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‘I’m sorry—’ She lurched out of his way, only to have him steady her and steer her back inside the cookhouse.
She made her way distractedly back to the table.
‘Where’s the coffee? Never mind,’ Danny said, seeing Lizzie’s face. ‘I’ll get us some.’
Lizzie sank into the chair, feeling extremely vulnerable and a long way from home. Her grandmother had always been the lynchpin of her life, and she loved her without qualification. The letter was preparing her for a truth that Lizzie would never be ready to face. How could she stay on here now, as her grandmother had asked her to? How could she concentrate knowing her grandmother was so ill? Why had she ever imagined she could stick it out here while all this was going on at home?
‘What’s the matter?’ Danny said as soon as she came back to the table. ‘Did Chico say something to upset you?’
Lizzie shook her head.
‘So it’s the letter from home that’s upsetting you,’ Danny guessed.
‘Yes—I’m sorry, Danny—’
‘But your breakfast—’
‘I just need a minute—’
Chico stood back as she barged out of the cookhouse. Running blindly across the yard, she didn’t stop until she reached Flame’s stall where she hunkered down in a corner to bury her head in her knees to think. She should go home. That was where she was needed most. But she had to stay to earn that diploma to hang in the office of the business she was going to rebuild. Without that accreditation, she was no use to anyone. What to do? What to do—?
‘Lizzie?’
‘Chico!’ She sprang up, pressing herself against the wall between the stalls as he slipped the latch and walked in.
‘If this course is too much for you—’
‘It isn’t,’ she said, recovering fast.
‘Then, what is the matter with you?’ He glanced at the letter in her hand. ‘Not bad news from home, I hope? Your grandmother?’ he prompted with concern.
Not for the first time, he had disarmed her with his human side. It was easier to deal with the hard, unforgiving man than this. The fact that Chico still cared about her grandmother brought tears to her eyes, and she hated herself for the weakness, but, like it or not, Chico was a link between here and home. He knew her grandmother. He remembered what a special lady she was.
She mustn’t show weakness. She had to be strong. She owed it to her grandmother to leave Chico Fernandez in no doubt that, whatever happened, she wasn’t going anywhere until she finished his course.
‘If you need to go home—’
‘I don’t,’ she said firmly. Decision made, she stuffed the letter into her pocket. ‘You may not think I’ve made the best of starts, but I can and will improve—’
‘Lizzie.’ The faintest of smiles tugged at one corner of his mouth. ‘You’re doing really well, but we have a waiting list if you do want to drop out?’
‘I don’t want to drop out. And I’m only too well aware of how many candidates would love to take my place.’
Chico held up his hands to calm her. ‘Then, may I suggest you relax and make the most of your time here?’
How close they’d been, she thought as a wave of wistfulness swept over her, and how far apart they were now. How fierce was her urge to hug him tightly and share her fears about her grandmother with someone who would understand, but there was a barrier between them that prevented her doing so. Perhaps the past would always stand between them.
* * *
Lizzie looked so vulnerable that he was tempted to soften, but then he remembered that the line of strong characters in the Fane family had skipped a generation. Had they skipped another with Lizzie?
‘If there’s a problem I expect you to tell me,’ he said in his firm tutor’s voice. ‘If money’s a problem, or you’re worried about your grandmother, I’ll buy you a plane ticket home.’
‘Thank you for the offer, but it’s not necessary.’ She tipped her chin up to stare him in the eyes.
He stepped in her way, one hand resting on the wall of the stall to stop her. He felt vaguely nettled. Why did she always have to do things alone? ‘Just let me know if things change.’
‘I will,’ she assured him stiffly, not giving one inch.
Losing patience, he put his hand on her arm to move her aside. She was warm, firm, tempting, but that stubbornness was irreversible.
He followed her out, closing the stable door behind them, and then followed Lizzie down the line of stalls. He could see her concern for her grandmother in the tension in her back. He sensed she was holding back tears. Well, if she wouldn’t let him, he couldn’t help her. He supposed too much dirty water had flowed beneath the bridge for either of them to ever trust each other again. That thought riled him. He didn’t like being shut out.
He was merciless with his students during that morning’s training. Pushing them to the limits of their endurance, he made them ride the trickiest horses bareback, informing them they would leave the class one of two ways: on a stretcher, or on a flight home. Frustration of all kinds was pushing him to the limit. He knew this, but didn’t let up. Lizzie didn’t falter, but she flashed him several furious glances. She knew he was punishing them; she just didn’t know why.
‘That’s it,’ he said at the end of the class, making a closing gesture with his hands. ‘I’ll pin up the results of my test outside the tack room. You know the drill.’
They all knew that some of them would be leaving today, and his students were subdued as they left the indoor training ring to go and rub down their horses. Lizzie had dismounted, and having put a head collar on her pony, she was leading him with her other arm around her friend Danny, who was repeating the course, and who today seemed to have gone backwards in training, having fallen off several times. Not his problem. He had a report to write.
He didn’t see Lizzie again until that evening when she knocked on his office door. He was in a better mood. Having put his students through the wringer, he had found his personal training to be rigorous, but productive, and he had thrashed his opponents on the pitch ten goals to six. His injured horse was well on the way to recovery, and the beer he was currently enjoying was ice cold. Sitting back in his favourite chair with his booted feet crossed, he was more than happy to receive a visit from Lizzie Fane. Until he heard what she had to say, though it began well enough, with Lizzie in the role of supplicant.
‘May I speak to you for a moment, please?’ she asked politely, shutting the door behind her with her usual care.
He wondered for a moment if Lizzie ever broke out of her shell these days. She had done when she was younger, when she used to ride like a demon round the grounds of Rottingdean, but perhaps life had knocked that exuberance out of her, because all he could feel from her now was tension. He was instantly alert.
‘Do you have a problem?’ Everyone would have read the test results by now, and he knew Lizzie wouldn’t like them.
‘Yes, I’ve got a problem.’
‘So...?’ Spreading his arms wide, he encouraged her to begin.
‘It’s not me that’s got the problem,’ she began.
‘Let me guess—this is about Danny.’
‘Yes, it is,’ she agreed.
‘There’s no one on that list you should be worrying about, except yourself. You’re here on your own behalf, not to run a nannying service.’
He stared at her keenly. Lizzie had more than a little of her grandmother’s steel in her, but there was more to this than a plea for a fellow student, he suspected.
‘I’ve already given Danny a second chance. She’s repeating the course. Last year she had an excuse. This year? Better I get rid of her now than dash her hopes last minute. You need to let this go, Lizzie. And now I have work to do—’
‘I thought you were someone special,’ she said as he tu
rned away. ‘I thought you gave people a chance, because you had been given a chance by Eduardo—’
‘That would be one chance,’ he snapped in reply, incredulous that she would argue back, and furious she would bring his mentor into this. ‘No one handed me my life on a plate. And in spite of what you think of me, I do know how hard it is—’
‘How hard you make it,’ she countered.
He shrugged. ‘So not everyone’s going to make the grade. That’s something you need to accept, especially if you intend to make a success of a business one day.’
‘I will make a success of my business, but this is different,’ she insisted. ‘This is unjust. All I’m asking is that you reinstate Danny. It will destroy her if you send her away. And she can only improve. She’d not done anything terrible—’
‘Or anything notable, either,’ he pointed out, determined to ignore Lizzie’s plea. ‘Am I supposed to wait around indefinitely in the hope that one day Danny will improve?’
‘She’s heartbroken that you’re letting her go.’
