Emerald Mistress. Lynne GrahamЧитать онлайн книгу.
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