Читать книгу His Little Girl - Liz Fielding - Страница 6

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.