Emerald Mistress

What had happened to the dislike that Luke and Alice had been so keen to parade previously, their snide comments about each other? Luke had called Alice a spoilt little princess and had scorned her life of carefree self-indulgence. Alice had often referred to Luke as a pompous prat. Had that supposed animosity only been put on for Harriet’s benefit?

When Harriet had first met Luke at university she had been his mate when she’d wanted to be so much more, a rank outsider forced to smile on the sidelines while he dated and bedded prettier and slimmer and more sophisticated girls. But through friendship she had won his trust and affection. Love had blossomed when he’d begun to look for her when she wasn’t there, and had shared his hopes, failures and successes with her.

She had starved herself down two full dress sizes to meet Luke’s standards. Indeed, this was the worst of moments to appreciate that she had honed herself into a different person simply to make herself more attractive to the man she had set her heart on holding. But maybe that had been trying to cheat fate. Maybe she and Luke had never been meant to be. Certainly she could not compete with Alice, who was six inches taller and a naturally slender blonde with a fantastic figure. Alice was truly beautiful, and she did not have to work at self-presentation.

Wanting Luke, Alice had just reached out and taken him without apology. She had probably picked up that simple philosophy of life from their mother, Eva. The older woman had left her humble beginnings behind in Ireland and had missed no opportunity to better her prospects. Now based in Paris, and on her third marriage, to a Norwegian shipping magnate, Eva had attained all her goals in life. Harriet was her eldest child and had been raised by Eva’s first husband. Eva had had Alice, and Harriet’s younger half-brother Boyce, with his successor.

‘You only get one life,’ Eva had remarked without regret when she walked out on her devastated second husband for his younger, richer and more powerful replacement. ‘Sometimes you have to be totally selfish to make the most of it. Be true to yourself first.’

That had been a foreign creed to Harriet, who had been forced to put other people’s feelings and needs ahead of her own. But now that her own world had come crashing down around her she could see how self-interest could pay off, and how it might give her another desperately needed focus. It was to meet Luke’s expectations that she was living in the city and working in a high-powered job for money that gave her very little satisfaction. Suddenly she was seeing how her broken heart might be turned into something much more positive.

With Luke out of her life, and a career that was fast fading, she was free to do exactly as she liked, she told herself fiercely, determined to find a source of optimism in the savage, suffocating pain she was struggling to hold at bay. If losing Luke to her half-sister meant the chance to downshift to a simpler lifestyle in the Irish countryside, should she not snatch at that opportunity? After all, there would never be a better time to take such a risk. She was young, single, solvent and healthy.

She was taken aback to find Samson the chihuahua parked outside her front door in his pet carrier. A box of doggy accessories, which included his fake diamond collar collection and designer coats and matching boots, was placed beside him. She rummaged through its contents: there was no feeding bowl, no food, not even a lead. The tiny animal shivered violently at the back of the carrier, enormous round eyes fixed to her in silent pleading.

Harriet suppressed a groan of angry exasperation. How could Juliet abandon her pet when she knew that Harriet didn’t want him? Samson had been dumped, just the way she had been, Harriet recognised painfully. Dumped when he fell out of fashion and a more promising prospect came along. She had always wanted a dog—but a big, normal dog, not one the size of a tiny stuffed toy. But didn’t that make her guilty of body fascism? How had she enjoyed being judged against some impossible marker of physical female perfection and found wanting by Alice? She squirmed with guilt and frustration. It wasn’t Samson’s fault that he was very much undersized…

* * *

The ivy-covered tumbledown wall of an ancient estate bounded the road for what seemed like miles before a roadsign in English and Irish Gaelic alerted Harriet to her arrival in Ballyflynn.

Her heart started beating very fast. A very old stone church appeared in advance of the first houses. Had her mother worshipped there as a girl? Trying as she was to look in every direction at once, Harriet slowed her car to the speed of a snail. Buildings painted in ice cream pastels lined both sides of a wide street embellished by occasional trees. It was distinctly picturesque if sleepy little village.

Parking outside McNally’s, the solicitor dealing with her late cousin’s will, she lifted her designer handbag. Luke had bought it for her birthday. Suddenly she had a flashback to the photo of Alice and Luke that had been printed in a gossip column two weeks earlier. Her tummy gave a sick lurch of remembrance. Luke had always been ambitious and he would be thoroughly enjoying his new public profile. Hungry for the offer of a partnership in the legal firm where he worked, he had told Harriet that appearances were all-important when it came to impressing the senior staff. Alice had to be the definitive image enhancement, with her beauty and her entrée into more exclusive circles. Harriet snatched in a shaken breath. It was only seven weeks since they had broken up and the pain was still horribly fresh. But she was going to get over it without turning into a bitter, jealous monster, she urged herself.

Eugene McNally, the portly middle-aged solicitor, handed over the keys to the late Kathleen Gallagher’s property with wry reluctance. His disappointment had been palpable when Harriet had stated her complete uninterest in discussing or even hearing about the increased offer that had just been made for her inheritance. However, although she had already received copious details in the post, Harriet did have to sit through a further recitation by Mr McNally of the liabilities which were still being settled against her late relative’s estate.

‘Your legacy is unlikely to make you rich,’ the ruddy-faced Mr McNally warned her. ‘It may even cost you money. Making a profit out of horses is not easy.’

‘I know.’ Harriet wondered if he thought she was the type to chase foolish rainbows. Of course her lastminute change of heart about selling must surely have caused considerable annoyance and inconvenience for both him and the prospective buyer, she allowed guiltily. But she’d been hugely apologetic when she’d explained on the phone that an unexpected crisis in her life had made her rethink her future. The buyer she had let down was a business called Flynn Enterprises. Obviously a local one, she reflected ruefully, and treading on local toes was not the way to make friends. Yet, while moving to Ireland was an admittedly bold and risky move on her part, she was convinced that her nearest and dearest were wrong in believing that she was making the biggest mistake of her life….

‘Are you doing this to punish me and make me feel bad?’ Luke had condemned resentfully when he found out.

‘All of a sudden you seem to have gone haywire,’ her stepfather had muttered worriedly. ‘You’re acting like a giddy teenager!’

‘A hair shirt and a spell in a convent would be more exciting than burying yourself alive in that hick village at the back end of nowhere,’ her mother Eva had warned in exasperation. ‘I couldn’t wait to get away. You’ll hate it. You’ll be back in London within six months!’

But what Harriet had chosen to do felt very right to her. In fact she felt different, and she didn’t quite understand why. But she did appreciate that for once she was in complete control of her own destiny, and that gave her a wonderful sense of freedom. She could hardly wait to meet the challenge of running her own business and was quietly confident that, with hard work, she could make a go of it.

She drove very slowly out of Ballyflynn. The same estate wall that had greeted her arrival still stretched before her in an even worse state of repair. There was a tight knot of anticipation in the pit of her tummy. Eugene McNally’s helpful receptionist had given her exact directions: travel about half a mile past the hump backed bridge and turn sharp left down the lane behind the chestnut tree.

The lane was rough and winding, the tall hedges on either side so overgrown that any view was obscured. The verges were lush and green, the floating tumbrels of Queen Anne’s lace moving softly in the slight breeze. She wasn’t expecting too much, Harriet reminded herself. It was so important not to have unrealistic expectations. The lane fanned out into a concrete yard surrounded by a collection of old sheds and stables fashioned of a variety of materials and not at all scenic. Obviously repairs were on the agenda. Well, she had a little money to spend, and two hands to work with.

She drove on round the next corner and lost her heart within thirty seconds flat. In a grove of glorious trees a little whitewashed cottage sat below a thatched roof so endearingly steep it resembled a witch’s hat. Worn red paint picked out old-fashioned mullioned windows and a battered wooden door. Utterly astonished by the sheer eccentricity and apparent age of the building, Harriet blinked and stared. Then she slammed on the brakes, thrust aside her seat belt and climbed out to explore.

The key turned in the door’s lock with ease. A good sign, she thought, buzzing with anticipation. She stepped into a dim interior and was struck by the evocative smell of beeswax and flowers filling her nostrils. A tiny fire glowed in a massive smoke-blackened fireplace, which still rejoiced in all the black metal fittings that had once functioned as a cooking range. The light of the flames gleamed and danced over the dark wood patina of a centrally positioned table, on which was placed a bunch of misty purple lavender spikes and soft pink roses in a chipped crystal vase.

There were two doors, the first of which led into a small room dominated by a high brass bed and a massive Victorian wardrobe. The other led into a much more recent extension to the cottage. Here, the kitchen housed an Aga and had an office corner that accommodated a very cluttered desk set against walls papered with tatty rosettes and faded photos of racing events and horses. Another bedroom led off a small rear corridor. Praying that the final door next to it led into a bathroom that enjoyed full washing facilities, Harriet depressed the knob.

‘Go away…I’m in the bath, Una!’ a startled male voice yelled in protest.

Almost simultaneously Harriet heard a door open off the kitchen and a girl shouting, ‘Fergal…there’s a strange car out front. Forget having a soak. If that’s the Carmichael woman arriving, she’ll not want to find a strange fella in her bath!’

A tall whip-thin teenager in dirty jodhpurs focused on Harriet with sparkling brown eyes and thumped a dismayed hand to her full mouth. Her spiky black hair was threaded with purplish streaks in true gothic style, but she was without a doubt an extraordinarily pretty girl.

There was the sound of a body hastily vacating sloshing bathwater. ‘How do you know? I have a way with women,’ Fergal quipped cheekily. ‘She might be glad enough to find me here—’

‘I can’t give you an honest opinion on that score until I see you,’ Harriet murmured truthfully.

A silence that screamed fell, and then the upper half of a young giant with a tousled blond head twisted round the door to peer out at her. He had navy blue eyes and an unshaven chin. Even though Harriet was thoroughly irritated to find her magical cottage invaded by strangers, she was not at all surprised at Fergal’s belief that he had a way with her sex. In his early to mid-twenties, and with a smile that could strip paint, he was very handsome.

‘Bloody hell…I’m sorry!’ Fergal groaned, and slammed the door fast.

‘I’m Una Donnelly…your part-time groom,’ the teenager announced, tilting her chin pugnaciously.

‘I didn’t realise that anybody else had keys for this place,’ Harriet remarked carefully.

Una reddened. ‘Fergal’s not anybody,’ she proclaimed defensively. ‘He’s like Kathleen’s unofficial partner and he’s always made himself at home here.’

‘Only not now that there’s a new owner!’ Fergal called hurriedly from behind the door he had opened a crack.

‘I assume I have you to thank for dusting and lighting the fire in the hall.’ Harriet walked back into the kitchen to fill the kettle and put it on to boil. She was very tired and extremely hungry, and she needed to get Samson out of the car. After a crack-of-dawn start yesterday, she had driven her packed car from London to board a ferry in Wales. After spending the night on Irish soil in a bed and breakfast, her subsequent journey across the midlands to the Atlantic west coast had been long and draining.

‘No. Why would I do that?’ Una asked in a startled tone that suggested such homely domestic tasks were alien to her.

‘Well, someone did.’

‘But I didn’t know for sure when you were coming—’

‘Good heavens!’ Harriet lost interest in that minor mystery when she looked out of the window for the first time. A simply huge mansion sat on the hill above her new home. Silhouetted against the dulling blue sky, the house was as pure and classic an example of Georgian architecture as she had ever seen, and the setting was spectacular. ‘What’s that?’

‘Flynn Court.’

Harriet tensed. ‘Any connection with a business called Flynn Enterprises?’

‘Big connection,’ Una emphasised at her elbow. ‘With Rafael Flynn on your case you don’t need to worry about us. We don’t want you out. We’re on your side. We think it’s great that you want to make a go of the yard.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it.’ Smothering a yawn, Harriet trekked outside to release Samson from the captivity of his cosy carrier and bring in the groceries she had bought on the road. Did this Rafael Flynn want her out? She winced. Obviously he had tried to buy her out already. But he couldn’t achieve that without her agreement, so why should the teenager’s words leave her feeling threatened?

Samson danced round her feet, tossing a half-hearted bark of greeting at Una, but reserved his main enthusiasm for the food and water that Harriet was placing outside for him.

‘I’ve never seen anything that tiny,’ Una gasped. ‘Is it a dog or a rat? You’d better watch out for it in the yard. Horses spook easily.’

‘Samson will learn. He may be small but he has the heart of a lion.’ Harriet made a determined attempt to build up the chihuahua’s profile.

Unimpressed, Una frowned in wonderment at the lion-hearted miniature dog. ‘Don’t let him wander. The wolfhounds up at the Court would eat him up in one big bite.’

Fergal reappeared, fully dressed in the shabby gear of a horseman. With his damp blond head hovering within inches of the low ceiling, his blue eyes anxious, he held out a huge hand. ‘I’m Fergal Gibson, Miss Carmichael—’

‘Harriet,’ she said automatically

He put a set of keys down on the table with a definitive snap. ‘I wouldn’t have been using the facilities if I’d known you were arriving today. There’s the spare keys back.’

‘But you can’t just surrender to her like that!’ Una launched at him fierily. ‘Like this place is nothing to you and you don’t care that you’re losing a fortune. Kathleen never meant for this to happen—’

‘Stay out of this, Una,’ Fergal cut in with frank male embarrassment. ‘Harriet’s only just got here, and I’m sure she’d prefer to be taking stock of her new home without uninvited visitors. I’ll lock up the horses for the night, shall I?’

Uncertain as to what to do and say at that moment, Harriet walked out in to the yard with Una in the young blond man’s wake. As her mother’s cousin had died nearly four months earlier, it had not occurred to Harriet that there might still be livestock on the property. Certainly none had appeared on the inventory of assets. What exactly was the role of an ‘unofficial partner’? Encountering a truculent look of suspicion from the hot-headed teenager, Harriet suppressed a groan, for she was beginning to suspect that nothing about her Irish inheritance was likely to be as straightforward as she had fondly imagined it would be.

At the back of the cottage a new barn and a row of state-of-the-art stables greeted Harriet’s astonished scrutiny. Her attention skimmed over the floodlit sand paddock with jumps sited towards the rear and what looked like the entrance to an indoor arena.

‘Kathleen and Fergal split the costs of construction. He did the actual building himself. It took three years, and he worked all the hours of the day to afford his share. He bought in young stock and he trained them to sell on as four-year-olds. The horses are his.’ Una spelt out that information with the curtness of youthful stress. ‘But he owns nothing else because it’s all built on your land, and he’s got no right to compensation, either.’

Harriet drew in a long deep breath and slowly exhaled again. ‘I’ll handle this with Fergal direct,’ she countered gently. ‘Give me time to get settled in.’

Spirited brown eyes sought hers. ‘I just want you to do what’s right. Kathleen was very fond of him, and he kept the yard going for her when she was ill.’

Discomfited, Harriet nodded and wandered over to the stables to escape any more argument. Fergal gave her an admirably cheerful introduction to the three inmates that dispelled her unease. There were two brown geldings and a huge almost black stallion of about seventeen hands. Sighting Harriet, the big horse gave a nervous whinny and pranced restlessly in his box.

‘Watch out for Pluto. He can be a cheeky devil,’ Fergal warned her. ‘Don’t try to handle him on your own.’

‘He’s superb,’ Harriet acknowledged, impressed by Pluto’s undeniable presence.

‘He’s the one I’m hoping will make my fortune,’ Fergal confided with a sunny smile that lit up his open tanned face. ‘Don’t be listening to Una. She means well but she’s too young to understand,’ he added in a rueful undertone. ‘This is your place and Kathleen always meant you to have it.’

‘I didn’t even know she existed. I wish we’d met.’ Harriet grimaced. ‘I’m not only saying that because I think I should. Ever since Kathleen Gallagher remembered me in her will and I had to ask my mother who she was I’ve been eaten with curiosity about Kathleen and a side of the family I never knew.’

‘Let me tell you, in some cases never knowing your relations could be a gift,’ her companion opined wryly, surprising her with that hint of greater depth than his candid expression and easy smile suggested.

A couple of hours later, with Samson at her heels, Harriet took a rough tour of the fields that were designated as hers on the property plan. A wave of happiness and enthusiasm had temporarily banished her exhaustion. It was on this fertile ground that she would build a viable business that would still allow her the time to savour life. It didn’t matter that the fencing needed to be renewed, or that the outbuildings that had not been built by Fergal were badly in need of repair: she had enough money in the bank for now to take care of things. The green rolling countryside ornamented by scattered groups of stately mature trees was truly beautiful, and that was infinitely more important to her.

The smell of the sea was in the air when she followed a winding uneven track that took her right down to the seashore and a stretch of glorious white deserted beach that disappeared into the distance. With the sun setting in crimson splendour it was breathtaking. The sound of the Atlantic surf breaking against the silence of true isolation enclosed Harriet and she smiled. Tomorrow she would deal with any problems, but this evening was just for celebrating—not only the joyful surprise of ownership but also a new beginning and an independence that she had never known before.

Back at the cottage, she unpacked only the necessities and enjoyed a quick supper of soup and a roll. She thought how comfortable it was not to have to stick to a strict diet or feel the nagging need to retire still hungry from the table. Not having a man around had advantages, she told herself with determined good cheer as she went into the bedroom: she didn’t care that she had put on weight since breaking up with Luke. She pulled on a floral jersey camisole and matching shorts and sank into the blissfully soft brass bed with a sigh of grateful contentment. Cosy comfort and a full tummy felt good.

It was daylight when she wakened with a jolting start and sat up. From somewhere she could hear a loud clattering and banging noise. Alarm made her tense. Scrambling out of bed, she raced through the kitchen to look out into the stable yard. Her breath tripped in her throat in dismay when she saw the door of Pluto’s stall swinging back on its hinges in the stiff breeze. How the heck had he got out?

Yanking open the back door, she hauled on the muddy Wellington boots she had worn while she walked the boundaries of her land the evening before. As she hurried round the corner of the cottage she was just in time to see Pluto sail like a ship on springs over the fencing that marked the division between the livery yard and the grounds of Flynn Court. Saying a rude word under her breath, Harriet threw herself at the fence and clambered over it to set off in keen pursuit…

CHAPTER TWO

JUST AFTER DAWN, Flynn Court was wreathed in a sea-fret that semi-obscured the classic elegance of the great house and concealed the worst of the dilapidation inflicted by decades of neglect. As the sun broke through the mist, Rafael settled his helicopter down on the landing pad situated to the north side of his ancestral home.

Ireland felt cool and airy and fresh after the heat of the Caribbean sun. Emerging from the helicopter, his current lover, Bianca, had a dramatic fit of the shivers and announced that she was freezing. As Rafael had warned her already that accompanying him to the wilds of County Kerry would involve a degree of physical hardship, a total absence of luxury and no exclusive social outlets whatever, he ignored the complaint. On Irish soil he always relaxed, secure in the knowledge that the local community respected his privacy and that the paparazzi who had finally connected his dual Irish-Italian heritage would receive no assistance and even less encouragement to pry further.

Breakfast was brought up to the master bedroom suite by one of the staff he’d had flown in to make the house ready for occupation the previous week. Barefoot, his shirt hanging open, Rafael sprawled along the window seat with his coffee and feasted his attention on the rolling parkland that ran down to the jagged rocks and the sand dunes that bounded the bay where he had played as a child.

In his father’s home in Italy he had been watched every hour of the day by nannies and bodyguards. The staff had walked in fear of Valente’s violent temper and had restricted Rafael’s play in an effort to protect him from even the smallest injury. Only at Flynn Court had Rafael had the chance to get dirty and paddle, fishing in rock pools and building dams. With his mother too out of it to know what he was doing most of the time, Rafael had run wild and free on the windswept beauty of the beach at the foot of the hill.

‘This is sublime…’ Bianca employed her favourite word, which she used to distinguish everything from a good meal to phenomenal sex and expensive perfume.

Rafael had forgotten her presence. She had little stimulating conversation, so tuning her out was not a challenge. Previously he had decided that the ability to emulate wallpaper was a something in her favour. Now, blonde hair trailing into a flowing mane over one shoulder, she was reclining on the bed. As befitted a supermodel who was internationally renowned for her beauty, she looked as inhumanly perfect as an advertising hoarding. She was posed for maximum effect, her flawless body arrayed in silk lingerie the colour of a café latte, artfully dampened nipples poking through the lace for his admiration. Oozing confidence in her manifold attractions, she stretched out languid legs that were an incredible thirty-six inches long. But Rafael wasn’t a photographer, and he liked his sex a little less choreographed. At this moment he felt nothing and knew that, once again, he had become bored.