She Shoots to Conquer (19 page)

The thrill of wickedness faded the moment I stepped into the study. I had been confident of finding it empty. Certainly the last person I expected to see standing, head bent, his back to me, in front of a desk almost the width of the room was Lord Belfrey. He should have been at the top of the drive watching the women who would soon be vying for his hand make their way toward
him. Shock switched the drive to a church aisle and his lordship into Henry VIII. So silly! His lordship wasn’t aiming for six wives, just one out of that number. But then neither had Henry, whatever his faults, been greedy enough to want all at once. He’d had to go through a lot to find the happiness a king deserved. The memory jingle learned at school returned to me:
Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, outlived
. A nervous giggle tickled its way up my throat, but mercifully subsided when Lord Belfrey turned around to face me . . . us. Thumper was seated to attention, demonstrating that he at least had some manners.

“I’m sorry, your lordship, I should have knocked. But . . . that’s neither here nor there; I’ve no business coming in.”

His expression was serious, solemn even, until slowly warming into a smile of such subtle masculine—make that virile—charm that it was impossible not to relax a little and smile back.

“Who’s your friend?” He beckoned to Thumper, who went willingly, although at a sedate pace, to be stroked. The image came of Ben’s hand on the dark head and I felt myself blushing, which was so silly. What woman on the better side of eighty wouldn’t experience a small fluttery thrill when looking into the dark eyes under well-shaped black brows? The left eyebrow quirked and the smile deepened as he straightened up after a final pat. “You look guilty. Did you kidnap him, Mrs. Haskell?”

“Ellie, please.”

“But not short for Eleanor.” The smile faded slightly.

Instantly, the rosy cloudlike feeling vanished.

“Giselle.” I was glad when Thumper returned to sit beside me, warm against my leg.

“I remember.” He reached behind him for a pencil. “Your resemblance to her portrait is uncanny.”

“It happens,” I said at my most inane, then quickly. “Mrs. Malloy told me you wanted to speak to me about her becoming one of the contestants. We both thought it very gallant of you . . . but of course the decision is hers . . . and yours. And now I’ll get out of here. I was sure you were outside and . . . again; I should never
have come in here. You will be wishing me at the moon when you’ll be anxious to be greeting your arriving . . . guests.”

“Georges doesn’t want me out on the drive for another half hour. Until then I’m not a contributing factor.” The smile was there—wry, self-deprecating, and unable to conceal . . . what? Minor misgivings? Or a deep-rooted sorrow? “He wants to get some shots of the women meeting for the first time, sizing each other up, before bringing me on camera. Cold-blooded, wouldn’t you say, Ellie?”

“Well,” looking down at Thumper for moral support, “I suppose that’s the nature of a reality show.”

“Have you ever watched one?” He sounded as though my answer was important to him. But did he really want to know my thoughts for their own sake, or because the opinion he desired was that of Eleanor Belfrey? How well had he known her, if at all? Could any sensible man succumb to a portrait without having seen the original?

“No, but that doesn’t mean that I think there’s anything innately wrong with them. It’s just that I,” blundering on, “prefer fictional entertainment and had parents who,” unable to keep from smiling, “thought reality highly overrated.”

He raised a dark inquiring eyebrow, genuine amusement again hovering around his mouth. “That must have made for an interesting childhood.”

“Rather magical in its way.”

“Did it leave you still believing in fairy tales?”

“Perhaps.” I stood there feeling as though the conversation was taking place underwater.

“And do any of us get to write our own happy endings, or are we all the powerless pawns of fate, Ellie?”

Hadn’t Carson Grant posed the same question to Wisteria Whitworth? And hadn’t she wondered, before succumbing to his demanding lips, whether something sinister lurked behind his willingness to lay bare his romantic soul? Fortunately, Lord Belfrey’s motives were immaterial. He had no motive for wishing to
either marry or murder me. We were overnight acquaintances. I had not stumbled upon a maleficent secret that he had striven ruthlessly through the years to conceal. Neither was I the possessor of a vast fortune that, if he could get his wicked hands on, would enable him to continue a life of depravity without the vulgar restrictions imposed by a lack of cash. What rubbish I was thinking! All blame to my parents’ life view! His lordship had come up with a twenty-first-century scheme to settle his financial difficulties and I was a married woman. I pictured Ben slogging in this man’s archaic kitchen and swam back up to the surface at a nudge on my left by Thumper.

“You’re not leaving your life up to fate, Lord Belfrey.” I concentrated on the hand twiddling the pencil. “Neither do most of us. I hope
Here Comes the Bride
will be a smashing success and you will be very happy with the woman of your choice.”

“Even if that woman is Mrs. Malloy?”

“Of course.”

“You will miss her.”

“That doesn’t enter into it. I really should be going.”

“Wait just a moment. I do have to get outside but”—his eyes caught mine in their dark, compelling gaze—I admit to dragging my feet. “This wasn’t an easy decision to reach and I’d like you to understand how I came to it.”

I nodded mutely.

“Mucklesfeld is pretty much all I have to show for my life. I’ve had two failed marriages and a career that was unremarkable before the firm I worked for collapsed. Saving the ancestral home may not seem the noblest of ambitions, but it could be my last chance of doing something that will put a stamp on my life. I spent very little time here before going out to America, but it always had a pull for me. Something in the blood and bone perhaps.”

“I can understand that.” It was true. Merlin’s Court had come down to me through the family. Thumper sat looking empathetic. “But is it worth . . . ?” I gestured awkwardly.

“Selling myself on a television show?

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“No?”

“You’ll be making a bargain.” I was eager to escape the study. “I can see there could be benefits to both concerned, but it just seems a rather sad arrangement to me. Luckily, six women, including Mrs. Malloy, don’t see it that way. But if you find yourself uncertain, why not at least postpone the filming? You’ve good reason surely after what happened to Suzanne Varney.”

Lord Belfrey’s expression darkened, as Carson Grant’s had done on so many occasions when dealing with the sorrows of Wisteria Whitworth’s incarceration at Perdition Hall. “I’d met her . . . years ago on a Caribbean cruise. We spent the better part of a week together, dining, dancing. I was between marriages at the time. And she was a very attractive, likable woman.”

I stared at him.

“Let me show you, Ellie.” He stepped sideways, beckoning me forward. Accompanied by the faithful Thumper, I joined him at the desk. Scattered across it were a series of eight-by-ten photos displaying the faces of women. His hand went to one in the middle. “This is Suzanne.”

“As you say” (and so had Tommy) “she is . . . was . . . very attractive.”

“The applicants were all instructed to submit a photo of this size. They went to Georges. I told him that I wasn’t interested in seeing them, that I didn’t wish to be influenced by looks one way or the other. The selections were up to him, based on the personality criteria we had agreed upon. When he arrived at Mucklesfeld, he took over this room. Yesterday afternoon I came in and saw these,” waving a hand over the photos, “and recognized Suzanne despite not having thought of her in years. I told Georges at once.”

“Was it specified on the application form that the contestants must have no prior acquaintance with you?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps Suzanne didn’t connect you with the man she had met on the cruise.”

The line of his mouth was bitter. “I wasn’t traveling under an assumed name.”

“But you weren’t Lord Belfrey at the time.” Looking at her face, I decided it was etched with sorrow and felt a reluctance to believe she had broken the rules intentionally. “What did Georges say?”

“That the situation could be put to dramatic use. Either on Suzanne’s arrival or further down the road.”

“The other contestants would have a right to be upset.”

“Especially as Georges had made his selections based on an interlocking connection between them. Her death is going to come as a shock to the ones who knew her.”

I thought of Livonia and Judy. “Does it have to come out now that you and Suzanne knew each other? Even Georges must see there’s no point in setting that cat among the pigeons.” I looked studiedly at my watch. “And now I really must get out of here. Thumper’s owners must be getting dreadfully worried about him. I’ll need to find some sort of lead . . .”

“Take this,” he began unknotting his tie, and to my embarrassment I felt my face flush. Ridiculous to feel that something so ordinary implied an intimacy between us. “Why don’t you stop at Witch Haven, home of my late cousin Giles’s daughter Celia, and inquire there about him, if you can get the door opened to you? I haven’t been allowed in and neither has she come here since the day she demanded that I hand over Eleanor Belfrey’s portrait, saying Giles had given it to her because she admired the artist, if not the subject.” He handed me the tie and I took it wordlessly. “If you do get inside Witch Haven, you might get to see the portrait and discover whether or not I am exaggerating your resemblance to Eleanor.”

“Am I right in thinking you didn’t know her?”

“Giles was never welcoming of family visits.” His lordship turned his back on the desk and the spread-out photos. “Nevertheless, I showed up in defiance of that attitude shortly after their marriage. When the butler grudgingly allowed me into the hall,
she was going up the stairs wearing the dress in the portrait, ankle-length and of pale filmy gauze. She must have been sitting for the artist. Halfway up she turned and looked down before going on her way. I stayed until late evening, despite the frequent glares from Giles, and from Celia, who was twenty-three at the time. A couple of years younger than myself. Despite Giles and I being first cousins he would have been fifty or fifty-one at the time. The ages stick in my mind. He was so damnably proud of having snared so young a bride.” Lord Belfrey moved a hand around his shirt collar as if fingering for his tie, looked at what was in my hand, stared for a moment in puzzlement, and then said gently: “Go on, Ellie Haskell, make your getaway with the dog.”

“As did Eleanor,” I replied, “only
she
didn’t come back.”

“Thank God for that. Don’t let my dislike of Celia put you off stopping at Witch Haven. She certainly isn’t a woman to answer her own door.”

“Did she marry?” Just being incurably nosy.

“Not to my knowledge. I think of her as devotedly wedded to herself; but don’t picture her as a recluse. Tommy claims to get on well with her. She has plenty of help in the house, including an elderly handyman named Forester she doesn’t deserve, and, so I’ve been told, a recently acquired paid companion. God help the woman!” He gave Thumper a farewell pat before holding the study door open for us.

I had to ask, “Are you over your cold feet?”

“Whoever she is, she won’t be a vulnerable girl living in fear of her life while wishing she were dead. That was the look I saw on Eleanor’s face when she looked down at me from the stairs.”

The study door closed behind him. Thumper looked up at me expectantly and together we crossed the hall to the passageway that Judy had said led to an outside door. I did think about going to the kitchen and telling Ben that I would be gone for a while. But he was bound to be busy. I knew that I had to try to return Thumper, and also felt compelled to make myself scarce before the house became a hotbed of activity.

Once outside, I knotted the tie around Thumper’s collar, but let it dangle loose. Time enough to take hold when we got out onto the road. But how to get there? I couldn’t do so by way of the drive. Even to sidle down the wooded side would be an intrusion; I didn’t flatter myself I was sufficiently slim to be easily hidden by the trees. Diminutive Judy with her muted coloring might have managed this feat, although I couldn’t imagine her sidling anywhere. Practical, kindly Judy—or so I saw her on early acquaintance—what would she have thought of his lordship’s recounting of seeing Eleanor Belfrey on the stairs?

Thumper was trotting a little ahead of me across the weed-ridden lawn as I searched for a path through the woods that might take me out onto the road sufficiently beyond the gates for me to head toward the village without drawing attention. Most particularly, I didn’t want to be seen by Lord Belfrey. How awful if he thought I was checking to make sure he had stuck with his decision and was now greeting the contestants with the requisite amount of pleasure and pageantry.

I stopped and looked in the direction of the dell, with its broken fountain and misshapen tumbles of mossy stone. A silken breeze brushed my face and rippled questing fingers through my hair—loosening strands that I did not bother to tuck back in place. The sky was a pure, pale blue between the skeined fleece of the clouds. Thumper stopped to look back at me before apparently deciding that the only way to keep his doggie figure was by racing in ever-narrowing circles and cheering himself on by a series of congratulatory barks. I found myself wondering what the garden had looked like when Eleanor Belfrey was here. Had she liked flowers, reveled in birdsong, been happy during any of her time at Mucklesfeld? I pictured her coming up from the dell wearing the dress from the portrait; I saw the soft filmy material as the color of moonlight. I saw the look on her face described by his lordship. Had she hated the idea of returning to the house, hated and feared the husband old enough to be her father? I shivered despite my light jacket. A dreadful thought socked me in the chest.