An Exception to His Rule(37)

                There was no sign of Damien the next day.

                In fact it was a curiously quiet day. Once the after-party clean-up had taken place, it was as if all the Wyatts and everyone else had melted away.

                Isabel, at least, had explained that she was going to spend the night with a friend.

                Charlie, Harriet assumed, had gone back to his base.

                Not that she particularly wanted to face anyone after last night but it somehow added to her mood of doom and gloom to find herself feeling as if she were alone on the planet.

                She’d just eaten her dinner when she heard footsteps on the outside stairway, and Damien arrived.

                She half got up, sat down again and trembled inwardly at his expression.

                Tottie was, of course, delighted to see him.

                Harriet stood up again and collected her plate and knife and fork. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what got into me last night.’

                ‘I didn’t come to conduct a post-mortem into last night.’ He looked at her sardonically. ‘Any idea where Isabel is? She usually leaves a note.’

                Harriet explained about the friend.

                He looked even more irritated. ‘Did she say which fr—?’

                He stopped abruptly as Tottie growled suddenly and then, in a manner of speaking, all hell broke loose.

                There was a whoosh of sound and the sky beyond the windows of the flat illuminated briefly in the direction of the house.

                ‘What the devil...?’ Damien shut his teeth hard then went on, ‘It’s the kitchen. Looks like the cook has finally decided to burn the place down.’

                The cook hadn’t—at least not consciously had he decided to burn the place down—but he had got drunk and he had allowed oil in a deep fryer to catch alight as he’d dozed with a bottle of bourbon in his fist.

                He still had it—the bourbon bottle in his fist— when Harriet and Damien arrived on the scene as he stared, stupefied, from the relative safety of the vegetable garden, at the flames leaping out of the kitchen windows.

                But within moments, or so it seemed, Damien had taken control. He’d rung for the fire brigade, he’d sent Harriet to waken Stan, the stable foreman, who was the only other person on the property, and he’d located several fire extinguishers, hoses and fire blankets. He also took a moment to attempt to send Harriet back upstairs to the flat.

                ‘No,’ she shouted over the crackling of the flames, ‘I can hold a hose!’

                ‘Yeah, but I don’t want you tripping and falling over!’

                ‘Listen to me, Damien Wyatt,’ she yelled at him, ‘it’s only you who makes me do that—look out,’ she screamed as a burning piece of wood fell from a window ledge right next to him.

                He leapt away and she grabbed a hose and sprayed the sparks that had fallen on his boots and jeans.

                ‘All right, listen,’ he said. ‘Be careful; be very careful.’

                ‘I will, I will,’ she promised fervently.

                He stared down at her in the demonic firelight, then hugged her to him, and immediately turned away.