She Shoots to Conquer (13 page)

“Oh!” Livonia repeated, but this time there was interest in her voice. “Are you another of the contestants for
Here Comes the Bride
?”

The woman nodded. She was a diminutive female with short fly-away beige hair and a narrow, thin-featured face. Indeed, her
overall appearance was beige—complexion, hiker’s jacket, and twill slacks. The only touch of color came from her brown eyes and matching loafers. “And the two of you?” she inquired.

I explained about the fog and my overnight status. Livonia admitted tentatively to being a fellow contestant, but added that she was having some second thoughts now that a meeting with Lord Belfrey was at hand.

“Don’t go getting cold feet,” the other woman said. She had a quietly brisk, sensible voice. “You must have had compelling reasons for taking this step. In my case, it’s the grounds.” She stood on tiptoe to look around her. “When I read that once-glorious gardens and woodlands had reduced to a sad wilderness, I had to answer the call. My family owned a landscaping business, you see. My brother took it over and ran it into bankruptcy. My attempts to help him out financially caused me to lose my home with its two acres, and for the past few years I’ve been in a small flat with only a window box to satisfy my green thumb.” Thumper extended a sympathetic paw, which she bent down and shook. “Nice dog.” She looked from Livonia to me as she straightened up, her voice briskly pleasant. “Belong to either of you, or to Mucklesfeld?”

“Not ours,” I told her. “But whether he belongs here or from somewhere else in the neighborhood isn’t clear. For the moment I’m calling him Thumper.”

“Suits him. Preferable to Dog Doe certainly.” The narrow face creased into a smile that was reflected in the brown eyes. She extended a hand that was surprisingly workmanlike given her size. “I’m Judy Nunn. And you?”

“Ellie Haskell.”

“Livonia Mayberry. Judy Nunn, you said . . . the name sounds familiar.”

“I’m thinking the same of yours. Perhaps it will come to one of us. Meanwhile, we are still several hours early. Care to join me on a good long walk?”

Livonia looked less than enthusiastic. I spoke up.

“I should go back inside and talk to my husband about getting
ready to leave for home. His parents have been taking care of our children while we’ve been on holiday.” A panicked thought surfaced. They had been expecting us last night . . . but of course, my breath steadied, Ben would have phoned and explained the delay. Even so, I could not continue to dally outdoors. He was bound to be wondering where I had got to, although to be fair to me—I reminded myself in true wifely fashion—he had been the first to do a disappearing act.

“I think I’ll come inside with you,” said Livonia in the tentative voice of one who was used to having the most ordinary statement dissected prior to rejection, “if you don’t mind, that is. I . . . I’m scared I’ll lose my nerve if I wait any longer to face the music.”

Oh, woe to Lord Belfrey, I thought with tender sympathy. Here was one woman who saw him merely as a means to causing Harold a momentary pang and another who seemed to be only after his garden. I refused to dwell on Mrs. Malloy and her silly fantasies. All it would take to squash them was the discovery that there were no bingo halls within a three-hundred-mile range of Mucklesfeld Manor. I wondered about the other three contestants as Livonia retrieved her suitcase and handbag from her car. Would there be one among the remaining trio eager to discover true love with the lord of the manor?

Judy, perhaps in the spirit of camaraderie or because it was beginning to sprinkle with rain, said she would forgo her walk for the time being and come inside with us. After disappearing around the side of Livonia’s car, she reemerged with a small overnight bag.

“No case?” Livonia inquired worriedly, as if fearing that bringing luggage was an infraction of the fine-print rules of the competition.

“Never travel with one even on extended trips,” Judy responded cheerfully. “I go by the two pairs of knicks rule. One on, one rinsed out and hung up to dry overnight. I’ve never understood why people have to take their entire lives with them when they travel.”

“That’s what Harold always said.”

Oh, dear! I thought. I could hear Mrs. Malloy saying as clearly as if she were standing next to me that Livonia Mayberry needed a backbone transplant and if I didn’t watch myself I’d be donating mine. It occurred to me at that moment that I did owe Livonia something for not blabbing to Judy Nunn about last night’s fatal accident. Further relating of Suzanne Varney’s death should be left to Lord Belfrey.

“That dog’s going to miss you like the dickens. Devotion written all over him,” remarked Judy as she set the pace on the walk up the drive. Head and shoulders forward, her feet scattered gravel right and left. Had there been a bulldozer in her way, I had no doubt she would have walked nimbly over it without missing a beat. Livonia already looked winded, and I had to suck in oxygen while glancing down at Thumper, who had kindly returned to stay at my heels after a sideways dive to encircle a couple of trees that swayed dizzily as a result. There was no doubt from his upturned face and the besotted glow in his eyes that his passion for me had not abated. If he could have done so, I felt sure he would have taken Livonia’s suitcase from me (it was the kind without wheels) and carried it on his back. From his vantage point, ours was not to be a one-night stand. Yes, he had broken into my boudoir and thrust himself unencouraged onto my bed, but he had chosen to adore me on sight and (to play fast and loose with Browning) with God be the rest. Still, there was no use in either of us pining. Clearly he wasn’t starving, nor did he show other signs of mistreatment. We would each have to forget our infatuation and move on. Although perhaps not with the speed that Judy Nunn was heading down the drive. We had reached the stone wall when Mr. Plunket came through the gap.

Even the thickening veil of rain could not disguise his unfortunate facade. It was also obvious from his labored breathing and hunched posture that he was not the outdoorsy sort. Judy Nunn halted a foot from him and stuck out the hand not holding the overnight bag with the spare pair of knicks.

“Lord Belfrey, I presume!” It was said with the utmost good cheer, but Livonia’s reaction was not so sanguine. She gripped my arm with such force that I nearly dropped her suitcase on poor Thumper.

“Not his lordship!” I murmured soothingly. “This is his butler, Mr. Plunket.”

“Then a pleasure to meet you, sir.” Judy eyed him without visible sign of either relief or revulsion.

“Oh, yes, indeed!” Livonia let me have my arm back. “Such a lovely morning to be out and about, isn’t it? Unless you’re the sort who prefers to be indoors when it rains. Everybody’s different, aren’t they?”

Mr. Plunket stared blankly from her to Judy.

“These ladies, Livonia Mayberry and Judy Nunn,” I explained, “are two of the contestants for
Here Comes the Bride
.”

“Is that right?” He sounded as though he was still stuck in last evening’s fog. “I was down in the ravine checking on that tree that got hit.”

“Lightning?” Judy asked with the keen interest of one who thrills to the elements, however devilish.

Mr. Plunket either did not hear her or chose to ignore the interruption. His hunted expression suggested he would much have preferred not to have encountered us on his morning constitutional. “Mrs. Foot’s been that worried that a puff of wind could bring it down.”

And cause bodily harm to a squirrel? I wondered. The area was well away from the house, but of course for all I knew the ravine might be the favored place of those who relished getting snared by brambles and scratched by thornbushes. Mushroom-hunters, I thought vaguely, or bird-watchers of the particularly dotty sort. Give me the verdant meadow, the velvet hills, the shady lane.

“Mrs. Foot?” Livonia whispered.

“The housekeeper,” I told her. “And there’s another household helper named Boris.” I made a mental note to warn her
about the suit of armor that Boris, who enjoyed tinkering, had brought to maniacal life.

“Lord Belfrey should fetch in an arborist to take a look at the tree you’re worried about.” Judy surveyed Mr. Plunket kindly.

“A what?” He batted away the rain as if it were mosquito netting.

“A tree doctor,” I said, setting down Livonia’s suitcase.

“Wouldn’t a GP do for a quick look?” She squeezed out the words. “It’s so awful to think of anything suffering a moment longer than necessary. What sort is the poor stricken tree?”

“An oak,” Mr. Plunket sounded as though he was coming somewhat back into focus, “or maybe an elm or . . . a beech. I was never much good at nature study. It was my worst subject after English, maths, geography, and history. Like I used to tell my old mum, lunch was my best subject and I never got top marks in that, neither. His nibs will know what sort it is; for a gentleman of his superior background, knowing one tree for another will be bred in the bone along with Latin verbs and what sort of olive to put in a martini. But we don’t want to go bothering him about trees, now do we?”

Given my presumption that the tree under discussion had been hit not by lightning but by Suzanne Varney’s car, I agreed with him. Judy, if not Livonia, probably assumed Mr. Plunket was referring to the stress his lordship must be under now that the hour approached for his meeting with his prospective brides. I set down Livonia’s suitcase.

“So, if you ladies don’t mind,” Mr. Plunket turned up his jacket against the rain, “I’d appreciate your not saying anything about this little conversation to his nibs. I’m not the sort for early morning rambles in a general way and he might get to worrying that I’m going a bit funny in the head after last night.”

“Oh, yes, of course!” Livonia flinched when looking into his gourdlike face, but the sympathy was there in her voice.

“Last night?” Judy met his eyes squarely. Not a flicker of an eyelash. Perhaps she saw the unfortunate man as an interesting
botanical specimen, or was simply a nice woman who didn’t think spiteful thoughts about other people’s appearance. But this was not the moment to put on my hair shirt. Mr. Plunket’s revelation of Suzanne Varney’s fatal accident was likely to keep us standing outdoors longer than was desirable. The rain had petered out, but if I felt unpleasantly damp so must the others, and Livonia was shivering.

“I’m afraid I set Mucklesfeld at sixes and sevens yesterday evening, by fainting upon arrival,” I said quickly. “So silly, but . . .”

“Oh, my goodness!” Livonia swayed against me. “Did you see a ghost?” She glanced fearfully toward the house, which did loom forbodingly as if prepared to sprout an extra turret or two and unleash its ivied tentacles.

“Nothing like that.” I dismissed the Metal Knight from my mind. “It was just the stress from driving in the fog.”

“Don’t seem to get so many pea soupers these days,” Judy inserted comfortably. “Certainly not the smog, thank God and cleaner burning fuel. Although I must say I always enjoyed a coal fire as a girl when coming in after a day spent digging up a field of potatoes. Now I make do with one of those fake electric log ones in my flat and . . .”

“Mucklesfeld has its ghosts and don’t let no one tell you different.” Mr. Plunket’s face, nodules and all, glistened with pride. “Wouldn’t be proper in an ancestral home not to have them, would it? Shortchanging, you could call it. Might as well live in a caravan at Southend is what Mrs. Foot says, and Boris agrees with her. They’ve both seen the Lady Annabel Belfrey that went on a holiday to see her auntie during the French Revolution. Can’t blame a woman for wanting to see the Eye Full Tower, I suppose, but . . .”

“Oh, but wasn’t that built . . .” Livonia petered out.

“Went to the guillotine instead, she did.”

A holiday in Southend might have been a better choice, I thought. The famous long pier, bracing salt air, walks across the mudflats when the sea was out, and yummy fish and chips.

“I suppose poor Lady Annabel has become the headless specter,” said Judy with kindly interest.

“Oh, never!” Mr. Plunket rebuked this notion. “You’d not catch a Belfrey going around making a spectacle of herself is Mrs. Foot’s opinion. And very particular about her appearance was this ancestress, from what his nibs and Dr. Rowley have to say on the subject—strong into the family history is the doctor. No, indeed, Mrs. Foot and Boris have heard she’s always been seen wearing a silk scarf thing around her neck, tied tight enough to keep her head on straight.”

“Oh, good!” said Livonia faintly. “Does she often put in an appearance?”

“Not all that frequent. Seems she was one to prefer her own company. You’ll see her portrait in the library gallery. Mrs. Foot tried putting out a plate of biscuits and a cup of tea, thinking that could tempt Lady Annabel to show her face more often, but it don’t seem to have worked.”

Remembering the refreshments offered to me by Mrs. Foot, I thought the Guillotined Ghost showed a lot of sense for a woman who did not have her head screwed on right.

“It’s Sir Giles’s second wife that’s been seen most recent, by both Mrs. Foot and Boris, slipping in or out one of the outside doors. I try not to take it personal that she hasn’t seen fit to let me get a glimpse of her.”

Abandoning any feigned interest in the conversation, Thumper sat scratching his ear.

“But it’s hard not to get our feelings hurt, isn’t it?” Livonia murmured sympathetically while either by accident or decision looking him in the face.

“None of us likes being left out by any member of his nibs’s family living or gone,” Mr. Plunket admitted, “especially one that seems to have captured his imagination with a special fondness. If you was to see her portrait—only you won’t because it’s at his cousin Celia’s house—you’d see there’s a strong resemblance between said Eleanor Belfrey and this lady here.” Mr.
Plunket pointed a stubby finger at me, and I found myself blushing.

Thumper appeared to find the sight adorable.

“Perhaps a family connection,” suggested Judy.

“More like a coincidence,” I answered quickly, eager to get off the subject.