She Shoots to Conquer by Dorothy Cannell

blanked out about my reason for being up there”—she unknotted her hands to point a finger that looked as if it had been permanently bent in the process at the dog. “I don’t think I would have seen him or my gloves if they’d both been right next to me.”
    “Your gloves?”
    “He didn’t bring them in with him, I suppose?” Despair mingled with pitiful hope showed in her blue eyes. “He made off with them when I got out of the car.”
    The dog put his head down on his paws.
    I nipped back to my bedroom and checked. “No sign of them,” I said on returning.
    A pathetic, whispering sigh. “Mrs. Knox—she’s my next-door neighbor—was right when she said I would be punished for getting mixed up in such a mad scheme. She said only a fool would consider entering in a marriage contest, especially when there was dear Harold waiting so patiently in the wings. He gave me those gloves, and despite everything I can’t bear the thought of losing them. Without them, I’m not sure I exist.” A sharp intake of breath. “I’m so sorry . . . I’m still not thinking straight. You’ll be one of them . . . of us, I mean. A contestant.”
    “Oh, no!” Not wanting Livonia Mayberry to think I disapproved of her involvement, as the neighbor had done, I explained—hopefully in not too bragging a voice—that I was married. I was about to add that a friend of mine had just been added to the list, but this would have required me to break the news that death had put one of the other contestants out of the running. “My husband and I and our traveling companion ended up here by accident during the fog and Lord Belfrey kindly allowed us to spend the night.”
    “Is he . . . did he seem nice?”
    “Very.”
    “That’s a relief.”
    “And very handsome. The reincarnation of Cary Grant.”
    “Really?” She reacted as if she had just heard that the date of her execution had been moved up to this morning and she had been denied the right to choose hanging versus beheading. “I’d hoped he would be quite ordinary. Good-looking men scare me, I always feel so intimidated around them. Harold is short and going bald and he wears glasses with very thick lenses. But don’t get me wrong. I like his looks. He’s my type; my mother said he was and so does Mrs. Knox. Do you think he will be annoyed that I arrived hours ahead of time and have created such a silly disturbance?”
    “Harold?”
    “No . . . well, he’s already upset. He told me not to count on his overlooking my wanton behavior when I came crawling back, but I meant Lord Belfrey.”
    “Look,” I said, “your showing up on the roof hasn’t upset me. And if you would like to talk your situation through, I’ll be glad to listen.”
    “Are you sure,” she was knitting her fingers back together, “that you aren’t dying to get rid me? I won’t stay long, I promise. You will think me a coward, because that’s what I am. All the sense of adventure has been shaken out of me. As soon as I feel steadier, I’m going to get in my car and drive home to Hillsbury.”
    I sat down beside her on the bed, and the dog, catching my warning look, lay down next to it. “How did you decide to be a contestant in Here Comes the Bride over Harold’s objections?” It wasn’t hard to picture him and the interfering Mrs. Knox.
    “From meeting a woman who had already been accepted. On a day trip to London I ran into an acquaintance from a few years back. She and I had got to know each other a little when my father and hers were in the same nursing home. Mine died first. Hers must have had a difficult time of it at the end because she said she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it when we recognized each other coming out Selfridges. She remembered myspeaking about Harold and I told her we were still together after courting for ten years.”
    “Most married people don’t stay together anywhere near that long.”
    “That’s awfully nice of you to say.”
    Ben and I had