An Exception to His Rule

by Lindsay Armstrong

  ‘Nothing,’ she echoed.

  ‘What did you expect?’

  ‘I...I don’t know,’ she stammered.

  ‘That I’d kick you out?’

  ‘Well, no. I mean—not precisely.’ Harriet reached for her pedal pushers and stepped into them.

  ‘I’ll be off to Darwin first thing tomorrow and I’ll stay with Charlie for as long as he needs me. Then—’ he grimaced ‘—I’ll rearrange my Africa trip. Whilst you can finish my mother’s things and start on the paintings.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I can do that.’

  ‘You should. I’m sure it’ll do your brother good to have you around.’

  Harriet bit her lip.

  He watched her intently.

  She became conscious of his scrutiny. And it seemed to bring back the whole incredible sequence of events as they’d unfolded in this very room, not the least her passionate response to his lovemaking. It did more than that. It awoke tremors of sensation down her body and a sense of longing in her heart—a longing to be in his arms, a longing to be safe with him, a longing to be beloved...

  She closed her eyes briefly because, of course, that wasn’t going to happen. All the same, how to leave him?

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she murmured.

  ‘Not easy.’ A smile appeared fleetingly in his eyes. ‘Thanks but no thanks?’ he suggested.

  Harriet flinched.

  ‘Or maybe just, from me, anyway—take care?’ he mused. ‘Yes, in your case, Harriet Livingstone, I think that’s particularly appropriate. Don’t drive into any more Aston Martins, or anything, for that matter; you take care now. By the way, if there are any consequences you wouldn’t be so head-in-the-clouds as not to let me know?’

  Harriet took a sobbing little breath, grabbed her shoes and ran past him out of the door.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘HARRIET, YOU’RE WORKING your fingers to the bone!’ Isabel Wyatt accused as she stood in the studio doorway, shaking raindrops off her umbrella a couple of weeks later. ‘It’s Sunday,’ she continued. ‘Even if you’re not religious, you need a rest. What is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing! Come in. I’ll make you a cuppa. I’m just working on the Venetian masks. It’s a pity they got so dusty. Look at this lovely Columbina!’

  Harriet held up a white porcelain half-mask studded with glittering stones and dyed feathers.

  ‘Where does the name come from?’

  ‘A Columbina is a stock character in Italian comedy, usually a maid who’s—’ Harriet shrugged ‘—a gossip, flirty, a bit of a wag and in English known as a soubrette.’

  ‘Obviously not above disguising herself with a mask for the purpose of delicious secret liaisons,’ Isabel said.

  Harriet paused her dusting operation as the word liaison struck a chord with her, and for a moment she wanted to run away to the end of the earth as she thought of Damien Wyatt.

  But she forced herself to take hold.

  ‘Something like that,’ she murmured. ‘There are examples in this collection of all the different materials used to make masks, did you know? Leather, for example.’ She held up a mask. ‘Porcelain, as in the Columbina, and of course glass. Did you know the Venice Carnival goes back to 1162, when the Serenissima, as she was known then, defeated the Patriarch of Aquileila?’

  ‘I did know that bit, as a matter of fact.’ Isabel took the leather mask from Harriet. ‘I’ve been to the Venice Carnival. It was also outlawed by the King of Austria in 1797 but no one knows exactly what prompted the population of Venice to be so exceedingly taken up with disguising themselves. Come along.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Upstairs to your kitchen, where I will make you a cuppa. Now don’t argue with me, Harriet Livingstone!’

  * * *

  ‘What happened?’ Isabel asked about twenty minutes later when they both had steaming mugs of tea in front of them on the refectory table as well as a plate of rich, bursting with cherries fruitcake.

  ‘You mean...?’ Harriet looked a question at Isabel.

  ‘I mean with you and Damien—I’m not a fool, Harriet,’ Isabel warned. ‘Look, I wasn’t going to say anything but you’re so obviously...upset.’

  Harriet frowned. ‘We wouldn’t suit, that’s all.’

  ‘And that’s why you’ve been working all hours of the day and night and looking all haunted and pale?’ Isabel looked at her sardonically.

  ‘I need to get this job finished,’ Harriet said sharply. ‘It’s really started to drag—I just couldn’t seem to get on top of it! Even the kitchen’s been rebuilt whilst I didn’t seem to be getting much further forward! But I need to put Heathcote behind me and I wish I’d never laid eyes on Damien Wyatt.’

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t say all the Wyatts.’ Isabel stared at her.

  Harriet looked away. ‘I’m sorry. No, of course not you, Isabel. Or Charlie. But, ideally, I’d like to be gone before Damien and Charlie get home from Darwin. Look—’ she turned back to Damien’s aunt ‘—it’s impossible for us to be in the same place now. Believe me.’

  Isabel opened her mouth, hesitated, then said, ‘So you’re not going to do the paintings?’

  ‘I...I...no.’

  ‘How about your brother?’

  Harriet licked her lips. ‘He’s making...progress.’ But of course Brett was at the back of her mind, and how much easier it would be to make ends meet if she did stay on and do the paintings. But all the guilt in the world associated with Brett couldn’t make her stay, not now, not after...

  She sighed inwardly and pushed the plate of fruitcake towards Isabel. ‘I made it to welcome Charlie home,’ she said desolately and stood up abruptly to cross over to the window and stare out at the dismal, rainswept landscape. ‘He loves fruitcake.’

  ‘They’ll be home shortly.’

  * * *

  ‘Autumn has come with a vengeance,’ Brett said.

  Harriet huddled inside her coat and agreed with him.

  They were outside, despite the chill—Brett loved being outdoors whenever he could so she’d pushed him in his wheelchair to a sheltered arbour in the grounds. The breeze, however, had found its way around the arbour and it wasn’t as sheltered as she’d thought it would be.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ he said.

  Harriet looked enquiring and hoped he didn’t notice that she was preoccupied but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She was not only preoccupied but she was trying to dredge up the courage to tell him she was going back to Sydney...

  ‘Here.’ He took the rug she’d insisted on draping over his legs and handed it to her.

  ‘Oh, I’m all right,’ she protested.

  ‘Actually, you look half-frozen,’ he responded with a grin, ‘but all I want you to do is hold it for a couple of minutes.’

  And, so saying, he levered himself out of the wheelchair and, with a stiff, slightly jerky gait but, all the same, walked around the arbour completely unaided and came to stand in front of her.

  Harriet’s mouth had fallen open and her eyes were huge.

  ‘What do you think of that?’ he asked with obvious pride.

  Harriet jumped up and flung her arms around him. ‘Oh, Brett,’ she cried joyfully. ‘That’s such an improvement! When? How? Why? I mean...’ She stopped. ‘You’ve been holding out on me!’ she told him.

  ‘Yes. I wanted it to be a big surprise.’ He hugged her back then rocked slightly. ‘There’s still a way to go, though.’

  ‘Sit down, sit down,’ she insisted immediately, ‘and tell me all about it. I think I can guess a bit of it, though. Your new physiotherapist?’

  Brett sat down in his chair and nodded. ‘Yes. Ellen has made a huge difference, but not only as a physio. She—’ he paused ‘—she got m
e talking. See, I seemed to reach a plateau that I couldn’t get beyond and she asked me one day if there was anything I was worried about, other than the obvious. And I found that there was and it was something that made me feel helpless and hopeless.’

  ‘What?’ Harriet asked fearfully.

  He smiled at her and put his hand over hers. ‘You,’ he said simply.

  Harriet gasped.

  ‘Because of all the things you gave up for me,’ he said. ‘Because I didn’t know how I could ever repay you. Because I didn’t much like the sound of this guy you went to work for but there was not a damn thing I could do about it.’

  ‘Oh, Brett!’

  ‘And somehow I found myself telling Ellen all this—she said the best thing I could do for you was to walk again. It just seemed—’ he shook his head ‘—to put the fire back into me,’ he marvelled. ‘But there’s still a way to go.’

  ‘And will Ellen be with you down that road?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘I think so. I hope so. She...we—’ he managed to look embarrassed and uplifted at the same time ‘—really get along.’

  Harriet hugged him again. ‘I’m so glad. So glad,’ she repeated, ‘because I’m going back to Sydney tomorrow. I know, I know,’ she said to his look of surprise, ‘it’s a bit out of the blue but I’ve finished the job at last! And I’d like to look around for another one. Also, I told you about his brother?’ Brett nodded. ‘Well, they’re due home from Darwin in a couple of days and it’ll be a family time, I’m sure.’

  Brett stared at her. ‘What’s he done to you?’

  ‘Done?’ She blinked.

  ‘Yep,’ Brett said grimly. ‘Damien Wyatt.’

  ‘Nothing! He’s been quite—he’s been quite kind, all things considered—’

  ‘Don’t give me that, Harry,’ Brett said concernedly. ‘I can see with my own eyes that you look all haunted.’

  Harriet put a hand to her mouth. ‘Do I really—? I mean, am I really that easy to read—? I mean—’

  ‘Yes, you are. For someone who goes into her own little world quite frequently, you’re amazingly easy to read,’ he said somewhat dryly.

  Harriet bit her lip then took a deep breath. ‘If there’s any trauma, he didn’t cause it,’ she said. ‘I did. And I want you to believe that and—’ she stood up ‘—I want you to put it out of your mind and continue this...this marvellous recovery. Ellen is right, you see; it’s the very best thing you could do for me.’

  * * *

  ‘I can’t let you go like this,’ Isabel said the next morning as she watched Harriet pack her stuff into Brett’s battered old four-wheel drive. ‘Damien will never forgive me!’

  It was another blustery autumn day.

  ‘Stop worrying about it,’ Harriet advised her. ‘Between the two of you, you’ll have enough on your minds helping Charlie to get better without worrying about me. Besides which, I’m not that bad a driver,’ she added with some asperity.

  ‘There could be differing views on the matter.’ Isabel looked mutinous. ‘Look, take the Holden!’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly take the Holden,’ Harriet argued. ‘It doesn’t belong to me!’

  ‘Ah!’ Isabel pounced on an idea. ‘It could be said to belong to me, however!’

  Harriet didn’t stop packing up her vehicle.

  ‘What I mean is,’ Isabel continued, ‘I have a share in Heathcote, which includes all the equipment and machinery, so I am able, equally, to dispose of—things. Therefore I can gift you the blue Holden!’ she finished triumphantly. ‘Isn’t that how they phrase it these days?’

  Harriet put the last of her bags into the four-wheel drive and closed the back door.

  She walked over to Isabel and put her arms around her. ‘I’ll never forget you,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you for being a friend and—I have to go. I can’t explain but don’t blame Damien.’

  Isabel hugged her then took out her hanky.

  But a parting just as hard was still to come.

  Tottie was sitting disconsolately beside the open driver’s door.

  ‘Oh,’ Harriet said softly as a knot of emotion she’d been hoping to keep under a tight rein unravelled and her tears started to fall. ‘I don’t know what to say, Tottie, but I will miss you so much.’ She knelt down and put her arms around the big dog. ‘I’m sorry but I have to go.’

  * * *

  A few minutes later she was driving down the long, winding drive.

  In her rear-view mirror she watched Isabel hold on to Tottie’s collar so she couldn’t chase after Harriet, then the house was out of sight and the double gateposts were approaching and the tears she’d held on to so tightly started to fall.

  There was a sign on the road to be aware of a concealed driveway entrance to Heathcote.

  There was no sign inside Heathcote to the effect that the portion of the road that went past the gates was hidden from view due to some big trees and a slight bend in it.

  Still, Harriet had negotiated this many times so perhaps it was because that she was crying and had misted up her glasses that accounted for the fact that an ambulance driving into the property took her completely by surprise and caused her to swing the wheel and drive into one of the gateposts.

  * * *

  Damien put Harriet carefully into a chair and said in a weary, totally exasperated way, ‘What the hell am I going to do with you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Harriet responded tautly and eyed him with considerable annoyance.

  They were in the flat above the studio, where all Harriet’s belongings had been unloaded from Brett’s vehicle and where she now sat in an armchair with one foot swathed in bandages and resting on a footstool.

  The ambulance had picked Charlie and Damien up from Ballina airport because, due to his casts and stitches, fitting into a normal vehicle would have been difficult for Charlie.

  The ambulance had escaped unscathed from the incident at the gate. So, yet again, had Brett’s four-wheel drive. The gatepost was another matter. It had collapsed into a pile of rubble. And Harriet had somehow sprained her ankle.

  The male nurse accompanying Charlie had attended to it.

  ‘Nothing,’ Harriet repeated, ‘and I would appreciate it if you didn’t tower over me like that or treat me like an idiot!’

  ‘My apologies,’ Damien said dryly and sat down opposite her. ‘It’s not the first time this has happened, however.’

  ‘And it might not have happened if...if people hadn’t made...hadn’t cast aspersions on my driving or if I hadn’t been...’ She shook her head and closed her eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Been crying?’ he suggested.

  Her lashes lifted. ‘How did you know that?’

  He grimaced. ‘You looked as if you’d been crying— red eyes, you still had tears in your eyes, as a matter of fact, and tearstains on your cheeks.’

  There was a longish pause, then she said, ‘It was only Tottie I was crying over.’ She paused. ‘And perhaps Isabel.’

  ‘Despite her aspersions on your driving?’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘She told me. She feels very guilty and has asked me to apologise.’

  Harriet shrugged. ‘She meant well,’ she said gruffly.

  ‘So there’s no possibility there was a skerrick of regret in you about leaving me?’

  An uneasy silence developed until Harriet said carefully, ‘You know it could never have worked, Damien.’

  ‘I know I made a tactical error in asking you to marry me there and then. My intentions were the best, though.’

  ‘Yes.’ Harriet looked across at him. ‘You thought I’d go into a decline if you didn’t. You thought it could all be worked out on a pragmatic basis. Above all, you had me on your conscience again.’

 
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But look, we’re both stuck here for a while so we need to come to an arrangement.’

  Harriet raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re staying?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve postponed Africa while Charlie recovers.’

  ‘I should be fine within a week at the most. It’s only a sprain.’

  ‘It’s quite a severe sprain. The nurse told you to take it easy for at least a fortnight.’

  ‘I could go crazy in a fortnight,’ Harriet said gloomily.

  ‘Not if you start on the paintings.’

  She turned her head to look out of the window at the scudding clouds. ‘Back to the paintings again. They’re starting to haunt me.’

  ‘Of course we could spend a few days in Hawaii or Tahiti.’ His glance was ironic. ‘Together,’ he added and favoured her with a loaded glance.

  Harriet took a sharp breath but what she was about to say went unuttered as Tottie was at last allowed into the flat, with Isabel close behind.

  And Damien Wyatt observed the reunion between his aunt, his dog and—the thorn in his side?—not a bad description, he decided, and found himself feeling so annoyed on all fronts, he took himself off to, as he told them, go and see how Charlie was.

  But Charlie still had the nurse with him, checking him out.

  So Damien continued on to his study, but that wasn’t a good idea either. That brought back memories of a girl who’d loved him in a way that could only be described as ‘all or nothing’.

  It also reminded him that he still fancied Harriet Livingstone, although he was undoubtedly angry with her. Angry with her for turning him down again? Angry with her for driving into the gatepost?

  ‘Just plain angry with her,’ he mused and, coming to a sudden decision, reached for the phone as he swung his feet up onto the desk.

  Fortunately Arthur answered. Exchanging inanities with Penny would have been too much for him, Damien decided.

  ‘Arthur,’ he said, ‘Damien. Can you spare a bit of time up here at Heathcote?’

  Arthur rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Well, Penny is pregnant so I don’t like to leave her, not for too long anyway.’