Emerald Mistress (13 page)

‘One thing you should learn about me,’ Rafael imparted in a light, conversational tone. ‘I don’t lie and I don’t cheat. When I want something I’ll tell you. When I don’t like something you will find me equally to the point.’

It was an unnecessary admonition, for Harriet could not begin to imagine Rafael Cavaliere Flynn suffering annoyance in silence. His every move and his every word resonated with the unequivocal authority of someone accustomed to always getting their own way. Determined to seize back the initiative, Harriet said briskly, ‘Now, with regard to the sheds that you believe spoil your outlook—’

Rafael spread lean brown hands in an elegant gesture of finality. ‘They must be demolished. There is no other option.’

Exasperation gripped Harriet. ‘Tell me, have you any plans to let me have my say?’

‘But I don’t want to talk business with you, Harriet,’ Rafael confided huskily. ‘I did have a much more entertaining agenda in mind for us. Unfortunately another obligation has to take precedence.’

Harriet dragged her sparkling blue gaze from him like a woman on a diet being taunted with a box of
chocolates. ‘That’s irrelevant,’ she said firmly. ‘This is a business meeting because we have a partnership in this yard.’

‘The concept of partnership is a learning experience for me.’ Rafael was sending up her stern attitude like mad with his wickedly amused dark eyes.

Frustration and unwilling appreciation of his charisma warring within her, Harriet breathed in very deep and stared fixedly at the sheds. ‘I’ll let you demolish them if you build me a new set of eight stables in the rear yard.’

‘Harriet…’ Rafael sighed. ‘That is out of the question—’

‘Then you’re stuck with the ugly view!’ Harriet told him curtly. ‘I can’t have a viable livery yard without adequate stabling. I have to make a living here!’

‘Naturally I will oppose any further development on this site—’

‘In other words,
you
have a conflict of interest.’

‘But you were well aware of that reality when you decided to go for the partnership rather than repayment,’ Rafael reminded her levelly.

Harriet felt quite dizzy with anger, and she studied the ground while she endeavoured to suppress it. Her temper was in volcanic mode, and she was not accustomed to that. As a rule she was the most equable
and tolerant of personalities, who could handle difficult people and situations with patience and commonsense. Yet Rafael could rouse her to wrath with a gesture as minimal as raising an aristocratic ebony brow.

‘There is another possibility.’

‘I can’t imagine what that would be,’ Harriet responded, in a tone of waspish discouragement.

Rafael shifted a broad shoulder with graceful calm. ‘I would have discussed this option immediately, but you preferred to state your case first.’

Her cheeks rosily flushed, Harriet stared woodenly into space. She was vaguely surprised that she did not levitate with rage.

‘Come on. Get in the car and I’ll show you the alternative.’ Rafael made the suggestion with colossal cool.

Harriet breathed in slow and deep and climbed into the leather passenger seat of the Range Rover. She suspected that she was about to be ceremoniously upstaged, and that he would prove to have enormous aptitude for that tactic. At the same time, however, it gave her the opportunity to say, as casually as she could manage, ‘I saw you with Una in the village this morning.’

‘And this afternoon I am personally escorting her back to her boarding school. I had no idea she had
been suspended,’ Rafael pronounced with grim clarity of diction, resting back in his seat to survey her. ‘Various people, who should have known better, conspired to keep that information from me. Had her headmistress not sent me a second letter I would still be in the dark.’

‘What’s her mother’s opinion of all this?’

‘Her mother is an alcoholic who has repeatedly failed to complete rehab. I’m Una’s legal guardian. I placed her in boarding school because her home environment was unacceptable. She spends the holidays with her sister.’

Harriet was shaken. ‘I had no idea…she comes to the yard. She’s mad about horses and really good with them. Why was she suspended?’

‘Temper tantrums, impertinence, refusal to turn in the required work. In the past three years she has attended four different schools.’

‘Perhaps she’s fallen behind and she’s finding the work too hard?’

‘I doubt that very much.’

‘Even so, it mightn’t do any harm to have her tested.’ Harriet was thinking uneasily about that ill-spelt note.

Rafael laughed out loud as he turned the Range Rover on to the road. ‘What for? Being a teenager?’

Harriet went pink and scolded herself for suspecting that he might not be aware of his sister’s
difficulties with the written word. It was hardly surprising that he should prefer to keep that issue confidential. Having rustled frantically through her pockets, Harriet managed to print her phone numbers on to a scrap of paper. She set the note on the dash. ‘Tell her the horses will really miss her attention, and that if she gets the time I’d love to hear from her.’

Without comment, Rafael turned into the Flynn Court estate by the entrance at the gate lodge where Tolly lived. Harriet
liked
Una? He was really surprised.
Was
Una good with horses? He had no idea. Getting even basic dialogue out of his half-sister was more pain than gain. He would demand an explanation of her latest offence, she would sulk or sob and refuse to speak, and he would pronounce judgement. He had given up talking about the value of education and the rewards of good behaviour in terms of privilege and respect. He ruled now by force of personality and threat. But that was not how he had intended it to be.

‘Where on earth are you taking me?’ Harriet asked.

‘Have patience.’

The long drive looped round through a glorious avenue of vast spreading cedar trees and then back again before leading down a gentle sloping gradient
to a vast walled building that was tucked completely out of view of the cottage.

‘I didn’t even know this existed,’ Harriet admitted as Rafael drove below an ancient stone archway.

‘It’s only visible from the sea.’

As the car came to a halt on the cobbles in the vast enclosed space, Harriet’s eyes were huge. ‘Oh, my word…’ she breathed in wonderment, levering the door open with an eager hand to spring out and take a closer look.

It was a magnificent stable yard in which time appeared to have stood miraculously still, for the ancient stonework and the stable doors were in immaculate order. There was not a weed to be seen, not so much as a cobblestone out of alignment. Fascinated, she wandered round below the classic arches lining three sides of the yard. The loose boxes had been renovated to modern standards, with water and drainage and smoke alarms. Of equal interest was the spacious room that lay behind the imposing Doric pillars at the furthest end. What a tack shop it would make, she thought instantly, peering through the windows.

‘What do you think?’

Snatched from her reverie, Harriet whirled round. Rafael was lounging up against the bonnet of his
four-wheel-drive, the beginnings of a smile playing over his devastatingly handsome mouth.

‘What do I think?’ Harriet was so knocked out by the sheer possibilities of the place that she was excited to death. ‘How come it’s in such incredibly good condition?’

‘Unlike the Court?’ Rafael followed her reasoning with ease. ‘This place has belonged to me for a long time. About fifteen years ago I began buying back parts of the original estate whenever they came on the market. But the house belonged to my father until he died.’

Harriet was puzzled. ‘Then why didn’t he maintain it?’

‘It was my mother’s family home, and because she loved it he hated it. Valente always went with his gut reactions, and none of them were charitable.’

Harriet was taken aback by the complete casualness with which he implied that such unreasoning malice could only have been expected. ‘I gather your parents didn’t get on?’

‘They were divorced.’

Surely only the most malign influence could have deliberately sentenced that exquisite house on the hill to neglect and ruin? Now Harriet could see the superb stable yard in another light. Rafael might betray little emotion, but the strength of his attachment
to his mother’s home, and possibly even her memory, was patent in the beautifully maintained buildings around her.

‘Why did you bring me here to see this?’

‘I thought you would already have worked that out. I get my view back, and in return you get an embarrassment of purpose built stables in which to operate. You also gain the services of a full-time groom. I only keep a couple of horses here, and Davis could do with more work.’

Harriet surveyed Rafael with dazed blue eyes. ‘I can’t believe you’re serious. You’re offering me the use of this huge, amazing yard in place of some tumbledown sheds? What’s the catch?’

‘There is no catch.’ Strong dark features impassive, his lean powerful physique relaxed, he studied her with unruffled composure. ‘Don’t bite every hand that seeks to feed you.’

Yet his indolent calm unnerved her, for natural instinct warned that there had to be a lot more happening below that deceptively cool surface than he ever showed.

‘But there
has
to be…I mean, for a start, basing the business here would be impractical.’ Harriet attempted to voice the more obvious objections to such a proposal. ‘I can’t take care of horses that are stabled a couple of miles away by road!’

‘That’s not a problem. I’ll reopen the lane that once linked with the one behind the cottage. You and your clientele can use it as a shortcut onto the estate. It’ll also keep the traffic well away from the Court. The groom already lives in an apartment above the stables, which means he’ll be on site to provide emergency cover.’

Harriet had expected Rafael to put obstacles in her way. Instead he appeared to be offering her a free, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

‘I’d also like to discuss the possibility of exchanging the field you own in front of the cottage with one adjacent to the back lane. It would enable the replanting of some of the trees that were cut down.’

Harriet drew in a quick breath. ‘I could consider that.’

‘Excellent.’ Rafael strolled to the back of the car and reached in to emerge again with a bottle of vintage champagne and two glasses.

‘We’re celebrating?’ Once again Harriet was thoroughly disconcerted. She was starting to appreciate the strong streak of unpredictability that made Rafael Flynn such a powerful competitor in the business world. In old-fashioned parlance he was a law unto himself, for he had not once reacted as she’d expected him to. It was, she reflected headily, an incredibly unsettling attribute.

Breaking open the champagne, Rafael sent the golden liquid foaming down into the delicate goblets. ‘Let’s drink to mixing business with pleasure.’

‘But I
don’t…
’ Tiny bubbles burst and tickled Harriet’s upper lip as she sipped.

‘Neither do I, usually.’ Setting down his glass, Rafael moved lazily closer. ‘But I get a kick out of breaking rules.’

A tiny twist low in her tummy filled Harriet with restless heat.

‘Are you game?’ Without warning Rafael filched the glass from her hand. His eyes glittering with high-voltage energy, he eased her very slowly up against his lean, muscular physique.

Her heart started hammering like a clockwork toy that had been overwound. She knew she should match her words to her behaviour and break away, but her every urge fought that commonsense. ‘Last night I had been drinking…’

‘Don’t be so serious,’ Rafael censured with wry amusement.

Harriet flushed to the roots of her copper hair. ‘I just think—we’re partners—and then there’s Luke—’

Rafael lifted and dropped a broad masculine shoulder with careless cool. ‘That’s up to you. You have two weeks to agonise about it.’

‘Two weeks?’ Harriet gasped involuntarily. ‘You’re planning to be away that long?’

A raw smile of appreciation lit his hard dark features. ‘I’ll meet you here on the Friday, at six in the morning…we’ll go for a ride along the beach. I keep a mare here as company for my gelding. Try her out while I’m away.’

Rafael checked his watch and ran her straight back home. Indecision was cutting Harriet in two, and she felt foolish for having paraded it. To fling, or not to fling, she punned pathetically.

‘By the way,’ Rafael murmured levelly when she opened the passenger door to get out, ‘I’m not into one-night-stands.’

Her face flamed, and she almost fell out of the car in her eagerness to escape. ‘Neither am I.’

‘You could have fooled me.’

CHAPTER FIVE

H
ARRIET
had supper with Fergal’s mother on Sunday evening. Treated like an honoured guest, it slowly sank in on Harriet that Mrs Gibson had decided that she would make a suitable girlfriend for her son. Cheerfully ignoring all the bossy older woman’s coy and encouraging comments, Harriet managed to extract herself again without causing offence.

Patrick Flanagan had also called round that afternoon, and asked her out to Dooleys. She’d turned him down as tactfully as she could.

It was the following week before she finally got the chance to visit the village gift shop and buy the earrings she had seen for her stepfather’s wife, Nicola.

Luckily for her the earrings were still unsold. While she waited for the sales assistant to remove them from the display, Harriet had the sensation that she was being watched, and turned her head. An elegant
dark-haired woman rearranging shelves on the other side of the shop treated her to a stony-eyed stare. Harriet coloured, and then asked herself why she had somehow come to expect everyone local to greet her with a warm, welcoming smile.

‘Robert…weren’t you planning to set up the new exhibition in the gallery this morning?’ the brunette enquired acidly of the overweight older man who had emerged from the back of the shop with his arms wrapped round a large unwieldy carton. ‘You’ll need to get a move on if you want it finished in time.’

As Harriet confirmed that she would take the earrings, the same woman took over from the assistant and ran the purchase through the till in silence. ‘So, you’re Agnes Gallagher’s girl from England,’ she remarked when she gave Harriet her change. ‘Are you planning on staying here for long?’