Emerald Mistress (6 page)

Harriet lost colour when she made the connection. ‘You’re talking about the Magdalene Laundries?’

‘Yes.’ Tolly nodded grave confirmation. ‘Life was very different here then. No one would have dreamt of interfering between a father and his child.’

‘She must have felt so alone…’ Harriet thought that it was hardly surprising that when Eva had finally escaped her father’s threats and restrictions,
partying had held rather more appeal for her than parenting.

‘Hasn’t Eva the life now, though?’ Joseph remarked in a determinedly cheerful change of subject that suggested he was more comfortable skimming the surface of her mother’s past. ‘I saw a picture of her in an old magazine last year. She looked like a queen in a ballgown at some charity do. She’s come a long way from the young woman who used to help out in the village shop.’

‘Could you give me the names of any of her schoolfriends?’ Harriet suspected that the key to discovering her father’s identity would most likely be found amongst her mother’s contemporaries.

‘I was acquainted with the family situation, but not with much else. We were of different generations.’ His eyes veiled, he served her with a mouthwatering wedge of chocolate cake, and for a few minutes there was silence as Harriet did justice to it.

‘I imagine that there was quite an uproar after my mother ran away.’ Harriet was thoroughly relaxed, and happy to match Tolly’s frankness with her own. ‘I’m very keen to find out who my father was.’

Clearly unprepared for that admission, Joseph looked startled. ‘But surely your mother—?’

‘No…she’s always refused to say,’ Harriet admitted ruefully.

‘But you can hardly go around asking awkward questions of people you don’t even know,’ the old man pointed out. ‘You could cause offence, and you might also cause trouble by casting suspicion on an innocent party. I would strongly advise you to speak to your mother again.’

Harriet suppressed a heavy sigh. She was not close to Eva, and worked hard at conserving the relationship she did have with her. The last time she had tackled the older woman on the score of her parentage Eva had taken strong umbrage.

Joseph gave his guest an anxious appraisal. ‘I think you also need to ask yourself what you’re hoping to get from the information you seek. Your father may be a man who let your mother down when she most needed his support. He might have no interest in knowing you.’

‘Yes, I accept that.’ Harriet was, however, studying her companion with increased interest. The very urgency with which he spoke made her wonder if he knew rather more about her background than he was willing to admit. ‘Were there rumours at the time?’ she pressed more boldly. ‘I mean, people must’ve talked.’

‘People always gossip, and rarely with kindness or commonsense,’ Tolly responded steadily. ‘It would be wrong of me to repeat idle chatter. If your
mother was seeing anyone it was kept very much a secret.’

Harriet let the subject drop there, guiltily conscious that she had said rather too much for so short an acquaintance, and listened as her host talked gladly about less contentious issues. It had gone nine when she drove home in a deeply pensive mood. What
did
she hope to achieve from establishing the identity of her father? She knew that she had a deep need to know exactly where she had come from. But wasn’t it more than that?

Harriet had never really felt that she belonged anywhere. In the same way she had never known what it was to have a parent who was absolutely hers…at least not for long. As a child she had been hurt and confused, because she’d rarely seen the mother she adored. She had then had to adjust to the cruel reality that Eva could somehow manage to be a full time parent for her younger son and daughter. But perhaps it had hurt most of all when Harriet had finally discovered that the man she had grown up believing to be her father was not her biological father after all.

Eva had been six months pregnant when she’d married Will Carmichael, a research scientist a decade older. Seemingly she had snatched at the chance of a wedding ring and a name for her unborn
child. A quiet, studious man, Will had been besotted with his youthful Irish bride, but the union had been a disastrous mismatch. Walking down a London street one day, Eva had been stopped by a talent scout and discovered as a fashion model. Hiring a nanny to take care of her baby, Eva had flung herself into the excitement of fame, fortune and foreign travel. The unequal marriage had disintegrated without fanfare.

Even after the divorce Will had been left to shoulder the burden of raising Harriet while Eva concentrated on her career. And when Harriet was five years old her mother had remarried and become a society wife. The wealthy English businessman with whom Eva had had her younger children, Alice and Boyce, had not encouraged Harriet’s visits to his country home in Surrey. He had disliked such an obvious reminder that his beautiful wife’s past had featured other men, and in the interests of marital harmony Harriet had been virtually airbrushed out of her mother’s life.

Harriet had been thirteen years old when she’d overheard a devastating exchange between Eva and Will on the phone.

‘I wanted to tell Harriet the truth years ago, but you wouldn’t agree,’ Will had been saying, with unusual curtness of tone for so mild-mannered a man.
‘She thinks of
me
as her father, and finding out that I’m no more her father than the Easter bunny will be a nasty shock! Teenagers are vulnerable, Eva. I don’t care if your therapist believes that coming clean on that score will benefit you; I’m more concerned about how it might affect Harriet.’

Harriet had been shattered by the revelation that the father who had brought her up with so much apparent love and sacrifice was not even a blood relation. Even though Will had repeatedly assured her that he loved her just as much as any biological parent, Harriet had still felt like a cuckoo abandoned in his nest. In her heart, where she had used the salve of her father’s love to compensate for her more distant bonds with her mother, she had felt utterly crushed. A kind and gentle man, Will Carmichael had taken on a responsibility that was not his and done his best by her principally because he had had no other choice. Her mother’s refusal to finish the story by telling Harriet exactly who her birth father was had not helped.

The following morning dawned bright and breezy, and Harriet scrambled out of bed with a little frisson of anticipation: it was an absolutely perfect day for the races. A veteran of such country pursuits in her early teen years, and well aware of how rough and ready such events could be, she dug out warm comfy
clothes and thermal socks to go with her Wellington boots.

Samson trotted round her feet and fussed until she set out his breakfast.

‘You’re a real little tyrant,’ she told him fondly.

Out in the yard it was all go, and Harriet resolved to rise from her bed earlier. Fergal was cleaning up a dilapidated horse trailer and Una Donnelly was busy in Tailwind’s box, engaged in plaiting his mane into intricate knots. Harriet leant on the stall door to watch. ‘I was never very good at plaiting.’

The teenager looked across at her with a surprisingly ready smile, her liquid dark eyes full of pleasure, as if such compliments rarely came her way. ‘It takes a lot of practice,’ she confirmed. ‘But I could teach you if you like.’

‘OK…did Fergal bring you over?’

‘No, I’ve got a bike.’ She grimaced and lowered her voice to an exasperated whisper. ‘He passes our door but he won’t give me a lift because he’s scared of folk talking about us. He’s dead silly about stuff like that.’

Harriet gave her a non-committal smile.

‘You should let Fergal use the horsebox,’ Una added. ‘It’ll make the yard look better. You’ve got to think of your image in horsy circles.’

Harriet went pink and hurried over to Fergal to
urge. ‘I never even thought to say…for goodness’ sake, use Kathleen’s horsebox!’

‘If I do, will you do me the honour of walking Tailwind round the paddock for me before the race?’ Fergal asked with a grin.

‘I’d be delighted.’

‘You can’t let Harriet do it!’ Una wailed incredulously. ‘That’s my job!’

As Harriet parted her lips, to hastily disclaim any desire to usurp the teenager’s place, Fergal caught her eyes with a meaningful expression in his and a brief jerk of his head that begged her not to interfere. ‘I’m sorry, Una. But Harriet needs to show her face and there’s no better way.’

Una hung over the door of the stall and said, in a voice that throbbed with tragedy. ‘How can you think of putting Harriet before me?’

Fergal bolted for the horsebox at the far end of the yard.

Harriet was transfixed by the virtual assault of the girl’s outraged dark brown eyes. ‘Are you dating him?’ Una asked baldly.

Harriet was grateful to be in a position to utter a brisk negative.

‘But he still chose you over me,’ Una breathed in a wobbly voice, her eyes glassy with the threat of tears. But then you’re an older woman.’

‘He’s thinking of business,’ Harriet answered with determined lightness, while endeavouring not to picture herself as some sultry aging vamp given to charming toy boys off the straight and narrow. She remembered all too well how super-sensitive she had been to every perceived slight and rejection at Una’s age, and could not decide whether the girl’s startling prettiness was more of a blessing or a curse. ‘Would you like some tea before we leave?’

‘I’m not sure I’m coming any more,’ the teenager mumbled chokily, half turning away. ‘It’s hardly worth my while, is it?’

‘I’d really appreciate the company,’ Harriet responded gently. ‘Do you realise I know nothing about you yet?’

‘Ask anyone in Ballyflynn. I’m Eilish Donnelly’s little mistake. Always in trouble and no better than I ought to be, according to everyone!’ Una shot at her in a tearful tirade. ‘And when my big bully of a brother finds out I’ve been thrown out of another school he’s going to kill me!’

Silence fell.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Harriet remarked prosaically, as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said.

‘I suppose if I asked you if you fancied Fergal you’d tell me to mind my own business…’ Una mumbled.

‘I would.’

That instant comeback provoked an unexpected giggle from the temperamental teenager. ‘At least you say what you think and don’t talk down to me like I’m six years old—like
some
people I could mention!’

‘Thanks…you saved my bacon,’ Fergal muttered with real gratitude when he found Harriet alone in the kitchen. ‘I am
really
glad you’re around the yard now. Una can be a handful and no mistake. I don’t know what’s come over her.’

Harriet believed him. He was pale at the memory of Una’s tearful emotional outburst, and practically shaking in his riding boots. Una was a strong-willed girl and she had Fergal in her sights. He probably did need to be very careful not to encourage her. Harriet could not help recalling how much more reserved and shy she had been with Luke, watching and loving from afar for so long, only revealing her feelings when it was safe to do so. Alice would have been much more open and extrovert and exciting. Perhaps that was yet another good reason why Luke had chosen to be with her sister rather than her.

‘Don’t get me wrong. Una’s a good kid,’ Fergal added hurriedly. ‘She’ll soon find someone more her age.’

Suspecting that Una was too passionate to quickly
forget her first love, Harriet said nothing. She struggled to shut Alice and Luke out of her thoughts again. The past was the past and she had to live with it.

In the horsebox, Una chattered pointedly to Harriet while shooting stony glances at a blissfully unaware Fergal as he drove. The fields where the Point-to-Point races were being held were accessed down a long rough lane. Marquee tents served as a weighing room for the jockeys and also provided a bar with one side walled off in a members only enclosure. The event was already thronged with people, most of whom were as sensibly and plainly garbed as Harriet, in anticipation of the muddy conditions.

As she waited for Tailwind to be unboxed, several men nearby in a huddle were talking nineteen to the dozen. As with Fergal, it took her a moment or two to be able to distinguish clear words in the colourful lilt and flow of the musical Kerry accent.

‘So Martin the vet’s trying to see to Flynn’s mare that’s in foal while the model woman is spreading herself across the stable wall like she’s on one of those pop videos…you know, those ones they ban. And she’s wearing a very short dress,’ someone reported in an urgent whisper, ‘And what does Flynn say? He only tells the hussy to go and get some
clothes on before she frightens the horse! Isn’t he the
man?
’ was the conclusion, in a tone of deep envy and near reverence.

Her face hot, Harriet moved hurriedly out of earshot. Across the field she saw Rafael Flynn’s girlfriend emerge from a big powerful four-wheel-drive. Garbed in a purely fashionable fitted tweed hacking jacket and pure white riding breeches that were skin tight, the leggy blonde moved as though she was on a catwalk, and looked so spectacular that everyone stopped dead to stare at her.

But Harriet’s attention flew straight past her to the tall dark male striding towards the paddock: Rafael Flynn himself. His height and carriage picked him out from the crowd. The breeze had ruffled his luxuriant hair into jet-black spikes. His lean, sculpted face was very bronzed against the light sweater he wore below an outdoor jacket so cool in cut it could only have been of Italian design.

Someone cannoned into Harriet and, caught unprepared, she lurched backwards into the deep muddy tracks forged by some heavy vehicle and fell.

‘I’m so sorry…I didn’t see you. Are you hurt?’ A burly older man was reaching down to help her up again.

Harriet glanced at the mud liberally staining her
jacket and jeans and then she laughed and shrugged. ‘No, I’m fine…luckily I’m fully washable.’

From about thirty feet away Rafael watched the surprisingly good-natured exchange. Most of the women he knew would have been screaming the place down. Harriet’s instant smile seemed designed to reassure the clumsy idiot who had sent her flying that being tipped into the mud had been a fun experience for her. Right on cue, Bianca approached him to lament the dirt now spattering her highly polished leather boots. The diamond choker he had given her as a farewell gift glittered at her swan-like throat. Within a few hours she would be boarding her flight home to Belgium. She dug out a little hand mirror to check her hair and the temptation was too much for her: she succumbed to studying herself from every angle. Crushing boredom assailed him and he walked away without her noticing.