A Proposal To Secure His Vengeance. Kate Walker

to put back together all the pieces of the two families, the two studs, that had broken apart.

      Instead, she now felt as if she was deeper into the mire of trouble than ever before—and it was all because of this one man.

      ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle O’Sullivan!’

      The voice hailed Imogen as she dismounted from her horse and she bit back a groan of despair. This early in the day, she had hoped to have the fields and the stables all to herself, but of course she should have remembered that Raoul too was an early riser. So often when in Corsica he had stirred before dawn broke and was out before the heat of the day could start to build up. She had deluded herself at the time that as a farmer he had needed to tend to his land, never suspecting that he was up and out to deal with major business decisions so that he could return to the quiet hotel to share breakfast and then the rest of the day with her.

      ‘Good morning, Monsieur Cardini,’ she forced herself to respond, finding it hard to make it sound casual and relaxed, and failing miserably on both counts. ‘I trust you slept well.’

      ‘I was perfectly comfortable,’ Raoul told her, crossing the yard to smooth a hand down the mare’s soft nose. He watched the way Imogen’s crystal-blue gaze flicked up once towards his face, then away again as soon as her eyes collided with his. ‘But I should be no concern of yours. It was your father who invited me.’

      ‘You are one of my wedding guests.’

      That cool control was back, at least on the surface, but there was a tremor in her voice that pleased him.

      ‘And I thought you would want to be at breakfast by now.’

      ‘You know me.’ Raoul watched her face as he spoke. He knew she was struggling to make polite conversation, but he had no intention of offering her any sort of lifeline. ‘A cup of coffee is all I need to set me up for the day.’

      She had once been inclined to chide him about that, he remembered, taking him out to one of the bustling little cafés in Ajaccio where she would attempt to entice him to eat something more.

      ‘You work on the land,’ she’d reproved. ‘You need to eat.’

      He recalled that she’d been almost addicted to the local bread made with chestnut flour and pine nuts, her appetite much better then than it seemed to be these days.

      He’d watched her at dinner last night and if she had eaten any of the meal in front of her then he was a complete fool, Raoul told himself. She had stirred her food around, occasionally lifting her fork towards her mouth in a way that might convince anyone else, but not him. So totally aware of her as he was, there was no way he could have missed the fact that her fork had nothing on it.

      Her sister was not much better, he acknowledged, having noted how Ciara O’Sullivan’s eyes had barely left her sister and her fiancé, her own plate totally abandoned after one or two mouthfuls.

      ‘I need to give Angel a brush down,’ Imogen said, turning to lead the horse into her stall. It was obvious she wished he’d leave her alone, but Raoul had no trouble ignoring the blatant hint, strolling along beside her, one hand on the mare’s flank.

      He was seeing yet another side of Imogen O’Sullivan this morning. One which couldn’t be more different from the elegant creature at dinner last night. Today she was dressed for riding, the simple white shirt and skin-tight jodhpurs clinging to her slender frame, her feet pushed into muddy black boots. Last night she had looked stunning and sleek as he had never seen her before, her burgundy silk gown glowing richly against the creamy pallor of her skin. The dress had had a deep, plunging neckline but one where her modesty was carefully preserved by the panel of delicate lace that had covered the lush curves of her breasts.

      He couldn’t see them, but he could remember. For a moment Raoul was totally distracted by the memory of the time he had undone Imogen’s bikini top to expose the pure whiteness of her flesh where she had been protected from the sun, in contrast to the lightly tanned colour of the rest of her skin. Her breasts had been smaller then, each one just fitting into the curve of his palm. He had loved to smooth and caress them, tease the soft pink of her nipples into thrusting life. But just the thought of what might have made her breasts become larger had him biting down hard on his tongue to hold back the curse of rage that almost escaped him.

      ‘So how are you liking your first time in Ireland?’

      Imogen had obviously accepted that he wasn’t going to leave her and had turned again to making polite, if rather forced, conversation.

      ‘This is not my first visit here.’

      There was an odd note in the reply, she recognised. One that warned of unexpected darkness at the bottom of what was just a simple statement.

      ‘It’s not? Was that recently?’

      Her training at boarding school, the strict discipline of the nuns and their determination to turn out ‘young ladies’, stood her in good stead. She found that the disciplined part of her personality was working on auto-pilot while all the time, hidden inside, a far less controlled version of Imogen was stirring, uncurling, as if awakening from a long sleep and demanding a new sort of attention.

      It reminded her of how it had once felt to be young and carefree, lost on the dangerous seas of her first sexually passionate relationship, the recognition of just how it could be between a man and a woman.

      She still felt that way; even last night, with Adnan beside her and his ring on her finger. Adnan was the only man who could stand next to Raoul and match him, inch for inch in height, in the lean strength of his body, the force of his personality. Both were black-haired and brilliant-eyed—but, where Raoul’s eyes were that gleaming, golden bronze, Adnan’s were a cool, clear blue.

      Adnan was stunning—hadn’t the reaction of her own sister, when Ciara had first met her fiancé, left no room for doubts on that score? But it was Raoul who had knocked Imogen for six from the start, and now apparently had only to reappear in her life to make her feel as if the world had rocked dangerously and couldn’t be righted again.

      Raoul was nodding in response to her question.

      ‘I was last here just over a year ago.’ There was a dark note in his voice that tugged on already raw nerves. ‘That was what first sparked my interest in your father’s stud.’

      It was only when Angel pushed an impatient nose into the small of her back, urging her forward, that Imogen realised she had stood stock still in confusion at the thought. Raoul had been here a year ago—when she and Adnan had just been starting to discuss the possibility of their marriage, of uniting the two families...

      ‘And of course the magnificent Blackjack.’

      Was that comment as loaded as he made it sound? The truth she knew about the stallion, and the way it made her father’s deal with Raoul null and void, sat like a lump of lead in Imogen’s stomach, forcing her to fight against a twisting rush of nausea.

      Raoul reached forward and took Angel’s reins from her limp hands, leading the mare into the open stall. The movement meant that their fingers touched just for a moment, something like electricity fizzing between them, so that Imogen couldn’t stop herself from snatching her hand away as if she’d been burned. Angel didn’t like the unexpected movement and shifted restlessly with a whinny of protest.

      ‘Sorry, sweetheart...’ she soothed, and the softness of her tone caught on an image in Raoul’s mind, pouring acid onto an already bitter memory.

      She had once spoken to him like that, in the darkness of the night, turning the sound of his name into a caress. The change that the spontaneous smile brought to her face was almost magical. Her eyes lit from within for a moment and her skin glowed. He cursed inwardly as the clutch of physical hunger grabbed at him right between his legs so that he shifted uncomfortably where he stood. Wanting to hide the betraying response, he bent to unfasten the girth and ease the saddle from the mare’s back. He had never expected still to have this primitive and instantaneous response to her. Not after all he now knew about her. But it seemed that