Plunket was off down his own road.
“Very inconvenient, that was.” His lugubrious tone did not quite make up for his word choice.
“Inconvenient?” Ben raised an eyebrow at him.
“As well as sad,” Mr. Plunket amended, “tragic more like. That goes without saying, of course.”
“Was she… the deceased woman… a relative or close friend of his lordship?” I roused myself to ask.
“Never met or spoken with her. She was one of the contestants, you see.”
“The what?” Ben added his echo to that of Mrs. Malloy, while bending over the sofa to smoothe back my hair and search my face with anxious eyes.
“Contestants.” Mr. Plunket shuffled on his feet, which like his clothes appeared too small for him. “She would have made the sixth. The other five will be getting here tomorrow if it’s not decided to put them off.”
“What are they contesting for?” That was Ben asking, while looking toward the obdurately closed door.
“The position of Lady Belfrey.”
I actually heard Mrs. Malloy’s chin drop.
“One of the lucky ladies will… if the filming goes forward… be awarded his hand in marriage during the final segment. That’s as Mrs. Foot, Boris, and me understand things. The director, Monsieur Georges LeBois-French like you might guess-hasn’t had much to say to us since he arrived this morning. All he’s been going on about is how bad the food has been.”
If Mrs. Malloy hadn’t already been seated, she would have sunk into the nearest chair or wastepaper basket.
“We can only hope the rest of the crew that just got here won’t turn their noses up at what’s on the table because it isn’t snails and frog legs.” Mr. Plunket wasn’t looking at anyone in particular; indeed, his eyes had disappeared into his gourd face.
Clearly in desperate need of something to hold on to, Mrs. Malloy finally removed the lamp shade and her hat along with it. “You told us earlier out in the hall that they’re doing a TV reality show. Are you saying it’s one of them bachelor ones?”
“I think he’s spelled it out,” Ben snapped at her, something he almost never does.
“What’s the show to be called?” she inquired dreamily while crushing the shape out of the lamp shade.
“
“My, don’t that sound lovely! And I expect the contestants are all lovely young things with perfect figures and faces that have never been used.” She was all eager wistfulness as she continued to pulverize the hapless lamp shade.
“Not chosen for their looks they haven’t been,” replied Mr. Plunket. “The idea, as presented to his lordship by Monsieur LeBois, was for something different from other programs of the type. That’s the attraction what they’re banking on to garner-I think that’s the word-a big audience. The contestants have been picked because of other qualities: their willingness to muck in at Mucklesfeld is how his nibs puts it. Deal with all that’s wrong with the place, pitch in with the cleanup, show they are up to the job of being Lady Belfrey while the ceilings come down about their ears.”
“Hardly romantic.” Ben paced over to the door, opened it, and closed it again.
“Oh, I don’t know.” I found myself sitting up on the sofa. Had I thought about it, I would have realized that neither the horrible face peering through the banisters nor the aggressive Metal Knight had terrorized my thoughts for the past few moments. “A woman with a strong practical streak can have her appeal, especially if she makes the most of her looks, something the beauties of this world don’t have to bother about, hopefully, until it is too late. Did Lord Belfrey make the selections, Mr. Plunket?”
“That was done by Monsieur LeBois from the hundreds of written applications and photos sent in. He and his nibs met some six months ago in London, introduced by a mutual acquaintance. The idea for the show came out of their conversation. They got together again. You can see the mutual benefit to the winning contestant and his nibs. She’d get to become a titled lady and he’d be able to use his share of the financial proceeds from the show to set Mucklesfeld back on its feet.”
“But now things are up in the air,” I mused.
“They always was in a way.” Mr. Plunket oozed despondency. “Monsieur LeBois hasn’t managed as yet to get a firm commitment from any of the stations, he’s filming on spec-is how I think it’s called-but as Mrs. Foot, Boris, and me understand it, there’s been considerable interest.”
“Is Lord Belfrey content to marry for what it can bring him?” I felt, rather than saw, Ben’s lip curl.
“It’s how things has been done in the great families for centuries and it’s not as how his nibs is young and wild to trot. Fifty-six is what he’ll be come his next birthday. Can’t say he’s not of an age to know his own mind and stick to it down the years. Besides, his heart’s already taken by one he can’t have. That said, he’ll choose the one that’s right for him and Mucklesfeld and do right by her through the years.”
But would it be a case of separate bedrooms, as had at first been the case when Wisteria Whitworth married the estimable Carson Grant after the timely death of the husband who in order to gain control over her fortune had contrived her removal to the hellish confines of Perdition Hall? A woman subjected to the suspect ministrations of Dr. Megliani, whose medical degree had been bought from a cloaked figure with a glass eye and a missing forefinger in the backroom of an opium den in a back street of Soho. An acknowledged beauty, once the toast of London, now reduced to being force-fed lumpy gruel by the slatternly female warden (I winced away from this image) could not be expected to cast care behind her like a silk stole and respond instantly to the overtures of a man who had been a notable rake before gaining fierce self-control over his baser self.
That he was regarded as the handsomest man in England, was fluent in all modern and dead languages, rode to hounds as if born in the saddle, and fenced like the Count of Monte Cristo, added not a whit to his conceit. Though his love for Wisteria invaded every aspect of his being, Carson Grant-whom I had naturally pictured as a young Cary of the same last name-had held his seering passion in check with an iron will and a clenched jaw.
Tormented beyond his limits, he had removed himself to his study; and when inclement weather prevented his stripping off his intricately tied cravat and French cambric shirt and diving into the deep stillness of the lake behind the formal rose garden, he strode off on a twenty-mile walk across the moors, returning only when he knew himself too weary to accost her with anguished beseechings to permit him his rights as a husband. Of course, one hundred and thirty some pages later, all had ended as it should, with her wistful acknowledgment that a marriage in name only left something lacking, including the possibility of an heir.
Back to life at Mucklesfeld Manor. At fifty-six, Lord Belfrey might have no interest in siring children, making youth, or lack thereof, insignificant in the selection of a bride. My eyes met Mrs. Malloy’s and a tremor seized me on perceiving their dreamy glow. I knew with appalling certainty that she was inwardly humming “Here Comes the Bride.” Mr. Plunket had stated that his lordship was not seeking a dainty delight of a woman to take to wife but a sturdy helpmeet, one willing to roll up her shirtsleeves and trouser legs and begin setting his house to rights. And who better to do that than a woman who had spent her working life cleaning other people’s homes? Tragically, one of the contestants was dead and a vacancy yawned.
I could understand from whence hope sprang. But even if his lordship and the director did by some remote chance add her to the list of hopefuls, the odds were five to one against her being the one chosen to become Lady Belfrey. And Mrs. Malloy was the worst of bad losers. She had snarled for a week after not winning Pin the Tail on the Donkey at Rose’s last birthday party. No, no! I could not risk her being mortally wounded on the path to a loveless marriage. She must be wrested from Mucklesfeld Manor without delay.
“Sweetheart, your eyes are glazed. Did you doze off?” Ben was all tender solicitude.
“Just drifting.” I gave him a staunch smile. Shuffling my legs off the sofa from a semi-reclining position produced an involuntary wince. My headache had gone from minor to full-blown. I was sure I looked like death. Which in this house was perhaps not a novelty. Mr. Plunket appeared not to notice.
“There’s no denying that the lady’s death puts his lordship in a difficult position.” He looked more than ever like a talking gourd. “Will he think it right to go ahead with filming
“But that’s what them shows is all about-high drama and cutthroat angling for the main chance,” responded Mrs. Malloy stoutly from her chair. “’Course, I don’t want to sound callous, but there it is. Talk about grabbing the audience by the throat-revealing the tragedy up front and going on from there. Especially if his lordship could find himself a replacement candidate in the nick of time… right out of the blue, so to speak.” The dreamy glow had returned. Clearly no time was to be lost in rescuing her from her giddy aspirations. At any moment Lord Belfrey
