She Shoots to Conquer (30 page)

“So you’re now one contestant down.” It should have been clear as glass to Livonia why this worried him, but it had to be remembered her relationship with Harold had given her no reason to believe herself the sort of woman to arouse jealousy in the heart of a man. Sweet, guileless Livonia! Or was she singing exactly the right song for a duet?

“I think that worked to Georges LeBois’s plan.” I said. “Six, five . . . then four, three, two, until there is one.”

“Meanwhile, we, the contestants, have an event in mind, as was the brainchild so to speak of Mrs. H here.” Mrs. Malloy adjusted the hat to a more imposing angle. “She found out from your cousin Celia that there used to be an archery contest held every year at Mucklesfeld. So we thought we’d put one on to show we can get together as a group to bring back something from the good old days. ’Course, I’d rather set the thing up meself—too many hands in the pastry don’t work to my way of thinking—but there’s some already as resent me getting in late in the game, so it’s go with the flow. Just family invited, so we hope you’ll come, Dr. Rowley. Tomorrow, if poss, is what was decided. Afternoon would be best, but there’s you and your patients . . .”

“Will you be able to come?” Livonia, no longer holding Tommy’s hands but seeming woven to him by invisible cords, asked with no attempt to feign indifference.

“Delighted! No afternoon or evening surgery on Mondays.”

“That’s what his lordship said when we—well, Judy Nunn specifically—told him about the idea. He also said Miss Belfrey might be receptive to the idea of coming herself and agreeing to her handyman coaching the participants on use of the bows and arrows if you asked her.”

“I would gladly have done so,” Tommy looked both fervent
and crestfallen, “but I’m afraid Celia and I had a falling-out last night. She said some things about . . . about Aubrey’s marriage plans to which I took grave exception. And in the ensuing exchange of words she ordered me never to darken the doors of Witch Haven again.”

It was an easy guess that Celia Belfrey had made derogatory remarks about the sort of woman who entered TV reality shows in search of a husband. Probably she was repeating what she’d said on earlier occasions without more than a token mumble of protest from Tommy—why bother upsetting the old girl to no purpose? But this last time would have been different; he could not allow her to malign the intent of even one of the contestants—not if he were to meet Livonia again pure of heart. I doubted that Celia would want a permanent breach, not out of any affection, but because Tommy had to be her main source of information regarding Lord Belfrey and what he had in store for Mucklesfeld. Meantime, the breach provided me with an opening that I felt driven to seize if I were to obey my conscience as Tommy had done.

“I’ll go to Witch Haven and deliver the message about the archery contest,” I said.

“You will?” Livonia eyed me with a mixture of respect and concern. “What if she’s nasty to you?”

“Someone has to go, and it can’t be Lord Belfrey as he’s banned from the premises. I’ve a strong suspicion that, despite her protestations of eternal enmity, curiosity will bring Miss Celia Belfrey to your proposed event.”

“Won’t miss the chance to scoff from the sound of her.” Mrs. Malloy nodded the hat. “I’ll go with you, Mrs. H. After all,” she added importantly, “it would be more of a proper invitation coming from one of the contestants, which you’re not, when all’s said and done.”

This wasn’t at all what I wanted, seeing my main intent was to have a private talk with Nora Burton. But there was no arguing her point. Fortunately, Livonia spoke up, reminding her of a prior commitment.

“Well, yes, being at the meeting with you and Alice Jones and Molly Duggan to decide what rooms we’ll each focus on for setting to rights is important. And I know it was agreed on right after church, but . . .” It was clear from the pursing of her glossy purple lips that Mrs. Malloy was seriously torn.

“What about Judy Nunn?” I asked slyly.

“Her? She’ll be out in the gardens, tearing out tree stumps with her bare hands or rerouting the brook.” Thunderous brow.

“She’s incredible!” Livonia enthused. “His lordship seems very impressed.”

“He does?” Tommy nudged at a stray stone with the tip of his shoe. “And may the best contestant win?”

“Absolutely.” Livonia looked up at the sky.

“And who that may be is yet to be decided.” From the fierceness of Mrs. Malloy’s tone, I knew she’d made her decision. She’d be at that meeting not one second late. Breathing a sigh of relief, I suggested that either she or Livonia write a note to Miss Belfrey on behalf of the contestants, which I would take along to Witch Haven. Eager to be of service, however minimal, Dr. Tommy produced a pen and notepad. The missive was dictated by Mrs. Malloy and written down and neatly folded by Livonia.

I lost no time in making off for Witch Haven. It was tempting to linger in the leafy lane, enjoying its green shade and mosaic of shadows on the ground, the warm breeze suggesting a frolicsome mood to the day. Would I be speedily shown the door after saying what I had to say—if given the chance? My hand grasped the door knocker. My heart thudded along with its hammering fall. There was a line between sins of omission as addressed by Reverend Spendlow and sticking one’s nose in other people’s business. The door opened with startling speed, scattering beyond recoverable reach the words I’d been shoving into random order.

“Good morning,” said Nora Burton; she was again lumpily dressed in a wintry-looking skirt and sagging cardigan. The thicklensed glasses loomed large on her face, contracting her expression of polite inquiry to a lift of the mouth.

“Back like the bad penny!” Assuming admittance, I placed a foot on the threshold.

“Without the dog.” She didn’t budge. “Did you find the owner?”

“Yes . . .”

“Good, I’ll let Miss Belfrey know.”

“I have a message for her from the contestants in the reality show.” I held it out and watched her pocket it in the shapeless cardigan. “But it’s you I must talk to.”

“Must?” She stepped backward into the hall.

“Somewhere private.”

She stood rigidly still, as if finally the moment she had been anticipating since coming to Witch Haven was at hand.

Aware that the hall might have ears, I whispered the question. “You are Eleanor Belfrey?”

11

N 
o need to explain last night’s dream in which I had been powerless to scream a warning of impending danger, or to mention Reverend Spendlow’s sermon. No steaming indignation, no guilty outrage from Nora Burton. She retained her calm demeanor, skipping the question as to why her true identity was any of my business to go directly to the core. “How did you guess?”

We were now in her bedroom, she seated on the edge of the bed, I in a cobalt blue velvet chair. A small white dog—a Sealyham terrier asleep in a basket before the fireplace—added the perfect cozy touch. I had always thought I would prefer a small dog. The furnishings were charming, the warm amber, cobalt blue, and rose color scheme reflective of the hall and drawing room. Given Celia Belfrey’s demand for perfection, I doubted there was a room at Witch Haven that wasn’t lovely.

“Several reasons. Lord Belfrey asked me if my name, Ellie, was short for Eleanor; but there are always any number of ways to abbreviate. I also learned that your last name, before your marriage,
was Lambert-Onger. Shorten Eleanor into Nora, take the
bert
from Lambert and the
on
from Onger to concoct Burton, and there you are. But that didn’t come to me first. The trigger was your asking if I were talking about Lord Belfrey when I mentioned Georges LeBois the other morning. Afterwards, it struck me as unlikely that Miss Belfrey had never in your hearing mentioned her cousin Aubrey by name. Not because she is fond of him. Quite the reverse. If she would vent her venom to me—a total stranger—then how could you escape being her frequent listening post?”

“What else are paid companions to spoiled, spiteful women for?” Nora’s lips curved bitterly.

“Exactly. And Celia Belfrey is worse than either of those two adjectives, isn’t she? Look.” I leaned forward. “You haven’t said it, but I will. I’m sticking my nose into your private affairs. But I’m not doing so for the fun of it. I’ve heard your story from the three people working at Mucklesfeld and from Lord Belfrey, and I think you’re taking a huge risk in returning . . .”

“To the scene of my crime?”

“Lord Belfrey doesn’t believe you took the jewels with you when you fled Mucklesfeld.”

“Doesn’t he?” pushing back her hair in a weary gesture. The thin white line of the scar tracing down from the corner of her eye to her cheek showed up sharply in the light coming in through the window framed in floor-length pale blue silk.

“No. You made a . . . very positive lasting impression on him the day he came to Mucklesfeld and saw you standing halfway up the stairs. When my husband and a friend and I arrived out of the fog the other night, he got the idea that I look something like you did then and still do in your portrait.”

“Yes,” she said, “I can see that.”

“If there is any resemblance, it has to be very faint. You were beautiful. And I have a strong feeling that without those bottle glasses, the scraped-back hair, and frumpy clothes you still are.”

“I don’t spend much time in front of a mirror. Not because of this”—she touched a finger to the scar—“I just prefer not to
narrow my focus down to me. I’ve spent my life since Mucklesfeld staying constantly busy in unexciting ways. A nursing career, a small flat, and for the last three years Sophie.” The Sealyham twitched an ear, then reshuffled back to sleep in the basket. “I counted on being sufficiently uninteresting to have a good chance of getting away with this charade. At the start, fooling Celia was all that mattered. Once over that hurdle, I felt reasonably secure. Although sometimes I do wonder about Charlie Forester. He was always so kind, so eager to be of help to me. But,” she shrugged her shoulders, bunching up the cardigan, “it was a very long time ago. I’m not sure I would have recognized him; he’s over eighty now.”

“If Miss Belfrey hadn’t banned Lord Belfrey from this house, he would have presented a problem for you. No disguise or change in appearance would fool him. He seems to me a man of uncanny recall.” That wasn’t giving away more than was justified, was it?

“He . . . Aubrey made an indelible impression on me, too. For that one breathless moment, I thought I’d summoned up the man who would rescue me. It had been a quite dreadful day.” She removed the spectacles and rubbed her forehead above the bridge of her nose. Without them, her face seemed stripped naked and I caught my first glimpse . . . just a suggestion, really, of the loveliness that had haunted Lord Belfrey and the loss of which had played its part in driving his cousin Giles to madness. Nora finally asked the question I would have raised earlier were the situation reversed, but she did so without rancor. “What are you really? Some sort of private detective?”

“Occasional amateur. I’m at Mucklesfeld quite by chance, as I told you. But there was something in the atmosphere right from the beginning, something apart from the accidental death of one of the contestants that drew me in, and that was your story.”

“The absconding bride.” Something in her misty gray eyes told me talking would be a release now the cat was out of the bag and in my lap.

“Was your husband cruel from the start of your marriage?”

“Giles never treated me badly.”

“But Lord Belfrey thought . . . is still convinced you were terrified of your husband after being forced into a marriage contrived by your family.”

“That’s true. My father was in desperate financial straits as a result of some highly speculative investing. He was on the verge of losing everything and there was Giles offering to save the day in return for one small favor. Me. He’d been infatuated with me for several years after meeting me at Ascot on my twentieth birthday. I had no idea. He was older than both my parents by ten years. I suppose when I thought of him at all, it was as a courtesy uncle.” Nora again brushed her hair back from her forehead. A weary gesture. “I was aghast when my father told me, quite unemotionally, what was expected of a dutiful daughter. I railed, of course, but unlike my brother—there were just the two of us—I had always toed the line. Saving the family home for Jeremy to inherit along with an income to support it was of far more importance than any squeamishness on my part. After all, what did I have to complain about? I would be married to a lord.”

“So Giles dipped into the Belfrey coffers to replenish your family’s.”

“And I am supposed to have robbed them further by making off with the jewels.”

“You didn’t?”

“I’m not a thief.”

“No, but I suppose it would have been an understandable revenge against a brutal, merciless husband. But you say he wasn’t that.”

Nora resettled the glasses on her perfect nose. “I hated him at first, thought him unnatural for wanting me, knowing I had no feelings for him. Our wedding night is something I try never to think back on. Not because he forced me to submit, he was I suppose pathetically gentle, and there was nothing . . . out of the way, that could be considered deviant. But every part of me
recoiled from his body . . . his touch. When I couldn’t block those times out of my mind, I told myself they would get better. But it didn’t happen, and after a few weeks he moved out of our bedroom. At least I had my nights to myself. He said, very kindly really, that it didn’t matter. That having me there, just being able to look at me, like a flower in a vase, was enough.”