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
