But how to cope with this hurt. Living in the same house with him, even if he wasn’t home a lot, wanting him, wanting to be special to him, loving him...
CHAPTER TEN
THREE MONTHS LATER there were no more wheelchairs or crutches at Heathcote.
Both Charlie and Harriet were recovered, Harriet completely, Charlie almost there; and Damien Wyatt had been as good as his word. Then again, he’d hardly spent any time at Heathcote at all.
But he came home one evening, three months on, with the news that he’d swung his South African deal at last, which was exceedingly good news, he told them, but he needed a break.
‘So I’ll be home for a while,’ he said, laying his napkin down on the table. He still wore a grey suit with a blue shirt but he’d discarded his tie. ‘By the way, that dessert was almost up to your standards, Harriet,’ he added.
‘It was up to her standard—it was hers,’ Isabel said.
Damien looked down the table at Harriet. ‘How come?’
‘Uh...’ Harriet hesitated.
‘The new cook proved to have light fingers in more ways than one,’ Charlie said. ‘She was a good cook, made marvellous pastry, actually, but when we began to discover we were missing minor amounts of money—you know what it’s like, at first you think maybe you were mistaken and you didn’t have it or you’d spent it or whatever, but then not only did it happen more often but she got bolder and took larger amounts.’
‘So you fired her,’ Damien said to Isabel.
‘I didn’t exactly fire her; she has an elderly mother to support. I...I let her go. I haven’t found anyone to replace her yet, so Harriet very kindly stepped into her shoes.’
‘What would we do without Harriet?’ Damien murmured. ‘But what is it about Heathcote that attracts either arsonists or petty thieves?’
‘Cookie wasn’t really an arsonist,’ Isabel argued. ‘Just...careless.’
Damien grimaced then pushed back his chair. ‘OK, well, thanks, Harriet. And could you spare me a few moments of your time? I’ll be upstairs in my study.’
* * *
Isabel said she would deal with the dishes and Harriet closed herself into the flat above the studio. She’d insisted on moving out of the house once she was mobile again.
Her emotions now, three months on and having received what had almost amounted to an order to beard Damien in his den, were hard to define.
He’d almost made it sound, she marvelled with clenched fists, as if she’d gone out of her way to make herself indispensable to the Wyatt family; as if she had a secret agenda to her own advantage.
When, if she was honest, the last three months had had a secret agenda, they’d been mostly sheer torture for her.
When he’d been home she’d had to use all her willpower to be normal and unaffected in his presence. When he’d been gone, it had taken all her willpower not to pack her bags and run for cover. But that would have meant deserting not only Brett but Charlie.
The other sticking point had been the Heathcote paintings. Her estimation of a month to clean them had proved to be optimistic. Even if she’d worked as tirelessly as she had for the most part over his mother’s treasures, she’d have taken longer than a month.