Chapter 1
Unmarried Clint Hudson emerged from Harry's Bar in fading twilight into the car park behind the premises to hear a guy yelling to someone, "You lazy bitch, you're always reluctant to accompany me boozing, or go with me gambling or cook early for me on a Boys' Night Out like the other partners do for their man."
"Bitch, eh?" Clint said aloud thoughtfully, musing that was no way to address a lady.
"You've been living with me for nigh on a year and refuse to marry me."
The woman yelled, "That's because you haven't divorced you wife who dumped you."
"Dumped me, eh? Well take this you slandering bitch."
Clint squinted into the gloom and could just make out the woman was on the ground being held in a wrist-lock and it appeared the guy dressed in a faux cowboy outfit was about to put the boot in.
"Hold it, arsehole or I'll whack you."
The guy dropped the woman's arm and stepped back and shone his mobile phone torch on to the intruder. He could see Clint wasn't holding a weapon and wasn't anywhere near as big as he was.
He jumped over the recumbent woman and charged at Clint ready to knock him into tomorrow.
Clint ducked under the swinging punch, landed a heavy left-hand punch into the attacker's belly and as the guy fell, clubbed him on the back of the neck with both hands held together.
Checking that the guy was breathing, Clint went over to the woman who was sitting and crying.
"Stay where you are; lie back and pretend to have fainted. Don't leave the punk until you are organized to leave on your terms. Then you may choose to come and stay with me, Miss. I live by myself and will provide you with temporary accommodation until you make other arrangements."
He pulled out his wallet and extracted his business card.
"Here's my business card. Hide is in a bra cup for now. Remember I'm only doing this to help you because you are perhaps a bullied and mistreated woman. Pretend you didn't see me whack him and turn out his lights temporarily. He'll feel less humiliated upon hearing that."
"What are you, Mister. A psychiatrist?"
"No, a lawyer. And there will be no fee payable, not even for giving you temporary shelter. What's your first name?"
"Brittany."
"Cute name. Bye for now. My name is on my business card."
Three days later, Clint received a call from Brittany Lewis.
"Thanks for saving me from a brutal beating behind Harry's Bar the other evening. Jeb actually helped me to my feet and asked had I fainted and said yes, and I lied that he kicked me on the head when he jumped over me. He said 'Oh' but didn't bother to apologise and claimed he beat the crap out of you and left you unconscious."
"You've had a rough time, Brittany,"
"Yes, Jed is out drinking with mates tonight and tomorrow he goes to Melbourne for the day. I've organized a day's leave for tomorrow and that's when I'll do a runner."
"Good, my address is Melrose Apartment Towers in Double Bay. I'll need to come an let you in."
"I-I'm not sure I should take advantage of your offer."
"That's fine. Call me if should you decided it's the right move for you. It's only a temporary offer to allow you to find yourself new accommodation."
"Why did you make the offer?"
"History influenced me, When I was at law school, my flatmates and I were thrown out of our flat for once too often having a noisy party that disturbed other tenants. A female party-goer who I didn't know invited me to move in with her until I found new accommodation, and I was most grateful."
"Ah, and you shared her bed and shagged her?"
"I slept on the sofa and she slept with her same-sex partner."
Brittany squealed in laughter and said, "Um give me the address and I'll time my arrival for 12.15 if that is convenient for you."
"I'll make it convenient. Bye, Brittany."
* * *
Brittany (28), a financial analyst at a Personal Wealth Consultancy, was extremely grateful that this Clint Hudson had been in the right place at the right time to save her from a brutal beating from her short-fused live-in-partner that she'd known from almost Night One that Jed could be a real arsehole at times.
The evening after the attack, she went for a walk and called her parents who lived in Canberra.
Her mother ordered her to come home immediately and her father took the milder approach by suggesting that moving residence was enough disruption to her life. He suggested before taking up the surprising offer of temporary accommodation by a total stranger that Brittany thought in torchlight, he looked about her age, she should have him checked out.
"How can I best do that?"
"Pay a private investigator to check out that he is likely to pose no threat to your well-being."
"But he's a lawyer," Brittany bleated.
"And so am I and yet I recall you once described one of my lawyer mates as a potentially scurrilous adulterer because he kept eyeing your breasts as if, and I quote, he couldn't wait to pull them out and lick them, ends quote."
"Dad, I was only eighteen at the time."
"And does that mean at that age you were unable to make an intelligent assessment of a guy that you knew slightly?"
Brittany sighed heavily.
He mother grabbed the phone despite it being on speaker, and pleaded to her youngest daughter to abandoned Sydney and come home.
"Darling, any guy who beats the shit out of your punchy boyfriend and then offers you temporary sanctuary in his bachelor's pad in a suburb inhabited by the well-heeled won't be looking at you as a potential bride."
"But mom, this is real life, not something from the pages of one of your Romance paperbacks. Anyway, I would be away from his den most of the time should I decided to accept his offer. Thanks guys, good collective advice. I must get back to the apartment before Jed thinks of accusing me of being out long enough to have picked up some randy guy for a quickie."
"Brittany," yelled her mother as the call terminated.
The unhappy attractive brunette sighed, wiped away a rogue tear and hurried home thinking that after consulting her parents about what to do, she was more confused than before speaking to them. She decided to rely on her instinct that the quicker she left Jed, the happier - and the safer - she would be. That Clint had acted heroically for her but it puzzled her and she had to ask why had he not insisted on totally removing her from her 'lover's' clutches rather than just offer her a bed whenever she wanted it?
At work next morning in the Central Business District, she called the business phone number on Clint's business card and the receptionist at the law office said that Mr Hudson was with a client and did she wish to leave a message.
Brittany said no, she'd try later.
That was good enough confirmation that the guy offering her sanctuary was who he said he was, and with his law firm being highly reputable, it was unlikely he'd be a scoundrel hidden beneath a smooth façade.
* * *
The cab driver told Brittany that Double Bay was a quiet, leafy harbourside eastern suburb village only 4km from the city's central business district, making it a very desirable address to live at.
She arrived to find that Clint was already waiting outside the small apartment block for her with a 4-wheel luggage trolley. The older woman beside him presumably the apartment manager.
"Hi, Brittany, welcome to your temporary home," Clint smiled.
Placing an arm around the woman beside him, he said, "This is my mother who is worried that I may be giving refuge to an undesirable female, possibly a woman of the night, if you know what that means."
"Hi, Mrs Hudson, I'm far from being a prostitute. My mother simply would not allow it as she reared me to what she calls, 'to toe the line'. My mother is a well-known Canberra cosmetic surgeon, Sylvia Bryant-Stevens and my father Roland Stevens is a senior administrator within the Federal Diplomatic and Consular Corps."
"Omigod, I've read articles about your distinguished mother, the only child of the late industrialist Sir William Bryant and Lady Alicia, your grandmother who lives in a retirement in an exclusive village here in Sydney."
"Well I'm off Clint," she said, walking to a black chauffeur-driven limo parked on the opposite site of the street. " It was lovely meeting you Miss Lewis. I must have you two for Sunday lunch very soon."
The cabbie had already left after loading Brittany's four travel bags, two protectively packed paintings and what appeared to be a heavily protected covered chair on to the trolley.
"What's with the packed odd items?"
"Paintings and a bedroom chair I inherited from my late great-grandmother that are of immense value as being authenticated as being heirlooms from French nobility of the 17th Century."
He asked was the chair comfortable to sit in and the reply was not at all, that it was object d'art.
Brittany asked, "Why did your mother leave so abruptly?"
"She didn't say. Presumably she accepted your explanation that you weren't a prostitute and more importantly, disclosure of your parentage was more than enough to satisfy her that you were more than good enough to share my residence with me."
"Then who is your mother?"
"Mrs Marylyn Hudson, a former eminent Queen's Counsel and widow of top criminal lawyer Easton Hudson, his father being one of the co-founders of the law firm in which I'm a junior partner."
"Wow, I think I can get my head around that explanation. Exactly what is a Queen's Counsel?
"A small number of top barristers are appointed QC's by the Queen of England and Commonwealth countries such as here in Australia. It is a traditional honorific title in recognition that they are senior lawyers of eminence."
"Oh, tradition, otherwise known as old school stuff?"
"Perhaps. On the other hand, where would we be without some traditions?"
"Pretty aimless?"
"Good reply," said Clint. "Now let's get you settled in."
The apartment on the third floor had a views of the harbour from the comfortable-looking and nicely decorated living room that definitely had the look of a bachelor's pad.
Brittany resisted asking where were the flowers and why weren't the picture window curtains neatly tied back in the ties hanging forlornly. Presumably he visited his mother and she never visited him. Ah, well she was merely an interloper in temporary refuge. So far, her um benefactor hadn't inquired how as she progressing in securing her own dwelling. At least the tiny kitchen looked tidy with a window open to air it. Good boy.
"Does your mother visit here often?"
"Just the once and she condemned it as having almost no room to swing a cat and it made her feel claustrophobic. You'll know what mothers are like."
She giggled and was delighted that he grinned roguishly as if they were co-collaborators.
His bedroom was large, untidy and with a painting of a nude in recline, resting on an upright arm on the antique chaise lounge day bed and with a look on her face as if she were bored at being left unattended. Perhaps the artist was his mother, an excellent painter of considerable skill or perhaps he acquired it to indicate where his leisure skills lay. Perhaps... hmmm, she should be patient.
