Dorothy Cannell - She Shoots to Conquer

“How did he take the news when you were accepted?”

“At first he thought it was a joke-a very bad joke-and I was about to cave in and say that was all it was and that I was sorry, when he called me a tart… a repressed tart of the Victorian spinster variety, incapable of a normal sexual relationship, and he shouldn’t be surprised that this was what he got for his patience in allowing me to keep him at arm’s length all those years.”

“Brutal.”

“And unfair. He’d never given any indication that he was… eager to get me into bed.” She blushed at the three letter word. “Sometimes I did wonder at his restraint. Never more than a kiss goodnight. I know the girls at the bank think it all very peculiar, but I always assumed he had old-fashioned morals and… perhaps a low libido. Mummy always said that men set the pace. And I would never have dreamed of broaching the subject and making us both uncomfortable.”

“Did he break things off?”

“Not exactly. He said he’d have to think long and hard about giving me a second chance when I wasn’t the selected bride, which I wouldn’t be because no lord of the realm-however desperate to find an unpaid housekeeper-would pick me.”

Why commit himself to giving up all those free meals and other entitlements? I placed a hand on her arm. “Oh, Livonia! I wish I could have been there to punch him in the nose for you. But,” thinking it best to wrench the subject away from that cruel scene, “back to those gloves that my doggy friend made off with; you said Harold gave them to you.”

“A couple of years ago at Christmas.” Her face unfroze and tears melted her blue eyes. “It was such a lovely surprise; usually he gave me a wall calendar. Mrs. Knox said she couldn’t think of anything more thoughtful, but the gloves-navy blue leather-I just couldn’t believe he’d got the fit so right. I’ve always been a little vain about my hands.” She held them out-nicely shaped, with slim fingers and oval nails coated with clear varnish. “Mummy said once that they were the prettiest thing about me.”

How flush with the compliments!

“I know it sounds silly,” Livonia looked more directly into my eyes than she had yet done, “but sometimes on nights when I was feeling down about how things were going with Harold I would take the gloves to bed with me and sleep with them under my cheek. When I set off in the car at a little after two this morning, I wore them not just because my hands were cold but because they made me feel that I hadn’t completely burned my boats. What perhaps I haven’t made clear is that even if by the longest of chances Lord Belfrey chose me for his bride, I wouldn’t agree to marry him. I’d thank him, then tell him he’d be much better off with the runner-up. I just had to-and call it spite, that’s what Mrs. Knox did-show Harold that I’d been his doormat long enough.”

“And quite right, too!” The dog added applause by thumping the floor with his tail.

“But as soon as I set off, all the courage I’d squeezed up by talking to myself for hours began to seep away. I couldn’t believe I was doing something so completely out of character. Yet I kept on driving.” She paused. “I expect you’re wondering why I allowed myself so long to get here, arriving hours before the appointed time, but I was afraid of getting lost-my sense of direction isn’t good and I’m a nervous driver.”

“Did you run into last night’s fog?”

“A few patches of mist, but not enough to terrify me, and there wasn’t a horrible amount of traffic. For once in my life I didn’t make one wrong turn, so there I was parked outside the gates with the sun not yet up. I knew I’d have to take off again before someone looked out a window and came down to investigate and I’d come across as a pitiful idiot. But my legs were shaking and I was afraid I was going to faint.”

“I’ve been there,” I said in heartfelt tones.

“So I got out of the car to breathe in the fresh air, and after a moment took off my gloves to feel if my face was perspiring. I had them in one hand when he,” pointing at the dog, “was suddenly there… racing around me in circles. My head started spinning and I dropped the gloves and he grabbed them up. I tried to tell him to put them down, but nothing came out, and the next second he’d raced off down the drive with them. I suppose I flipped. I was never a runner-Mummy said nice little girls shouldn’t run and even when I had to be in a race at school I walked.”

“Same here,” I said. “I’d have been last either way.”

Livonia Mayberry inched her hand toward mine to touch my fingertips. “But this morning I did run, if you could call it that, and every few yards or so he’d turn back and look at me and I had this mad thought that he was laughing at me-the way I knew some of the girls at the bank did-and I actually screamed at him to stop. Which of course made him take off faster than ever.”

“Bad boy!” I told the miscreant, who abjectly licked my foot, causing Livonia to back up on the bed. “You’re sure he still had the gloves in his mouth at that point?”

She nodded. “We reached the end of the drive, which seemed a mile long, and came to a low wall; he went through an opening and started to go down the slope. It looked steep even in the early morning light, and I could see that there were a lot of stones and rocks among the undergrowth, but didn’t think about wrenching my ankle. All I thought was that if he dropped the gloves down there, I might not be able to find them. The thicket at the bottom looked like a wilderness.”

I was momentarily distracted by the sober realization that this was probably the place where Suzanne Varney’s car had taken its fatal plunge.

“Fortunately, he turned back and bounded off across the lawn. There was no way I could have got near to catching up with him, even if the ground had been level; besides, it was like an obstacle course, with overgrown flowerbeds popping up in front of me. He stopped close to the building, and when I came panting up, I saw the fire escape. He gave a bark that sounded like”-she winced at the memory-“a ghoulish chuckle, and up he went.”

“But wait a minute,” I said slowly. “If he barked, he must by then have dropped the gloves.”

The blue eyes stared at me in stunned amazement. “I didn’t think! I… you know the rest. Harold would say this proves that I shouldn’t be let loose a mile from home.”

“Rubbish!” I said, rising from the bed. “I’m getting dressed and we’re going down that fire escape to find those gloves. I think you do need them for the time being, as a reminder of just how little you got out of your relationship with Harold and how much more is waiting for you now you’ve escaped his clutches.”

“But I can’t stay here. When Lord Belfrey finds out about my foolish antics, he wouldn’t want me as one of the contestants. He’s in search of a sensible woman, capable of keeping her head at all times.”

“I don’t believe he’d blame you an iota for going after your property.” His lordship’s charming… captivating image rose before me. “If this is his dog, he’d be the one making the apologies. Anyway, how’s he to know anything about it if you don’t want him to? I’m not going to tell him and neither, I’m sure, will our naughty friend.”

The dog appeared to take this designation as a compliment.

“You’ve been so kind.” Livonia’s voice trembled. “But I’m still so shaken, I think I’ll have to go back home.”

“Is that what your father would think best? You’ve told me how important it was to him that you make a new life for yourself. Maybe he thought that would mean marriage to Harold, but are you sure of that? What if he hoped you would spread your wings in an entirely new direction?”