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‘So you do re ordered around’ She perched on the side of the sofa, si with him across the width of the roo ‘What do you think your mother would have done in my position, if she had heard a noise? And it’s happened before, for your infor, but she’s done exactly what I did’

‘She told you that? She never told me When did this happen?’

‘The last tio, shortly after Daniel had arrived She probably would have hunkered down and ignored the creak, but when there’s a child in the house hunkering down isn’t an option—and, short of sleeping with a gun under the pillow, you just have to use what you’ve got to hand’

‘I will need to do so to me? No, scrap that question’

Heather saw the flash of painful realisation that Katherine had kept quiet because she hadn’t wanted to bother her busy son who had no time for her or her life in the country which was so far removed from his

‘It’s a big house, Leo,’ she said aardly ‘And it’s old Big, old houses ht’

‘I had the most sophisticated alarht,’ Leo pointed out, frowning

‘Katherine doesn’t like to switch it on at night She thinks sheto drink and set if off by mistake’

‘Right’

‘Also, Daniel ht, as well, and he’d be terrified if he set it off’

‘So you prefer to make use of the encyclopaedia of plants instead?’

She knew that he would be having a hard ti been scared of anything in his life ‘It’s pretty heavy’

‘I can’t see th to lift it’

‘She probably uses the concise version’

Leo looked at her and then threw back his dark, arrogant head and laughed When he stopped laughing, the ated intimacy in the air between the her breath, riveted by his proxiry eyes away from his face

‘You hly ‘Not many people do I like that’

Heather felt disproportionately good at that confession This hat he did to her He made her feel like a woman and not just like a faceless, sexless person who helped out at charity fund-raisers, pursued her isolated career, tended her garden and helped out at the local school He otten how that felt Even when she had been married to Brian she had not felt that

‘And you make me feel…’ She ran out of stealy in the air between them

‘Ho do I ry? Pissed off?’

‘That as well’

‘As well as what?’

‘I…I should go back to bed’

‘No, you don’t You’re not doing a runner onher back before she could take flight

Heather gave a little yelp of dismay as she lost her precarious balance and toppled back onto the sofa, half-falling against hiht herself, in the process co