virgin, she acknowledged gloomily. Diego had made her feel things she had never felt before, and now she felt restless and unfulfilled.
She did not see him until later in the afternoon, when she and a few of the other grooms had been out exercising some of the polo ponies and gave them one last gallop back to the stables. Diego was wearing a knee-length black oilskin coat and matching wide-brimmed hat that shielded his face, but his height and the width of his shoulders made him instantly recognisable, and Rachel’s heart lurched when she reined in her horse and they trotted into the yard.
‘Are you sufficiently recovered from your accident to be riding?’ he greeted her as he strode over and caught hold of her pony’s bridle.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied automatically, ignoring the nagging pain in her ribs. Her eyes were drawn to his mouth, and she blushed as she recalled the tingling pleasure of his kiss. She saw something flicker in his eyes and hastily looked away from him. ‘I’d better go and rub Charlie Boy down. He’s covered in mud.’
‘You both are,’ Diego said dryly. He did not understand how he could possibly be turned on by Rachel when she was wearing a bulky waxed jacket and mud-spattered jodhpurs. He usually liked women to look feminine and alluring—as if they’d spent their days in the beauty parlour and came to him beautifully groomed and coiffed and dressed in exquisite couture gowns. Rachel looked as though she had rolled in every muddy puddle she’d come across but, to his self-disgust, he imagined undressing her slowly, layer by layer, until he exposed her slender, pale body.
‘How are the bruises?’ he asked roughly.
‘Fading,’ she mumbled, remembering how he had unfastened her shirt and discovered the ugly purple marks on her shoulder, and how the desire in his eyes had rapidly disappeared. What would he make of her now that the bruises were turning an unattractive greenish yellow? She would never know, she told herself firmly. She was never going to allow him to touch her again, let alone undress her—and, from the cool expression in his eyes, he obviously regretted the whole episode as much as she did.
‘You could have taken another day off,’ he murmured. ‘I can see that your shoulder is still stiff.’
‘It’s fine—and I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing. I’m not the world’s most patient patient,’ she owned honestly.
Amusement glinted in his eyes at her understatement. ‘No, I don’t suppose you are. When you’ve seen to your horse I’ll give you a lift home. I have to go into the village and the farm is on my way.’
‘Oh, no, it’s okay—I’m not going home just yet.’
He frowned. ‘There’s nothing more to do here today.’
‘I want to take Piran over the jumps,’ Rachel admitted reluctantly.
He shook his head. ‘That’s not a good idea. It’s your first day back and you must be tired.’ He had watched her on several occasions during the day, when she had been unaware of him, and he was astounded at how hard she worked. She was so petite, and the life of a stable-hand was physically demanding, but from the moment she had arrived at the stables early this morning she had taken on more than her fair share of the workload.
If Rachel was honest, she was worn out and ached all over, but her innate stubbornness rebelled at Diego’s dictatorial tone. ‘Olympic champions don’t get to the top of their sport by giving in every time they’re tired,’ she said briskly. ‘Piran and I both need all the practice we can get before our next competition.’
‘Santa Madre! You are the most headstrong, argumentative…’ Diego inhaled deeply, trying to control his temper. ‘I understand your desire to succeed as a showjumper, but it’s sheer folly to take unnecessary risks.’
‘Jumping is a dangerous sport—as is polo,’ Rachel said tightly. ‘How can you warn me about taking risks when your whole career has been built on the fact that you consistently risk your safety when you play? I’ve watched footage of you competing in tournaments, and you ride with a crazy disregard for your safety—almost as if you’ve got a death-wish,’ she added, her voice faltering when the hard gleam in Diego’s eyes warned her that she had gone too far.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped coldly. ‘I’ve been at the top of my sport for the past ten years and I know what I’m doing.’
Rachel shrugged. ‘Fine—let’s agree that I won’t give you advice on your sport, and you won’t tell me how to do mine.’
Diego glared at the mutinous line of her mouth and was seriously tempted to kiss her into submission. She was as strong-willed and reckless as…as he had been at twenty-two, he owned grimly. She thought she was infallible, just as he had a decade ago, and he wanted to warn her that she wasn’t—no one was.
Once he had been headstrong and impetuous, but it had been those traits that had caused his brother’s death. Diego closed his eyes briefly, trying to stem the wave of pain that swept through him as he pictured Eduardo’s lifeless body. Even after all this time the memories were agonising and the pain still raw. The ache in Diego’s heart had never eased—nor had the belief that he had no right to experience happiness in his life when he had unwittingly caused Eduardo’s accident.
Rachel was wrong about one thing; he brooded grimly as he watched her dismount and lead her pony into the stable. He did not have a death-wish—it was simply that his survival or otherwise was something that did not interest him unduly. He had spent the last ten years pushing himself to the limits and daring death to take him as it had taken his brother, and it was ironic that his recklessness had made him a national sporting hero in Argentina and a world renowned polo champion.
Hardwick Polo Tournament was always a popular event, but this year more tickets had been sold than usual because Diego Ortega would be playing for the home team. For the past two weeks Rachel had arrived at the stables at dawn and worked until dusk, helping to prepare the estate for the influx of twenty thousand visitors. Somehow she managed to fit in riding Piran. She’d felt apprehensive the first time she had taken him over the jumps after he had thrown her, and Diego’s brooding presence at the edge of the paddock had only made things worse. But she forced herself to control her nerves—aware that Piran would pick up on her tension, and she was euphoric when he jumped the six foot fence with no problems.
She was less happy that Diego seemed to have appointed himself as her minder and turned up without fail every evening when she took Piran down to the practice paddock. His presence unsettled her. He unsettled her, she admitted when she watched him stride into the yard on the morning of the polo tournament. He looked breathtakingly handsome in the Hardwick team colours—a gold shirt, taupe jodhpurs and black leather boots. As usual the sight of him made her pulse-rate quicken and she blushed when he looked over at her, the slight smile on his lips telling her that he was aware that she had been staring at him.
She had developed a monumental crush on him, she acknowledged ruefully, feeling a shiver of excitement run the length of her spine when his gaze lingered on her. She worked with him closely every day and was finding it increasingly hard to hide her attraction to him. And it was not just her physical awareness of him. Watching him train the polo ponies, she had been impressed by his skill and patience, and his amazing affinity with horses. He was an outstanding horseman, and she knew she could learn a lot from him. She wished she could relax and chat to him as easily as the other stable-hands did, but she felt tongue-tied whenever he spoke to her, and was terrified he would guess how much she longed for him to kiss her again.
Diego had been chatting with the other members of the Hardwick team, but now he detached himself from the group and walked over to collect the first of the four horses he would ride during the match. ‘Do you have a partner to escort you to the after-tournament party, Rachel?’ he queried casually as he swung himself into the saddle.
He hadn’t yet donned his hard hat and in the sunlight his hair gleamed like raw silk on his shoulders, blown back from his face by the breeze. Rachel’s heart jolted beneath her ribs and her voice emerged as a strangled sound. ‘Alex asked me to go with him,’