An Exception to His Rule

by Lindsay Armstrong

  ‘The first thing that struck me about him,’ Harriet said dryly, ‘was how arrogant he was. I never felt more...more vindicated—that’s not the right word, but it definitely was a release of some kind—when I slapped his face, although I got myself kissed for my pains.’ She stopped and bit her lip.

  ‘That first day you came to Heathcote?’ Isabel queried and when Harriet nodded she laughed.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but I knew something had happened between you two. So did Charlie.’

  ‘Charlie walked in on it,’ Harriet said gloomily, ‘that’s how he knew.’ Then she had to smile. ‘If you could have seen his expression.’

  But her smile faded and she put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, God, please let him be OK!’

  Isabel got up and came to put her arms around Harriet. ‘I think we should go to bed. There’s nothing we can do tonight. Goodnight, my dear.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ Harriet whispered back.

  * * *

  But, back up in the flat, Harriet had no desire to go to bed, she discovered, and not only on Charlie’s account, although that feeling of dread was still running through her.

  It was Isabel’s bombshell that she also had on her mind. It was the fact that she’d been able to see it was no use denying to Isabel that she was helplessly, hopelessly in love with her nephew.

  But how had she given herself away? She’d only admitted it to herself recently. Of course it had been bubbling away for longer than that; she just hadn’t been aware of it.

  ‘I must be incredibly transparent,’ she murmured aloud. ‘Maybe I do go around with my head in the clouds. Perhaps I was unaware of how I reacted when his name came up? Or perhaps Isabel and Charlie had been comparing notes? Did they see something in Damien, both of us, they hadn’t expected to see?’

  She shook her head and, with a heavy sigh, decided to take him a cup of cocoa.

  What if he doesn’t like cocoa? she immediately asked herself. He doesn’t drink tea. They couldn’t be less alike, tea and cocoa, however, but, if he needs some fortitude, what better than, say, an Irish coffee?

  * * *

  She found him in his study, staring out of the window.

  The breeze had dropped and the sky had cleared so there was starlight on the water and a pale slice of moon.

  He didn’t move when she knocked softly; she didn’t think he’d heard her.

  She put the tray with two Irish coffees on his desk and walked over to him, making sure she approached from a wide angle so as not to startle him.

  ‘Any news?’ she asked.

  He turned his head. ‘No.’

  ‘I brought us some—liquid fortitude.’ She gestured to the tall glasses on the tray.

  He glanced at them and sketched a smile—and held out his hand to her.

  She hesitated for one brief moment then she took it, knowing full well what was going to happen and knowing at the same time it was the least she could do for him because it all but broke her heart to see the suffering etched into his expression.

  And she went into his arms with no hesitation at all. But he surprised her. He held her loosely and some of the lines left his face as he said, with a quirk of humour, ‘There is something you could always put down on the plus side for me.’

  ‘What?’ she breathed, as his nearness started to overwhelm her.

  ‘I’m taller.’

  Her lips curved. ‘Yes. You are.’

  He raised a hand and traced the line of her jaw. ‘Does it help? Or do you prefer your men shorter?’

  ‘I do not,’ she observed seriously. ‘They make me feel like an Amazon. No, it’s definitely a plus.’

  ‘Good. I mean that makes me feel good. I was beginning to develop an inferiority complex. Not that I’ll ever be able to even up the ledger.’ He took a very deep breath. ‘I’m talking nonsense but—what will I do without Charlie if it goes that way?’

  Harriet slipped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. ‘Don’t think like that. It hasn’t happened yet, it may not happen.’

  ‘It’s so vast up there and if it’s not dry and desolate, the shores and the creeks have crocodiles—I know, I’ve been fishing up there.’ His arms tightened around her.

  ‘But they must have very sophisticated tracking and search and rescue equipment. Don’t give up hope.’

  ‘You sound so sensible and sane. And you feel so good,’ he added barely audibly.

  ‘So...so do you,’ she murmured back and raised her mouth for his kiss.

  * * *

  ‘This is getting out of hand,’ he said some time later as they drew apart to take deep breaths and steady themselves. ‘I hope you don’t mind me doing this.’

  Harriet regarded him gravely. ‘It did annoy me, the last time.’

  His eyebrows shot up? ‘How come?’

  She chuckled. ‘You never asked me for my preferences in the matter. You just went ahead and did it.’

  ‘Miss Livingstone,’ he said formally, ‘please tell me what your preferences are in the matter—this matter. So as not to be misunderstood.’ He pulled her closer and cradled her hips to him.

  Harriet took an unsteady breath. ‘They appear to be very similar to yours in this instance.’ And she linked her arms around his neck and stared into his eyes.

  It was a long, compelling look they shared and Harriet strove to convey the sense that she understood his need and the starkness of his emotions and that she wanted to offer him some comfort.

  He breathed urgently and said one word. ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure,’ she answered.

  He looked around and gestured at the large comfortable settee. ‘Here?’

  ‘If you don’t have a haystack or a loft?’ she queried with laughter glinting in her eyes.

  ‘I...’ He hesitated then he saw that glint of laughter and for a moment his arms around her nearly crushed her.

  ‘All right,’ he said into her hair, and that was the last word spoken for a while.

  But what followed didn’t stop Harriet from thinking along the lines of, I was right. I sensed that he’d know how to make love to a woman in a way that would thrill her and drive her to excesses she didn’t know she could reach...

  Because that was exactly what happened to her. From a fairly timid lover—she suddenly realised this with a pang of embarrassment—she became a different creature.

  She craved his hands on her body. She helped him to take her clothes off and she gloried in the way he touched and stroked her. She became impatient to help him shed his clothes.

  She made no effort to hide her excitement as they lay together on the settee and he cupped her breasts and plucked her nipples, as he drew his fingers ever lower down her body.

  And she clung to him as desire took her by storm and there was only one thing she craved—to be taken. So she moved provocatively against him and did her own fingertip exploration of him until he growled and turned her onto her back and made sure she was ready for him, then they were united in an urgent rhythm and finally an explosion of sensation.

  ‘Oh!’ she breathed, as she arched her body against him.

  And he buried his head between her breasts as he shuddered to a final closure.

  * * *

  ‘Harriet?’

  ‘Mmm...?’

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Her eyes remained closed but she smiled a secret little smile.

  He grinned and dropped the lightest kiss on her hair. ‘Wait here.’

  She moved in an urgent little protest. ‘Don’t go away.’

  ‘I’ll be right back.’ But he checked his phone and glanced at his computer screen before he went out.

  She looked a question at him but he shook his head.

  And he w
as as good as his word; he was back in a couple of minutes with a sheet, a blanket and a couple of pillows. He’d also put on a pair of shorts.

  He covered her and made sure she was comfortable.

  Then he stopped. ‘There are six bedrooms we could go to. I’m not sure why we didn’t in the first place.’

  ‘We weren’t in the most practical frame of mind,’ she suggested.

  He sat down beside her and smoothed her hair. ‘If I recall correctly, you were even talking about haystacks.’

  ‘Silly talk.’ She slipped her hand under her cheek. ‘Love talk. Well—’ she bit her lip ‘—you know what I mean—pillow talk, that’s it!’

  ‘Yes.’

  Did he say it too soon? she immediately found herself wondering.

  ‘Your Dutch courage drinks have gone cold,’ he added.

  Harriet grimaced.

  ‘I’ll get us something else.’ He pushed his phone into his pocket.

  ‘Don’t.’ Harriet sat up and pulled the sheet up. ‘I mean, don’t wake Isabel. She could be shocked even if she does think...’ She broke off and hoped he didn’t see the colour she felt rising in her cheeks.

  But he appeared to notice nothing as he said, ‘Isabel has her own apartment downstairs. It closes off and she doesn’t hear a thing. I won’t be long. Don’t—’ his lips twisted ‘—go anywhere.’

  She didn’t go anywhere but she did pull her knickers and her shirt on.

  * * *

  It wasn’t brandy, as she’d been expecting, that he brought back—it was a bottle of champagne.

  Harriet studied the dark green bottle with its gold foil and the two tall glasses on the tray that he deposited on his desk. ‘Should we?’ she asked tentatively. ‘In the circumstances?’

  His hair was hanging in his eyes. All he wore were shorts but he could hardly have been more magnificent as he picked up the champagne bottle, Harriet thought as she caught her breath. His shoulders were broad, his chest was sprinkled with dark hair, his diaphragm was flat, his legs long and strong. He was beautiful, she thought with a pang. How was she ever going to forget him...?

  ‘In the circumstances,’ he said as he unwound the wire around the cork, ‘there is not only you and me to celebrate, there’s Charles Walker Wyatt. Wherever you are, Charlie, may you be safe and sound!’

  He popped the cork and poured the two glasses. He handed one to Harriet and clinked his against hers. ‘Charlie,’ he said.

  ‘Charlie,’ Harriet echoed. ‘May you be safe and sound!’

  His phone buzzed. He grabbed it and studied the screen, and breathed a huge sigh of relief as he read the message.

  ‘They’ve found him. They’ve found the site where it came down and the crew are all alive. Charlie has a broken arm and leg and a few gashes but otherwise he’s mostly OK.’

  Harriet flew off the settee into his arms. ‘Oh, thank heavens! Do you think they heard us, whoever is in charge of these things up there? I mean in heaven as well as North Western Australia? I think they must have!’

  He laughed down at her. ‘You could be right.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘They’re taking him to Darwin Hospital. They’ll keep him there for a few weeks. Where’s your glass?’

  ‘Here.’ She went to retrieve it from the end table beside the settee and he held it steady in her hand while he refilled it.

  Then he looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. ‘So—I’m over and done with, am I?’

  Harriet looked down at herself. ‘Not at all,’ she denied. ‘I just felt a little—undressed.’ She grimaced. ‘Not that I’m particularly—overdressed at the moment.’

  ‘Stay like that,’ he advised. ‘Because I’ll be right back. I’ll just pass on the news to Isabel.’

  * * *

  She was sitting on the settee with the sheet covering her legs when he came back. He brought his glass over and sat down beside her. He dropped his arm over her shoulders.

  ‘Cheers!’

  ‘Cheers!’ She sipped her champagne then laid her head on his shoulder. ‘Any particular person in mind this time?’

  ‘Yes.’ He drew his hand through her hair. ‘Us.’

  ‘Well, we’ve both got brothers on the mend, so yes—to us!’

  ‘True,’ he agreed, ‘but I meant a toast to what just happened here on this settee between us and the hope that it may continue to happen for us, not necessarily in a study or a haystack—a bed would do,’ he said with a glint of humour. ‘In other words, when will you marry me, Harriet Livingstone?’

  Harriet, in the echoing silence that followed his words, asked herself why she should not have expected this. Because he’d told her he could never overcome the cynicism he’d been left with after the debacle of his first marriage?

  ‘Harriet?’ He removed his arm and put his fingers beneath her chin to turn her face to his. ‘What?’

  Her eyes were wide but dark and very blue. ‘You said...’ she began quietly.

  ‘Forget what I said earlier,’ he ordered. ‘Have you never said or done something and almost immediately started to wonder why you did it?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Well, I have and that was one of them. Anyway, things have changed.’

  ‘Nothing’s changed,’ she denied.

  ‘There you go again,’ he drawled. ‘You kissed me once and were all set to walk away from me. Don’t tell me that modus operandi extends to making love to me as if—’ he paused, and looked deep into her eyes ‘—your soul depended on it, then walking away?’

  Harriet breathed heavily with great frustration. ‘I don’t have a “modus operandi” I employ like that,’ she said through her teeth.

  ‘So why did you make love to me like that?’

  She opened her mouth then gestured, annoyed. ‘I felt sorry for you—I felt sorry for me. It was so lonely and scary not knowing what had happened to Charlie; it was awful. That’s—’ she lifted her chin ‘—why I did it.’

  ‘There had to be more than that.’

  Harriet moved restlessly then she sighed. ‘Yes. Of course. We obviously—’ she shrugged ‘—are attracted.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said with considerable irony. ‘So why’s it such a bad idea? We both appeared,’ he said dryly, ‘to have forgotten our inhibitions and our hang-ups as well.’

  Harriet acknowledged this with a tinge of colour mounting in her cheeks but she said, ‘Temporarily, yes, but you can’t spend your life in bed. And I get the feeling marriage can create a pressure cooker environment for those hang-ups if they’re still lingering.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he advised, ‘come the philosopher with me, Harriet Livingstone.’

  She bristled. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! It’s only common sense.’

  He grinned fleetingly. ‘OK. How about this, then? If you won’t marry me, would you consider a relationship? That should give our hang-ups the freedom to rattle in the breeze rather than build up all sorts of pressure.’

  Harriet sat up. ‘No, I will not! And I’ll tell you why. You’ve got me on your conscience again, haven’t you? You couldn’t change so suddenly otherwise. Well, you don’t need to. I’ll be fine.’

  He sat up, all trace of amusement gone. ‘Listen,’ he said harshly, ‘if I have got you on my conscience, I’ve got good reason. You came here to Heathcote obviously traumatised—I wouldn’t be surprised if you were traumatised the day you ran into me. You were as skinny as a rake—and all because some guy had passed you over for another girl—’

  ‘Not just another girl,’ Harriet threw in. ‘My best friend.’

  Damien paused.

  ‘Someone I loved and trusted,’ she went on. ‘We met in our last year at school. I hadn’t made any close friends up until then because we moved around so much. That’s why I think she meant so muc
h to me. Then Carol and I went to the same college and we did everything together. We backpacked around Europe. We did a working holiday on a cattle station; we did so much together.

  ‘And all the while we dated guys, but not terribly seriously until I met Simon and she met Peter. And for a few months we double-dated. But then we drifted apart. Simon and I were talking marriage. Carol and Pete weren’t so serious.’ She stopped and shrugged.

  ‘And then Simon wasn’t so serious,’ Damien contributed.

  Harriet nodded. ‘I think Carol tried to avoid it but it didn’t work. And they got married. So you see, it was a double betrayal. That’s what made it so painful. And in the midst of it all my father died and my brother had this accident...and...I was alone. Everything that meant the most to me was gone or, if not gone, terribly injured. I don’t know how I got myself together but, once I did, I decided I was the only one I could rely on.’

  ‘I see—I do see,’ he said gently.

  ‘And it’s not something I want to go through again, any kind of a betrayal. And that’s why—’ she turned to Damien ‘—I’m not prepared to marry you or be your mistress because you’ve got me on your conscience.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘No.’ She put her hand over his. ‘I’m certainly not prepared to fall in love with you, only to find you don’t trust me, to find you don’t and never will believe in love ever after.’

  ‘What you need,’ he said after a long, painful pause, ‘is someone like Charlie.’

  Harriet jumped in astonishment.

  ‘I don’t mean Charlie per se,’ he continued, looking annoyed with himself. ‘I mean someone uncomplicated, with no hang-ups and no habit of command. No back story.’

  He pushed the sheet aside and stood up.

  Harriet stared up at him, her lips parted, her eyes questioning. ‘What...what’s going to happen now?’ she queried unevenly.

  Damien Wyatt looked down at her and his lips twisted. ‘Nothing.’