by Lynne Graham
‘I doubt that I’ll have the time. As I can’t afford to employ a groom now, I’ll be much too busy mucking out and feeding the horses and drumming up new trade. Let me know when you can fit in a business meeting to discuss the yard.’
Harriet concluded the call with an unanticipated stab of satisfaction. Dine with him? He had to be joking! By the time he had finished rubber-stamping every minor decision she had to make she expected him to be heartily tired of being her partner and much more amenable to the value of sane and sensible compromise.
The next morning she visited her mother at her exclusive hotel. Clad in an exquisite suit that shrieked Parisian chic, Eva kissed her daughter on each cheek and then curled her impossibly slender fine-boned figure delicately back onto a sofa opposite. Although Eva was several inches taller, Harriet always felt like a total clodhopper beside her. She also wondered how Joseph Tolly could possibly have believed he saw a resemblance between them. The two women might share the same hair colour, but her parent’s perfect features were so beautiful that even in her forties she still attracted a good deal of admiring attention.
‘I have a wonderful surprise for you,’ Eva announced brightly. ‘As you must know, Gustav has some very useful contacts in the business world. A friend of his is opening an advertising agency in Paris, and all you have to do is call this number and arrange an interview.’
The older woman settled a business card down on the coffee table with a positive flourish.
‘But I’m not looking for another job.’ Harriet studied her mother in polite bewilderment. ‘Of course I’m very grateful that your husband would go to the trouble of making enquiries on my behalf—’
‘Gustav was delighted to be able to help. I don’t think you have any idea how much concern you’ve been causing us all,’ Eva countered, with a hint of censure in her light voice.
Harriet coloured and decided not to enquire into exactly who was included in the umbrella term of ‘us’. ‘Well, I certainly didn’t mean to do that. A job in Paris too…my word, that would have done wonders for my schoolgirl French!’
Eva would have frowned had her forehead not been a wrinkle-free zone thanks to the Botox injections she swore by. ‘The office will be bilingual. I’ll be very disappointed if you don’t give this opportunity serious consideration. You must get your life back on track.’
Harriet’s discomfiture increased. It was most unlike her mother to interfere in her daughter’s life to such an extent, and that troubled her. She linked her hands together and then glanced across the table with concerned but level blue eyes. ‘Right now I feel my life is very much on track. I do appreciate what you’ve tried to do for me, but I could find another position in advertising if I wanted one. To be honest, I much prefer working with horses—’
‘But you’re throwing your life away,’ Eva condemned thinly. ‘Ballyflynn is at the end of the world! You’ll never make your fortune there—’
‘I’m not expecting to. Why are you still so upset about this?’ Finally, Harriet asked that thorny question—for, even though the fact had not been openly acknowledged, she was painfully aware that her move to Ireland had thoroughly annoyed her volatile parent.
‘I’m not upset.’ But Eva could not hide the angry resentment in her accusing stare. ‘But do tell me what Ballyflynn could possibly have to offer you.’
‘A chance to live in the country and work with horses…and a sense of family connection—’
‘What?’ Eva snapped in scornful interruption. ‘With a father you don’t even know and should be glad not to know?’
A deathly silence fell. Harriet had lost colour at the rare reference to a man whom Eva preferred to pretend had not existed. Her heart was thumping very hard. ‘Actually, I wasn’t referring to my father. I was referring to Kathleen Gallagher and to the fact that you grew up just outside the village. Why do you say that I should be glad not to know my father?’
Her expression irritable, Eva evaded her daughter’s keen scrutiny. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You did.’ A stricken look in her gaze, Harriet asked in a taut undertone, ‘Were you attacked? Am I the result of an assault? Date-rape? If that’s why you won’t tell me who my father is, I really would prefer to know.’
Eva raised a disdainful brow, her nose wrinkling with distaste at those suggestions. ‘Of course I wasn’t attacked.’
Harriet was very much relieved by that admission. On more than one occasion she had secretly wondered if Eva’s determination to remain silent could be her way of concealing some deeply unpleasant truth. At the same time she had been equally aware that her mother tended to ignore or deny anything that made her feel uncomfortable. For that reason Alice and Luke’s affair had never been discussed by mother and daughter. ‘Then please tell me who my father is.’
Eva dealt her a furious look of reproach. ‘Why do you keep on dragging this up when you know I’ll refuse to discuss it? That’s my right. I’m protecting my privacy. Believe me, it really doesn’t matter who your father was.’
‘I’m sorry to be so persistent. I don’t want to upset you. But knowing who my father is does matter to me. All I want is a name,’ Harriet confessed heavily. ‘It means a lot to me, or I wouldn’t raise a subject that I know you dislike. I would even be grateful if you could bring yourself to the point of giving me some idea of what happened back then, so that I could know something about my own history.’
Eva rolled her blue eyes heavenward. ‘Why do you always spoil things, Harriet?’ she condemned in a huffy tone. ‘I invited you here because I thought I could talk some sense into you and do you a favour. Thanks to Gustav you have the chance of a terrific new job and the opportunity to make a fresh start in Paris.’
‘Yes,’ Harriet sighed, deeply hurt by the assurance that she had ruined their reunion. ‘But unfortunately I don’t want to live in Paris.’
‘I thought it might help you to get over that silly business with Luke.’
‘Silly?’ The use of that particular word shocked Harriet, for it trivialised the betrayal that had almost torn her apart.
Her mother emanated a heavy sigh. ‘Look, I don’t know how to tell you this, and I don’t mind admitting that I resent being landed with the responsibility …but there’s nobody else to do it, so here goes. Alice and Luke are now engaged and have set a date for their wedding.’
The remaining blood slowly drained from below Harriet’s skin. Her tummy heaved. She forced her mouth up into a very slight smile and struggled not to react in any way. But it wouldn’t really have mattered how she reacted, for Eva was very careful not to look directly at her devastated daughter.
‘When…is the wedding?’ Harriet heard herself prompt, although in truth she did not want to know.
‘August. Your sister would like you to be her bridesmaid.’
That suggestion hit Harriet like a cruelly triumphant kick after she had already been floored by a body-blow.
‘You and Alice were close. She misses you. Naturally she doesn’t want friends and relatives to think that there’s still bad feeling between the three of you. You have to deal with this, Harriet.’
‘I have dealt with it, but that does not mean that I’m prepared to walk down the aisle as Alice’s bridesmaid. I think that might be a step too far for all of us.’ As Harriet spoke she felt as though she was encased in ice from head to toe, for she dared not let her emotions react to what she had just learned. She did not want pity. She did not want to expose her feelings. But most of all she cringed at the mortifying threat of Eva revealing the extent of those feelings to Alice and Luke, as it was painfully clear where her mother’s sympathies lay.
An hour later, having eaten not a morsel of the beautifully presented lunch that had been served, Harriet kissed Eva’s cool, perfumed cheek and escaped. The older woman’s apparent indifference to her pain had cut her to the quick. Was it inevitable that Alice should be the favoured daughter? Beautiful, confident and charming Alice, who, never having known separ
ation from Eva, enjoyed a much closer bond with her mother. Harriet could not bear to think about Alice and Luke and engagement rings and weddings. Nor was it advisable to dwell on such distressing thoughts when she had promised to spend what remained of the afternoon at her stepfather’s home.
The Carmichael household was busy and noisy, and at first glance always seemed to be bulging at the seams with lively children. It was only six years since Will Carmichael, having retrained, had embarked on a new career as a science teacher in a comprehensive school. There he had met Nicola, an art teacher, twenty-odd years his junior, and within a relatively short space of time he had become a newly married man with twins on the way. Josh and Jake were four years old now, and since then Emily, an adorable little girl of two, had been born.
Harriet had been grateful when the older man, whose self-esteem had been lacerated by her mother’s infidelities, had finally found happiness and a new family with another woman. His first proper children, as Nicola had put it on the day her boys were born. Harriet had hidden her heartache, conscious that Nicola had not intended to cause pain, for she had always made her husband’s stepdaughter very welcome in her home.
‘You know I never liked Luke,’ Nicola admitted abruptly as she passed Harriet a cup of coffee across the breakfast bar. Without skipping a beat the energetic blonde woman told Emily not to pull the cat’s tail and warned the twins that if they did not stop fighting she would put them to bed early.
‘You didn’t?’ Harriet struggled to hit a chatty note and concealed her dismay at the opening of that once controversial topic. Nicola had clearly decided that enough time had passed for extreme tact about Luke to be no longer necessary.
‘No, Luke always thought he was something really special. Of course I’ve never met your half-sister, Alice. But from what Will says she seems to be quite fond of herself too. Couples like that don’t stay together,’ the other woman declared in a tone of consolation. ‘Their egos clash.’
The desire to divulge Alice and Luke’s wedding plans nagged at Harriet like an aching tooth, but she withstood the temptation. She shoved that devastating announcement back down into her subconscious and trembled at the amount of self-control that concealment demanded of her.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Will Carmichael finally commented, when he was driving his stepdaughter to the airport for her flight. ‘Either my rowdy children have drained you of energy or something’s badly wrong.’
She thought of telling him about the financial complexities of her Irish inheritance and her very reluctant new business partner. But essentially that would have been a red herring, she acknowledged grittily. At that moment she didn’t much care about any of that. Her entire being was consumed by what she had learned earlier that day from her mother.
‘Luke and Alice are getting married in August.’
Her stepfather shot her an appalled glance and then focused his concentration studiously back on the road again. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, his hand reached for hers and he squeezed the life from her fingers. He said nothing. He didn’t need to say anything. She knew he understood. She knew he was bleeding inside for her. Her eyes burned hot but she held the tears back with iron self-control. It would upset him if she cried, and he did not deserve that. He had been extremely supportive when her life had fallen apart more than two months earlier, and it was time she got over it…Only she didn’t think she would ever get over Luke and Alice to the extent where she was willing to act as her sister’s bridesmaid.
*
Harriet collected Samson on her way home from Kerry airport. The little dog gave her a rapturous greeting and Tolly seemed quite sad to see his canine visitor depart. It was well after eight when she got back to the cottage.
Peanut was snoozing in front of the range. The pig got up and wriggled all over in excited welcome, just like a dog. Even in the mood she was in Harriet laughed. She lifted a bottle of peach wine out of the glazed kitchen cupboard and poured a glass. Fergal had warned her that Kathleen’s homemade wine was lethal, and she hoped it would help her sleep later, because that very night she was determined to burn everything that reminded her of Luke.
Una had left her a note on the table, but her writing and spelling skills were so poor that Harriet took several minutes to decipher the news that the livestock were fed, watered and bedded down for the night. Harriet was astonished that so bright a girl should barely be able to express herself on paper, and wondered vaguely if the teenager could be dyslexic—she remembered the similar struggles of a schoolfriend. Her mobile phone rang and she answered it.
‘It’s Boyce,’ her younger brother announced in his usual quick, abrupt manner. ‘Are you OK, kiddo?’
Her eyes prickled. ‘Who are you calling kiddo? You’re only twenty-one. Do you realise how long it is since I heard from you? You’ve got so big and famous I hardly see you any more.’
‘You’re nagging like a girlfriend,’ Boyce complained.
Harriet grinned. ‘Is the band still touring?’
‘Yeah. But I’ll be back in London soon, and I’m thinking of coming over to Ireland to visit you.’
‘I’d really love to see you,’ Harriet told him warmly. ‘But I warn you…the cottage is pretty basic.’
‘I just want somewhere quiet and private to chill. I’m exhausted,’ Boyce confided.
It was barely three years since Boyce and three of his friends had formed 4Some, one of the most successful boy bands in the music business. Boyce was the lead singer. Mobbed by hysterical girls wherever they went, 4Some were on a global tour, playing to sell-out audiences and making megabucks, but her brother’s schedule was a punishing one.
‘Will you promise not to tell anyone that I’ll be staying with you?’ he pressed her anxiously. ‘You can’t trust people not to blab to the press, and I want total peace.’
‘You’ll find it here,’ Harriet soothed.
‘You still haven’t said how you are.’ Audible concern shaded Boyce’s comment. ‘If it’s any comfort, I think Luke’s a total freak show and I can’t believe Alice has fallen for him too.’
‘Does she really love him?’ Harriet heard herself ask, before she could think better of it.
‘She says so, but I’m not making excuses for her,’ Boyce declared uneasily. ‘Don’t ask me to take sides.’
‘I won’t. Let’s not talk about it.’
When Boyce rang off, Harriet’s face was tight with restrained emotion. She went into her bedroom to retrieve the box that she had stowed below the bed on the day she’d first arrived. A box brimming with memorabilia far too precious to have been left behind even temporarily in London, she conceded with self-hatred. She should have dumped it after finding Luke in bed with Alice, not carried it all the way to Ireland with her! Did Alice really love him? What difference did that make? Grabbing her old portable CD-player and the bottle of wine, Harriet carried the box out to the field and emptied it, and then trekked doggedly back to the yard to fetch kindling to make a fire.
The sugary-sweet vocals of the song that had been a hit the night she first met Luke throbbed out of the CD-player. She knelt down and lit the fire with hands that trembled. She was in an agony of grief. Luke could never have loved her the way he loved Alice: it was obvious that he couldn’t wait to get her sister to the altar. They had actually named the day. Harriet’s heart felt like it was cracking right down the middle. Hot tears slid slowly down her cheeks. She hit ‘replay’ on the CD and helped herself to another swig of homemade wine. Luke was going to be her brother-in-law and she had to learn to live with that! But how did she learn to live with such pain?
‘This is a strange time of day to start a bonfire,’ a familiar accented drawl remarked, startling her out of her self-preoccupation. ‘I saw the glow from the Court and decided I should check it out in case the stables were at risk.’
‘I’m not that stupid.’ With great reluctance, Harriet twisted her head round.
Rafael Flynn stood poised several fe
et away. Silhouetted against the star-studded night sky, and seen from her vantage point at ground level, he looked unbelievably tall and authoritative.
‘I appreciate your concern, but I’m not in the mood for company,’ she added tightly.
‘Is this emotive display designed to make me feel bad about our current business dealings?’ Rafael enquired very drily.
Something inside Harriet just exploded. ‘Hell’s teeth…men!’ she launched back at him with honest incredulity. ‘Why are you all so blasted self-obsessed? My ex-fiancé accused me of leaving the country to make him feel bad. Now you think I’m putting on some melodramatic show for your benefit. Well, wake up and join the real world. Right at this minute I couldn’t care less about that stupid partnership! I’ve got much more important things on my mind.’
Accustomed to women who expressed dissatisfaction in infinitely more devious ways, Rafael thought that she had a wonderfully straightforward way of expressing her feelings. ‘Such as?’
‘The man I love is marrying my sister in August!’ Harriet bit out, and, snatching up one of the photos in the pile beside her, she chucked it into the flames. ‘That’s why I’m burning all this stuff.’
Rafael crouched down and scooped up a single large photo.
‘What are you doing?’ Harriet screeched, leaping upright and striving to retrieve it from his insensitive hold.
‘Encouraging your pyromania…Is this him? The object of your affections?’ Rafael extended the picture of Luke for her perusal but deliberately kept it out of her reach.
Deciding that a struggle lacked dignity, Harriet folded her arms and jerked her chin in a curt nod of affirmation.
‘He’ll be overweight by the age of forty. He’s already losing his hair, and he’s not very tall,’ Rafael pronounced drily. ‘Give your sister a badge for stealing him. She’s picked a short, fat, balding guy!’
‘Most women think Luke is very presentable.’ Harriet was infuriated by his irreverence. Furthermore, while it was one thing to have told him she was still getting over a previous relationship, being caught in the act with the old photos, the cuddly toys and the sad music collection was distinctly embarrassing.