Eager to compensate, she matched his honesty with her own. ‘There’s another side to every coin. By the sound of it you didn’t like your father very much, but at least you knew his identity. My mother ran away from Ballyflynn as a pregnant teenager and still won’t tell me who my father is. But it seems obvious that he was nothing to write home about.’
That bracing observation, voiced in a wry tone of acceptance, almost made Rafael laugh out loud in appreciation. His own tension dissolved. Her lack of drama on the thorny issue of her parentage was refreshing. ‘You must be very curious.’
‘Yes, but I’m fast reaching the conclusion that I’ll have to live with being curious and that there are more important things.’
The scent of lily-of-the-valley hung heavy in the air. They were following a winding bridle path through ancient oak woods, which lay in a hidden valley sheltered from the wind. The silence filled her with a sense of peace. The twisted tree trunks of oak and holly and the weathered rocks were covered with a velvet carpet of green moss and lichens. Lush ferns interspersed with wood sorrel and red campion grew below the light canopy of the trees. It was very beautiful and unspoilt.
‘This is a wonderful place.’ Harriet loosed a dreamy sigh. ‘If you told me fairies lived here, I’d believe you.’
A few minutes later Rafael brought his gelding to a halt in a grassy glade and dismounted. He reached up to help her down from Snowball’s back and murmured huskily, ‘According to local legend, this is the heart of the wood, and the magic is strongest here where an oak, an ash and a hawthorn tree all grow together.’
She met his stunning eyes, and her heart raced so fast she felt dizzy. ‘I definitely didn’t expect you to know fairy lore.’
His mouth melded with hers and she believed in the magic. Intoxicated by the taste of him, she shivered, mesmerised by the fierce response he could awaken in her. She had never felt that way before, and exhilaration leapt through her in an energising surge. He lifted his head, his black hair tousled by her fingers, and a slow-burning smile illuminated his lean bronzed features. ‘You enchant me, a mhilis.’
Harriet strove not to betray disappointment when he released her as casually as he had pulled her to him minutes before. ‘Was that Irish? Do you actually speak the language?’ she asked him.
‘Like a native…it annoyed the hell out of Valente!’ Brilliant eyes full of vibrant amusement, Rafael tightened a loose stirrup on Snowball and helped her mount again.
The woods petered out into the rough grazing land above the sand dunes. She could smell the sharp salty tang of the sea. The gelding broke into an enthusiastic trot, but Snowball picked a much more cautious path down on to the beach.
‘Next time you ride my mare,’ Rafael pronounced with finality.
‘I’m no good at accepting favours.’
‘It’s not a problem…I’ll find something for you to do for me in return.’ His silken mockery whipped fresh colour into her cheeks.
The Atlantic was blue as the sky, but lively. Waves were hitting the rocks, sending up cascades of water droplets in the bright sunlight before crashing down on the sand and then washing in across the pale strand with a soft rushing hiss.
Harriet urged Snowball into a trot, enjoying the cooling breeze. Her mount could not keep up with his, and she watched him unleash the gelding’s surplus energy in a gallop across the sands. He was a superb rider. When she slid off Snowball to investigate a rock pool he cantered back to join her.
‘I’m a total child about these,’ Harriet admitted cheerfully. ‘The water is so clear it’s like a tiny sea world in miniature.’
As she straightened, Rafael caught her to him and covered her parted lips with deep, devastating urgency. The earthy force of his passion startled and excited her. An arrow of white hot heat pierced low in her belly, setting up a chain reaction that made her shiver.
He framed her cheekbones with spread fingers and stared down at her with unashamed desire. ‘I want you so much it hurts.’
She felt hot, and unbearably tense. Her own wild response shocked her, but being separated by so much as an inch from him was a torment that overpowered other considerations. She squirmed closer, blindly seeking that contact that her body craved. With a roughened masculine groan he backed her up against the rocks behind her and hauled her to him, to crush her eager mouth beneath his while she clung to his hard-muscled shoulders.
He ran his fingers through the tumbled copper strands of her hair. He explored her trembling length with sure hands, roved below her jacket and loose T-shirt to toy with the outrageously sensitive rosy tip of one rounded breast. A moan breaking at the back of her convulsed throat, she snatched in an agonised gasp of air below his marauding mouth. She could not get enough of him. When her mobile phone started ringing, she stiffened in surprise.
‘Ignore it,’ Rafael instructed thickly, lifting his tousled dark head and shaping her swollen lower lip with a caressing thumb. With every nerve in her body still pulsing with reaction, the mesmerising sexiness of his smouldering golden eyes held her entrapped. ‘We’re heading back to the Court to enjoy a long leisurely breakfast.’
But the pressing need to always answer a ringing phone was too engrained in Harriet to be ignored. It was Davis, calling to let her know that her presence was required back at the yard, and she finished the call in a rush. ‘I’d no idea we’d been out so long. I’m going to have to run…I have a customer waiting.’
Rafael looked down at her with an attitude of profound disbelief that required no verbal expression to hit home.
Embarrassed by her own intense reluctance to leave him, Harriet added in a taut tone of apology, ‘She’s a new client and she’s arrived early—’
‘Then it’s not your problem,’ Rafael informed her.
‘But it would be a problem if the lady chose to put her two horses in livery somewhere else.’
‘Let Davis deal with her.’
Her clear eyes urged his understanding. ‘I’m selling a service, and she’s entitled to expect my personal attention on her first visit.’
‘But this is insane.’