beginner’s efforts. It was the thought of looking a complete fool while she was learning that finally decided her as he sat up there looking down at her with that hint of a smile still on his face and a glitter of challenge in his eyes.
‘Well, Tarin?’ he said softly, and she spared him a long, uncertain look before she turned and smiled at Conrad Stein.
‘I’d love to learn if you have the time, Mr. Stein,’ she said in a small husky voice.
She dared not look at Darrel again, but she sensed the way he drew himself up sharply, refusing to try and persuade her to change her mind and angry because for once he had been very pointedly turned down. Almost before the words were out of her mouth she regretted her choice, but it was too late now. Darrel was angry with her for snubbing him and Conrad was so pleased that his smile was wide and triumphant as he looked up at his host.
‘Sure, I have the time,’ he told her. ‘You say when, and I’ll be there!’
‘I’llâI’ll have to think about it first.’ The idea was less attractive now that it was more or less fact, and she was all too aware of Gloria Stein bearing down on them, her blonde hair dishevelled and her blue eyes hard and angry.
‘One of these days,’ she said as she came up to them, and addressing herself to Darrel, ‘I’ll catch you up, you black-hearted Highlander, I swear it!’
He turned a broad but wry smile on her, and shook his head. ‘You won’t,’ he informed her with certainty. ‘Tarquin’s uncatchable!’
‘Like you!’
The retort was swift and bitter, and Tarin felt sure that Gloria Stein immediately regretted having made it. Darrel briefly cocked one dark brow at her, then sought and held Tarin’s reluctant gaze as he spoke. ‘Don’t be too sure,’ he said softly, and for some inexplicable reason Tarin hastily bit her lip and looked away.
CHAPTER SIX
It was another couple of days before Tarin’s hands were well enough for her to consider going back to work, and she viewed the prospect with mixed feelings. Darrel was unlikely to care one way or the other whether he taught her to ride, or whether Conrad Stein did, but what he would inevitably resent was her making her choice so baldly obvious in front of the other man.
She arrived at Deepwater on the following Wednesday morning feeling quite incredibly nervous. It had been not only rash but also unforgivably rude of her to snub him so pointedly in favour of his American guest and she wondered what kind of a reception she could expect.
Sighing deeply, she climbed the worn steps to the front doors and let herself inâthere was nothing for it but to face the music. As on her first morning, there was no one around in the big hall as she made her way across to the office, and her heels clicked loudly on the stone-flagged floor.
The gaze of Darrel’s fierce, red-haired ancestors followed her relentlessly and gave her no cause to suppose that the current upholder of the family honour would deal with her any less ruthlessly than they would have done themselves. Perhaps she could suggest that fear of offending a guest had prompted her to act the way she hadâonly she wasn’t sure she had the nerve to suggest it.
She was just about to open the office door when a voice called out to her from the other side of the hall, and she turned swiftly, startled out of her reverie. ‘Miss McCourt!’ Conrad Stein came hurrying towards her, his boyish face beaming a smile. ‘It’s good to see you again,’ he told her. ‘How’re your hands?’
Tarin extended them, palms upwards, showing the pink and shiny fingertips. ‘Quite well now, Mr. Stein, thank you.’
‘Good!’ He took her hands in his and bent to look at them more closely, then pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Say, that must have hurt!’
‘It did,’ she agreed, and as unobtrusively as possible drew her hands from his. ‘But it was my own fault, so I can’t complain too loudly.’
‘And are they healed enough to hold the reins?’ he asked, and for a second Tarin frowned at him curiously, ‘You said I could be your riding instructor,’ he reminded her, and she smiled warily.
‘Oh yes! Yes, I’d forgotten.’
The rather earnest grey eyes noted her lack of enthusiasm and looked at her questioningly. ‘You haven’t changed your mind, have you?’ he asked.
Tarin chose not to look at him while she answered. It had seemed easy enough to make the sudden decision to learn to ride while she was out there in the peace of Stonebeck and she could see no pitfalls, but she had since had cause to regret even mentioning it.
Conrad Stein, she guessed, would not easily relinquish the idea, but she must somehow try and convince him that there were good reasons for her having second thoughts. If only she had not told him that her hands were well again she could have used that as an excuse, now he would surely see through it.
‘IâI haven’t exactly changed my mind,’ she told him at last, and he eyed her with vague suspicion.
‘You haven’t decided to accept Darrel’s offer after all?’ he suggested, and she hastily shook her head, glancing behind her at the closed
door of the office.
‘Oh no, of course not,’ she told him. ‘But there are a few snags, you know.’
‘Like?’
‘Well, for one thing I haven’t the proper clothes,’ she ventured, and he looked down at her neat, navy linen dress, then shook his head.
‘All you need is a pair of denim pants and a shirt,’ he told her. ‘Do you have those?’
She nodded. ‘But I still don’t have the most important thing of all.’
‘The horse?’ he guessed with a faint smile. ‘There’s no problem there. There are plenty of horses in the stables here.’
‘Oh, but I couldn’t take one of those!’ she objected hastily. ‘They’re for the use of the hotel guests, Mr. Stein, and I’m quite sure Mr. Bruce wouldn’t like one of his staff members simply helping herself when she felt like it.’
‘But why should he mind?’ Conrad asked, reasonably enough he seemed to think, and it occurred to Tarin to wonder just how well he really knew his host. ‘Holy smoke!’ he went on, warming to his subject, ‘this isn’t the Middle Ages! That master-servant stuff went out with slavery, honey! You’re as good as anyone else around here and I don’t see why you can’t ride one of the horses!’
‘But I can’t,’ she insisted. ‘At least not without asking Mr. Bruce first, and I can’t seeâ’
‘O.K., then we’ll ask him!’
It promised to be so easy the way he said it, but Tarin knew well enough it wouldn’t be anything of the sort and she certainly had no intention of asking Darrel herself for permission. Not after her deliberate snub of him, he would only dismiss her request out of hand and probably tell her exactly what he thought of her nerve into the bargain.
She looked at him warily. ‘Youâyou don’t expect me to ask him, do you?’ she asked, and he shrugged.