She Shoots to Conquer (17 page)

“Tommy Rowley. I live in the village.”

“Do you really?”

“Just a walk away.”

“So close!”

“Mine isn’t a large house, but it suits my needs. Or would do completely,” Tommy returned the handkerchief with much fumbling to his jacket pocket, “if I could come home to someone . . . a cat . . . yes, a sweet-faced cat, waiting for me curled up in the armchair by the fireplace, with the lamplight shining on her glossy dark hair . . . I mean fur.”

“You mentioned Blackie.” Livonia cut down the distance between them by a couple of footsteps. “That sounds like a male sort of name to my ears, but then,” she was blushing rosily, “it’s so easy for me to be wrong about . . . everything really.”

“Not in this case, Miss Mayberry.” Tommy’s voice took on a deeper timbre, “Blackie was a boy until his little operation—which we both regretted but I thought necessary.”

“Perhaps next time a female would make a nice change.”

“Indeed it would!” The round eyed, round cheeked schoolboy face under the thinning hair shone with enthusiasm.

There followed one of those silences that tend to become a little overwhelming. To break it—because Thumper looked a little anxious—I blurted out: “Dr. Rowley, Livonia knew Suzanne Varney.” I knew at once that I had cruelly broken the spell cast by two people having what passed for a normal conversation at Mucklesfeld. Oh, to have stepped on my merciless tongue!

The roses faded from Livonia’s cheeks. “And I haven’t been thinking about her near enough.” She twisted her hands together in the familiar way. “It’s been all about me since I got here, hasn’t it? Harold was right in saying I’m completely selfish.” Tommy reached out a hand to her, but she backed away. I saw out of the corner of my eye a silvery glint, and heard, if they did not, a soft whirring . . . followed by the ominous creaking of metal arms rising stiffly to extend forward in preparation for closing around an unwary throat. Somehow I managed a warning yelp, which was echoed by Thumper; Livonia turned, perceived her peril, and stood frozen for the half second that it took Tommy to swoop her to safety. The metal arms lowered with a disappointed grinding sound as his closed around her.

“I meant to warn you, Livonia,” I apologized.

“How did it come alive?” Her voice was muffled, due to her face being pressed against Tommy’s.

“Georges LeBois’s dictates! Boris’s handiwork! A test of nerves for the contestants. According to the great man, there will be other fun and games.” I expected Livonia to return to the theme of leaving Mucklesfeld without delay, but she was silent while remaining within the circle of Tommy’s arms. It was an agitated squeaking (not her voice) that rent the air. My initial thought was that the Metal Knight was still readjusting its parts. But then came the scurrying . . . the flash of white bringing Thumper vehemently to life. What had been a mild-mannered gentleman of a dog became a bristling, springing, madly yipping and hollering wild animal.
Across the hall he dashed in hot pursuit of . . . the ultimate fast food.

“Whitey!” I yelled in Livonia and Tommy’s direction, before making my dash toward the staircase where the excitement was headed.

“It was Blackie, remember?” His voice floated my way.

No point in pausing to explain. I doubted Tommy would have heard me; he was fully occupied in shielding Livonia from the cruel world outside his arms. Stupid me, far better for her not to know that Mrs. Foot’s beloved rat had escaped incarceration. Speeding up the stairs in Thumper’s wake, I ordered him pantingly to stop. For once my word was not law and I reached the banister-railed gallery to see him spin in a circle—much as Georges did in his wheelchair—before diving left through an archway.

Why did I not leave him to do his worst when I have an absolute horror, bordering on pathological terror, of mice, let alone rats? The immediate answer was that it would be reprehensible for me to allow a dog for which I now felt responsible to go hounding through the house. Lord Belfrey deserved better from me, as did his staff. A second truth was that much as I loathed the very idea of Whitey, I would have considered myself wicked beyond belief if I had not made the attempt to save him from imminent death. This would have been the case whether or not he was Mrs. Foot’s beloved pet and, therefore, also important to Mr. Plunket and Boris. It was a matter of unwished-for principle and I was stuck with it.

“Thumper!” I bawled, on catching sight of his tail disappearing around yet another corner. “Stop this minute! Weren’t you ever told to pick on animals your own size! Bad boy! Okay, good boy!” Plowing up a skinny, twisting staircase that had appeared to my right, I continued to rant between puffs, but to no avail, as he was now racing down another, particularly dusky passageway. Perhaps a change of tone would work better. “Thumper—or whatever your real name is—come! Come to Ellie, there’s a dear! We’ll go and
look for some nice bones without life attached to them!” He turned so abruptly that I collided with a door left standing open. I could not have seen well enough to read his expression even had I not been grabbing my shin, but I sensed his hesitation . . . a dog torn between duty born of affection and the call of the wild according to Jack London. A vile squeak settled the matter. Thumper plunged through the doorway, with me staggering behind.

This passageway was wider and better lit due to a couple of windows. Ahead of us, Whitey was groveling at desperate speed along the skirting board, until the revolting tip of his hairless tail disappeared after the rest of him into a hole in the wall.

Thumper belly-flopped back to earth, to lie with his limbs at geometrically impossible angles. His pathetically defeated whine tugged at my susceptible heartstrings, but, eyeing my scraped shin, which would undoubtedly develop a bruise, I did not allow my voice to soften when telling him that he was a disgrace to whoever had brought him up. Ignoring his melting eyes, I added that I would be glad to see the back of him. This was not true, and to my instant regret he seemed to take me at my word, getting to his paws and trailing on down the passageway, head low, tail drooping. I was about to tell him that I hadn’t meant it—that I would miss him and would have liked him for my dog, but for the fact I had a cat at home who would be strenuously against the idea—when he halted and in his immobility radiated a renewed vigor, alert and cheerfully alive. He turned to look back at me, stepped forward, and turned again; clearly he was urging me to follow him. A closed door faced us, which I opened, instantly recognizing (as he had already done) that we were back on familiar territory.

“Okay,” I said. “All is forgiven. We’ll pretend this was your objective all along and say no more of the matter.” His palpable gratitude followed me into the bedroom that seemed likely to be mine for the week ahead. Today was Saturday; I stopped counting forward when Ben emerged from the cubbyhole where he should have slept in the previous night. Perhaps it was the distempered bareness of the small space that brought into such stark relief his
dark, curly-haired, olive-skinned, blue-green-eyed good looks. Or was it that it seemed an age since I had last seen him?

His first words should have been that he had missed me terribly, prior to launching into an apology for agreeing to stay on as Georges LeBois’s chef without waiting to talk to me about it. But after the briefest of glances he turned his attention to Thumper, standing like a very short sentinel at my side.

“What’s that?” Ben raised an elegantly shaped eyebrow, but for once I was not one hundred percent charmed. A
Hello, darling, I feared you were dead and my life forever blighted
would have been nice.

“It’s a dog.”

“I can see that.” He moved farther into the room, returning Thumper’s equally intent look of appraisal.

“He,” I stressed the pronoun, “is a black Lab.”

“That too is apparent. I meant why is he with you?”

“A woman alone in the world needs companionship.” I sat down on the bed, peeling my shoes off suddenly tired feet. So far I’d had more exercise in the first hours of the morning than I often got in a week, and after only a couple of hours’ sleep at that. “As you may observe, Thumper here is my devoted slave.”

The dear dog gave an authoritative woof of agreement.

“Looks like it.”

Had I been a character in a book—Wisteria Whitworth for instance—I would have gazed up at Ben through a sweep of long, curling eyelashes. But unfortunately I am not overly blessed in the lash department. His are the kind to make any woman’s heart beat in envy. “Thumper,” I continued piteously, “has filled a void in my life since I awoke to find you gone. You might at least pretend to have been worried about me.”

“I was worried . . . I was panicked.” Demonstrating the truth of this, Ben sat down on the bed and drew me into his arms.

“Panic sounds good.” I admitted. “But I need to feel it.”

“Like this?” He kissed me deeply. Even knowing Thumper was watching could not spoil the moment.

“Very nice,” I said.

“I was panicked all right.” Ben smiled wryly. “I thought Lord Belfrey had abducted you.”

“If you were seriously afraid of that, why did you leave me alone all night?” I waited for him to tell me about his cleanup of the muck-filled Mucklesfeld kitchen and his talk with Georges about staying on for the duration of
Here Comes the Bride
, but he kept to the topic of his lordship.

“You must have noticed, Ellie, that the man couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

“Only because I remind him of a portrait. A foolish fixation from the sound of it, seeing the subject is Eleanor Belfrey, second wife of his cousin and predecessor Giles, and a woman who sullied the illustrious family name by making off at dead of night with the jewel collection and Giles’s beloved Scottie.”

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Ellie.”

“Rubbish!” I said. “Just because I snared you by a witch’s spell cast on the night of the full moon does not mean that every handsome man who crosses my path falls victim to my fatal charm.”

“The fellow
is
handsome, damn him.”

“I’d say reasonably good-looking.”

“Tall, too.”

“Now stop that,” I scolded. “I don’t know why you have this hang-up about being of medium height. I wouldn’t want to have to crane my neck when gazing starrily into your eyes.” Ben kissed me again, but I wasn’t entirely sure I had convinced him. And when he didn’t bring up Georges LeBois, I told him about Thumper’s arrival through the window, Livonia’s subsequent appearance on the scene, and the unfolding of other events. It was when I got to the encounter with Georges in the kitchen that I paused and said: “Your turn.”

Ben did not answer immediately because Thumper, who had been prowling the room presumably in search of hidden recording devices installed as per the great man’s instructions, climbed onto the bed and spread out between us.

“Wouldn’t seem to have heard the saying about two being company, three a crowd.” My husband, who along with the children had always been keen to have a dog if Tobias could be persuaded to give way on the issue, stroked a hand over the silken black head.

“No shifting from the point,” I said. “What’s this about your agreeing to stay on as Georges LeBois’s chef?”

“I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“Lower your voice.” I dropped mine down a couple of notches. “This room may be bugged.”

“Why on earth . . . ?”

“We’re on the set of a reality show, remember?” My alarm was only half feigned. “That man you’ve decided to work for has lots of nasty surprises in store for the contestants.” Any one of whom might walk in here at any moment thinking herself safe from prying eyes and ears.

“Again, Ellie, I haven’t made a decision about Georges LeBois. I told him you’d have to be for the idea and my guess was that you wouldn’t want to delay a minute in getting out of here.”

“That was you last night,” I reminded him.

“At first because I felt embarrassed at barging in on strangers, and then,” drawing his eyebrows together as he does when annoyed, “because I didn’t appreciate Lord Belfrey scooping you up in his arms after you fainted and marching you into that living room as though it was his right to do so.”

“A householder assuming that the blame was his, which was the case; it was his suit of armor, along with Mrs. Foot peering menacingly through the banisters, that scared me half to death.”

“I admit he doesn’t seem to be a bad fellow—not after talking to him for a while, although I can’t imagine how any man could decide on the course he’s taking. I’d let the ancestral house rot before selecting a bride from a group of total strangers.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t matter to him whom he marries if his heart is elsewhere, so long as it is someone he believes he can grow to like and respect. And it’s not as though his wife wouldn’t be getting
what she wanted in return, whether it’s the title, the house, or the grounds. Or that’s how it should be—a practical arrangement between two people with their eyes open.”

“Including Mrs. Malloy, Ellie?”

“She is my worry,” I replied over Thumper’s snores. “There’ll be no squashing her romantic dreams. I’ll need to be around to help her to pick up the pieces if she isn’t the chosen bride.”

“And if she is?” Ben reached across the furry divider to hold my hand.

“I’ll be happy for her.”

“You’re sure?”

“Well, of course I’ll miss having her around at Merlin’s Court and I wouldn’t want to take on any sleuthing without her should the opportunity arise. The children will take her absence hard, but we’ll all have to handle the adjustment. However, any of that is at least a week ahead. Meanwhile, I’d be grateful if you’d stay on and prepare meals for Georges. Maybe he’ll turn into someone nice once he’s back to dining in style. It’s not only Mrs. Malloy, although naturally she is primary, that I’d like to keep an eye on. There’s Livonia to be saved from bolting back to the awful Harold, like Whitey scurrying into that rat hole.”

“Don’t tell me he escaped! I left the creature caged in a bolted room.”

“Obviously someone let him out. My guess is Mr. Plunket or Boris; either of those two men would do anything for Mrs. Foot. It really is sad, Ben, all three of them were homeless at some point before they ended up here. I wish I didn’t find them all so spooky. Forced to a choice, I’d rather spend half an hour with Georges than five minutes with one of them, which makes me a despicably unkind person. By the way, has he promised to pay you handsomely for your services?”