by Liz Fielding
‘Thank you,’ he said, and the corner of his mouth kinked up again, as if he knew exactly what was driving such instant obedience.
A few moments later he emerged from the shower stall, wrapped modestly from waist to ankle in a dark red bathsheet. He took another towel from the pile and began to dry his hair, favouring his left side.
‘Tell me, Dora, where did you learn to sing that badly?’ he asked.
‘Learn?’
‘No one could sing so consistently off-key without lessons.’
‘I guess it must be a gift,’ she said.
‘Then allow me to tell you that you’re very gifted indeed.’ He gave her a sideways glance. ‘What do you do? Or perhaps I should say what did you do, before you began playing house with Richard? How did you meet him?’
‘My sister introduced us,’ she said, truthfully enough. ‘And playing house keeps me busy. Especially when I have uninvited guests. Do you want to borrow a razor?’
He rubbed his hand over his chin and peered into the mirror. He was clearly unhappy with what he saw. ‘Yours?’ he asked doubtfully.
She refused to be goaded. ‘I’m sure you’d be more comfortable with Richard’s. Since you’re such old friends.’
‘I assumed he had taken his with him.’ She hadn’t thought of that.
‘He might have a spare.’
‘Don’t you know?’ She might have, if she’d been his wife. Yet somehow she couldn’t see Poppy bothering about such things. Her sister definitely wasn’t the housewifely type, but then Richard hadn’t married her for her domestic achievements. She headed for the door, but his hand reached over her head and kept her from opening it.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘To fetch it from Richard’s...’ She swallowed. ‘From our...’ She just couldn’t look him in the eye and say it. ‘I won’t be a minute. Or maybe you’d rather grow a beard to disguise yourself?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t need a disguise.’
‘Really? That’s just as well. It wouldn’t suit you.’ She indicated the door and waited for him to open it. ‘I’ll keep singing, if you like, so that you can keep tabs on me.’
‘Please do, but quietly, so that you don’t wake Sophie. Just...change the record.’
‘Don’t you like it?’ She didn’t wait for his answer, but disappeared through the doorway, still singing the same wretched song, but softly.
Despite himself, Gannon smiled.
Dora continued to hum and sing tunelessly as she searched through Richard and Poppy’s bathroom cupboards, finding, to her relief, a razor, a pot of shaving soap and an old-fashioned shaving brush.
Then, humming a little louder as she moved down the landing, she sped back to her own room where Sophie was still fast asleep. Her mobile phone was in her handbag, and she had the feeling that sooner or later Gannon would raid it. For money, or credit cards, or her car keys. She retrieved the phone, and was just about to turn it on when she became aware of Gannon’s shadow falling across the bed.
‘What are you doing?’
Dora had known he was there, but she still jumped guiltily and swung round to face him, hands behind her back. ‘You startled me.’
‘You stopped singing.’
‘Yes.’ Her heart was racketing like a runaway tram as she stuffed the telephone beneath the covers. ‘I...um...thought I heard Sophie crying. It would be too bad if I disturbed her with my top C,’ she said, with a shaky little laugh.
‘You haven’t got a top C,’ he responded. ‘And was she?’ He was wearing Richard’s jogging pants but nothing else, and up close in the dim light that spilled through the doorway he seemed far more dangerous than when he had stripped off in the bright bathroom.
He looked around her at the sleeping child. ‘Crying?’ he prompted.
‘No. It must have been the wind.’ She was glad he wasn’t looking at her, or he would have known she was lying. He glanced back at her, and she was certain he knew anyway, but he didn’t say anything, simply stepped around her and bent over Sophie, settling the covers over her where she had pushed them away. Dora held her breath as he began to tuck in the bottom sheet. He must see the phone, surely? Or Sophie would wake and feel it.
‘Her flush seems to have gone,’ Dora said, hoping to distract him. She touched the back of her fingers lightly against Sophie’s forehead. ‘Do you think she’s cooler?’
Gannon abandoned the sheet to touch the child’s temple with his fingers, and he nodded. ‘She just needs rest, a chance to recover.’
‘And she’ll get that racing about the countryside in a thunderstorm in the dead of night with you?’ she said, hoping that attack would be the most effective form of defence.
‘No. That’s why I brought her here,’ he replied, turning to her. ‘Well, where is it?’
She froze. ‘What?’
‘The razor?’
The razor. Her guilty thoughts had still been locked on the mobile phone, and she’d barely managed to stop herself from looking down at the bed, where she was certain it must be making a lump a foot high. She’d forgotten all about Richard’s shaving gear.
‘It’s here.’ Beside her bag on the night table. She picked it up. ‘I’ll bring it now.’ She started for the door, anxious to get him out of the bedroom before he noticed that the bottom sheet was still sticking out untidily and decided to do something about it. But he stopped her.
‘It’s all right, Dora. I can handle things from here.’ He took the bowl of soap, the razor and the brush from her. The back of his hand brushed against the silk, against the swell of her breast, and she jumped as if stung. If he noticed, he didn’t let it show. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t get back to sleep now.’
She gaped at him. ‘You expect me to go back to sleep?’ He had to be kidding. ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she said.
He offered a smile. ‘So long as you behave yourself you’ll be quite safe, I promise. But, since Sophie has taken your bed, stay with her if it makes you feel less vulnerable.’
‘Don’t you want to stay with her?’
‘I’m sure you’ll take good care of her, Dora. I’ll stretch out on the sofa downstairs.’ He was in no hurry to leave, though, and, reaching behind her, he picked up her handbag. ‘But you won’t mind if I take this with me, will you? Just as a precaution.’
She shook her head wordlessly. How easily she could have lost her only contact with the outside world if she hadn’t taken a chance when it offered...
No. She mouthed the word, but no sound came out. ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘Help yourself.’
‘I hope I don’t have to. But if I do, I’ll leave an IOU for anything that I take.’
‘Great,’ she said, with an airy gesture. ‘No problem. Take anything you want.’ He could help himself to the kitchen sink just as long as he went Dora was quite sure her sister would understand, and Gannon could explain himself to Richard when he caught up with him.
She glanced at the bed. Dora had put the idea of sleep on indefinite hold, but at least if she stayed with the child Gannon couldn’t sneak off with her. And once he had gone downstairs she would be able to rescue her telephone and summon help.
Don’t look at the bed.
‘Would you like me to tuck you in?’ he asked, in no hurry to leave. ‘Since Richard isn’t here?’
Dora felt her cheeks heat up. Blushing was getting to be a serious problem. ‘I think I can manage that for myself. Thanks all the same. Will you close the door on your way out?’ He didn’t move. ‘Please?’ He shrugged and headed for the door, but turned in the opening.
‘Do you like tea first thing, or coffee?’ She let out an explosive little sound. ‘I’m just trying to be a considerate house guest.’
‘The most considerate thing you can do is leave. Now.’
‘I’m sorry, Dora. I can’t be that considerate. Sophie needs a good night’s sleep.’
‘Then why don’t you go and leave us both in peace? I’ll look after Sophie.’<
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‘Will you?’ For a long moment their eyes clashed. ‘We come as a package deal, Dora. You can’t have one without the other; try and separate us and you’ll find that I’m more trouble than you can handle.’ Then he closed the door and left her in the dark.
Ain’t that the truth, she thought. She might have sent away the police, but she needed some kind of help to get her out of this mess. Well, Sarah came from a long line of women who had spent their lives organising the Empire. She would know exactly what to do.
She leaned over the edge of the bed and reached carefully beneath the mattress for the telephone, holding her breath as Sophie stirred in her sleep. One murmur from the little girl and Gannon would be back.
Her fingers brushed against the hard casing and she grasped it, pulled it out, and with a hand that shook rather more than she had realised pressed the button to switch it on.
Nothing.
She tried again.
Still nothing. The battery was quite flat.
CHAPTER FOUR
GANNON closed the door, his fingers still tingling where they had brushed against the smooth satin covering her breast. What the hell was the matter with him?
He’d spent his thirtieth birthday in a snow-filled fox-hole being fired on by snipers, for heaven’s sake. He was too old, he’d seen too much to be jumping like a teenager just because his hand had come into contact with a warm female and provoked an obvious, if unexpected, response in her.
But one thing was certain: Dora was not like any newly-wed he’d ever met. At least not any happy one. And it was hardly the action of a besotted groom to go away, leaving his new wife behind. Had she, he wondered, moved out of the marital bedroom before or after Richard had gone? Before, he decided. No woman would have left a room she had decorated for herself unless driven from it. His jaw tightened.
Then there was the way she had looked at him while he stripped off in the bathroom. He’d assumed she would stay on the other side of the door. It was all he had intended. Yet she had swept into that bathroom as if she couldn’t wait, staring at him with those incredible eyes. For a moment he had been tempted to take her up on what he’d seen there. Even with a couple of cracked ribs he had been hard pressed to stop himself, and to hell with honour.
On top of everything was the disconcerting feeling that he’d met her before somewhere. But how on earth could he have forgotten a girl who looked at him with eyes like black diamonds, eyes that made his body feel too tight for his skin?
The thought of being enfolded in the arms of a tender, sweet-smelling woman and just held for a while was almost irresistible, and she was there for the taking; he knew it. He stared at the bedroom door. Just a few centimetres of wood was all that stood between them.
Then, furious with himself for what he was thinking, he turned and strode back down the landing. If he had any sense he’d keep right on going. But sense didn’t come into it. There was Sophie to consider.
He would have turned around and left if it had been possible, the minute he had discovered the cottage wasn’t empty. But, tough as she was, Sophie couldn’t take much more, and he was all that stood between her and the horrors he had snatched her from. She would be safe at the cottage for a day or two. It wouldn’t take the authorities much longer than that to discover the whereabouts of the plane he’d borrowed, and his inelegant landing in a field would be altogether too interesting for the papers to ignore. He just hoped it was long enough.
He pushed open the bathroom door and dumped the shaving gear along with Dora’s bag into the sink, then clutched the edge of the basin as a sudden wave of nausea hit him. He was so damned tired. Hungry too, but the tiredness was worse. That was why he had made such a hash of landing the plane.
He eased his aching shoulder and stared at his reflection in the mirror, scarcely recognising himself. He was just as much in need of time to recover as Sophie. If he could get a few hours’ sleep he’d be able to think more clearly, sort something out.
He stared down at Dora’s bag. It wasn’t one of those neat little jobs, made to carry nothing but a wallet, a comb and a lipstick. It was a roomy carry-all, the kind that women stuff all their worldly belongings into and take everywhere with them. He picked it up, forcing himself to open it and turn it out onto the table.
Relief almost overwhelmed him. For a moment, when she had suddenly gone quiet, stopped singing that awful song, he’d had a terrible suspicion that she might have a mobile phone tucked away somewhere. Not that she’d had time to use it, but he was getting careless. The possibility should have occurred to him when she’d made so little fuss about disconnecting the telephone.
At the time he’d assumed she was being pragmatic, but he was beginning to suspect that Dora didn’t know the meaning of the word.
He regarded the contents of her bag with a certain bemusement. There was a lifetime of receipts—everything from supermarket till roll to a detailed handwritten account from a London design house. His brows rose at the amount. It seemed inconceivable that one woman could possibly spend that much on clothes.
There was a programme for a production of Twelfth Night in the open air at some stately home, and a wallet with sixty-five pounds, some loose change, enough classy charge cards to affect the balance of payments and a driving licence, all in the name of Dora Kavanagh. Surely she should have altered them to her married name by now? Or was she one of those modern women who preferred to use their own name?
Kavanagh? Something on the edge of his memory stirred, and then slipped away. He shook his head. It would come sooner if it wasn’t forced.
He picked up a small diary. She was a busy girl. He flipped through one or two pages. Mostly lunch dates at expensive restaurants, occasional weeks blocked out with a vertical line, suggesting unavailability. He tossed it back on the pile, disgusted with himself for even opening it. All he had been interested in was the possibility of a telephone.
Apart from that there was the usual clutter of make-up, hairpins and car keys. He pocketed the car keys and, after a moment’s hesitation, the money, then scooped the contents back into the bag.
No phone. He had been lucky, he knew, but it was a mistake he wouldn’t normally have made. And if he didn’t get out of this chair. right now, he’d make another one by falling asleep.
He hauled himself to his feet and began to run hot water, forcing himself to shave even though his hands were beginning to shake with exhaustion. He might have to leave in a hurry, and a scruffy man always attracted more attention than a neat one. Before he left, he’d help himself to some clean clothes from Richard’s wardrobe. His wife wasn’t likely to object; he had a suspicion that Dora wouldn’t even notice. She’d had to hunt for the tracksuit.
He dried his face, held his breath while he went through the painful process of pulling on the sweatshirt, then dragged his fingers through his hair. It needed cutting, badly, but there was nothing he could do about that.
He had intended to peek in the bedroom as he passed, check on Sophie and replace the bag on the chest of drawers. But as he approached the door it was standing wide open, and, although Sophie was fast asleep, just where he had left her, Dora had gone.
Gannon took the stairs three at a time without even feeling the pain jarring his ribs, expecting the back door to be standing wide open as she made a crazy dash to get away from him, but in the living room everything was as it should be.
The fire was crackling behind the guard, throwing a warm, flickering light in a semicircle that included the two chairs placed beside it. Dora was curled up in one of them, her head bent over a lined notepad, her fair hair gleaming in the pool of light from an angled lamp. She didn’t even look up as he burst into the room.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘I thought you were going to stay with Sophie.’ He was aware that he was making a fool of himself. ‘Get some sleep,’ he finished, somewhat lamely.
She shifted slightly, bit the end of her pen. ‘I couldn’t sleep. It’s the thunder. Tha
t’s why I got up in the first place.’
‘You’re scared of thunder?’ He was surprised. She was willow-slender, but there was a whipcord strength about her. She didn’t seem the kind of girl to be frightened of anything.
‘No. It doesn’t scare me.’ She finally looked up. ‘It just brings back unpleasant memories. Things I’d rather not think about. If I work, it helps to block it out.’
‘I see.’
‘You don’t, but it doesn’t matter.’ She regarded him steadily for a moment with those big dark eyes, then she turned away and picked up a mug at her elbow. She saw that he was still staring at her. ‘It’s cocoa,’ she said. ‘I would have made you some, but in your position I wouldn’t trust me not to dope it with sleeping pills or something.’
‘You wouldn’t do that,’ he said, responding more easily to teasing hostility. ‘You’re too eager for me to clear out.’
‘True. But, since you don’t seem very keen to go, drugging you and getting someone else to carry you away would be a very neat alternative. And far more sensible than attempting to brain you with a poker. However, since I don’t take sleeping pills, you’re quite safe. Would you like something to eat? There’s some unopened cheese in the fridge, or eggs. They’d be safe. And you brought your own milk.’ She put down the mug and started to make a note on the pad in front of it. ‘Where did you buy it at this time of night?’ He didn’t answer. ‘The only place I know is the all-night garage on the main road.’ She stopped writing and looked up at him in astonishment. ‘You’ve walked that far? With Sophie?’
‘Just a stroll,’ he assured her.
No snipers, no landmines, no missiles. A piece of cake. He glanced at the chair opposite her and, after a moment of hesitation, sat down. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m writing,’ she said.
He could see that. ‘A letter, a poem, a plea for help that you plan to put in a bottle and fling into the river in the hope that some early morning fisherman might find it?’
‘No. Actually, it’s an article for a women’s magazine.’
‘Oh.’ Dora had taken the wind out his sails and had rather enjoyed the experience. ‘You’re a writer? Are you successful?’