An Exception to His Rule(57)

                But her smile faded and she put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, God, please let him be OK!’

                Isabel got up and came to put her arms around Harriet. ‘I think we should go to bed. There’s nothing we can do tonight. Goodnight, my dear.’

                ‘Goodnight,’ Harriet whispered back.

                * * *

                But, back up in the flat, Harriet had no desire to go to bed, she discovered, and not only on Charlie’s account, although that feeling of dread was still running through her.

                It was Isabel’s bombshell that she also had on her mind. It was the fact that she’d been able to see it was no use denying to Isabel that she was helplessly, hopelessly in love with her nephew.

                But how had she given herself away? She’d only admitted it to herself recently. Of course it had been bubbling away for longer than that; she just hadn’t been aware of it.

                ‘I must be incredibly transparent,’ she murmured aloud. ‘Maybe I do go around with my head in the clouds. Perhaps I was unaware of how I reacted when his name came up? Or perhaps Isabel and Charlie had been comparing notes? Did they see something in Damien, both of us, they hadn’t expected to see?’

                She shook her head and, with a heavy sigh, decided to take him a cup of cocoa.

                What if he doesn’t like cocoa? she immediately asked herself. He doesn’t drink tea. They couldn’t be less alike, tea and cocoa, however, but, if he needs some fortitude, what better than, say, an Irish coffee?

                * * *

                She found him in his study, staring out of the window.

                The breeze had dropped and the sky had cleared so there was starlight on the water and a pale slice of moon.

                He didn’t move when she knocked softly; she didn’t think he’d heard her.

                She put the tray with two Irish coffees on his desk and walked over to him, making sure she approached from a wide angle so as not to startle him.

                ‘Any news?’ she asked.

                He turned his head. ‘No.’

                ‘I brought us some—liquid fortitude.’ She gestured to the tall glasses on the tray.

                He glanced at them and sketched a smile—and held out his hand to her.

                She hesitated for one brief moment then she took it, knowing full well what was going to happen and knowing at the same time it was the least she could do for him because it all but broke her heart to see the suffering etched into his expression.

                And she went into his arms with no hesitation at all. But he surprised her. He held her loosely and some of the lines left his face as he said, with a quirk of humour, ‘There is something you could always put down on the plus side for me.’

                ‘What?’ she breathed, as his nearness started to overwhelm her.

                ‘I’m taller.’

                Her lips curved. ‘Yes. You are.’

                He raised a hand and traced the line of her jaw. ‘Does it help? Or do you prefer your men shorter?’

                ‘I do not,’ she observed seriously. ‘They make me feel like an Amazon. No, it’s definitely a plus.’