AFTERWARDS-after a dinner where Kelly hadn’t appeared, pleading lack of appetite, when his mother had returned to the dower house, when Matty was well in bed, the servants had dispersed for the night and there seemed little risk of him being disturbed-Rafael wandered down to the stables. It was almost as if a magnet were pulling him. Matty’s conversation had stirred something within him that he’d thought he’d buried long since.
Riding was royal? He’d never thought of it as such. Riding was the thing he’d done with his father, an extension of his legs, a merging of himself and the wonderful animal beneath him.
Until that day…
He remembered it still in his dreams. Kass had been here with a group of his friends, and Rafael, at fifteen, had been home from boarding school. His parents had always been uneasy about him being here when Kass was home. As Rafael had been. He’d loathed his ego-driven cousin and he hadn’t needed his parents’ encouragement to steer clear of him.
On the last day of his holidays Rafael and his father had risen early, planning to ride up to the lower foothills where they could see the sun rise over the Alps. It was something they’d done every time Rafael left-a small personal ritual that both pretended meant little but in truth they’d both loved.
They’d set out in the pre-dawn dimness, walking their horses carefully through the woodland, speaking softly, half-awed by the early morning hush.
The shot had come from nowhere, zinging over the horses’ heads, terrifying in the stillness. Later, Rafael had found the track of the bullet in the hide of his father’s big gelding. The horse had been grazed across the neck. No wonder he’d reared, terrified, lunging backward, hurling his rider back with a savagery and ferocity no rider could cope with unprepared.
Rafael’s father had been thrown against the trunk of an oak, an unyielding, implacable barrier. A lower branch had ripped his face. The solid trunk had crushed his spine.
Rafael had him in his arms when Kass and his cronies had burst through the undergrowth. It seemed they’d been drinking all night and had decided bed was boring-they’d do a little pre-dawn hunting before sleeping off the drink. They had been mounted on the royal horses-horseflesh worth millions.
Each and every one of them had been carrying a loaded gun, but only Kass’s had been discharged. His friends had seemed appalled, but Kass had either been too drunk or too arrogant to care. He’d stared down at Rafael and his father and he’d sneered, ‘You ride in my woods, you expect what you get. Surely he should know how to hold his seat by now. That’s the commoner side of the family coming out.’
He’d turned his horse and cantered off, uncaring, leaving his companions, who had more conscience than he did, to cope with an almost fatally injured man and his distraught son.
It was the last time Rafael had been on a horse. The commoner side of him had decided right there that the non-royal part of him was the only side he cared about.
‘You hate them as much as I do,’ a soft voice said behind him and he whirled.
‘Kelly.’
‘Matty said he left his sweater here,’ she said. She hesitated and then walked forward to where a crimson sweater lay crumpled on the oat bin.
‘The servants would have fetched it.’
‘I don’t do servants.’ She lifted the sweater, holding it against her almost as a shield. She walked back towards the door, but then she turned.
‘Your mother told me you hate the horses,’ she murmured. She was standing in the doorway, a shadow against the moonlight outside. ‘She told me why.’
‘I don’t hate them. I just…don’t ride. And you?’
‘I don’t ride either.’
‘Crater said you do.’
‘Crater said I did. Past tense.’
‘You know why I don’t ride,’ he said, as a mare behind him nuzzled his hair, pressuring him to pay her attention. ‘That’s a bit lopsided.’
‘I used to love horses,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what got me into trouble.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t…’
‘Tell me, Kelly,’ he said urgently. There was a moment’s silence while she thought about it, and then she shrugged.
‘The morning after I met Kass…’ she ventured, not moving from her doorway. ‘That first day, he came out of the castle dressed like you were that day back at the gold-diggings. In his dress sword and medals. He looked gorgeous. He seemed angry-but then he seemed to change. He sat by me as I worked and he asked question after question, like he was fascinated. I couldn’t believe he was interested in me or my work. But he was and he took me out to dinner that night and I felt so special…you wouldn’t believe. He asked me to sleep with him-well, of course- but I had enough sense to hold back on that one. And then he asked me to ride at dawn.’
‘I…I see.’
‘Maybe you do and maybe you don’t,’ she said listlessly. ‘I was an only kid. My parents were academics-true academics-almost reclusive. My father had inherited enough to keep us financially secure, so they spent their lives studying. We lived in a house chock-full of books, as far from civilisation as it was possible to get while allowing for emergency dashes to get more books. Our cottage was on a hundred acres, near no one. I was an accident. The only reason I made it into the world was that my mother was so preoccupied with her studies she didn’t realize she was pregnant until it was too late to do anything about it. They barely tolerated me. Their only pleasure in me was the amount I could learn, and my only pleasure was horses.’
‘How did that happen?’
‘You can’t have a farm without animals,’ she said, talking flatly, as if it was a dreary little story that affected someone else-some stranger. ‘Or some method of keeping the grass down. My parents wanted the solitude but not the bother. So they rented the land to a local horse stud. There were horses everywhere. I loved them. The farmer’s name was Matt Fledgling and it’s no accident I agreed to call my son Matty for I’ll remember Matt with gratitude for ever. Anyway, when I was about eight and spending hour upon hour talking to horses that were three times as tall as me, Matt took pity on me and taught me to ride. From then on, Matt let me help exercise his stock. He said, rightly or wrongly, that I was doing him a favour. His horses were mostly gallopers, racehorses, thoroughbreds, and I loved them. So when Kass asked me to ride…Oh, I said yes, and he put me on a mare who was the most wonderful horse I’d ever ridden. We went high up into the Alps. I was showing off. I didn’t care. It was my skill, and I was with a prince who was taking notice of me, who was looking at me as if he thought I was beautiful. I can’t tell you what an aphrodisiac it was.
‘And then it all fell in a heap,’ she whispered. ‘My arrogance. My pride. My delight in showing off. Look where it got me. My parents said the only true friend anyone has is a book. Boring but dependable.’
‘Boring’s right,’ Rafael said and she cast an angry glance at him.
‘It’s my choice.’
‘It doesn’t have to keep being your choice.’
‘So what would you have me do?’ she demanded.
‘You might try being a human,’ he snapped. ‘Being a mother to your son.’
‘I am.’
‘You’re not. Bolting up to your garret whenever things get personal. Staying in the background like the good little girl your parents wanted you to become. They’ve succeeded, haven’t they, Kelly? You’re as afraid to come out of your books as they are.’
‘You won’t get on a horse.’
‘And you won’t even make a wooden school bus. Hell, Kelly, life’s not for fearing.’
‘I don’t fear…’
‘You’re terrified. Even your wardrobe full of fabulous gowns. You’re terrified of them.’
‘I do what I have to do to protect myself.’
‘You do what you have to do to make yourself miserable. Kelly, you could be so much.’
‘No.’
‘It’s true,’ he said and, before she could react, he’d crossed the gap between them. She looked like a waif, he
