An Exception to His Rule(3)
Arthur whistled but said, ‘I’ve heard worse. Was that all?’
Damien shrugged. ‘I may have said a few other...less than complimentary things. In the heat of the moment, of course. My car was smashed. So was my collarbone.’
‘Women don’t necessarily see things like that in the same way. About cars, I mean.’ Arthur waved his hands again. ‘Pure excellence, pure fineness in a motor vehicle and then to see it all smashed up may not affect them as deeply as a man.’
Damien chewed his lip then shrugged and picked up his phone as it buzzed discreetly.
Arthur got up and wandered over to the windows. It was a lovely view, he mused, but then Heathcote, home to the Wyatt dynasty, was a magnificent property. They ran cattle and grew macadamias with equal success in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales but it was machinery—farm machinery, and lately mining machinery—that was the backbone of their fortune.
Damien’s grandfather had started it all with a tractor he’d designed and manufactured but, so it was said, Damien had tripled it by investing in mining machinery. And all sorts of mining was happening all over Australia, Arthur thought rather ruefully.
His own connection with the Wyatts had started with Damien’s father and his interest in art. Together they’d built up a collection to be proud of. Then, seven years ago, both his parents had been lost at sea when their yacht had capsized. Consequently Damien had inherited the collection.
It was the upheaval after this that had brought to light the full extent of his mother’s collection of objets d’art—something the rest of the family had tended to overlook. In fact it wouldn’t be unfair to say that Heathcote was stuffed to the rafters with them. But it had taken several more years for this decision to do something about them to be made, and hence to his advice being sought.
His first inclination had been to suggest that it should all be crated up and sent to an appropriate firm for assessing. Damien, however, supported by his aunt, had been disinclined to allow any of his mother’s treasures to leave Heathcote and it had been their suggestion that he look for someone to do the job in situ.
No easy task since Lennox Head, Heathcote’s nearest town, was a long way from Sydney and a fair way from Brisbane or the Gold Coast, the nearest large cities.
Therefore, when Penny had presented him with Harriet Livingstone he’d more or less looked upon it as a godsend...
Arthur turned from the view and studied Damien Wyatt, who’d swung his chair so he was partially facing the other way and was still talking on the phone. At thirty-one, Damien was loose-limbed, lean and deceptively powerful. He was well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and he had the facility to look at ease in any milieu. Yet there was something about him that let you know that whilst he’d be good outdoors, good at battling the elements, good at managing vast properties, good with mechanical things, he’d also be good with women.
He certainly possessed a pair of fine dark eyes that often had a glint in them indicative of a mercurial personality and a lively intelligence.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Arthur ruminated, as his wife Penny had once remarked: you couldn’t call Damien exactly handsome but he was devastatingly attractive and masculine.
He also had thick dark hair and he did possess a powerful intellect. Not only that, but he had an affection for getting his own way and a cutting, irritable way it was with him at times, as Harriet Livingstone had apparently encountered, poor girl.
So why, Arthur wondered suddenly, if she was the same girl—and he was pretty sure she was—had she been happy for him to go ahead and sound Damien Wyatt out on this job? She must have recognised the name. She must have some very unpleasant memories of the incident.