An Exception to His Rule

by Lindsay Armstrong

  ‘How pregnant is Penny?’

  ‘About five months.’

  For crying out loud, Arthur, Damien thought but did not say, she’s going to keep you dancing attendance for the next four months!

  He cleared his throat. ‘Uh...of course. It’s just that Harriet could do with some help.’

  ‘Harriet?’ Arthur repeated. ‘I thought she was fine and almost finished.’

  ‘She was. She is finished but I’ve suggested she cleans the paintings for us rather than sending them away.’

  ‘Wonderful idea,’ Arthur responded heartily. ‘I’m sure she’d do a great job!’

  ‘Yes, well, she doesn’t quite see it that way and that’s probably because she’s a bit incapacitated at the moment. But I thought if you could come up and go through them with her—you know, if she had someone to discuss them with, someone who really knows what they’re talking about, it could help.’

  There was a short silence then Arthur said on a curious note, ‘Incapacitated?’

  ‘She’s sprained her ankle.’

  ‘How?’

  Damien grimaced. ‘She...ran into the gatepost. In that...tank.’

  A sudden silence came down the line, then, ‘I don’t believe it! The girl’s a menace behind the wheel.’

  ‘Uh, there may have been extenuating circumstances.’

  ‘What?’ Arthur enquired. ‘A dog or two that escaped completely unscathed?’

  Damien’s lips twisted. ‘No. But anyway, she’s a bit down in the dumps and I didn’t—’ he paused and was struck by a brainwave ‘—I didn’t believe Penny would like to think of Harriet like that.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Arthur agreed. ‘I’ll come up tomorrow morning. How’s Charlie?’

  * * *

  Damien put the phone down a few minutes later. Then he lifted the receiver again and proceeded to order not one but two wheelchairs, and two pairs of crutches.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘HOW’S PENNY?’

  Harriet and Arthur were in the dining room and Arthur was pushing her around in a wheelchair from painting to painting. Harriet was taking notes.

  ‘Well, we were expecting morning sickness, of course, and some form of—I don’t know—maybe emotional highs and lows, some weird cravings like pickles on jam, but she doesn’t seem to have ever been better.’

  Harriet hid a smile. Arthur sounded quite worried.

  ‘That’s good news,’ she said. ‘Sounds as if she’s having an uncomplicated pregnancy. Oh!’ Harriet stared at a picture on the wall. ‘I can’t believe I never noticed that before.’

  ‘Tom Roberts. Heidelberg School. One of my favourites. I was lucky to get that,’ Arthur said complacently

  ‘I love his beach scenes,’ Harriet said dreamily. ‘Where did you find it?’

  Arthur pushed her a bit further on and into the hall as he told her the story of how he’d acquired the Tom Roberts for Damien’s father. Harriet listened, genuinely fascinated, and they spent a pleasurable couple of hours going through the Wyatt collection.

  In fact, when they’d finished and he’d wheeled her back to the studio, Harriet said energetically, ‘Arthur, I’ll need—’

  ‘I’ll get all the stuff you need, Harriet. It’s quite some time since they were last done—I’ve been urging Damien to do it for a while so I’m really pleased he’s asked you. You seem to—’ he eyed Tottie, who was lying next to the wheelchair ‘—fit in here really well, too.’

  Harriet opened her mouth to dispute this but that could only sound churlish, so she simply nodded.

  He went shortly thereafter but sought Damien out before driving off.

  He was up in his study, which gave Arthur a sense of déjà vu.

  ‘Come in,’ Damien responded to his triple knock.

  ‘Mission accomplished,’ Arthur said. ‘She’s going to do them. She even sounds quite enthusiastic about it now.’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’

  Arthur fingered his blue waistcoat with purple airships on it as he pulled up a chair. ‘Unusual girl that, you know.’

  Damien couldn’t help a swift glance at the settee across the room, and made the sudden unspoken decision to have it moved elsewhere. ‘Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,’ he replied dryly.

  ‘Penny reckons it’s a case of still waters running deep with Harriet Livingstone and she doubts she’ll ever get over Simon Dexter.’

  Damien frowned. ‘I thought they hadn’t seen each other since college when they bumped into each other, Penny and Harriet?’

  ‘They hadn’t, but word gets around and Penny has quite a network of old friends, so when Harriet bobbed up—she did some research, you might say. And—’

  ‘Simon Dexter,’ Damien interrupted. ‘Elite golfer who’s earned himself a million dollars recently, playboy, heart-throb—that Simon Dexter?’

  Arthur nodded. ‘Can’t imagine what brought them together in the first place. I mean, she’s not a groupie type, she’s not a sporting type. The way she keeps running into things suggests she may even be a bit uncoordinated, not to mention short-sighted.’

  ‘Suffers from a left-handed syndrome, in fact,’ Damien supplied.

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘That makes two of us. Uh...hasn’t Simon Dexter been on the news lately—for other reasons?’

  ‘Could well have been; I haven’t been much tuned into the news lately. And I should be getting home.’ Arthur stood up. ‘You’ll have your hands full, what with Charlie and Harriet, but at least her—er—incarceration, if you could call it that, is only for a couple of weeks.

  ‘Yes.’

  And, to Arthur’s surprise, after that single yes, Damien seemed to fall into some kind of reverie and didn’t appear to notice his departure.

  By the time Arthur had gone, Harriet was also deep in thought for a time.

  Along the lines of wondering whether she’d been conned into staying on and doing the paintings.

  Surely not. She could hardly be in Damien Wyatt’s good books at the moment, after knocking back both his proposals as well as knocking down his gatepost.

  But he had rung Arthur and Arthur had tapped into her love of art and managed to imbue her with a feeling of enthusiasm, even eagerness for the project.

  Why, though? Why would he want her to stay on?

  She shook her head and her thoughts returned to Arthur and how, despite his waistcoats, she enjoyed talking to him about art.

  Arthur, she thought with a fond little smile. How on earth was he going to get through the rest of Penny’s pregnancy, let alone the birth?

  * * *

  The next morning her ankle was more swollen than it had been, and more painful, so Charlie’s nurse conceded that there might be something broken and she should have an X-ray. Isabel drove her in to Lismore, where an X-ray revealed a hairline fracture and a cast was applied to her ankle. She was warned to keep her weight off it while it healed.

  Easier said than done, as she discovered. She was exhausted after hopping up the stairs to the flat on one foot, even with Isabel’s help.

  ‘We’ll have to do something about this,’ Isabel said worriedly. ‘You can’t go through this every time you want to get out or home. Damien should have thought of that. I’ll speak to him.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Harriet told her. ‘Just please say hello to Charlie. And tell him in a few days I’ll actually get to see him.’

  Isabel went away, still looking worried.

  And, an hour or so later, Isabel, Stan and Damien mounted the steps to the flat and moved Harriet and her belongings down to the ground floor of the house.

  She didn’t protest. She didn’t have the energy.

  Her new quarters were a guest suite, with a sitting room and se
parate bedroom, pretty and floral and comfortable, with a view over the garden.

  Isabel unpacked for her and brought her a cup of tea but she was alone when Damien came in with a knock and closed the door behind him. He didn’t beat about the bush.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Harriet stared up at him, and licked her lips. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked huskily. ‘I...I’ve broken a bone in my ankle.’

  He sat down opposite her wheelchair. ‘I know that but I was wondering—’ he paused ‘—whether you’d heard that Simon Dexter and his wife Carol have split up.’

  Harriet gasped and her eyes widened.

  ‘It’s been on the news. He’s a newsworthy figure nowadays. More so perhaps than when you knew him?’

  ‘Yes.’ She stared at him. ‘I...I...no, I hadn’t heard.’

  ‘Do you play golf?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘I thought you might have had golf lessons in similar circumstances to your riding lessons.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head.

  ‘So how did you and Simon Dexter get together?’

  Harriet looked away and clasped her hands in her lap.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Damien said softly as a tide of pink entered her cheeks, ‘that you ran into him?’

  She said stiffly, ‘Not with a car. Well, not exactly a car.’

  ‘I hesitate to wonder what “not exactly a car” could be,’ he marvelled.

  Harriet tossed him an irate look. ‘A golf buggy, of course.’

  ‘Of course! How dumb can I get? How did it happen?’

  ‘My father did play golf. I was going around with him one morning when he asked me to drive the buggy up to the green while he made a shot from the rough and then took a shortcut not suitable for buggies, to the green. I’d never driven one before but it seemed pretty simple.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Famous last thoughts.’

  ‘You obviously didn’t kill Simon or maim him.’

  ‘No.’ Harriet paused and a frown grew in her eyes. ‘How did you know it was Simon Dexter? I didn’t think I mentioned his surname.’

  Damien studied his hands for a moment then grimaced. ‘Arthur.’

  ‘Arthur doesn’t know him.’

  ‘Penny, then.’

  ‘Penny doesn’t know him either,’ Harriet objected.

  ‘Ah, but Penny runs this spy ring, MI55. She’s actually M in disguise, or—’ he raised an eyebrow ‘—is she Miss Moneypenny?’

  Harriet went from bristling to calming down to smiling involuntarily. ‘I still don’t understand how it came up,’ she said, though.

  ‘We were worried that you seemed to be down in the dumps.’

  She took a breath and sat back. ‘I don’t know how I feel. I—it’s terribly sad actually, isn’t it?’

  He didn’t agree or disagree. He posed a question instead. ‘So what is it?’

  ‘What is what?’

  ‘If it’s not Simon Dexter, what’s making you look as if your heart’s breaking?’

  Harriet swallowed. ‘I didn’t know I was. Look, it’s probably just my ankle, bound up with feeling like a fool and...’ She tailed off.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘In what way?’

  Harriet sighed. ‘Surely I don’t have to spell it out for you?’

  He rubbed his jaw. ‘You’re regretting knocking back my offers of marriage?’ Sheer irony glinted in his dark eyes.

  ‘I’d be a fool to want to be married to you after...after what happened with your first wife—and how it affected you,’ she said slowly. ‘No. I feel stupid, that’s all.’

  Damien studied her thoughtfully. Her hair was clipped back to within an inch of its life—no wavy tendrils today, as there’d been on the night of Charlie’s birthday party, no discreet make-up to emphasise her stunning eyes, no shimmering lipstick rendering those severe lips doubly inviting.

  No gorgeous dress that showed off those amazing legs—not only tracksuit trousers today but a cast on her ankle... So what was it about her that made how she looked a matter of indifference to him?

  It struck him suddenly that she was the most unaware girl he’d ever known. She certainly didn’t flash her legs. She didn’t bat those long eyelashes except when she was thinking seriously and tended to blink.

  Was that why it didn’t matter whether she was dressed up or down—he still fancied her? Then he was struck by a thought.

  ‘You’re not,’ he said at last, with his eyes suddenly widening, ‘pregnant, are you?’

  Harriet opened and closed her mouth. ‘No.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said dryly. ‘That wasn’t a very good way of phrasing things, but if you are—’

  ‘I’m not,’ she broke in.

  ‘Sure?’

  Harriet eyed him. ‘Yes.’

  They stared at each other for a long moment, she with a spark of anger in her eyes, he suddenly completely inscrutable.

  ‘Harriet,’ he said, ‘there’s no point in hiding it from me.’

  ‘I’m not hiding anything from you!’ she protested. ‘It was—unlikely, anyway.’

  ‘That has been a trap for the unwary since time immemorial,’ he said dryly. ‘We both stand convicted of thoughtlessness there, however.’ He shrugged and a glint of humour lit his eyes. ‘Could we blame Charlie?’

  ‘Blame Charlie for what? Thanks, mate,’ Charlie said to his male nurse as he was pushed into the guest suite. ‘Harriet! I can’t believe we’re both in wheelchairs!’

  ‘Charlie!’ Harriet had to laugh because, from the neck up, it was the same old Charlie and his infectious smile and mischievous expression hadn’t changed. Otherwise, he had his right arm in a cast and a sling and his left leg stretched out in a cast.

  ‘Oh, Charlie!’ She hoisted herself out of her wheelchair and hopped across to him on one foot to kiss him warmly. ‘I’m so glad to see you, even if you did render us thoughtless! Oh, nothing,’ she said to Charlie’s puzzled look. ‘Nothing!’

  * * *

  They had dinner together that night.

  The new cook produced barbecued swordfish on skewers with a salad, followed by a brandy pudding.

  ‘Mmm,’ Charlie said, ‘if he doesn’t burn down the kitchen, he may be as good as old cookie.’

  ‘She,’ Isabel contributed. ‘I decided there’d be less chance of that with a woman.’

  I can’t believe I’m doing this, Harriet thought. I can’t believe I’m sitting here like one of the family after actually driving away from Heathcote and planning to stay away for ever. I can’t believe Damien is doing the same!

  She glanced across at him but found his expression difficult to read, except to think that he looked withdrawn.

  * * *

  After dinner, however, everyone seemed to go their separate ways.

  Charlie’s nurse insisted he go to bed. Isabel went out to a meeting after wheeling Harriet into the guest suite and Damien went up to his study.

  Harriet sat for several minutes in the wheelchair then decided she was exhausted. She used the crutches Damien had hired to get herself changed and finally into bed.

  She was sitting up in bed arranging a pillow under her foot when she remembered she hadn’t locked the door and she was just about to remedy this when the outer door clicked opened and Damien walked in.

  Harriet went to say something but her voice refused to work and she had to clear her throat.

  He must have heard because, with a light tap on the open door, he came through to the bedroom.

  ‘OK?’ He stood at the end of the bed and studied her in her ruffled grey nightgown.

  Harriet nodded. ‘Fine, thanks. Have you come to...?’ Her eyes were wide and questioning.

  ‘I haven’t come to take up
residence,’ he said rather dryly. ‘I’ve come to talk.’

  ‘Oh.’

  His lips twisted. ‘What would you have said if I’d indicated otherwise?’

  Harriet swallowed. ‘I’m not sure.’

  He studied her comprehensively then turned away and pulled a chair up. ‘If you’re worried about staying on to do the paintings, can I make a couple of points?’ He didn’t wait for her approval. ‘You really seem to enjoy this place, you love art and I guess—’ he grimaced ‘—it’s not a bad place to convalesce.’ He paused and listened for a moment, then grinned and got up to let Tottie in.

  She came up to the bed and rested her muzzle next to Harriet.

  Harriet’s eyes softened as she stroked the dog’s nose. ‘I’ve left you once, with disastrous consequences,’ she murmured. ‘Could I do it again?’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Damien said. ‘There’s something else you could do. I told you Charlie plays chess?’

  She nodded after a moment.

  ‘He’s going to need some help to get through this period. Obviously he can’t spend the whole time playing chess, but you two might be able to come up with ways to keep each other occupied—you’re going to have the same problem for a while. You can’t spend your life cleaning paintings.’

  Harriet looked up at him. ‘What about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  She sat up and plaited her fingers. ‘Will you be here?’

  ‘Yes. But I’ll be busy. Africa is coming to me, you see.’

  Harriet blinked several times. ‘Come again?’

  He grimaced. ‘I’ve reversed things. Instead of taking my machinery there, I’ve invited this company I’m dealing with to come here. I may not—’ he paused then continued gravely ‘—be able to offer them wildlife safaris with lions, leopards, buffalo, elephants and hippos, to name a few, but there’s the Great Barrier Reef, the Kimberley, Cape York, Arnheim Land and some wonderful fishing. If they feel like a bit of danger there are plenty of crocodiles to dodge.’

  Harriet blinked again then had to laugh. ‘Is that what big business is all about?’

  ‘That’s better... It has a part.’

  ‘What’s better?’ Harriet asked curiously.