Emerald Mistress (9 page)

‘I doubt very much that my home means as much to you as it does to me.’

‘My late mother played in the folly as a child. Her father told her it was her duty to bring it back into the estate.’ An almost imperceptible shadow tightened his lean strong face. ‘That unattractive view was a constant reminder that she had failed.’

Harriet was mesmerised by the bleak, forbidding flash of emotion he could not conceal. His was a dark and dangerous temperament, she sensed, full of a passion rigorously controlled and rarely allowed expression. Yet that one fleeting glimpse of the powerful undercurrents that drove him gave her more of a flavour of his true nature than anything that had gone before.

‘You’re staring,’ Rafael told her, his own attention
sliding down to the peachy pouting softness of her lips.

The silence sizzled.

She was aware of nothing but him. ‘So are you.’

‘I like your mouth.’ A smoky edge now emphasised the accented timbre of his dark drawl. ‘It’s very sexy.’

‘Mr Flynn…may I have a moment of your attention?’ A shrill female voice gushed in anticipation from about twenty feet away.

Slowly Harriet came back to the real world and shook her head as though to clear it. An older woman in an elegant suit had surged up to Rafael. Behind her trailed a little man, feverishly writing on a handheld computer. ‘I’ve decided that Etruscan blue is the colour of choice for the entrance hall.’

‘Blue? But it’s north-facing,’ Harriet muttered, before she could think better of offering her un-asked-for opinion. ‘A dull yellow would pick up the caramel tones in the faux marble pillars.’

Taken aback, Rafael shot a glance at Harriet that was tinged with new respect and appreciation. The slightest mention of the colour schemes to be selected for his ancestral home sent him straight out to the stables. ‘Yellow sounds good. Go for it. Harriet, this is my interior designer.’

An introduction was performed but Harriet, bewildered and dismayed by her response to him, was
eager to be gone.
I like your mouth
. A sinful quiver darted through her and she felt humiliated by her own susceptibility. A sudden wash of moisture stung the back of her eyes, for the insecure feeling that she had let herself down was too much on top of the experiences she had already had that morning.

‘My private number…should you need to get in touch.’ Rafael extended a card.

Her gaze screened by her lashes, she accepted the card while thinking that there was no way she would ever make use of that invitation. Like a timely knight on a white charger, Tolly glided forward out of nowhere to open the front door for her and usher her out.

‘Thank you,’ she muttered gratefully.

‘Drive carefully…’ the old man advised in a troubled whisper.

When Harriet walked back into the cottage, and Samson bounced forward in innocent welcome, she was gripped by an angry sense of frustration. It was only a week since she had arrived, convinced that she was on the brink of making her dreams come true. She had believed that for once she was going to hit the jackpot on the dream front. Suppressing the uncharacteristic surge of self-pity threatening to take her over, Harriet breathed in deep. Don’t get mad, get even, she told herself bracingly.

A couple of hours later she was doing tough financial
sums on various sheets of paper when a knock sounded on the door.

It was Tolly, with a basket of beautifully arranged fresh vegetables. ‘From the kitchen garden. We always have too much.’

Harriet wasn’t fooled by that excuse, for his worried eyes betrayed his concern for her. ‘Your boss and I had a slight difference of opinion, and that’s all I’m going to say.’

‘Officially I don’t even work for Rafael Flynn any more,’ the old man explained in determined protest, scooping up Samson and petting the little animal to soothe him.

Her brow indented. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’ve been retired for years. I have a comfortable home and a good pension, but I get very bored doing nothing,’ Tolly admitted ruefully. ‘That’s why I still make myself useful round the Court and the estate. Anything you tell me will be treated as a matter of the strictest confidence.’

‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Harriet was keen to turn the subject. ‘I suppose I’m stressed because I have to go back to London to arrange for my possessions to be brought over. Are there any local kennels I could use for Samson?’

‘He can come and stay with me. We’ll be company for each other.’

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?’

‘Not at all. The late Mrs Flynn used to keep little dogs,’ the old man remarked cheerfully.

Harriet went to the window to peer out at the large cattle trailer that had pulled noisily into the yard. ‘I wonder who that is.’

‘A customer?’

‘No, my first boarders arrive next week, when I’ve got everything organised for them.’

A tall man of about thirty, with untidy black hair and shy blue eyes set in a thin attractive face, emerged from the battered four-wheel drive. His name was Patrick Flanagan and he was the kindly neighbour who had been housing Kathleen’s livestock. Harriet was grateful for the diversion, but only hoped that Fergal and Una would be able to look after the new inmates during her absence.

The hens were a tattered collection, but with Tolly’s able assistance were soon happily installed back in their run. The rooster, Albert, a small white bird possessed of considerable self-importance, immediately took up a position on the hen coop roof and crowed with a volume and shrillness disproportionate to his size.

‘Fergal’s bringing the mare over for you,’ Patrick shared. ‘But I’ve got Peanut in the back of the cab.’

‘Who?’

Patrick grimaced and reached in to remove a very solid little pig from the front seat. ‘She’s a right problem. Kathleen kept her as a pet, and now she doesn’t know how to be a porker. I had to put her in the barn for her own safety.’

Harriet watched in astonishment as Peanut the pig trotted at speed straight into the house. ‘A pet?’ Patrick shook his head. ‘She’s a house pig. Kathleen used to say she was much brighter and cleaner than any dog.’

Harriet followed Peanut’s eager path into the kitchen. With the pronounced aspect of a pig grateful to be reunited with the comforts of home, Peanut snuggled down on the old mat in front of the battered Aga and stretched out for a snooze. As astonished as a dog could be, Samson came out from below a chair with an aggressive flurry of warning barks. For all the world like another dog, Peanut rolled over playfully. Nonplussed, the chihuahua hovered, advancing and retreating while he got acquainted with the intruder. Finally they both pretended to go to sleep at opposite ends of the rug.

In no hurry to go home, Patrick accepted a cup of tea and with painstaking seriousness offered Harriet small helpful snippets of advice on animal husbandry. He also promised to bring round a book about chickens that had belonged to his mother.

Tolly took his leave only when the younger man did.

‘I’m thinking you’ve made a conquest there,’ Tolly remarked with an amused chuckle. ‘I’ve never heard that quiet young fella talk so much. He’s from a decent family, you know, and he has a tidy farm.’

Beneath the old man’s meaningful appraisal, Harriet went pink. ‘I’m not looking for a man, Tolly.’

‘But sure love might be looking for you, and you’ll hardly chase it away if it comes along.’ He took his leave with an irrepressible smile.

Love, Harriet thought glumly. A laugh that rang hollow in the cosy kitchen fell from her lips. She had spent a good part of her adult life in love with a man who had replaced her apparently without a moment’s thought or regret. Perhaps that lack of feeling and concern for her hurt most of all. Luke had grown out of their relationship and moved on. It was though she had been in love with a male who didn’t really exist, for the man she had loved would never have been so cruelly indifferent to her suffering. There had been no evidence that Luke had agonised at any stage over whether or not to succumb to her younger sister’s attractions.

Now Harriet found herself wondering if Luke had ever truly loved her. Or had she just been around for so long that she had become a habit in his life? Had he got bored with her? Had he felt trapped in their engagement? She remembered his unwillingness to
name a day for their wedding and saw that reluctance in a new and humiliating light. It was possible that he had known for a long time that she might not be the one for him.

Fergal delivered Snowball, the elderly mare, who walked placidly into a vacant stall. Harriet saddled her up and took her for a ride. Snowball plodded down the back lane with an unshakeable good humour that was exactly right for Harriet’s rusty prowess on a horse.

* * *

While Harriet was enjoying getting acquainted with Snowball, Tolly was serving his unofficial employer with a pre-dinner drink and the calm forecast that Harriet Carmichael would be married within the year.

Rafael frowned at the old man, and then decided to be amused by that prediction. ‘Have you taken up reading crystal balls, Tolly?’

‘I don’t need to. Patrick Flanagan was making moony eyes at her, and the quiet ones are always the fastest movers when the right woman comes along,’ Tolly opined with conviction. ‘She’ll be spoilt for choice, though.’

‘Really?’ Rafael dealt him an encouraging glance. ‘The vultures are gathering, are they?’

‘Fergal Gibson would probably like to be in the running…but he’s got the mammy from hell, and
she’d see off any girl who looked twice at her precious boy!’

‘Quite a handicap,’ Rafael conceded. ‘But I have it on the best of authority that Harriet is not interested in men right now.’

‘Sure, don’t women always say that to the wrong ‘uns until the
right
man comes along!’ Tolly scoffed, with a conviction that set his employer’s even white teeth on edge.

* * *

Ten days later, on the day before she was due to return from England to Ballyflynn, Harriet took stock of her situation.

Even before she’d left Ireland she had spent two days investigating the possibility of raising finance to pay off Kathleen’s loan, and had been daunted by her singular lack of success. She’d taken legal advice about her position from a lawyer based in Dublin and had learned nothing that comforted her. But she’d been delighted when her mother had phoned her, to say that she would be visiting London at the same time. Bolstered by that cheering prospect, because she had not seen her mother for several months, Harriet had felt energised enough to deal with the transport firm she had hired to transport her furniture to Ballyflynn, and finally to hand over the keys of her London apartment to her solicitor.

In fact she’d come to terms with the reality that she could not raise anything like the amount of money that she needed to exclude Rafael Flynn from his interest in her home and business.

That afternoon she made use of the phone number he had given her and called him. ‘Hello, this is Harriet Carmichael,’ she explained carefully.

A slow smile curved Rafael’s expressive mouth. Beyond the window a deep blue sky framed the ancient terracotta tiled rooftops of Rome. His keen dark gaze had taken on a reflective light, for she sounded so very earnest on the phone. Indifferent to the board meeting that had stopped dead the instant he chose to answer his mobile, he murmured smoothly, ‘Harriet…how may I be of assistance?’

‘I have a question to ask. Will you settle for fifty per cent of the loan being repaid now and a reduced stake in the livery yard?’

‘No deal,’ Rafael said without hesitation.

‘Is
any
variation in the terms possible?’

‘No.’

Harriet was not surprised by his intransigence. After all, as far as the loan was concerned he held the aces. But if she chose to settle for the alternative option the odds would become much more equal, and she rather thought that that possibility had not occurred to him. Breathing in deep and lifting her
chin, Harriet said brightly, ‘Then it’s a case of…Hello, partner…’

Rafael found the surprise value of that comeback highly entertaining. ‘I’m afraid I don’t do partnerships,’ he confessed huskily.

‘Oh, yes, you do. Read the small print,’ Harriet advised him briskly, determined to make the best of the situation. ‘Furthermore, as you are listed as the CEO of Flynn Enterprises, I will deal with you and only you. No lesser individuals, please. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking out of the box, and I believe that with give and take—’

‘I’m not a good candidate for that approach either.’

‘With give and take, something can be done about that ugly view you dislike,’ Harriet informed him. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you have a very negative outlook?’

His brilliant eyes glittered with reluctant appreciation. ‘No, you’re the first.’

‘Believe me, this can work. I know it can work. It may not be what either of us would have chosen—’

‘As my partner, you’ll have to dine with me,’ Rafael commented, with a single-minded purpose that had nothing whatsoever to do with business.

‘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.