; ‘Ask him to check the road first. I’ll rouse Davis if he’s at home.’
She raised Fergal on his mobile phone. He swore he’d be over in five minutes flat.
‘I don’t understand how this could have happened!’ she gasped.
‘Carelessness,’ Rafael spelt out with ringing derision.
‘Not mine. I check the gates every day—’
‘How many horses were down there?’ he incised, as Davis came clattering down the stairs from his apartment.
‘Six…’
‘An old mare is grazing by the gate. I cornered a grey gelding in the orchard and he’s safe. That’s two accounted for. You watch this end of the lane. Davis, come with me…we’ll drive over the estate and try to locate the rest.’ His dark drawl was cool, clipped and horribly impersonal.
‘I’m not careless,’ Harriet repeated tautly. ‘I swear I checked—’
‘I had to swerve off the lane when the grey ran out in front of the Range Rover. I have very fast reactions. Someone else might have been killed.’
‘I’m sorry…really sorry,’ she muttered wretchedly.
Rafael rested brooding dark-as-midnight eyes on her. In her shabby jodhpurs and sweatshirt, with her copper hair caught up in a schoolgirl’s ponytail and her deep blue eyes shadowed with exhaustion, she scored nil in the grooming and vanity stakes. Yet the natural appeal of her delicate bone structure and fine porcelain skin was only enhanced by that edge of fragility. He did not want to think about which particular activities had deprived her of sleep to that extent. Without another word, he got into the four-wheel-drive.
Harriet used the pick-up as a barrier to block the lane. Six horses on the loose. By any standards that was a disaster. How had the gate come open? Had a rambler been responsible? But walkers were usually careful with livestock and gates, and few would choose to enter a field full of horses. The yard would be liable if any of the runaways sustained an injury, but accidents did happen and she was fully insured. But what would it do to the business if word of this escapade got out?
Fergal rang to tell her that he and Boyce were bringing two missing ponies up the lane.
‘Thank goodness…I don’t know how this has happened…’
‘It’s freakin’ odd,’ he agreed without hesitation. ‘This pair are so docile they came to find us, so they did. They must have had a fright to run as far as the road.’
She collected the grey from the orchard, and put him and the placid old stager who had grazed the verge throughout all the excitement back in the field. Neither was injured. She could see nothing wrong with the stout bolt on the gate. From now on as an extra precaution she would tie the gate shut as well. Fergal and Boyce arrived, with her half-brother driving the car very slowly and Fergal on foot with the ponies.
‘You look frazzled, sis,’ Boyce remarked. ‘But there’s no harm done.’
‘If we get the last two horses back unhurt, I’ll agree with you,’ Harriet sighed. ‘As it is, Rafael is furious.’
‘The horses must have stampeded down the lane when they got out.’ Fergal grimaced. ‘I hate breaking bad news. But they’ve cut up the ground round the driveway up to the Court, and the lawns there may be damaged as well.’
Harriet groaned and winced.
‘Who’s Rafael?’ her brother interposed.
Fergal looked at Harriet. Beneath his scrutiny, which told her that Fergal noticed more that went on around him than he ever let on, she went pink. Digging her hands into her pockets, she contrived a non-committal shrug that implied that Rafael was nobody of any interest. ‘Just a neighbour…’
‘Young?’ Boyce prompted.
‘-ish…’ Hooves sounded on the lane. The dulled roar of a powerful car engine made her move forward even before the glow of headlights pierced the soft fading colours of dusk that had enveloped the landscape.
Davis led the last two horses back into the field.
‘Are they all right?’ she asked the groom worriedly.
The driver’s door of the Range Rover opened. Rafael sprang out with the lethal natural grace of a panther. ‘Unhurt, by the devil’s own luck, and you don’t deserve it,’ he told her icily. ‘Those horses have been loose for at least an hour.’
Boyce emerged into view from behind the hedge. Rafael came to a sudden halt, ebony brows pleating. A full head taller than Boyce, he was as dark and powerful in build as the other man was fair and slight.
‘I don’t think you should speak to Harriet like that,’ Boyce told him stiffly.