An Exception to His Rule

by Lindsay Armstrong

* * *

  ‘Do you think I look all right?’ Harriet said to Isabel two weeks later.

  She was dressed and ready for her wedding.

  She wore a white dress with lacy sleeves and a bouffant skirt that skimmed her knees. Her hair was fair, glossy and coaxed into ringlets. But she stared at herself in the bedroom mirror and sighed.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ Isabel replied. She’d been in a state of constant excitement ever since the wedding had been announced.

  Harriet sighed again, however, as she continued to gaze at her reflection in the mirror.

  ‘What?’ Isabel queried as she produced a pair of new shoes out of a box for Harriet.

  ‘It’s just that when I first met Damien I looked a mess. Then, the next time we met, I looked like an attendant out of a museum. I’m just wondering if he doesn’t prefer me looking—unusual.’ She sat down on the bed to put her new shoes on.

  ‘Honey,’ Isabel said, ‘believe me, he will love this you as much as all the others.’

  ‘You look lovely,’ Harriet said, taking in Isabel’s camellia-pink linen suit. ‘And I can’t thank you enough for...for everything. You’ve been marvellous.’

  Isabel sat down on the bed next to Harriet and picked up her hand. ‘I knew someone once,’ she said. ‘I thought he was my north and my south but I wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle to his career. And it would have meant a lot of time on my own. It would have meant bringing up our kids virtually on my own, it would have meant being the other woman to a career that was almost like a mistress to him. So I said no when he mentioned marriage.’

  Isabel paused and looked into the distance. ‘I sent him away and I’ve regretted it ever since.’

  Harriet caught her breath. ‘Can’t—surely you could have—wasn’t there some way you could have got together again?’

  Isabel shook her head. ‘By the time I’d realised what I’d done, and it took a few years to really realise it, he’d married someone else. So—’ Isabel patted Harriet’s hand again ‘—to see you and Damien so much in love and getting married when I was afraid it wasn’t going to happen, when I thought it all was going to fail, means a lot to me.’

  ‘Now you’ve made me cry!’

  ‘Here, just fix your make-up and you’ll be fine. But first, let me do this.’ And she hugged Harriet warmly.

  * * *

  It was a beautiful day and the garden was looking its finest.

  There was a table set up for the marriage celebrant with a cloth of gold and a marvellous bouquet of flowers fresh picked from the garden that morning. There were chairs set out for the guests on the lawn and there was a sumptuous buffet laid out on the veranda.

  The guests, more than Harriet had expected, comprised close family friends and, of course, family. Charlie was there—apart from the slightest limp, he was quite recovered from his accident and he’d brought along a stunning brunette. He was also the best man.

  Brett Livingstone was there, also almost fully mobile now and engaged to his physiotherapist. It was he who was to give Harriet away.

  Arthur and Penny Tindall were there. Arthur wore a morning suit.

  Harriet drew a very deep breath as she stepped out from her guest suite and paused for a moment.

  Brett was waiting for her. And Damien who, thanks to Isabel’s sense of tradition, she had not seen since yesterday, was waiting at the table in the garden with Charlie by his side.

  ‘Ready?’ Brett mouthed, his eyes full of affection as he held out his arm.

  She nodded and something brushed against her legs—Tottie. Tottie, with a ribbon in her collar and a wide smile, as if to say, It’s OK. I’m here.

  Then she was beside Damien, who was looking quite breathtakingly handsome in a dark suit. And Brett stepped back, leaving her to her fate...

  They exchanged a long glance that sent tremors through Harriet because that was the effect Damien had on her and always would, she suspected. Then his lips twisted and a wicked little glint lit his eyes. ‘I like your dress. I was afraid you’d wear something long.’

  ‘I was afraid you mightn’t marry me if I did,’ she whispered back.

  ‘For crying out loud, who mightn’t marry whom? Don’t tell me you two are having second thoughts!’ Charlie intervened, although sotto voce. ‘I’m a nervous wreck already.’

  ‘Why?’ Damien and Harriet asked simultaneously.

  ‘In case I lost the ring or dropped it or did something otherwise stupid.’ He ran his finger round his neck inside his collar. ‘Damn nerve-racking business this getting married bit. I might have second thoughts about it myself!’

  Both Harriet and Damien laughed and the marriage celebrant cleared her throat and asked if she could proceed.

  All three participants in front of her replied in the affirmative in a rather heartfelt manner, so she did.

  Not many minutes later, Damien Richard Wyatt and Harriet Margaret Livingstone were pronounced man and wife and the bridegroom was told he might kiss the bride.

  Damien put his arms around her. ‘I love you,’ he said and bent his head to kiss her lips.

  But, at that moment, Penny Tindall, who had a rather penetrating voice, said, ‘Arthur...Arthur, the baby’s coming!’

  And before the bemused gaze of the whole congregation plus the bridal party, Arthur Tindall sprang to his feet, and fainted.

  ‘Things are running true to form,’ Damien said to Harriet. ‘There’s something about us getting within a cooee of each other that just invites chaos!’

  They laughed together and went to rescue Arthur.

  * * *

  ‘It was always my deepest fear,’ Arthur said that evening as he clutched a glass of brandy, ‘that I would have to deliver the baby. That’s what did it. That’s what made me faint.’

  In fact Penny’s baby had been delivered in a maternity ward, as planned, admittedly after a rather fast trip in an ambulance, but both mother and daughter were fine.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE WOMAN SENT TO TAME HIM by Victoria Parker.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Monte Carlo, May

  Hold on to your hearts, ladies, because racing driver Lothario Finn St George is back in the playground of the rich and famous.

  After sailing into the Port of Monaco with a bevy of beauties only last eve, the man titled Most Beautiful in the World donned a custom-fit tux and his signature crooked smile and swaggered into the Casino Grand with all the flair of James Bond. Armed with his loaded arsenal of charismatic charm, the six-times World Champion then proceeded to beguile his way through the enamoured throng—despite the owner of Scott Lansing advising the playboy to ‘calm his wild partying and tone down adverse publicity’.

  Seems Michael Scott is still battling with threats from sponsors, who are considering pulling out of over forty million pounds’ worth of support for the team.

  True, Finn St George has always danced on the devilish side of life, but of late he seems to be pushing some of the more family-orientated sponsors a fraction too far. Indeed, only last week he was pictured living it up with not one but four women
in a club in Barcelona—apparently variety really is the spice of his life!

  Though, with only two days to go until the Prince of Monaco launches this year’s race, we suspect Finn’s wicked social life is the least of Scott Lansing’s worries, because clearly our favourite racer is off his game.

  While Australia was a washout, earning him third place, St George barely managed to scrape a win in Malaysia and Bahrain, leaving Scott Lansing standing neck and neck with fierce rivals Nemesis Hart. But when he crashed spectacularly in Spain last month, and failed to finish, racing enthusiasts not only dubbed him ‘the death-defyer’, but he slipped back several points, leaving Nemesis Hart the leader for the first time in years.

  Has St George really lost his edge? Or has the tragic boating accident of last September, involving his teammate Tom Scott, affected him so severely?

  Usually dominating the grid, it appears our much-loved philanderer needs to up his game and clean up his act, or Scott Lansing may just find themselves in serious financial straits. One thing is certain: while Monaco waits with bated breath for the big race tomorrow Michael Scott is sure to be pacing the floors, hoping for a miracle.

  * * *

  A MIRACLE...

  With a flick of her wrist, Serena Scott tossed the crumpled newspaper across her father’s desk. ‘Well, she was wrong about one thing. You’re not pacing the floors.’

  On a slow spin the black and white blur landed in front of him, hitting the glass with a soft smack. Then the only sound in the luxurious office on the Scott Lansing yacht was Serena’s choppy breathing and the foreboding thump of her heart.

  ‘No pacing. Yet,’ he grated, dipping his chin to lock his sharp graphite eyes on hers.

  Well, now... She had the uncanny notion that after hours of musing over the true genesis of her three a.m. wake-up call she was about to discover exactly why she’d been dragged from her warm bed in London to globetrot to the Côte d’Azur. And if the suspicion snaking up her spine was anything to go by she wasn’t going to like it.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re worried about,’ she said, perfectly amiable as she folded her arms across the creased apple-green T shrouding her chest. ‘Finn is performing to his usual sybaritic standards, if you ask me. Fraternising with God-knows-who while he parties the night away, drinks, gambles, beds a few starlets and crashes a car for the grand finale. Nothing out of the ordinary. You knew this two years ago, when you signed him.’

  ‘Back then he wasn’t this bad,’ came the wry reply. ‘It’s not only that. He’s...’

  That familiar brow furrowed and Serena’s followed suit.

  ‘He’s what?’

  ‘I can’t even explain it. He goes on like nothing’s happened but it’s like he’s got a death wish.’

  She coughed out an incredulous laugh. ‘He hasn’t got a death wish. He’s just so supremely arrogant he thinks he’s indestructible.’

  ‘It’s more than that. There’s something...dark about him all of a sudden.’

  Dark? A sinister shiver crept over her skin as the past scratched at her psyche, picking at the scab of a raw wound. Until she realised just who they were talking about.

  ‘Maybe he’s been overdoing it on the sun deck.’

  ‘You’re being deliberately obtuse,’ he ground out.

  Yes, well, unfortunately Finn St George brought out the worst in her—had done since the first moment she’d locked eyes with him four years ago...

  Serena flung her brain into neutral before it hit reverse and kicked up the dirt on one of the most humiliating experiences of her life. Best to say lesson learned. After that, what with her engineering degree, working alongside the team’s world-famous car designer in London and Finn’s thirst for media scintillation—which she avoided like the bubonic plague—face-to-face contact between them had been gratifyingly rare.

  Until—just her rotten luck—their formal ‘welcome to the team’ introduction, when he’d struck at every self-preservation instinct she possessed, oozing sexual gravitas, with challenge and mockery stamped all over his face. Hateful man. She didn’t need reminding she was no femme fatale—especially by a Casanova as shallow as a puddle.

  Add in the fact that his morals, or lack thereof, turned her stomach to ice, from the outset they’d snarled and sparked and butted heads—and that had been before he’d stolen the most precious thing in the world from her.

  A fierce rush of grief flooded through her, drenching her bones with sorrow, and she swayed on her feet.

  ‘Look,’ her father began, tugging at the cuff of his high-neck white team shirt. ‘I know you two don’t really get along...’

  Wow, wasn’t that an understatement?

  ‘But I need your help here, Serena.’

  With an incredulous huff she narrowed her eyes on the whipcord figure of Michael Scott, also known as Slick Mick to the ladies and Dad when in private, or when she was feeling particularly daughterly, as he rocked back in his black leather chair.

  Nearing fifty, the former racing champion reminded her of a movie icon, with his unkempt salt and pepper hair, surrounding a chiselled face even more handsome than it had been at the peak of his career. The guy was seriously good-looking. Not exactly a father figure, but they were friends of the best kind. At least they usually were.

  ‘This is your idea of a joke, right?’ It was hard to sound teasing and only mildly put out when there was such a great lump in her throat. ‘Because, let me tell you, I have more of a chance to be Finn St George’s worst nightmare than his supposed...saviour.’

  The idea was ridiculous!

  Visibly deflating, he shook his head tiredly. ‘I know. But I find myself wondering if you have a better chance of getting through to him. Because, honestly, I’m running out of ideas. And drivers. And cars.’ Up came his arm in a wave of exasperation and the pen in his hand soared over the toppling towers of paperwork. ‘Did you watch that crash last month? Zero self-preservation. The guy is going to get himself killed.’

  ‘Let him.’ The words flew out of her mouth Serena-style—that was before she could think better of it or lessen the blow. One of her not-so-good traits that landed her in trouble more often than not...

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ he said, with the curt ring of a reprimand.

  Closing her eyes, she breathed through the maelstrom of emotions warring in her chest. No, she didn’t mean that. She might not like the man, but she didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. Much.

  ‘What’s more, I refuse to lose another boy in this lifetime.’

  The hot air circling behind her ribs gushed past her lips and her shoulders slumped. Then, for the first time since she’d barged in here twenty minutes ago, she took a good look at Michael Scott—a real look. Her dad might be all kinds of a playboy himself, but she’d missed him terribly.

  Inspecting the grey shadows beneath his eyes, Serena almost asked how he was coping with the loss of his only son. Almost asked if he’d missed her while she’d been gone. But Serena and her father didn’t go deep. Never had, never would. So she stuffed the love and the hurt right back down, behind the invisible walls she’d designed and built with the fierce power of a youthful mind.

  Yeah, she was the tough cookie in the brood. She didn’t grieve from her sleeve or wail at the world for the unfairness of it all. Truly, what was the point? She was this man’s daughter, raised as one of the pack. No room for mushy emotions or feminine sentimentality spilling all over the place.

  So, even though she now had a Tom-sized hole in her heart, she had to deal with it like a man—get up, get busy, move on.

  It was a pity that plan wasn’t working out so well. Some days her heart ached so badly she was barely holding it together. Don’t be ridiculous, Serena, you can hold up the world with one hand. Snap out of it!

  ‘Anyway, you can’t stay i
n London all season, fiddling with the prototype. I thought it was ready.’

  ‘It is. We’re just running through the final testing this week.’

  ‘Good, because I need you here. The design team can finish the trials.’

  I need you. Wily—that was what he was. He knew exactly what to say and when.

  ‘No. You need me to try and control your wild boy. Problem is I have absolutely no wish to ever set eyes on him again.’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault, Serena,’ he said wearily.

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  But exactly which part of Finn taking Tom to Singapore on a bender and Finn coming back first-class on his twenty-million-pound jet whilst her brother returned in a box wasn’t his fault? Which part of Finn taking him out on a boat when Tom couldn’t swim and subsequently drowned wasn’t his fault? He hadn’t even had the decency to attend the funeral!

  But she didn’t bother to rehash old arguments that only led her down the rocky road to nowhere.

  ‘So you want me to...what? Forgive him? Not a chance in hell. Make him feel better? I don’t. So why should he?’

  ‘Because this team is going down. Do you really want that?’

  She let loose a sigh. ‘You know I don’t.’ Team Scott Lansing was her family. Her entire life. A colourful, vibrant rabble of friends and adoptive uncles and she’d missed them all. But the entire scene just brought back too many memories she was ill-equipped to handle right now.

  ‘So think of the bigger picture. Read my lips when I say, for the final time, it wasn’t Finn’s fault. It was an accident. Let it go. You are doing no one any favours quibbling about it—least of all me.’

  He pinched the bridge of his nose as if to stem one of his killer migraines and guilt fisted her heart.

  He was suffering. They were all suffering. In silence. Let it go...

  But why was it every time they spoke of that tragic day, when the phone had shrilled ominously through their trailer, she was slapped with the perfidious feeling she was being kept in the dark? And she loathed the dark.