by Lynne Graham
‘Yes, I accept that.’ Harriet was, however, studying her companion with increased interest. The very urgency with which he spoke made her wonder if he knew rather more about her background than he was willing to admit. ‘Were there rumours at the time?’ she pressed more boldly. ‘I mean, people must’ve talked.’
‘People always gossip, and rarely with kindness or commonsense,’ Tolly responded steadily. ‘It would be wrong of me to repeat idle chatter. If your mother was seeing anyone it was kept very much a secret.’
Harriet let the subject drop there, guiltily conscious that she had said rather too much for so short an acquaintance, and listened as her host talked gladly about less contentious issues. It had gone nine when she drove home in a deeply pensive mood. What did she hope to achieve from establishing the identity of her father? She knew that she had a deep need to know exactly where she had come from. But wasn’t it more than that?
Harriet had never really felt that she belonged anywhere. In the same way she had never known what it was to have a parent who was absolutely hers…at least not for long. As a child she had been hurt and confused, because she’d rarely seen the mother she adored. She had then had to adjust to the cruel reality that Eva could somehow manage to be a full time parent for her younger son and daughter. But perhaps it had hurt most of all when Harriet had finally discovered that the man she had grown up believing to be her father was not her biological father after all.
Eva had been six months pregnant when she’d married Will Carmichael, a research scientist a decade older. Seemingly she had snatched at the chance of a wedding ring and a name for her unborn child. A quiet, studious man, Will had been besotted with his youthful Irish bride, but the union had been a disastrous mismatch. Walking down a London street one day, Eva had been stopped by a talent scout and discovered as a fashion model. Hiring a nanny to take care of her baby, Eva had flung herself into the excitement of fame, fortune and foreign travel. The unequal marriage had disintegrated without fanfare.
Even after the divorce Will had been left to shoulder the burden of raising Harriet while Eva concentrated on her career. And when Harriet was five years old her mother had remarried and become a society wife. The wealthy English businessman with whom Eva had had her younger children, Alice and Boyce, had not encouraged Harriet’s visits to his country home in Surrey. He had disliked such an obvious reminder that his beautiful wife’s past had featured other men, and in the interests of marital harmony Harriet had been virtually airbrushed out of her mother’s life.
Harriet had been thirteen years old when she’d overheard a devastating exchange between Eva and Will on the phone.
‘I wanted to tell Harriet the truth years ago, but you wouldn’t agree,’ Will had been saying, with unusual curtness of tone for so mild-mannered a man. ‘She thinks of me as her father, and finding out that I’m no more her father than the Easter bunny will be a nasty shock! Teenagers are vulnerable, Eva. I don’t care if your therapist believes that coming clean on that score will benefit you; I’m more concerned about how it might affect Harriet.’
Harriet had been shattered by the revelation that the father who had brought her up with so much apparent love and sacrifice was not even a blood relation. Even though Will had repeatedly assured her that he loved her just as much as any biological parent, Harriet had still felt like a cuckoo abandoned in his nest. In her heart, where she had used the salve of her father’s love to compensate for her more distant bonds with her mother, she had felt utterly crushed. A kind and gentle man, Will Carmichael had taken on a responsibility that was not his and done his best by her principally because he had had no other choice. Her mother’s refusal to finish the story by telling Harriet exactly who her birth father was had not helped.
The following morning dawned bright and breezy, and Harriet scrambled out of bed with a little frisson of anticipation: it was an absolutely perfect day for the races. A veteran of such country pursuits in her early teen years, and well aware of how rough and ready such events could be, she dug out warm comfy clothes and thermal socks to go with her Wellington boots.
Samson trotted round her feet and fussed until she set out his breakfast.
‘You’re a real little tyrant,’ she told him fondly.
Out in the yard it was all go, and Harriet resolved to rise from her bed earlier. Fergal was cleaning up a dilapidated horse trailer and Una Donnelly was busy in Tailwind’s box, engaged in plaiting his mane into intricate knots. Harriet leant on the stall door to watch. ‘I was never very good at plaiting.’
The teenager looked across at her with a surprisingly ready smile, her liquid dark eyes full of pleasure, as if such compliments rarely came her way. ‘It takes a lot of practice,’ she confirmed. ‘But I could teach you if you like.’
‘OK…did Fergal bring you over?’
‘No, I’ve got a bike.’ She grimaced and lowered her voice to an exasperated whisper. ‘He passes our door but he won’t give me a lift because he’s scared of folk talking about us. He’s dead silly about stuff like that.’
Harriet gave her a non-committal smile.
‘You should let Fergal use the horsebox,’ Una added. ‘It’ll make the yard look better. You’ve got to think of your image in horsy circles.’
Harriet went pink and hurried over to Fergal to urge. ‘I never even thought to say…for goodness’ sake, use Kathleen’s horsebox!’
‘If I do, will you do me the honour of walking Tailwind round the paddock for me before the race?’ Fergal asked with a grin.
‘I’d be delighted.’
‘You can’t let Harriet do it!’ Una wailed incredulously. ‘That’s my job!’
As Harriet parted her lips, to hastily disclaim any desire to usurp the teenager’s place, Fergal caught her eyes with a meaningful expression in his and a brief jerk of his head that begged her not to interfere. ‘I’m sorry, Una. But Harriet needs to show her face and there’s no better way.’
Una hung over the door of the stall and said, in a voice that throbbed with tragedy. ‘How can you think of putting Harriet before me?’
Fergal bolted for the horsebox at the far end of the yard.
Harriet was transfixed by the virtual assault of the girl’s outraged dark brown eyes. ‘Are you dating him?’ Una asked baldly.
Harriet was grateful to be in a position to utter a brisk negative.
‘But he still chose you over me,’ Una breathed in a wobbly voice, her eyes glassy with the threat of tears. But then you’re an older woman.’
‘He’s thinking of business,’ Harriet answered with determined lightness, while endeavouring not to picture herself as some sultry aging vamp given to charming toy boys off the straight and narrow. She remembered all too well how super-sensitive she had been to every perceived slight and rejection at Una’s age, and could not decide whether the girl’s startling prettiness was more of a blessing or a curse. ‘Would you like some tea before we leave?’
‘I’m not sure I’m coming any more,’ the teenager mumbled chokily, half turning away. ‘It’s hardly worth my while, is it?’
‘I’d really appreciate the company,’ Harriet responded gently. ‘Do you realise I know nothing about you yet?’
‘Ask anyone in Ballyflynn. I’m Eilish Donnelly’s little mistake. Always in trouble and no better than I ought to be, according to everyone!’ Una shot at her in a tearful tirade. ‘And when my big bully of a brother finds out I’ve been thrown out of another school he’s going to kill me!’
Silence fell.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Harriet remarked prosaically, as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said.
‘I suppose if I asked you if you fancied Fergal you’d tell me to mind my own business…’ Una mumbled.
‘I would.’
That instant comeback provoked an unexpected giggle from the temperamental teenager. ‘At least you say what you think and don’t talk down to me like I’m six years old—like some people I could mention!’
>
‘Thanks…you saved my bacon,’ Fergal muttered with real gratitude when he found Harriet alone in the kitchen. ‘I am really glad you’re around the yard now. Una can be a handful and no mistake. I don’t know what’s come over her.’
Harriet believed him. He was pale at the memory of Una’s tearful emotional outburst, and practically shaking in his riding boots. Una was a strong-willed girl and she had Fergal in her sights. He probably did need to be very careful not to encourage her. Harriet could not help recalling how much more reserved and shy she had been with Luke, watching and loving from afar for so long, only revealing her feelings when it was safe to do so. Alice would have been much more open and extrovert and exciting. Perhaps that was yet another good reason why Luke had chosen to be with her sister rather than her.
‘Don’t get me wrong. Una’s a good kid,’ Fergal added hurriedly. ‘She’ll soon find someone more her age.’
Suspecting that Una was too passionate to quickly forget her first love, Harriet said nothing. She struggled to shut Alice and Luke out of her thoughts again. The past was the past and she had to live with it.
In the horsebox, Una chattered pointedly to Harriet while shooting stony glances at a blissfully unaware Fergal as he drove. The fields where the Point-to-Point races were being held were accessed down a long rough lane. Marquee tents served as a weighing room for the jockeys and also provided a bar with one side walled off in a members only enclosure. The event was already thronged with people, most of whom were as sensibly and plainly garbed as Harriet, in anticipation of the muddy conditions.
As she waited for Tailwind to be unboxed, several men nearby in a huddle were talking nineteen to the dozen. As with Fergal, it took her a moment or two to be able to distinguish clear words in the colourful lilt and flow of the musical Kerry accent.
‘So Martin the vet’s trying to see to Flynn’s mare that’s in foal while the model woman is spreading herself across the stable wall like she’s on one of those pop videos…you know, those ones they ban. And she’s wearing a very short dress,’ someone reported in an urgent whisper, ‘And what does Flynn say? He only tells the hussy to go and get some clothes on before she frightens the horse! Isn’t he the man?’ was the conclusion, in a tone of deep envy and near reverence.
Her face hot, Harriet moved hurriedly out of earshot. Across the field she saw Rafael Flynn’s girlfriend emerge from a big powerful four-wheel-drive. Garbed in a purely fashionable fitted tweed hacking jacket and pure white riding breeches that were skin tight, the leggy blonde moved as though she was on a catwalk, and looked so spectacular that everyone stopped dead to stare at her.
But Harriet’s attention flew straight past her to the tall dark male striding towards the paddock: Rafael Flynn himself. His height and carriage picked him out from the crowd. The breeze had ruffled his luxuriant hair into jet-black spikes. His lean, sculpted face was very bronzed against the light sweater he wore below an outdoor jacket so cool in cut it could only have been of Italian design.
Someone cannoned into Harriet and, caught unprepared, she lurched backwards into the deep muddy tracks forged by some heavy vehicle and fell.
‘I’m so sorry…I didn’t see you. Are you hurt?’ A burly older man was reaching down to help her up again.
Harriet glanced at the mud liberally staining her jacket and jeans and then she laughed and shrugged. ‘No, I’m fine…luckily I’m fully washable.’
From about thirty feet away Rafael watched the surprisingly good-natured exchange. Most of the women he knew would have been screaming the place down. Harriet’s instant smile seemed designed to reassure the clumsy idiot who had sent her flying that being tipped into the mud had been a fun experience for her. Right on cue, Bianca approached him to lament the dirt now spattering her highly polished leather boots. The diamond choker he had given her as a farewell gift glittered at her swan-like throat. Within a few hours she would be boarding her flight home to Belgium. She dug out a little hand mirror to check her hair and the temptation was too much for her: she succumbed to studying herself from every angle. Crushing boredom assailed him and he walked away without her noticing.
‘I wonder what Rafael Flynn is doing here,’ Fergal mused as he accompanied Harriet over to the paddock with his gelding. ‘He doesn’t often appear at local meetings.’
Keen punters were lining the fence, eager for a look at the runners in the next race. Harriet took charge of Tailwind. Halfway through her first round of the paddock she connected with brilliant, dark and incisive eyes and her heart jumped as though she had hit an electric fence. Rafael Flynn. She looked away, colour warming her cheeks. Her copper hair blew in bright streamers across her face until she clawed it back with a self-conscious hand.
Once the jockey had mounted Tailwind, to warm him up before the race, Fergal ensured that she met a lot of people. He was popular and he knew everyone. Several locals spoke with warm regret about her cousin, Kathleen, and she was asked about the type of livery that she would be offering once she got the yard up and running again. Throughout it all she was conscious of an infuriating constant need to look around and see where Rafael Flynn was, but she fought that mortifying urge with every weapon in her armoury. For goodness’ sake, she wasn’t a schoolgirl any more and she wasn’t about to behave like one!
Tailwind shot over the starting line like a bullet out of a gun. But he also ran out of the race at the second fence. Crestfallen by the poor showing, Fergal walked the gelding back to the horsebox. ‘Where’s Una disappeared to?’
Harriet noted the teenager ducking behind the sweet stall and moved with determination through the crowds to speak to her. ‘What are you doing over here? Fergal’s looking for you—’
Una peered nervously out at her. ‘I’ll be over in a minute. My brother’s over at the winners’ enclosure…I don’t want him to see me.’
‘Is he that scary?’
‘Scarier than scary.’ For a moment Una looked very young and vulnerable. ‘I’m never going to live up to his expectations. He wants me to be clever, like he is, and I’m not.’
‘I bet you’re a lot smarter than you think you are. Don’t put yourself down,’ Harriet told her squarely. ‘Can’t you talk to your mother about this?’
A thin shoulder jerked in an awkward shrug and Una veiled her eyes. ‘My mum’s not well a lot of the time. I don’t like bothering her. I have my sister, but she has a husband and a baby too…that’s why I hang out so much at the yard.’
Harriet resisted a sudden urge to hug the younger woman. ‘You’re always welcome there.’
An older woman intercepted her on the way back to the horsebox and questioned her closely about the livery yard facilities. Having expressed keen interest in a retirement package for her elderly horse, her first potential customer arranged to call and inspect the stables.
A smile of satisfaction on her lips, Harriet turned away and found Rafael Flynn striding towards her. Her tummy flipped like she was spinning on a merry-go-round.
‘Is it true that you’re planning to reopen the yard?’ he enquired flatly.
‘Yes…I don’t think I’m enough of a gardener to make a living growing organic vegetables,’ Harriet quipped, colliding with dark eyes that gleamed pure liquid gold in the sunlight.
Rafael Flynn braced a lean brown hand against a horsebox and gazed down at her. Instantly she was wildly aware of his size, and the raw charge of his potent presence. Forced to look up, she rested her attention momentarily on his impossibly long black lashes, which supplied the only softening influence to his lean, dark, overwhelmingly male features. She found it incredibly difficult to catch her breath.
‘Business has no personal dimension for me. You may find the livery venture more of a challenge than you expect.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re in the same line and that we’re going to be competing!’ Harriet breathed in unconcealed dismay.
A flash of momentary incomprehension tautened Rafael Flynn’s stunning bone structure. Then
he flung back his handsome dark head and laughed with rich appreciation, showing strong white teeth. ‘No…I’m not in the livery line, Harriet.’
He had a dazzling smile. Rosy colour lit her fair skin, because his sexy accent did something almost intimate to the old-fashioned name that she had always hated. ‘That’s not a Kerry brogue, is it?’
He kept on smiling, and she tried to look away and couldn’t. ‘It is in part…but my ancestry is mixed.’
‘Like mine,’ she said breathlessly, fighting to think of something more interesting to say but finding her mind a horrific blank. Her eyes met his and a tight, hard knot of excitement spread a starburst of heat low in her tummy.
‘Dine with me tonight?’ Rafael murmured lazily, deciding to put his acquisition plans for her property on temporary hold.
With astonishing difficulty she recalled the Amazonian goddess, reputedly in current residence beneath his roof. ‘Your girlfriend—’
He shrugged a shoulder in a fluid gesture of unconcern. ‘Bianca’s history.’
His complete indifference to the reality that the blonde was watching them from about twenty yards away chilled Harriet to the marrow. ‘But she’s here—’
‘She knows it’s over. She’s leaving this afternoon. Dinner?’ he prompted drily.
Harriet backed off a step from him. He embodied every warning she had ever heard or read about a man: arrogant and emotionally detached, he was a pure-bred predator—absolutely not her type. She could not overlook or excuse his attitude to the unfortunate Bianca. ‘Sorry, but no thanks. I’m not thinking of dating anyone at the minute.’
‘I haven’t dated since I was fourteen.’ Rafael was wondering whether she imagined that a brief pretence of uninterest would increase his ardour—because he could not credit that she could be saying no to him.