Emerald Mistress

The dark, deep timbre of his accented drawl wrapped round her like a prison chain. She walked over the cushioned tufts of thrift and down on to the flat sand that bore the imprint of the gelding’s hooves.

‘When my mother was well enough she would walk along the beach with me, naming the wild flowers and the shells. Sea holly and samphire, scallops and whelks,’ Rafael rhymed evenly. ‘I still remember the names.’

Her throat was tight, as if a lump was lodged at the foot of it. ‘Friends?’

‘No way,’ Rafael fielded. ‘I’m only trying to persuade that you don’t need to jump every time I come within six feet of you. You’re not in any danger. In these politically correct times only a stupid man would risk physical contact without clear signs of encouragement.’

Involuntarily she clashed with a scorching gaze that challenged her. Painful colour washed up over her fair complexion.

‘But the oddest thing is that you’re putting out very mixed signals,’ Rafael confided silkily.

‘Please don’t say that!’ Harriet retreated from him with a negative shake of her head that denied that contention, her nerves leaping like jumping beans. ‘You’re mistaken.’

‘If I was a very polite guy, I would agree that I was mistaken, but I won’t lie to you. In fact I would go so far as to say that you are doing enough lying for both of us. Be straight with me.’

‘Stop this now…just leave it alone!’ Harriet spun away from him. ‘I can’t understand why you’re keeping on at me!’

‘Can’t you?’ Rafael fell into step beside her. ‘Think of those long lazy evenings in Umbria when we talked over dinner and were still talking at dawn. Think of the fact that we never had a single argument—’

‘Oh, yes, we did—’

‘But only over complete trivialities. Remember when I brought you fresh cherries from the orchard and you said you had never been so happy.’

‘The fact you were always feeding me was very appealing to a woman who used to live on an almost permanent diet. The wine helped too,’ she put in shakily, memories bombarding her—memories she had refused to take out and examine on the grounds that it would be wrong to revel in what should never, ever have been allowed to happen between them in the first place.

‘It wasn’t the wine, it was the company. I didn’t get bored with you either.’

Harriet laughed, but the sound had an almost hysterical edge, and she was walking so incredibly fast that her calves were aching. She had reached the rocks at the end of the strand and there was nowhere else to go. She spun round to face him, angry at the pressure he was putting on her and torn apart by the most bitter sense of injustice. ‘What do you want me to say to you?’

‘I only want to know what really happened that day.’

‘Only!’ she echoed hollowly.

Rafael gazed down at her, the entire force of his will bent on persuading her to speak. ‘I deserve the truth.’

‘Nobody deserves the truth I got!’ Harriet almost yelled at him in her frustration, lack of sleep and misery combining to devastate her self-discipline.

Rafael kept up the pressure. ‘Why? What truth was that?’

‘That your father was my father as well!’ Having been betrayed into that admission, Harriet went limp, her eyes blank with shock, for she had reached breaking point without realising it. The forbidden words had flowed from her almost without her volition.

Rafael continued to study her with dark-as-night eyes, only the very stillness of his bronzed features revealing that he had heard what she had said. ‘What kind of nonsense is that?’

Her breath feathered in her throat. ‘I only wish it were…’

‘It’s a disgusting idea!’ Rafael reached down and closed both his hands squarely over hers. ‘Of course it is nonsense. How could it be anything else?’

Stress had momentarily drained her of energy and resolve. Her fingers flexed weakly in his. ‘That day I went to see my mother. She told me that Valente Cavaliere was my father.’

‘Your mother…?’

‘She has no idea that you live here, or that I know you or had got involved with you. In fact I don’t even know if she’s aware you exist. I’ve been asking her for quite a while to tell me who my father was…and finally she did, and she named Valente.’

‘It’s a filthy suggestion.’ His hands almost crushed hers, and with a muttered apology he released her fingers. ‘It is impossible.’

‘Is it?’ Harriet was clinging to his every word, hypnotised by every fleeting expression that crossed his lean darkly handsome face. ‘Is it impossible?’

‘It must be…For my sanity, it must be impossible.’ He swore vehemently. ‘Without prejudice, I can tell you that it is an unlikely possibility. My mother was alive when you were conceived. I don’t think Valente even came to Ireland during those years. He had nothing to do with my mother after the divorce. His staff brought me on my visits here—’