This decided, I strode in the impressive Judy Nunn manner for all of six steps, before stopping beside the huge jardinière displaying the dead plant. Next to it was the door that Georges had posted off-limits. The study. I made to move on, but stopped… seized by an impulse that had nothing to do with a desire to snoop or a wish to find a book. Mucklesfeld possessed a library. No, the shameful truth is I had that sudden, unbidden urge to defy authority. My late mother, lovely mercurial creature that she was, once told me with scarcely veiled pride that sometimes when she came up behind a policeman on duty she experienced an almost irresistible impulse to tip his helmet over his face. But in my case it was personal. Georges LeBois needed stamping on good and proper, to use a familiar phrase from Mrs. Malloy. Thinking of how I’d let her down that morning, in part because Georges had delayed me in the kitchen, I reached without a quiver of remorse for the door handle.
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.”