Emerald Mistress (30 page)

‘Do you think that I feel any different? ‘The bleakness in his lustrous dark gaze swallowed her anger alive and pierced her deep.

Eaten alive by guilt, Harriet twisted away. ‘I’m so sorry…I should never have told you.’

‘You’re the only person I’ve ever met who thinks that she needs to protect me.’ Rafael vented a roughened laugh. ‘I’m not at all breakable.’

Harriet compressed her lips and tactfully passed no comment. But, after all,
she
wasn’t the one who had spent three days on an alcoholic binge! Under pressure, Tolly had kept her informed, and she had
worried day and night about Rafael. She had been desperate to go to him and offer support, but the unhappy fact was that she had to be the last person he needed in such a role. Yet she was painfully aware that just seeing Rafael in any capacity lifted her spirits and made the day a little more bearable. In turn that made her feel guilty and ashamed and horribly weak.

‘Will you agree to the tests?’

‘Yes…if it makes you happier,’ she conceded.

‘Excellent. It’s organised for four this afternoon at the Court.’

Her eyes widened.
‘Today?’

‘I want the testing done quickly and discreetly. The results will take a few days to come back.’

The tests were done within minutes of her arrival at the Court. The bespectacled chemist who performed the simple procedure behaved as though there was nothing out of the ordinary about it. Rafael accompanied Harriet back out to her car. ‘Do you ever wear the brooch I gave you?’

Harriet swallowed hard. ‘I look at it.’

‘However the tests go, I’d like to see you wearing it.’

Harriet bent her head to hide the shimmer of tears in her strained gaze. ‘OK.’

She had complete faith in the fact that the tests
would fully confirm her mother’s claim. What would happen when Rafael was forced to accept the inevitable? Would he start trying to think of her as a half-sister? Or would he distance himself? When she found herself thinking that she was lucky that he owned fifty per cent of the livery yard, she knew she had sunk low indeed.

The following morning, Fergal called in to see her at breakfast time. Accepting the mug of tea that she automatically offered, he gave her a huge grin. ‘Rafael Flynn has offered me a job on his stud farm. Assistant trainer, no less…Well, I’ll be one of four, but it’s a fantastic opportunity!’

Harriet was amazed. ‘I had no idea you were looking for a job.’

‘I wasn’t.’ Fergal laughed, his excitement making her want to smile too. ‘But, sure, working with the horses is what I always dreamt of doing. When Mr Flynn came to watch me schooling Tailwind last week I thought he was interested in the gelding. Instead he was considering me for the vacancy he had!’

‘So you’ll be moving to Kildare. Will your mother mind very much?’

‘She knows my heart isn’t in Dooleys. She’ll keep up the post office, but my uncle will hire a bar manager. I’ll be earning good money, and sharing a flat
at the stud, so I’ll be able to send cash home to help out,’ the young blond man said earnestly.

‘I’m really happy for you.’

‘The one drawback is that I have to leave almost immediately. I’ve made arrangements to sell my horses. It wouldn’t make sense to try and keep them.’

‘When do you have to go?’

‘Day after tomorrow. I won’t get the chance to say goodbye to Una, so I was hoping you would pass on my good wishes and stuff,’ Fergal said gruffly, studying his oversized feet. ‘I’m hoping to get home once a month.’

‘Be sure to come and tell me how you’re getting on.’

Harriet was appalled at how ruthlessly efficient Rafael was at attaining his own ends. He had said he would deal with his sister’s infatuation with Fergal and he had not been joking. Una and Philomena had just gone off on a three-day trip to Dublin, which had been a gift from Rafael. Una would come home to Ballyflynn and Fergal would already have gone to live on the other side of the country. The teenager would be shattered by that development.

Harriet invited Tolly over for lunch the next day. He was always bringing her fresh vegetables and fruit, not to mention flowers and cakes, and she loved having his company. Indeed, if her mother’s revelation
had not been of such a sensitive nature she would have confided in Tolly. The doorbell went when they had finished eating and were discussing possible sites for the vegetable patch she had planned for the autumn.

‘I only want to grow easy things to start with…lettuce, peas.’ she was saying to Tolly as she opened the front door.

‘I would’ve phoned, but I was afraid that you would put me off. I really do need to talk to you,’ Luke stated flatly.

Harriet was stunned into silence by the sight of her onetime fiancé.

Tolly lodged in the kitchen doorway. ‘If you have company, I’ll nip down to the kitchen garden to get in a couple of hours before the sun goes in.’ He walked forward to extend his hand to the younger man. ‘I’m Harriet’s neighbour—Joseph Tolly.’

‘Luke Jarvis.’

The old man’s welcoming smile died round the edges, and he took his leave with clear reluctance.

Harriet turned back to Luke to say, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘Alice and I are finished.’

Harriet studied him, looking in vain for the man she had once loved. He was not as tall as she recalled, and he was a touch heavy round the jowls.
She no longer found him attractive. Eight years, she thought with regret. Eight years that had been wasted in many ways—for she had never loved Luke as she loved Rafael. That undeniable fact made her feel oddly guilty, and a touch less ready to condemn Luke for his infidelity. But she could have borne his betrayal a good deal better had he strayed with someone other than her own sister.

‘You’ve made quite a mess of my family circle,’ she told him flatly.

‘I do owe you an explanation.’

‘You didn’t feel you owed me one when it mattered, so don’t waste your breath now.’

Stubbornly determined not to be deflected from his purpose, Luke stood his ground. ‘I still have a lot of feelings for you, Harriet. In fact I don’t think I ever stopped loving you. Alice was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m here to ask you to give me a second chance.’

Harriet surveyed him with incredulous eyes. ‘Even
you
can’t imagine I’d consider taking you back after you slept with my sister! Or accept a nonsensical claim that you still loved me while you were planning to marry her!’

‘You and I were meant to be together for ever…but it got too comfortable. I didn’t want to marry Alice, but once I’d lost you I couldn’t face the
truth that your sister and I were a disaster together. I should have married you a couple of years ago. It’s my fault that we stood still and got stale.’

‘We didn’t have the passion anyway.’

‘I would much rather have a woman with a brain and a work ethic,’ Luke argued. ‘Alice and I were only good for an affair, and it was never meant to be anything more. What I had with her wasn’t real…it was a fantasy.’

‘Maybe so, but I’m still not interested. I found my fantasy with someone else…and it
was
real—very real—I assure you.’ Her throat thickened as she made that declaration, but she was no longer ashamed of it. It might not be possible for her to be with Rafael any more, but with him she had learned what it was to really love. Nobody could ever take the knowledge of the joy and fulfilment she had briefly found away from her.

Luke frowned. ‘You’ve always loved
me
, Harriet. I may not offer fantasy, but we make a very good team—’

‘I can’t believe you think that I still might care about you…I
don’t
!’ Harriet declared in exasperation.

‘My firm is opening a branch in New York and I’m transferring there to make a fresh start. We could go together.’ His mouth tightened. ‘We could even get married before we go.’

Harriet almost burst out laughing when he offered that ultimate sacrifice. Instead she opened the door again on the summer sunshine. ‘Go home, Luke,’ she advised ruefully, embarrassed for him. ‘Don’t be so lazy that you can’t be bothered looking for a new woman!’

‘But you were so much a part of my life…it doesn’t feel right without you!’ he ground out accusingly.

Harriet saw that he did still have some genuine feelings for her, but he had caused too much pain and too much damage for her to pity him.

When he was gone she went out to the barn to start going through the crates of miscellaneous items that had been removed from the old sheds before they were demolished. While she sorted the stuff out into various piles she put on the radio for company.

When the music went off suddenly, her ears rang in the silence.

‘Harriet…’

She whirled round: Rafael was straightening, his hand dropping back from the radio. The last word in designer elegance, his pale grey silk business suit looked incongruous in the dusty untidy confines of the barn.

‘I’m filthy,’ she mumbled.

‘So…’ Stunning dark golden eyes glittered over her and then veiled. ‘Your ex visited you.’

Harriet blinked. ‘Does Tolly tell you everything?’

‘I was halfway to the airport when he unrolled that one.’

‘Halfway to the airport?’

‘Tolly phoned me to tell me. I had to turn back. What did Luke want?’

She rubbed grimy hands down over the thighs of her jodhpurs. ‘You’ll never believe it…he wanted me back.’

‘I believe it,’ Rafael breathed very quietly.

‘Poor Alice,’ she sighed.

Rafael took a sudden step closer and then froze to the spot, as if someone had turned a shotgun on him. ‘Are you taking him back?’

Harriet studied him in disbelief. ‘Do I look that stupid and desperate?’

Rafael spread lean brown hands in a soothing gesture that was less expansive than usual. His behaviour was very low key for him, she thought, her brow furrowing. She watched him breathe in, very slow and very deep.

‘I need to make that flight or my next deal is toast,’ he shared, not quite steadily.

‘You were halfway to the airport and you came back just to ask me about Luke?’

Rafael jerked his handsome dark head in mute acknowledgement.

‘But…but why?’

Rafael shrugged and shifted fluid hands, as if he had no idea either. ‘I have to go,’ he said, and thirty seconds later he had gone and she was wondering if she had actually dreamt up the entire episode.

Thirty-six hours later Harriet was checking the fencing on a field boundary when she saw Tolly waving frantically at her from the gate. His car was parked at an angle behind him with the engine still running. Thinking that something bad must have happened, she hurried over to him, only to be handed a phone.

‘Rafael…he says it’s urgentl’ the old man told her anxiously.

‘What are you doing out without your mobile?’ Rafael demanded.

‘I forgot to bring it with me this morning. What’s wrong?’

‘I got the results. You’re not my half-sister.’

‘I’m not your half-sister…’ Harriet repeated, dry-mouthed, feeling the blood drain from her face as shock, wild hope and an equally wild fear of being hurt again all coalesced into overload and destroyed her ability to reason.

‘We’re not related—except in so far as we are both human.’

‘Not related…But are you sure?’ she prompted shakily. ‘Could the lab have made a mistake?’

‘Take a deep breath and listen to me,’ Rafael advised her with measured care. ‘The tests were conclusive. You are not my sister. We do not have the same father. I even had my own DNA matched to Valente’s to check that I am his son…OK? There is no margin for error in these results.’

Her mind was swirling. Her legs were hollow. She felt weak as a kitten. ‘OK.’

‘We’ll have to talk to your mother about this result.’

Her eyes flew wide, for she had not yet managed to think that far ahead. ‘Will we? But Eva’s in Paris!’

‘I’ll get a flight organised for you. We’ll meet in Paris tomorrow morning. Call your mother to let her know that you’re coming, and that you’re bringing someone you would like her to meet.’

‘I can’t believe what you’ve told me yet,’ she whispered, suddenly finding her eyes filled with tears.

‘You will. It’s over. We’ll never have to think about this nightmare again.’

When he rang off, that assurance kept on ringing in her ears:
It’s over. We’ll never have to think of this nightmare again
. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, impervious to the reality that Tolly was still lodged on the other side of the gate, much as if he had taken root there. Was Rafael letting her know that their relationship
was still dead in the water? And, if he was, how could she blame him? What casual affair could survive such a misapprehension?

‘Harriet…’ The old man’s face was deeply creased with dismay and concern. ‘I didn’t intend to listen, but I heard what you said to Rafael. Is that what’s been wrong between the two of you? Is it possible that you picked up the daft idea that you might somehow be brother and sister?’

Harriet reddened as she realised how indiscreet she had been. She was grateful that Tolly could be trusted to keep that devastating misconception to himself. ‘Yes, we did have cause to think that. But we had DNA tests done and thankfully…Well, it was nothing but the daft idea you just called it.’

‘But where did you get that idea from?’

Harriet winced. ‘Mum.’

‘Will you come back to my house with me? I think it’s time we had a chat about something that’s been playing on my mind.’

She stole a worried glance at his troubled expression. When she had first met Joseph Tolly she had admitted that she was keen to find out who her father was. Now she was remembering her suspicion that the older man might know more about her background than he was comfortable admitting.

Tolly sat her down at the scrubbed table. ‘I may
know who your father is. I feel I have to speak up, but I don’t feel right doing it.’

‘I’d be grateful for anything that you can tell me.’

‘Your mother used to work weekends in the village shop. The family who owned it were the most prosperous for miles around. Their daughter was called Sheila. She was a bit older than your mother, but the two girls were very friendly. Sheila was engaged to my son Robert at seventeen, and married him a year later, when he was twenty-one. Eva was one of their bridesmaids.’