They hadn’t made it down for dinner that first night. They had picnicked like starving adolescents at the kitchen table in the early hours. The next morning she had insisted on going up to London to see Hector and supervise the removal of her possessions. She had wanted to leave her paintings behind but that had provoked an argument, so she had given way. Rico had already had a room cleared for her to use a studio. Filled with natural light, it was an artist’s dream, and if there was such a thing as inspiration, she reflected wryly, Winterwood would surely provide it.
Although not according to Hector. Bella’s cheeks flushed as she recalled his reaction to her chosen change of abode. He had been shocked, unhappy and dismayed. In all fairness, what other response could she have expected? Hector was of a different generation. But seeing his disappointment in her had upset her.
‘If he cared about you he’d want to marry you,’ he had told her sternly, and she had bitten her lip and refused to argue. Only time would tell whether Rico cared or not.
‘Come closer.’ Rico beckoned with an imperious hand. ‘Horses sense fear. It makes them nervous.’
‘You think I’m afraid?’
‘Why else would you be standing so far back?’ Arrogantly he took her hand and showed her how to become acquainted with the velvet-nosed bay mare that was shuffling restively on the cobbles while a groom saddled her up. ‘Sheba’s a little fresh. I’ll put you on her in the paddock… on a leading rein.’
‘Gosh… it looks a long way up,’ Bella twittered, striving to look scared.
‘I’ll be with you. You’ll be fine. Dios…I told him I wouldn’t be riding,’ he bit out impatiently, only then noticing that the other groom had already tacked up the glossy grey stallion on the other side of the yard.
And I told him you would be, she thought. Grasping Sheba’s reins, Bella planted a foot in the stirrup and mounted up in one smooth movement.
Halfway across the yard Rico swung back. ‘Bella!’ he yelled, clearly thinking that she was being recklessly daring to impress.
‘Last one over the fence is a wimp!’ she called over her shoulder.
Sheba was fresh all right. Given her head, she took off like a bullet out of a gun, racing for the fence. Bella gloried in the wind tearing at her hair and the speed. It was over a year since she had been on a horse. She heard the thunder of pursuit and grinned. Next time Rico would ask whether or not she could do something before he told her she was going to learn.
Sheba sailed over the fence like a champion and galloped across the rolling parkland. Rico’s stallion thundered past and was reined in on a rise beside a clump of massive oak trees. Sheba was slowing down by then. Bella let her trot the last hundred yards.
Two long strides carried Rico to her side as she slid down off the mare’s back.
‘Sorry…but I couldn’t resist it.’ Her spontaneous smile lit up her whole face as she turned to him.
Her smile lurched and died as Rico closed angry hands round her forearms. ‘Don’t ever get on one of my horses again without a hard hat!’ he seethed down at her.
‘I never wear a hat’
‘You will… If you don’t, you don’t ride,’ he spelt out flatly, pale beneath his golden skin. ‘And only an idiot would jump a fence like that on a strange mount!’
‘Or an idiot who asked the groom first how she performed. He told me she jumped like she was on springs.’ Bella looked up at him, into still grim dark eyes, and groaned. ‘I gave you a fright. I’m sorry.’
‘Where did you learn to ride?’
‘Well,
not in a paddock on a leading rein.’ She threw herself down on the lush grass and turned her face into the sunlight. ‘Cleo had friends we sometimes stayed with. They had horses. I was crazy about them. And Gramps kept stables—’
‘Stables?’
‘Boarding, riding lessons, all that sort of stuff.’ She linked her hands round her raised knees and stared down the rolling slope into the distance. ‘The business went bust when I was nineteen. He broke a hip while I was at college. He could’ve asked me to come home but he didn’t. By the time I realised how bad things were the bank was calling in his loan. All he needed was a little more time but they pushed him to the wall.’
‘I gather you tried to persuade the bank otherwise.’
‘A waste of my breath.’ Bella grimaced. ‘And when the horses had to be sold Gramps just gave up. He didn’t own the stables. He had to move out into a council house in the village. It killed him.’
‘Why do you blame yourself?’
Bella tensed, unprepared for someone saying out loud what she had often thought. ‘I could’ve stopped it happening.’
‘How?’
‘I could’ve run the place for him until he got back on his feet.’