An Exception to His Rule(80)

                ‘So you will marry me?’ he said when they were lying in each other’s arms, sated and in the dreamy aftermath of their passion.

                ‘Yes.’ She ran her fingers through his hair.

                ‘Tomorrow?’

                Harriet laughed softly. ‘I don’t think you can do it that fast but if you could I would.’

                ‘On the other hand, coming back to reality, if we’re going to do this,’ he reflected, ‘we might as well do it with style. Not big but with style.’

                * * *

                ‘Do you think I look all right?’ Harriet said to Isabel two weeks later.

                She was dressed and ready for her wedding.

                She wore a white dress with lacy sleeves and a bouffant skirt that skimmed her knees. Her hair was fair, glossy and coaxed into ringlets. But she stared at herself in the bedroom mirror and sighed.

                ‘You look beautiful,’ Isabel replied. She’d been in a state of constant excitement ever since the wedding had been announced.

                Harriet sighed again, however, as she continued to gaze at her reflection in the mirror.

                ‘What?’ Isabel queried as she produced a pair of new shoes out of a box for Harriet.

                ‘It’s just that when I first met Damien I looked a mess. Then, the next time we met, I looked like an attendant out of a museum. I’m just wondering if he doesn’t prefer me looking—unusual.’ She sat down on the bed to put her new shoes on.

                ‘Honey,’ Isabel said, ‘believe me, he will love this you as much as all the others.’

                ‘You look lovely,’ Harriet said, taking in Isabel’s camellia-pink linen suit. ‘And I can’t thank you enough for...for everything. You’ve been marvellous.’

                Isabel sat down on the bed next to Harriet and picked up her hand. ‘I knew someone once,’ she said. ‘I thought he was my north and my south but I wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle to his career. And it would have meant a lot of time on my own. It would have meant bringing up our kids virtually on my own, it would have meant being the other woman to a career that was almost like a mistress to him. So I said no when he mentioned marriage.’

                Isabel paused and looked into the distance. ‘I sent him away and I’ve regretted it ever since.’

                Harriet caught her breath. ‘Can’t—surely you could have—wasn’t there some way you could have got together again?’

                Isabel shook her head. ‘By the time I’d realised what I’d done, and it took a few years to really realise it, he’d married someone else. So—’ Isabel patted Harriet’s hand again ‘—to see you and Damien so much in love and getting married when I was afraid it wasn’t going to happen, when I thought it all was going to fail, means a lot to me.’

                ‘Now you’ve made me cry!’

                ‘Here, just fix your make-up and you’ll be fine. But first, let me do this.’ And she hugged Harriet warmly.

                * * *

                It was a beautiful day and the garden was looking its finest.

                There was a table set up for the marriage celebrant with a cloth of gold and a marvellous bouquet of flowers fresh picked from the garden that morning. There were chairs set out for the guests on the lawn and there was a sumptuous buffet laid out on the veranda.