“Just how many laws have you broken?” About the Author Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN Copyright

“Just how many laws have you broken?”

“I wasn’t counting. Let’s see. There’s removing a child from a refugee camp without permission. Then there is the small detail of smuggling her across more international borders than I can at this moment recall....”

“Is that it?”

“Apart from breaking and entering, of course. But you already know about that one. Will you press charges, Dora?”

“Don’t get smart with me, Gannon. I’m already an accessory after the fact in that one. I meant serious stuff. If I’m going to ask friends for favors, I need to know that you’re not...” A crook. Using Sophie as a shield. Using me. “Well, I don’t know a whole lot about you,” she finished, somewhat lamely.

“I just wanted to get my daughter to safety, Dora. Bring her home.”

“But if she’s your daughter, Gannon, why didn’t you just go through the proper channels?”

“Have you any idea how long it would have taken? I was desperate. It was that or leave her there while the wheels of bureaucracy ground ever so slowly.” Despite the pain and weariness his look was suddenly razor sharp. “You wouldn’t have left her in there, would you, Dora?”

Born and raised in Berkshire, Liz Fielding started writing at the age of twelve when she won a hymn-writing competition at her convent school. After a gap of more years than she is prepared to admit to, during which she worked as a secretary in Africa and the Middle East, got married and had two children, she was finally able to realize her ambition and turn to full-time writing in 1992.

You can visit Liz Fielding’s Web site via Harlequin at: http://www.romance.net

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His Little Girl
Liz Fielding

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

SOMETHING woke Dora. One minute she was sleeping, the next wide awake, her ears straining through all the familiar night noises of the countryside for the out-of-place sound that had woken her.

She had fled to the country for peace, but after the constant traffic noise of London she’d found the quiet almost eerie the first night she’d stayed alone at Richard and Poppy’s cottage. Soon, though, her ears had adjusted to the different sounds of the countryside, and she’d realised that what had at first seemed like silence was subverted by all manner of small noises.

Now she lay quite still, listening to the familiar night time orchestra. The gentle gurgling of the small river less than a hundred yards from the door of the cottage as it swirled through the reeds; the slow trickle of rain along the guttering; the sombre dripping as the trees shed the water dumped by a passing scurry of rain.

Punctuating these watery sounds there was the irritable grumbling of a duck, itself disturbed by something. A fox, perhaps? The first time Dora had heard the unearthly rattle made by the night-time hunter her blood had run quite cold; after a week at the cottage she was not so timid.

She swung out of bed and crossed swiftly to the window, ready to fling abuse, and whatever else came to hand, at the marauding intruder. But the landscape, momentarily bleached by a high, white moon as the scudding rainclouds cleared, revealed the dark humps of sleeping ducks. On the surface the riverbank seemed peaceful enough. Not a fox, then.

She propped her elbows on the window ledge for a moment, resting her chin on her hands, and leaned forward to breathe in the night air. It was full of the rich, mingled scents of honeysuckle, stocks and the roses climbing against the wall beneath her window, underscored, after the sudden shower of rain, by the heavy sweetness of damp earth. It was such an English smell, she thought, something to be treasured after the stomach-churning horrors she had encountered in the refugee camps.

Then, in the far distance, there was a glimmer of lightning followed by a low rumble of thunder moving away with the rainclouds. Dora gave a little shiver and pulled the window shut. It was undoubtedly the thunder that had woken her, and, trapped in the Thames Valley, it would be back. The thought raised gooseflesh that shivered over her skin.

She rubbed her arms and turned quickly from the window to reach for her silk wrap, knowing that with thunder on the loose she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Downstairs she could switch on the hi-fi to drown out the noise, and she could always catch up on sleep later—one of the many pleasures of being entirely on her own, with a telephone number that no one but close family knew.

She raised the latch on the bedroom door, stepped onto the landing. She’d make some tea first and then...

And then she heard the sound again, and knew that it hadn’t been thunder that had woken her.

It had sounded almost like a cough, a harsh, crackling little cough—the kind a sick child would make—and it had been so close that it could have been inside the cottage.

But that was ridiculous. The cottage had a comprehensive security system. Her brother-in-law had fitted it after a vagrant had got in and made himself at home. It wouldn’t happen again, and any casual burglar would be put off too. And she was sure she hadn’t left a window open.

Almost sure.

She leaned forward over the stairs, listening for what seemed an age. But there was nothing, only a quiet so intense that the nervous thudding of her heart began to pound in her ears.

Had she imagined the sound? She took one step down. The cottage was miles from the nearest road, for heaven’s sake, it had been raining on and off all evening and no one in their right mind would have a child out so late, certainly not a sick one. She glanced at her watch, it was too dark to see but it had to be long past midnight.

She took another step. She’d noticed how oddly sound carried across the river. Perhaps, after all, it had been the cry of some small animal, the sound magnified in the deep silence of the night. Yet still she hesitated on the stairs.

Then a rumble of thunder, low and threatening, almost overhead as the storm bounced off the hills and swung back down the valley, drove everything else from her head and sent her racing down the stairs to seek the sanctuary of the living room. But even as she reached for the light switch she knew that thunder was the least of her problems, and her hand instead flew to her mouth as, momentarily illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through the windows, she saw a child, a little girl, her thin face gaunt with tiredness.

She was standing in the middle of the living room, and for one ghastly moment Dora was quite certain that she had seen a ghost. Then the child coughed again. Dora was no expert on the subject, but she was pretty sure that ghosts didn’t cough.

Yet, shivering beneath the thin blanket that she clutched about her, dark untidy hair clinging damply to her sallow skin, tiny feet quite bare, the child was quite the most miserable looking little creature that she had ever seen outside a refugee camp.

For a moment she was riveted to the spot, uncertain what to do—not scared, exactly, but unnerved by the sudden appearance of this strange child in the middle of her sister’s living room, her eyes enormous in her thin little face as she stared at Dora. There was something unsettling about the child’s wary stillness.

Then, as common sense reasserted itself, she told herself there was nothing to fear. No matter where the child had come from, she was in need of warmth and comfort, and she surged across the carpet, her own bare feet making no sound as she swept the child into her arms, holding her close to warm her with her own body.

For a moment the little girl’s eyes widened with silent fear, and she remained rigid against her, but Dora made soothing little noises, as she would have done to any small, frightened creature.

‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’ The child stared at her, flinching momentarily as Dora’s hand stroked her forehead, pushing back the damp tendrils of hair. Her skin was hot and dry, her complexion unhealthily flushed despite her sallow skin.

Whoever she was, one thing was certain: she should be in bed, not wandering about on a stormy night, straying into strange houses. And she needed a doctor.

‘What’s your name, kitten?’ she murmured, leaving the other questions that were crowding in on her to be answered in their own good time. Not least, how she had managed to get into the cottage.

The little girl stared at Dora for a moment, and then, with something between a sigh and a moan, she let her head fall against Dora’s shoulder. She weighed nothing, and most of that was blanket. Dora pushed the horrible thing away and enveloped the child in her silk wrap. Who was she? Where on earth—?

The question remained unasked as there was a sudden crash from beyond the living room door, a low curse in a man’s voice.

The child, it seemed, was not alone. And Dora, suddenly quite shockingly angry, decided that she wanted a few words with whatever kind of burglar dragged a sick child about with him on his nocturnal activities. Without considering the possibility that her second uninvited guest might, unlike the child, present a very real source of danger, she flung open the door and snapped on the light.

‘What the—?’ The intruder, swinging round from a cupboard, a torch in his hand, blinked blindly in the sudden light, throwing up the hand holding the torch to shade his eyes. Then he saw Dora. ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who the devil are you?’

Dora snapped. Ignoring the fact that he was the better part of a head taller than her, and could have picked her up as easily as she had lifted the infant in her arms, ignoring the fact that he looked as if he had been sleeping beneath a hedge for a week, she came right back at him.

‘Who the devil wants to know?’

The man stiffened at this attack. ‘I do.’ Then, quite unexpectedly, he dropped the arm shading his face and smiled. Dora’s sister was a model, Dora had seen professionals smile. This man was good. And he moved towards her, totally at ease with the situation. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout, but you startled me—’

‘I startled you?’ Dora gaped at him, momentarily stunned by his nerve. Then she gathered herself. ‘How did you get in here?’ she demanded.

‘I picked the lock,’ he said, with disarming candour. He was regarding her with open curiosity, not in the least embarrassed by such a confession. ‘I thought the cottage was empty.’

Picked the lock? He admitted it, and smiled as he said it, without an ounce of shame or remorse. Challenged like this, any ordinary burglar would have done the decent thing and taken to his heels. She hefted the child in her arms, fitting her more comfortably to her hip. But then ordinary burglars didn’t take sick children with them when they went about their nightly forays.

‘Well, as you can see, it’s not empty. I live here, mister,’ she declared, ignoring her own temporary status during her sister’s absence as a mere detail. When Poppy had offered her the use of the cottage while she and Richard were away she had been instructed to treat the place as if it were her own, but with privileges came responsibility. Right now, Dora decided it was time to take her responsibilities seriously. So she glared at the intruder, refusing to be charmed by an overgrown tramp with a practised smile, who was obviously looking for somewhere dry to bed down for the night ‘I live here,’ she repeated, ‘and I don’t take in lodgers, paying or otherwise, so you’d better get moving.’

The smile abruptly vanished. ‘I’ll move when I’m good and ready—’ he began.

‘Tell that to the police; they’ll be here any minute—’ As her voice rose the child in her arms began to wail, a thin, painful little cry that distracted Dora so that she turned to the child, hushing her gently as she stroked her hair. ‘What on earth are you doing out with a sick child at this time of night anyway?’ she demanded, as the little girl quietened under her touch. ‘She should be in bed.’

‘That’s exactly where I was planning to put her, just as soon as I’d warmed her some milk,’ he said tightly, confirming her suspicions. He made a slight gesture at a carton of milk on the table, as if it provided him with some sort of alibi. ‘I didn’t expect to find anyone here.’

‘So you said.’ Dora ignored the fact that his voice belied his torn, muddy jeans, a grubby sweater and a soft leather bomber jacket that had once cost a fortune but had seen some very hard wear since, and was now coming unstitched at the seams. A tramp with a public school accent was still a tramp. ‘I suppose you were planning to squat?’

‘Of course not.’ A fleeting glance of irritation crossed the man’s face and he shrugged. ‘Richard won’t mind me staying for a few days.’

‘Richard!’ Her eyebrows rose as he made free with her brother-in-law’s name.

‘Richard Marriott,’ he elaborated. ‘The owner of this cottage.’

‘I know who Richard Marriott is. And you’ll pardon me if I differ with you regarding his reaction. I happen to know that he takes a very dim view of breaking and entering.’

This declaration seemed to amuse her intruder. ‘Unless he’s the one doing it. I should know—he’s the one who taught me enough to get in here.’ He looked her in the eye and defied her to tell him otherwise.

‘Richard uses his skills to test security systems,’ she protested. ‘Not for house-breaking.’

‘That’s true,’ he conceded.

Gannon regarded the young woman who was defying him with concern. She was either crazy, or a whole lot tougher than she looked, standing there in nothing but a satin nightdress which clung to her in a manner that would give a monk ideas. The wrap that might have given her some measure of decency had been untied and thrown about Sophie, to warm her. Well, even the toughest women have their weaknesses, he thought, weaknesses that just this once he would be forced to turn to his own advantage.

He took a step forward. She didn’t retreat, but stood her ground and stared him down. ‘I’ll take Sophie,’ he said, and saw the flash of concern that lit something deep in dark grey eyes that a moment before had been simply hostile. He struggled with guilt at what he was about to do. But Sophie was at the end of her tether, and he would do whatever it took to make his daughter safe.

‘Take her?’

‘You asked us to leave.’ He reached for the child. Sophie grumbled sleepily as he disturbed her, and the woman stepped back, holding the child protectively to her chest.

‘Where? Where will you go?’ she demanded.

He shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ll find a barn. Come on, sweetheart, we’ve disturbed this lady long enough.’

‘No—’ He managed to look puzzled. ‘You can’t take her back out there. She’s got a temperature.’

Bingo. ‘Has she?’ He put his hand on Sophie’s head and gave a resigned shrug. ‘Maybe you’re right. It’s been a tough few days.’ He put his hands lightly beneath the child’s arms, as if planning to take her. ‘But don’t worry. We’ll manage...somehow.’

She was torn. He saw the momentary struggle darken her eyes. She wanted him to go, but her conscience wouldn’t allow her to send Sophie out into the night. ‘You might. She won’t,’ she said, as her conscience won. ‘I thought you were going to warm her some milk?’

He glanced at the carton of milk standing on the cupboard, alongside a Sussex trug overflowing with an artfully casual arrangement of dried flowers. Beside it a couple of shabby waxed jackets hung from a Shaker peg rail. Very classy. The last time he had been at the cottage this had been little more than a scullery. Now it was an entrance lobby straight out of Homes and Gardens, quarry-tiled and expensively rustic.

He turned back to the young woman who, if he was clever enough, would any minute be urging him to stay. For the sake of the child. It was time to remind her that Richard was his friend. He replaced the torch on the hook behind the door, where he had found it—that at least had not changed since their fishing trips—and picked up the milk.

‘Yes, I was.’ He indicated the open cupboard in which rubber boots and outdoor shoes were stored instead of the pans he had been expecting. ‘In fact I was looking for a saucepan when I disturbed you. What happened to the kitchen? And when did Richard have electricity installed?’

‘That’s really none of your business,’ Dora replied curtly. But it did explain why he had been poking about the cupboards in the dark. It simply hadn’t occurred to him to look for a light switch. He might have been to the cottage before, but not in the last twelve months.

Not that she had been impressed with his claim that he knew Richard. Anybody around here would have known that this cottage belonged to Richard Marriott. And if he did know him, so what? He’d still broken in. ‘I didn’t catch your name,’ she said.

‘Gannon. John Gannon,’ he said, extending his hand formally, as if this was some cocktail party rather than a middle-of-the-night confrontation that should have him cringing with embarrassment.

She could see that he just wasn’t the cringing type. On the contrary, his gaze was wandering appreciatively from her tousled hair, over the loose silk wrap, lingering on pink-painted toenails peeping out from beneath the hem of her nightgown, before returning to her face. Then his face creased in a thoughtful frown. ‘Have we met somewhere before?’

There had been a lot of publicity when she’d returned from the Balkans; total strangers accosting her in the street, wanting to talk to her, newspapers wanting to write about the ‘Sloane’ who had given up the social whirl to drive aid trucks across Europe. If he remembered that he would be sure that he had fallen on his feet, sure that she was a soft touch.

It had been the need to get away from all that which had driven Dora down to the cottage in the first place, so, what with one thing and another, it seemed wiser not to jog his memory about where he might have seen her face before. And she ignored his hand, along with his invitation to introduce herself.

She wasn’t about to exchange civilities with a common criminal, particularly not one who had broken into her sister’s home. Even if he did have a velvet-soft voice, toffee-brown eyes and a deliciously cleft chin. After all the chin hadn’t been shaved in several days. And the toffee eyes were taking rather too much liberty with her under-dressed figure for her liking. With the child in her arms, she was unable to do anything about the wrap, but conscious that his gaze had become riveted to her pink toenails, she shuffled them out of sight.

‘That’s hardly an original pick-up line,’ she replied, with a crispness she was far from feeling.

‘No,’ he agreed, barely able to conceal his amusement, despite his exhaustion. This was one spirited lady. ‘I really must try harder.’

‘Don’t bother.’

‘Breaking and entering isn’t my usual line of business,’ he said, letting his hand fall to his side. He was still regarding her thoughtfully. ‘Who are you?’

Dora firmly resisted the temptation to ask him what his ‘usual line’ was. ‘Does it matter who I am?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose it does. But allow me to say that you’re a considerable improvement on Elizabeth. She would never have wasted time on anything quite so frivolous as painting her toenails.’

The man was outrageous. Not content with breaking into the cottage, he was flirting with her. Yet, despite her better judgement she was beginning to accept his familiarity with her brother-in-law’s personal life.

‘Elizabeth?’ she probed.

‘Elizabeth Marriott. Richard’s wife,’ he obliged. ‘A girl of very little imagination—a lack which was more than made up for by her greed, if the fact that she left him for a banker is anything to judge her by.’

‘A banker?’ He knew that he was being tested, Dora realised, but that didn’t stop her.

‘The kind that owns the bank,’ he obliged. ‘Not the kind who works behind the counter.’ And, having apparently awarded himself a pass grade, he made a broad gesture with the milk. ‘I never thought he’d sell this place, though.’

‘What makes you think he has?’

He looked about him. ‘This kind of thing isn’t his style.’

It was Dora’s turn to smile. ‘Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do.’

He gave her another thoughtful look, then shrugged. ‘Shall I heat the milk? Or will you, since everything’s been moved?’ Not that he had any intention of relieving the woman of her burden. While she was holding Sophie, she was vulnerable to persuasion.

‘The kitchen is through there,’ she said.

Gannon looked around. More warm earthy colours and glowing wood. ‘You’ve extended into the barn,’ he said, reaching for a copper pan and setting it on the hob. ‘Is it all like this now?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like something out of a lifestyle magazine.’

‘I don’t read lifestyle magazines, so I really couldn’t say.’ Dora certainly had no intention of getting into a cosy chat about interior decoration with a common burglar. No, she corrected herself, the man was far too at ease with himself and his surroundings to be described as a common burglar. She glared at him, but he wasn’t in the least bit put out. If anything, she was the one hard pressed to keep up the challenge so she shifted her gaze, glancing down at the child. ‘Did you say her name was Sophie?’ she enquired. ‘Is she your daughter?’

‘Yes.’ He turned away from her to open the milk and pour some into the pan. ‘And yes,’ he said.

‘Did you know she has a temperature?’ Dora pressed.

‘You mentioned it.’

‘She should see a doctor.’

‘I’ve got some antibiotics for her. All she needs now is good food and plenty of rest.’

‘And this is your idea of giving them to her? The child should be at home with her mother, not being carted about in the middle of the night by an itinerant—’

‘Is that what you think?’ he interrupted, before she could suggest what kind of itinerant he was, his sideways glance suggesting that she didn’t know what she was talking about.

Well, maybe she didn’t. But she knew enough to know that Sophie should be at home in bed. Her gaze was drawn back to the exhausted child. Her almost transparent lids were drooping over her eyes. She’d be asleep in a moment. It would be so easy to simply carry her upstairs and pop her into her own warm bed.

‘How do you know Richard?’ she asked, resisting the temptation to do just that with considerable difficulty.

‘We went to the same school.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

Dora wasn’t sure what she had expected. Perhaps that they had met through her brother-in-law’s burgeoning security business, although whether they had been on the same side was a moot point. But school? While she’d recognised his public school accent, it hadn’t occurred to her that he might have shared the same Alma Mater as a future king. A little confused, she said, ‘Surely he’s older than you?’

‘Eight years or thereabouts. He was head boy when I was a very small, very miserable first-year. He rescued me from a bunch of second-year lads who were baiting me because they’d discovered that my mother was unmarried. I don’t suppose it happens so much these days. Marriage seems to be a dirty word now.’

‘Not to me.’ It was difficult to imagine this man ever having being small and vulnerable. ‘Richard took you under his wing?’

‘It’s in his nature to protect the vulnerable.’ He turned back to face her, deeply thoughtful. ‘Richard is a lot older than you,’ he said. ‘What’s he doing for you?’

‘Me?’

‘I can’t see him going to all this trouble,’ he said, glancing around at the expensive rebuilding work, ‘just to let the place out. So, has he taken you under his kindly wing, too—or just his brand new duckdown duvet?’

She was about to explain, somewhat indignantly, that Richard was now married to her sister, her seven-years-older sister, when she was interrupted by a sharp rap on the back door.

CHAPTER TWO

GANNON stiffened, staring towards the back door before turning a fierce, questioning look on her. ‘It must be the police,’ she muttered, surprising herself with a distinct feeling of discomfort at the thought of handing Gannon over to them.

‘The police?’

‘I did warn you.’ She had, but he clearly hadn’t taken her seriously. Then she caught herself. He’d broken in, for heaven’s sake. He deserved to be locked up.

‘There was no alarm,’ he objected.

‘No sound of one, perhaps. Richard doesn’t believe in giving burglars the chance to escape and break in somewhere else. He would rather catch them red-handed. I thought you would have known that—since you’re such a friend.’

An alarm. Gannon could have kicked himself. It had never occurred to him that this place would have an alarm, he hadn’t even bothered to look for one, despite the fancy new lock. He could understand the replacement of a lock that had been little more than a joke, but who would put an alarm on an almost derelict fishing cottage, for heaven’s sake?

Except it wasn’t a derelict fishing cottage any more. It was a warm and welcoming home, occupied by a girl with a face like an angel and the coolness to keep him talking until reinforcements arrived. And he’d thought he had been manipulating her...

He covered the distance between them before she could move, taking Sophie from her arms. His ribs complained, but he didn’t have time to feel pain. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t stop to chat,’ he said grimly. ‘I assume the front door is still in the same place?’

Dora felt a flutter of anxiety. ‘You can’t take Sophie out there.’ A distant flicker of lightning underscored her words, and the rain began to rattle against the window once more. Anxiety hardened into determination. ‘I absolutely forbid it,’ she said.

‘Oh, really?’ If the situation hadn’t been so desperate he would have laughed. ‘And just how are you going to stop me?’

‘Like this.’ And she planted herself between him and the door.

Gannon applauded her spirit, but he hadn’t got time for games, so he hooked his free arm about her waist and lifted her to one side. Red-hot pain shot through his ribs. He hadn’t time for that either. But he staggered slightly as he put her down.

‘Oh, good grief, you’re hurt—’

‘Give the lady a coconut,’ he muttered, as he leaned against the wall, waiting for the pain to subside so that he could breathe again.

‘Look, don’t worry. I’ll get rid of them.’

‘Oh, really?’ he asked harshly. ‘And why would you do that?’

‘Heaven knows, but I will. Just stay here and keep quiet.’ He stared at her. She lifted her shoulders. It was something between a shimmy and a shrug. It did something to the way her nightgown clung to her slender body that had much the same effect on his breathing as a couple of cracked ribs. She was right, he wasn’t going anywhere fast enough to make a difference.

‘Whatever you say, lady. Just don’t try and be too clever.’

‘Clever? Me?’ Her mouth suddenly widened in a broad smile. ‘You must be joking. I’m just your average dumb blonde.’

Blonde, certainly. A knock ’em dead and wipe the floor with ’em blonde. Average? Scarcely. Dumb? Never. As she turned, with a little switch of her backside as if to prove her point, there was a second, more urgent knock.

‘Be careful what you say,’ he ordered quietly from the kitchen door, still not sure why he was trusting her.

Dora looked back. Gannon and Sophie were framed in the doorway, and he had his hand stuck in his pocket as if fingering a concealed weapon. Surely not? He was just trying to frighten her... Maybe she should be frightened. A whole lot more frightened than she was.

She swallowed as her nerves caught up with her, then spun round, slipped the chain on the door and opened it a crack.

The young constable waiting on the step was little more than a boy, his face so smooth that he didn’t look old enough to shave. The idea of asking him to collar a man like Gannon and march him off the local police station was plainly ridiculous, she told herself. Just in case she needed convincing. Besides, the wretched man would go as soon as he’d rested. And she was quite sure he’d be only too happy to leave Sophie behind if he thought she was in good hands.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Marriott?’ the young constable asked, assuming that she was Poppy. She considered correcting his mistake, but decided against it. She wanted him to go as quickly as possible, and that would just slow things down.

‘Fine.’ The word came out as little more than a croak. ‘Fine,’ she repeated, more convincingly. ‘Why? What’s up?’

‘Probably nothing, but your security company alerted us that your alarm had been triggered. I’m sorry it took so long to get here, but they’re going off all over the place tonight with this storm.’

She worked very hard at keeping her smile in place, her expression showing nothing more than mild surprise.

‘I’ve looked around, but everything seems secure.’ The constable glanced up. ‘Your security lights don’t seem to be working, though.’

‘No, I turned them off,’ she said, cursing herself for all kinds of a fool. If they’d been on they might have deterred her unwanted visitor. Except where would little Sophie be now? Soaked to the skin beneath some hedge. A prime candidate for pneumonia.

She reached for the switch and the area around the cottage was floodlit for a hundred feet, illuminating a police car parked a few yards away and picking up the rain spots soaking into the policeman’s jacket.

‘They seem to light up every time something bigger than a mouse walks by. It makes me jumpy,’ she told him, and added a suggestion of a giggle at her own foolishness.

She was careful to keep any special emphasis out of her voice, careful not to do or say anything that might cause the man behind her to lose his nerve and bolt with Sophie into the darkness. Not that there appeared to be anything wrong with his nerves. But still, she wasn’t taking any chances.

‘Would you like me to come in and check the cottage for you, just in case?’ the young man offered.

He took a step forward but she didn’t unhook the chain. ‘There’s no need, really.’

‘It wouldn’t be any trouble,--’

‘Pete?’ his partner called from the patrol car. ‘If you’ve finished, we’ve got another call.’

‘I’ll be right with you.’ Pete turned back to her. ‘As I said, it was probably the lightning that set off the alarm, Mrs Marriott.’ He nodded towards the car. ‘I expect this is another one.’

‘How trying for you. I’m terribly sorry that you’ve had a wasted journey.’

‘No problem. Just get the alarm checked out in the morning.’ He glanced up again. ‘And keep the lights on. They do make opportunist thieves think twice.’

Too late for that. ‘I’ll do that,’ she assured him. ‘And thank you for coming to check up on me.’

‘It’s what we’re here for. Goodnight, ma’am.’

She could scarcely believe that she was letting him walk away. What on earth was she thinking of? She ought to call him back—

‘Shut the door, Mrs Marriott. Now.’ Gannon’s voice was barely audible from the other side of the door. Too late. She pushed it shut and turned to lean against it as her legs buckled a little at her own stupidity. ‘I can’t believe I just did that.’

‘Don’t worry. You played the dumb blonde so well that the poor kid will break his neck to get back and check up on you the minute that lightning and burglar alarms permit. I’ll just have to rely on the fact that you’re a respectable married lady who will swiftly send him about his business.’

Married? For a moment Dora couldn’t think what John Gannon was talking about, then she realised he had picked up on the young policeman’s mistake. She glared at him. It was what any respectable married lady would do under the circumstances, wasn’t it?

Who was she kidding? Under the circumstances any respectable married lady would have screamed the place down, not offered a burglar the comfort of her home.

‘We’ll see. If you’re really such a good friend of Richard’s, I’ve got nothing to fear.’ She stared pointedly at his hand, still in his pocket. ‘Have I?’

‘No, Mrs Marriott,’ he said, taking his hand carefully from his jacket pocket and pulling the lining out with it, to show her that it was quite empty. ‘Nothing at all.’ The truth of the matter was that Gannon, his ribs giving him hell, his shoulder protesting at the weight of Sophie as she slumped against him, felt incapable of raising a sweat on a nervous fly. And he had no wish to frighten her; what he wanted was her help. ‘Besides, if I hurt you, Richard would probably hunt me down and kill me with his bare hands.’

Dora didn’t anticipate raising that kind of passion in Richard for herself, but she had a pretty good idea of what he would do to anyone who even considered hurting her sister. And, because her intruder had picked up the policeman’s mistake, he was now under the impression that she was Richard’s wife. Well, if that impression was going to keep her safe, she wasn’t about to disabuse him.

‘Only probably, you think?’

He met her gaze head on, for a moment meeting her challenge. Then there was the tiniest contraction of lines fanning out from his eyes, softening his face in an oddly seductive smile that made her catch at her breath. ‘No, not probably, Mrs Marriott. Without question.’ And his voice, back to silken velvet, did nothing to help.

She swallowed hard. ‘I’m glad you realise that,’ she said, with commendable briskness under the circumstances. ‘Now, if you’re staying, hadn’t you better give Sophie her milk?’ He glanced down at Sophie, but she had finally fallen asleep across his shoulder and Dora’s heart went out to the little girl. ‘Poor soul. Look, why don’t you take her upstairs and tuck her up in my bed? I’ll bring up the milk. In case she wakes,’ she added.

His smile deepened slightly. ‘Whilst I admire your initiative and appreciate your kindness, I think we’ll revert to me giving the orders and you carrying them out. I feel safer that way.’ He eased Sophie gently away from his shoulder, his expression tender as he placed the child into Dora’s arms, brushed a strand of hair back from her face. She didn’t stir. Then he looked up and caught Dora’s thoughtful expression. ‘You might have sent the police about their business, but I’m sure you must have plans to call for reinforcements of some kind. Plans that involve using a telephone?’

Dora hadn’t given the telephone a thought—not that she’d had an opportunity to use it even if she had. Well, he might have wildly overestimated her ability to think on her feet, but it wasn’t too late to start doing just that. Richard’s sister lived a couple of miles away with her husband. They would know exactly what to do in a situation like this. ‘Perhaps I have,’ she said, rewarding him with a smile for such cleverness. ‘I suppose you’ll want to disconnect it?’

He considered the matter. He would need a telephone if he was going to sort out Sophie’s papers, make things right with the authorities, but he couldn’t do that tonight, and this woman was too much of an unknown quantity to risk leaving it connected. ‘I suppose I will.’

‘It’s in the living room,’ she informed him, as he poured the warm milk into a mug. ‘Please try not to make a mess of the wall when you yank it out. It’s only just been decorated.’

The last thing he wanted to do was yank it out of the wall. ‘Find me a screwdriver and I’ll reconnect it before I leave,’ he promised. ‘Are there any extensions upstairs?’

‘None. Although I’m sure you’ll insist on checking for yourself.’

‘Oh, yes, I’ll check.’ Gannon’s grin was unexpected, deepening the lines carved into his cheeks, sparking his warm brown eyes with golden flecks of light, lifting one corner of his mouth as if self-mockery was second nature to him. ‘Although I can understand Richard’s unwillingness to install a telephone in the bedroom. If you were my wife I wouldn’t have a telephone within twenty miles of the place.’

Dora, usually capable of putting down a flirtatious male at thirty paces, with one hand tied behind her back, for a moment floundered helplessly while her brain scrambled to formulate an appropriate response. But nothing had prepared her for an encounter with a man like Gannon. There was a predatory edge to him that stirred the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck, warning her that he would do anything to get what he wanted. And a little part of her that thought she might rather like it

‘How fortunate that I’m not,’ she replied, as coldly as she could. Somehow it didn’t sound cold, just a little breathless. Not very convincing. She tried again. ‘Just think how inconvenient it would be not to have a telephone.’

‘I’d consider it worth any amount of inconvenience to have you all to myself, Mrs Marriott. Without interruption.’

Now that was convincing. The man could give lessons in the subject. It was a long time since anyone had managed to bring Dora to blushing point, but the heat tingling along her cheekbones was unmistakable. John Gannon might not have shaved for two days, but somehow, when he smiled, it was very easy to forget that fact.

She was sure now that he had no intention of hurting her. But he was still a dangerous man.

And every time he called her Mrs Marriott, and she accepted the name, she was taking a convenient misunderstanding and turning it into a lie. ‘Please don’t call me that,’ she instructed.

His brows rose slightly at her abruptness. ‘Why not? If it’s your name?’

She neither confirmed nor denied it. ‘Such formality seems a little out of place, don’t you think? My name is Pandora. Most people just call me Dora.’

‘I’m not most people.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Most people don’t break in in the middle of the night and frighten innocent women out of their wits.’

‘I’d say that it was debatable who frightened who the most. But perhaps, under the circumstances, we should compromise on Pandora. It wouldn’t do to get too familiar.’

‘Under what circumstances?’

‘Under the circumstances that you’re married to my very good friend Richard Marriott,’ he said. ‘Although for some reason you don’t appear to be wearing a wedding ring.’

Definitely dangerous. ‘Contrary to popular belief, it’s not compulsory,’ she said. She knew that wouldn’t satisfy him, but she didn’t give him a chance to say so. ‘I don’t remember seeing you at the wedding?’ Because he hadn’t been there. While she and Poppy bore a strong family resemblance, her sister oozed glamour and poise from every pore. He would never have confused the two of them. ‘Oh, no, of course you couldn’t have been there. You didn’t know Richard had remarried.’

‘Big do, was it?’

‘Pretty big.’ It had been enormous. Richard’s status as minor aristocracy guaranteed media interest, and as for Poppy... Well anything that Poppy did made the news. But despite the crush she knew that Gannon hadn’t been part of it. She wouldn’t have forgotten anything as dangerous on two legs as John Gannon. She half turned. ‘Why didn’t he invite you?’

‘I’ve been abroad for quite a while. Out of touch. When, exactly, was the happy event?’

‘At Christmas.’

‘At Christmas? Richard must have been seriously good all year if he found you beneath his tree. I really must try a lot harder.’

‘Richard doesn’t have to try, Mr Gannon. It comes naturally to him.’

Mouth, mouth, mouth. It would get her into trouble if she didn’t watch out.

But John Gannon didn’t appear to take offence, although it was difficult to tell what he was thinking. That kind of smile could hide a lot. ‘You can drop the mister, Pandora. Since we’re on first-name terms.’

Dora glared at him. She was damned if she was going to call him John. ‘Thank you. Gannon.’

There was an infinitesimal pause. ‘Any time.’

‘And I really would prefer it if you called me Dora.’

‘I’ll try and remember that.’

‘Did you say you’ve been abroad?’

‘I did,’ he confirmed, but didn’t elaborate.

‘I see.’ And as she lay Sophie down in the warm nest of the bed she had so recently vacated, tucked the cover up beneath her chin, Dora quite suddenly thought that maybe she did see. The little girl was dark-haired. Well, so was Gannon—but Sophie’s skin had that olive, Mediterranean look about it. She turned to him. ‘Have you snatched her?’ He stared at her. ‘From her mother? This is one of those terrible tug-of-love cases, isn’t it?’

She had half expected him to explode at her accusation. He didn’t, but appeared interested in her reasoning. ‘What makes you think that?’ he asked.

‘Well, it’s perfectly obvious you’re not a run-of-the-mill house-breaker, Gannon. You were just look ing for somewhere to lie low and you remembered this place, assumed it would be empty.’

‘My mistake,’ he agreed. ‘But Richard would have helped me if he’d been here. When will he be back?’

‘You don’t know him that well if you believe he’d consider helping you take a child away from her mother,’ Dora declared, shocked by the very idea.

‘This is not a tug-of-love case, Dora. Richard will help—when he knows the facts.’

‘I’m here. Tell me the facts, Gannon.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Richard?’ She hesitated. She had been planning to tell him that her brother-in-law was due back at any moment, and that he would do well to make himself scarce before he arrived. But it seemed that Gannon would actually welcome his arrival; if she told him Richard was due back, there was no way he would leave.

She would have to tell him the truth. But not the whole truth—that Poppy had gone to the States where she had just landed a contract as the new face of a huge cosmetics company, and that Richard wasn’t ready to let his new wife out of his sight.

‘I’m sorry, Gannon, but Richard is in the States on business. He won’t be back for at least a week,’ she compromised. ‘You will understand if I don’t ask you to stay and wait for him?’

His face tightened. ‘I understand perfectly, Dora. But if you don’t want me hanging around you’re going to have to stand in for him. I need money and I need transport.’

‘Transport?’ She frowned. She knew something had been bothering her. The policeman hadn’t mentioned any suspicious-looking vehicle parked in the lane. ‘How did you get here without a car?’

‘I walked.’ .

‘Walked! From where?’ The nearest major road was miles away. He didn’t answer. ‘Well, I suppose you can take my car.’ He would undoubtedly take it anyway, so she might as well make a virtue of a necessity.

‘Thank you.’

Dora stared down at the sleeping child, who hadn’t even stirred as she’d been laid in the bed. ‘And I can let you have a little cash.’ She gave him a sideways glance. ‘Or quite a lot, if you’ll let me go to the bank.’ He shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t think you’d do that. I suppose I could let you have my cash card.’

‘And I suppose you’d tell me the correct number?’

‘I would,’ she promised. ‘I wouldn’t want you coming back.’ She mentally corrected herself. She wouldn’t want him coming back angry. There was another reason for convincing him that she was telling the truth. ‘But you’ll have to leave Sophie with me. She shouldn’t be going through all this.’ He gave an odd little sigh and she turned to him, sure that she could make him see sense. He was staring down at the sleeping child, his face creased in concern. Then, as if sensing her gaze, he turned to meet it, challenge it. ‘I’d look after her, Gannon,’ she said, with sudden compassion for the man.

‘Would you? For how long?’

It was an odd question. ‘Until she can be returned to her mother of course. I’ll take her myself, if you like...’ She was sure he was wavering. ‘I won’t say anything to the police.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there’s nothing to be gained from it.’ He was regarding her intently. ‘Because you’re Richard’s friend.’ She knew she was being silly, but right at that moment the child was more important than any amount of common sense. ‘Does it matter?’

Gannon stared at her strangely familiar face. He’d been running for days, ever since he had grabbed Sophie from the refugee camp. He was hurt, hungry, exhausted, and he’d broken into Richard’s cottage in a desperate need for somewhere to hide, somewhere to keep Sophie safe while he recouped his strength, sorted things out. And this woman was offering to help, although she didn’t know the first thing about him. More than that, she was looking at him as if her heart would break. Of course it mattered. It shouldn’t, but it did.

Or maybe he was so tired that he was just hearing and seeing what he longed for most. Trusting her just because she looked like the angel he needed right now would almost certainly be a mistake. ‘I won’t be taking her anywhere tonight,’ he conceded. ‘I’ll see how she is in the morning and then I’ll decide what to do next.’

‘She needs time, Gannon. A chance to recover.’

‘And these.’ He produced a small bottle of pills from his pocket.

‘What are they?’ Dora asked suspiciously.

‘Just antibiotics.’ He sat on the edge of the bed, coaxed the child half awake and persuaded her to swallow a capsule with a little of the milk. She was asleep again before her head hit the pillow. Then he turned and looked up at the girl standing beside him. ‘Will you help us, Pandora? Give us a little of your hope?’

The thing that most people remembered about the legend of Pandora was that her curiosity had let loose all the troubles of the world. He remembered that she had- given the world hope, too. How could she possibly turn him down?

Dora gave a little gasp, scarcely able to believe how easy it was to be suborned by a pair of warm eyes, by a smile that could break a girl’s heart without really trying.

‘You ask as if I have a choice,’ she replied, cross at such weakness. Yet she’d already sent the police away. She was already his accomplice, whether she was prepared to admit it or not. Then her glance flickered over the dishevelled appearance of her unwanted guest, the sunken cheeks in his exhausted face, and something inside her softened. She didn’t entirely believe him when he said this was not a tug-of-love case, but he must love his daughter, miss her desperately, to have been driven to such lengths.

‘You look as if you could do with a drink yourself,’ she said. ‘Something rather stronger than milk.’

He dragged his hand over his face in an unconscious gesture of weariness. ‘You’re right; it’s been one hell of a day. Thanks.’

‘It isn’t over yet.’ And she’d didn’t want his thanks. She just wanted him to do what was right. She crossed to the door, but for a moment John Gannon stayed where he was, a dark, slightly stooped presence, as he leaned over the bed to lift the quilt up over the little girl’s shoulders. It was an oddly touching scene, and Dora didn’t doubt that he loved the little girl. But she was even more certain that he wasn’t telling her the entire truth.

‘Shall we go downstairs, where we won’t disturb Sophie?’ Dora prompted. ‘Then you can tell me exactly what is going on.’

John Gannon watched the tall, fair-haired girl as she poured a large measure of brandy into a crystal glass. She was heart-stoppingly lovely. When she had stormed into the kitchen with Sophie in her arms, his heart had momentarily stopped. And it hadn’t just been because she’d startled him. He’d have felt the same jolt of excitement if he’d seen her from the far side of a crowded room, felt the same heat flooding through his veins. And it made him angry. He had been in too many tight corners to be distracted by a woman, no matter how lovely, when he needed all his wits about him.

But Gannon was angry with Richard, too. Good God, how could he? He liked the man, admired him, but at a guess Dora was scarcely into her twenties a new-born lamb to Richard’s wolf. The man who had once been his champion had become a cynical, hard-bitten misogynist, with one broken marriage behind him and no right...no right...

He almost laughed out loud at his own self righteous indignation. He wasn’t angry with Richard. He was just plain, old-fashioned jealous. His body was clamouring to take this girl and they were in the classic setting for seduction—alone in a cottage, deep in the most beautiful countryside. And honour dictated that he couldn’t make a move on her.

It was probably just as well, under the circumstances. He didn’t have the time for dalliance. Or the strength to spare. But it was a pity. This girl had far more than beauty to commend her. She had courage.

Faced with an intruder, anyone might have thrown hysterics, but she’d just been angry with him. Not for breaking in, for heaven’s sake, but for taking Sophie out on a wet night. As if he had had any choice.

He could use that kind of courage right now. But so far he hadn’t done a very good job of convincing her that he was the kind of man she would want to help. And Richard would never forgive him for involving his pretty new wife in something messy. Not that he was about to underestimate her. He thought Dora might just be the girl to give his kind of problems a run for their money.

Nevertheless, given half a chance to summon assistance, she would undoubtedly take it. And, with that thought uppermost in his mind, he walked across to the telephone and hunkered down to examine the socket. ‘How about that screwdriver?’ he asked, turning to her.

She was watching him, slate-dark eyes solemn. Then, without a word, she crossed the carpet on those pretty bare feet, the soft silk of the wrap, now tightly fastened about her, clinging to her legs as she walked. ‘It’s brandy,’ she said, as she handed him a glass.

He raised the glass, and raised his brows at the quantity of liquor. ‘Enough to lay me low for week,’ he said, finding it suddenly a great deal easier to concentrate on the pale amber liquid pooled in the bottom of the glass than meet her silent disapproval.

‘Then don’t drink it. I can assure you the last thing I want is for you to be here for an entire week.’ She looked at the socket. ‘Do you have to do that? I’m hardly likely to dial 999, am I? After all, I’ve already sent the police away.’

‘The police, yes. But I’m sure there’s someone else you’d like to call. I’ll reconnect it before I leave, I promise.’ Sooner. But she stood her ground. ‘It would be a lot easier just to pull it out of the wall, Dora. You decide.’

Having made her point that the telephone was important, she capitulated. ‘There’s a screwdriver in the kitchen.’

‘Then I suggest you fetch it.’ Quickly, before his ribs made the decision for them.

She turned abruptly, her robe stirring the air against his cheek as it swirled round, returning a moment later with a small screwdriver. Then she retreated to the fireplace, kneeling down in front of it so that her hair fell forward over her shoulder, a skein of honeyed silk in the light of a tall lamp that stood on the sideboard beside the drinks tray.

Damn, damn, damn. She was a complication he hadn’t bargained on. His life was already loaded with complications, and Richard’s empty cottage had seemed the perfect place to hole up while he sorted them out.

As he watched her, she reached for the poker. It was halfway out of the stand when his fingers tightened around her wrist. Startled, she turned to look up at him. ‘I’m going to make up the fire,’ she protested.

‘Are you?’ For a moment their eyes clashed, hers stormy grey and about as welcoming as the scudding thunderclouds that had blacked out the moon as he’d crossed the fields with Sophie whimpering in his arms.

‘What else? Laying you out with a poker isn’t going to improve things, is it?’ she said.

‘It would give you time to get help.’

‘Oh, right,’ she said, looking pointedly at the telephone. ‘And how do you suggest I do that? By telepathy?’

‘No. You would get in your car and drive away. You did say you had a car, didn’t you?’ Her wrist was slender, ridiculously slender, the bones delicate, fragile beneath his fingers, stirring the kind of longings that were madness even to contemplate. It had been a long time since he had been this close to a sweet-smelling woman.

He wanted to lower his mouth to the pulse he could feel racketing under the pale skin, taste it, press her palm against his cheek and pull her tight against him to ease the sudden, unexpected ache of longing.

Madness.

CHAPTER THREE

MADNESS. Even if she hadn’t been Richard Marriott’s wife.

As mad as believing that she could wield that great long poker in cold blood and strike him with it. Yet he still relieved her of it with his free hand, before releasing her wrist. Delicate it might be, but he’d been in too many tight spots to take the risk. That was how he’d survived for so long in a dangerous world.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

Dora didn’t bother to answer his question. Instead she rubbed at her wrist, as if to rid herself of his touch, and, thoroughly disgusted with himself and his thoughts, Gannon turned away from her dark, accusing eyes.

‘I’ll see to the fire,’ he said, stirring the ashes with the point of the poker so that the embers pulsed redly.

‘Man’s work, is it?’ she sneered at him. ‘And what am I supposed to do? Rush out to the kitchen and rustle you up some food?’

‘Thanks for offering, but, no, thanks.’ He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten, and his stomach was practically sticking to his backbone, but he had his pride. His stomach, however, had heard the word food and audibly protested. He glanced at the girl beside him and ventured a smile. ‘I’m on a diet.’ She didn’t respond to this olive branch. Quite frankly, he didn’t blame her.

He threw some small pieces of stick that had been drying in the basket beside the hearth into the warm embers, and for a moment there was silence as they both watched the wood begin to smoke, then crackle into flame. He added more wood as this sudden application of heat reminded him just how cold he was. August in England. Log fires and thunderstorms. It figured.

Dora, still kneeling on the rug in front of the hearth, felt rather than heard the shiver run through him. She was still trying to reel in her senses, to recover from what she had seen in his eyes as he had grasped her wrist, to recover from an almost overwhelming urge to put her arms about him and hold him. Except she wouldn’t have just held him. What she had seen in his face needed a far deeper comfort than that. Yet she’d made no attempt to pull free, and if he hadn’t released her—

‘You’re wet,’ she said, and heard the tiny tremor in her voice.

Gannon turned back to look at her, looking just a moment too long before he switched his gaze to his legs. His jeans, wet to the knees, were beginning to steam in the heat. He’d missed the showers as he’d cut across country, but the grass had been soaking, and, although he’d abandoned his muddy shoes in the kitchen, his socks had left damp marks on the beautiful new carpet.

‘It’s been raining,’ he said, as if this was sufficient explanation. ‘Don’t worry about it; I’ll dry off in front of the fire.’

‘I’m not worried,’ she told him. ‘But I’ve got better things to do than nurse a stupid man who sits around in wet clothes and goes down with pneumonia.’

Gannon could think of worse things than being nursed by Pandora Marriott. Somehow he didn’t think that saying so would be altogether wise. He shivered again. Why the hell couldn’t Richard have found a plain, ordinary girl to love? And if he had to marry someone like Dora, why the hell didn’t he stay at home to look after her? She wouldn’t have been left on her own for weeks at a time if she’d been his woman. No way. As Dora uncurled from the hearth, rising gracefully to her feet, he caught her hand.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To find something for you to wear.’ She was angry with him for touching her again, angry with herself for wanting him to. She tugged at her wrist, but he tightened his grip.

‘I’ll come with you,’ he said, keeping her at his side while he carefully piled logs onto the flames. Then he set the guard in front of the fire. ‘You can show me round.’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘I’d like to see what you’ve done to the place since I was last here.’ He had avoided a direct answer, she noticed, which was much the same as saying no. And she didn’t think he was desperately interested in her sister’s talents as an interior decorator either. What he really wanted was to look around and work out the lie of the land. It must have been quite a shock to head for a quiet bolthole only to discover someone had moved in and changed it all.

‘And when was that?’ she asked.

‘Too long ago. Richard invited me down for a few days’ fishing before...’ He shrugged, apparently unwilling to elaborate.

She didn’t press the point. She wasn’t interested. Not much. ‘Well, as a venue for male-bonding on fishing holidays I’m sure it was perfectly adequate. As a family home it had a number of shortcomings—’

‘Family? It’s a little soon for that, isn’t it?’

A second blush seared her cheeks. ‘The lack of a bathroom being number one,’ she said, determinedly ignoring the way his glance had automatically flicked to her waist.

Unabashed, his golden eyes glinted thoughtfully beneath thick dark lashes as he raised them to her face. ‘You mean I won’t have to skinny dip in the river?’

‘Not unless you want to,’ she said crossly. Well, why wouldn’t she be cross? With her hand held captive in his, she found it oddly difficult to breathe, and it wasn’t just the thought of him swimming naked beneath the huge moon that every once in a while lit up the stormy landscape beyond the living room window. She was cross because, despite the fact that he had broken in, was plainly a bad lot, there was something undeniably appealing about him, especially when he lifted the corner of his mouth in that odd little smile. He was doing it now. ‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded.

‘You are. I could read your thoughts then, as clearly as if they were in foot-high letters across your forehead.’

‘I very much doubt it.’

‘Humour me.’ He tapped her forehead with the tip of his finger. ‘You were thinking about how much you would enjoy giving me a helping hand into that cold water.’

‘Not at all!’ Then she gave an awkward little shrug. ‘Well, maybe,’ she conceded, preferring that he should think that rather than guess what was really going on in her mind. He had discarded his jacket after he had seen Sophie safely in bed, and as she quickly lowered her gaze, just in case her eyes were betraying more than they should, she was confronted with the decidedly grubby Aran sweater he was wearing. It was hand-knitted, and she found herself wondering what woman had given so much of her time, taken so much trouble to keep John Gannon warm. Sophie’s mother?

‘I’ll find you something to wear, and then you can decide whether you prefer a hot shower or a cold dip,’ she said, irritated with herself for even wondering about it. ‘The choice is entirely yours.’ And she pulled her hand free so easily that for a moment she thought she must have imagined the tightness of his grip.

Idiot! she thought as she headed for the stairs. He wasn’t holding your hand like some love-sick boy. To all intents and purposes you’re his prisoner, Dora Kavanagh. And don’t you forget it.

As Gannon had immediately realised, the cottage had been extended into part of an old barn, and the master suite was in the new part of the house, with its own bathroom and a dressing room for Poppy. Dora led the way through, pushing open the door to reveal a large bedroom furnished in warm antique pine to keep the cottagey atmosphere. The plush carpet was a soft, misty green and matching velvet curtains were looped back at the windows.

‘Wait!’ He stopped her as she was about to switch on the light. ‘Draw the curtains first.’

She shrugged, did as he ordered without a word, then crossed to Richard’s wardrobe. An internal light came on, and she flicked quickly through the shelves before pulling out a sweatshirt and a pair of jogging pants.

She turned to Gannon. ‘Will these do?’ she asked, holding them out to him.

‘Admirably.’ He was leaning casually against the architrave, watching her from the doorway. There was something about the way he was looking at her that sent warning shivers up her spine, and it occurred to her that encouraging him to follow her into the bedroom had not been entirely sensible. Except, of course, it would have made no difference. If he’d wanted to come in, he would have. But he stayed where he was.

‘You’ve got plenty of space now,’ he said.

There was nothing about his remark that should have concerned her. Yet it did. She threw a nervous glance around the room, wondering if he’d spotted something that had given away her masquerade. A wedding photograph of Poppy and Richard, perhaps. Anything. But there was nothing that she could see.

‘I’m glad you approve.’ She crossed to him, pushed the clothes into his hands and snapped off the light. She hadn’t considered what he might do if he discovered she had been lying to him. It was probably better for her peace of mind to leave it that way. ‘The bathroom’s this way,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you could use a shower.’ She felt her voice shake. Well, she was supping with the devil; she had a right to be nervous.

‘I’m sure I could. But you’ll understand if I insist you stay and keep me company.’

‘What!’

Gannon discovered that making Dora blush gave him a heady sense of power that he knew was utterly beneath contempt. But she looked so lovely, so delightfully vulnerable...’ You’d like me to say that again?’ he enquired.

‘No!’ Then, her cheeks even pinker, ‘You can’t mean it.’

‘I’m afraid I can, and I do.’ His regret might have been genuine. Somehow Dora doubted it. ‘I really can’t take the risk that you’ll take the opportunity to bolt for it. If the police lock me up, who will look after Sophie?’

‘Why would they lock you up?’

‘I broke in here; isn’t that enough?’

‘Not if I don’t press charges.’

‘Ah, there’s the rub. If.’ She didn’t bother to protest that she wouldn’t. Why would he believe her? ‘You don’t have to share the shower with me, Dora. I simply want you to stay near enough to chat. So I know you’re there. That’s all.’

‘All?’ She almost exploded with rage. How dared he? For heaven’s sake, she might have really been Richard’s wife... ‘Aren’t you concerned about Richard’s reaction to such a plan?’ she said, suddenly latching onto the thought, certain that it would make him think twice.

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