His hands came down on her rigid shoulders and slowly, carefully, turned her back round to face him. ‘No, don’t lie to me. Or, should I say, don’t keep on lying to me. I respect your truthfulness. But from the minute you entered my London apartment I saw that you were hiding something from me.’
Harriet felt cornered, even though he had been careful to drop his hands and step back from her again. ‘No!’
Stunning dark golden eyes flared down into hers. ‘Whatever it is, I need to know. Because not knowing is driving me crazy!’
Harriet sped back to the door and dragged it open. ‘I think you should leave—’
‘And you said you wanted to be friends?’
She didn’t trust herself to look at him. ‘I’ll talk to you about Una or the yard, but not about anything more personal.’
Rafael strolled out through the door at his leisure. ‘I won’t quit until you tell me.’
‘Just leave it,’ she muttered in a feverish plea, half under her breath. ‘Don’t push me on this.’
She had not expected Rafael to tackle her and demand an explanation. She had not been prepared for him to drop his façade of fabled cool and impassivity to stage so open a confrontation. The only woman ever to dump him. A choked sob was wrenched from her and she rolled up in a tight ball, as if she was trying to contain her grief. The hot tears slid down her face in silence.
When she had believed that he was essentially indifferent to her she had been able to tell herself that she was only precipitating an ending that would have occurred anyway. She had consoled herself with the belief that their affair had had no future—that, in effect, she had lost nothing—for his interest would inevitably have waned before many more weeks had passed. But now Rafael had approached her, ten days after she’d walked out of his life, and asked her to tell him where things had gone wro
ng. He wasn’t demonstrating indifference. He was reserved and he trusted few people. He was also very proud. Yet he had still been prepared to make that request, and ironically that made her feel more wretched than ever.
*
Rafael listened to Albert bring in the dawn on his new and unique middle-of-the-night timescale. It bothered him that for the first time he did not feel like strangling the rooster in mid flow. It bothered him that he had been lying awake for hours and that he had skipped dinner the night before. The uneasy rocking of his previously well-ordered world disturbed him.
He was a logical man. Illogical behaviour naturally unsettled him. Some men said women were illogical. But Rafael had from the outset of his acquaintance with Harriet appreciated her innate common sense. She had no inclination to make mountains out of molehills. At the fattoria she had glowed with contentment and happiness. Even when she had slept there had been a hint of a smile on her ripe mouth. Her good-natured tolerance had smoothed the edges off every tiny irritation. She drew him like an oasis of peace in a war zone.
Why, then, did such a woman suddenly begin acting out of character? Why would she suddenly finish a very satisfying affair? And contrive to look inconsolable at the same time? The more he devoted his powerful intellect to that conundrum the more impatient he became to get to the truth of the matter. Then he would be content, he reflected with confidence. Once she had given him a proper explanation he would be satisfied and he would put the matter behind him.
*
Harriet walked down through the ancient oak woods soon after six that morning, as she did most days. Usually she rode, but Snowball had been off-colour with a mild viral infection for a few days and the vet had recommended complete rest. She could have taken Missy out instead, since she had enjoyed exercising the young lively mare. But Una now rode Missy most days, and Harriet no longer liked to borrow her.
She always took a break at the heart of the wood, where the oak and the ash and the hawthorn grew. She would remember her first visit to the tranquil green bower with Rafael. Before she continued on to the beach she would shut her eyes tight and wish for happiness, as if she was still a child who believed in magical places and fairy spells.
Pale golden sand stretched in an unbroken arc all the way from the rocks at the lower end of the strand to the distant headland. On this particular day the sky was a moody almost purplish grey and the breeze was stiff. Head bent, she trudged down through the dunes.
‘Harriet…’
Her head flew up, copper hair flaming back across her pale brow and a flash of dismay in her very blue eyes.
‘How could you possibly not have seen me?’ Rafael looked down at her from the back of his big black gelding. ‘Why aren’t you riding Missy?’
‘Una adores her…’
He quirked a questioning brow and she understood his meaning completely.
‘She wouldn’t dream of commenting if I made equal use of Missy. But I remember how I felt about my first horse, and I think it’s nice for Una to have her all to herself.’
Rafael winced. ‘I can’t believe that I didn’t even think of buying her a horse of her own!’
Comfortable with the conversation, Harriet was already losing her pronounced tension in his presence. ‘Why should you have? As I recall, only a couple of months back you didn’t know how fond Una was of horses.’
In a fluid movement he slid down off the gelding’s back. His eyes sought hers and her mouth ran dry.
‘I love looking at the flowers that grow down here,’ she confided in a rush, nudging a pink lilac striped trumpet with her toe. ‘This is so pretty.’
‘That’s bindweed…’