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
“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.”
Lord Belfrey’s expression darkened, as Carson Grant’s had done on so many occasions when dealing with the sorrows of Wisteria Whitworth’s incarceration at Perdition Hall. “I’d met her… years ago on a Caribbean cruise. We spent the better part of a week together, dining, dancing. I was between marriages at the time. And she was a very attractive, likable woman.”
I stared at him.
“Let me show you, Ellie.” He stepped sideways, beckoning me forward. Accompanied by the faithful Thumper, I joined him at the desk. Scattered across it were a series of eight-by-ten photos displaying the faces of women. His hand went to one in the middle. “This is Suzanne.”
“As you say” (and so had Tommy) “she is… was… very attractive.”
“The applicants were all instructed to submit a photo of this size. They went to Georges. I told him that I wasn’t interested in seeing them, that I didn’t wish to be influenced by looks one way or the other. The selections were up to him, based on the personality criteria we had agreed upon. When he arrived at Mucklesfeld, he took over this room. Yesterday afternoon I came in and saw these,” waving a hand over the photos, “and recognized Suzanne despite not having thought of her in years. I told Georges at once.”
“Was it specified on the application form that the contestants must have no prior acquaintance with you?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps Suzanne didn’t connect you with the man she had met on the cruise.”
The line of his mouth was bitter. “I wasn’t traveling under an assumed name.”
“But you weren’t Lord Belfrey at the time.” Looking at her face, I decided it was etched with sorrow and felt a reluctance to believe she had broken the rules intentionally. “What did Georges say?”
“That the situation could be put to dramatic use. Either on Suzanne’s arrival or further down the road.”
“The other contestants would have a right to be upset.”
“Especially as Georges had made his selections based on an interlocking connection between them. Her death is going to come as a shock to the ones who knew her.”
I thought of Livonia and Judy. “Does it have to come out now that you and Suzanne knew each other? Even Georges must see there’s no point in setting that cat among the pigeons.” I looked studiedly at my watch. “And now I really must get out of here. Thumper’s owners must be getting dreadfully worried about him. I’ll need to find some sort of lead…”
“Take this,” he began unknotting his tie, and to my embarrassment I felt my face flush. Ridiculous to feel that something so ordinary implied an intimacy between us. “Why don’t you stop at Witch Haven, home of my late cousin Giles’s daughter Celia, and inquire there about him, if you can get the door opened to you? I haven’t been allowed in and neither has she come here since the day she demanded that I hand over Eleanor Belfrey’s portrait, saying Giles had given it to her because she admired the artist, if not the subject.” He handed me the tie and I took it wordlessly. “If you do get inside Witch Haven, you might get to see the portrait and discover whether or not I am exaggerating your resemblance to Eleanor.”
“Am I right in thinking you didn’t know her?”
“Giles was never welcoming of family visits.” His lordship turned his back on the desk and the spread-out photos. “Nevertheless, I showed up in defiance of that attitude shortly after their marriage. When the butler grudgingly allowed me into the hall, she was going up the stairs wearing the dress in the portrait, ankle-length and of pale filmy gauze. She must have been sitting for the artist. Halfway up she turned and looked down before going on her way. I stayed until late evening, despite the frequent glares from Giles, and from Celia, who was twenty- three at the time. A couple of years younger than myself. Despite Giles and I being first cousins he would have been fifty or fifty-one at the time. The ages stick in my mind. He was so damnably proud of having snared so young a bride.” Lord Belfrey moved a hand around his shirt collar as if fingering for his tie, looked at what was in my hand, stared for a moment in puzzlement, and then said gently: “Go on, Ellie Haskell, make your getaway with the dog.”
“As did Eleanor,” I replied, “only
“Thank God for that. Don’t let my dislike of Celia put you off stopping at Witch Haven. She certainly isn’t a woman to answer her own door.”
“Did she marry?” Just being incurably nosy.
“Not to my knowledge. I think of her as devotedly wedded to herself; but don’t picture her as a recluse. Tommy claims to get on well with her. She has plenty of help in the house, including an elderly handyman named Forester she doesn’t deserve, and, so I’ve been told, a recently acquired paid companion. God help the woman!” He gave
