She Shoots to Conquer by Dorothy Cannell Page B

doubtless turned her knees to water. Could I begrudge her the thrill? Yes! She would get him alone at the speediest opportunity and propose herself as a contestant on Here Comes the Bride . No sooner thought than done. She made her move. The hussy coyly suggested to his lordship that it might be proper for the two of them to leave the room while his cousin examined me. His consummate gallantry would have demanded this of him, but I watched him go with more regret than was appropriate in a woman with a husband of ten magical years standing devotedly at her sickbed . . . sofa.
    Dr. Rowley—Tommy, as he urged me to call him—produced one of those eye-inspecting gadgets with all the enthusiasm of a schoolboy pretending to be a grown-up.
    “A bright light!”
    “Yes.” I wanted to ask him what he thought of Lord Belfrey’s plan to find a wife.
    “Wear glasses?”
    “No. Your cousin . . .”
    “Aubrey?”
    “An aristocratic name.”
    “And I got stuck with plain old Thomas.” He chuckled while setting aside the instrument and beginning to probe the back of my head with enthusiastic fingers. “That hurt?”
    “Some. Mr. Plunket mentioned that his lordship inherited the title from another cousin.”
    “Lie still, sweetheart,” Ben urged.
    “That was Giles.” Tommy was now probing my neck. “Our paternal grandfather had three sons. Each of whom fathered only one child. The eldest produced Giles, the second Aubrey, and the youngest got stuck with me.”
    I murmured a protest before saying: “Didn’t Giles have children?
    “Another only and this time a girl.” Tommy continued to beam encouragement while laying my head back on the cushion. “Celia, who lives at Witch Haven and is likely to have brandy in the house. What does that make her to Aubrey and me? Daughter of a first cousin! I always have trouble working these relationships out. Always seem like something out of Genesis to me, this begetting or is it begatting? Too much to work out for a simple country doctor. That’s the trouble with being the son of the third son, means a job. Not that Aubrey didn’t have to work.” Tommy blushed, embarrassment written all over his cherub face, as if in anticipation of a rebuke from his form master. “He went out to America as a very young man and stayed there, working for an insurance firm, until coming back last year when Giles died.”
    America! So that explained his sounding, as well as looking, like Cary Grant—another transplanted Englishman.
    “It seems he didn’t return with the proverbial fortune.” Ben’s tone was hard to read.
    “No.” Tommy was standing, repacking his bag in readiness for another game of let’s pretend to be a big, grown-up doctor. “The firm went under. Unethical behavior on the part of several of the high-ups. Hard on Aubrey. Clean as a whistle in his own dealings.” His voice deflated like a ball bounced too often. “Anyone can tell that, even after only a year of getting back to knowing him. And now when he’d come up with this plan, which couldn’t have been made lightly, to restore Mucklesfeld, we have this evening’s tragedy.”
    “My wife is going to be all right?” Ben demanded sharply.
    “Oh, yes. I don’t see any reason for alarm.” Did Tommy sound ever so faintly disappointed? Was he aching for the chance to do a bit of delicate suturing or better yet wield a laser gun? “I was speaking of the car accident that took the life of one of the contestants.”
    “You were brought in on the scene?” Ben did not sound abashed by his error, which was understandable, given the husband he is. I hoped Tommy would see it that way. He was very likely a married man himself.
    “Oh, yes! Aubrey, after discovering that the phone was out, as happens not infrequently here when the weather is bad—he drove to my house knowing I have a cellular, which he doesn’t. After getting in touch with the police, I came back with him in his car. It was that drive that made him think