Verse of the Vampyre (8 page)

The pack sped on through wet fields, over rickety stiles, past silver meres glinting like glass in the now bright sunlight, chasing past fences behind which sheep grazed in apparent disinterest at the passing tumult.

Hounds racing tirelessly ahead, they took the first of several small hills. Purple heather dusted the gold in patches, hooves echoed against stone. They galloped on, horses and riders swarming the next rocky hill and spilling down over the side.

Grace caught her breath in surprise and pulled back. Below, a wide stream tumbled its blue way over rocks and boulders.

She spotted Catriona well out in front, starting across the streambed. As she watched, Catriona’s saddle slipped, and she fell sideways. She put her arms out to save herself, falling headfirst into the stream.

The sorrel, saddle slipped well to the side, trotted to a stop while horses parted around Catriona, hooves narrowly missing the ball she had rolled herself into. One or two riders slowed and stopped to ascertain she was unhurt. Catriona climbed soddenly to her feet, waving them on.

Grace’s horse waded in. Bending down, Grace caught the reins of Catriona’s mount, leading him back. She tossed the reins to Catriona as Derek Derrick, even farther back in the field than she, pulled up beside them where they stood on the pulverized bank.

“What happened?” he asked, looking from Grace to Catriona.

“My girth billets broke,” Catriona said, examining the hanging saddle. Her wet and mud-streaked face was grim. Kneeling, she ran her hands down her horse’s forelegs

“That brute’s fine,” Derek said. “You’re soaked through.”

It was cold down by the water. Catriona’s teeth were beginning to chatter, as she said, “I’ll live.” Her look implied that someone would not.

“I’ll go back with you, will I?” He offered a clean hanky, and Catriona took it, wiping her face and taking a better look at her saddle girth.

“How could both billets give at the same time?” Grace questioned, watching Catriona scrutinize what looked to Grace like cut leather.

After a moment Catriona said, “Perhaps it’s defective.” But she didn’t sound convinced.

“You seem to be having a lot of accidents,” Grace commented.

“And you always seem to be around when I’m having them.”

This was such an unreasonable retort that Grace was momentarily at a loss for an answer. She noticed that Derek seemed to be trying to catch her eye.

“I’ve got this under control,” he assured her. “Why don’t you rejoin the field? No point all of us missing out on the kill.” Maybe he thought Grace was aggravating the situation, or was every woman on Derek’s menu? Grace gave him an “E” for Effort. Catriona was liable to eat him alive.

“Go ahead,” he urged, as she hesitated. “I’m not that keen on—”

He broke off as a large brown fox came splashing across the shallows of the stream, passing within a few feet of them. The three humans exchanged looks.

It occurred to Grace that she was supposed to shout “Tally ho” or wave her cap to indicate having spotted the quarry, but the sight of the fox, trotting as fast as his legs would carry him, pink tongue hanging…

“Tally ho baaaaack!” Shouts echoed across the water. Horses and riders wheeled, hooves kicking up clots of grass and mud as the pack came thundering back, dogs baying outrage as they cut through riders. The notes of a hunting horn drifted over the churning surface.

Catriona hastily led her mount downstream as a tidal wave of water, horses and dogs crashed past.

Since Catriona was unhurt and more than a match for Derek, and since Grace wasn’t wanted by either Catriona or Derek, she decided she might as well rejoin the hunt. Saluting the other two, she kicked the mare forward into the plunging mass of bodies lumbering back up the hillside. A final glance over her shoulder showed Derek dismounting to join Catriona on the stream bank.

By now Grace felt the effects of her strenuous ride, especially in her legs and tailbone. Her arms ached. Her—recalling Peter’s smart-assed comment—“poetic nook” ached. They had been riding hard for more than ninety minutes; she estimated they had covered well over ten miles. This was probably the hardest riding that Grace had ever done. She was tired and chilled and, having had a good look at the fox, wasn’t keen to see it slaughtered.

In full cry the pack retraced their course across meadow and field, over the stone wall and down the rocky hills. When they reached the woods, the hounds lost the scent. The sound and fury of the hunt seemed to dissolve into green silence. Horses and hounds moved through the trees. Twigs snapped. A horse whickered.

“Yo hote, Yo hote, Yo hote,” singsonged the Whipper-in, urging the hounds on. Heads down, snuffling loudly, the hounds cast for scent in the humus.

As they reached the edge of the trees, Grace found herself riding beside Theresa Ives.

“Has he gone to ground?” Grace asked undervoice.

“I don’t think so. He’s a wily one, is Charlie,” Theresa answered. There was a red welt across her cheek where she must have collided with a tree branch.

“Charlie?” Images from numerous war movies flashed through Grace’s mind.

“Charles James Fox? The fox.”

Still casting for a scent dissipating as the day grew warmer, they continued slowly back the way they had come. The meadow hummed with bees. The smell of wildflowers mingled with horse and sweat. With relief Grace saw the meet point up ahead.

And then there came a most unofficial sound, a sound that seemed equal parts anguish and a train letting off steam. Riders yanked reins, horses shied, birds took flight. Only the hounds seemed unfazed. Yards ahead, they raced in full cry up the hillock jammed with cars and horse vans.

The pack swept through the cars and horse trailers and ran great circles around the vacant flattened turf where Sir Gerald’s silver Jaguar had been parked. Frustrated yips cut the sharp air.

Sir Gerald had dismounted and was cursing colorfully, calling God and the entire hunt membership as his witnesses.

It took Grace a moment to register the cause for alarm. The missing Jaguar was bouncing across the meadow heading for the main road, wildflowers strewn in its wake as the driver accelerated with shocking lack of regard for the car’s undercarriage.

“Bloody hell!” Sir Gerald was shouting. “Hooligans! The bloody bastards! Is there nothing they won’t stoop to!”

No head was visible over the backseat rest.

Like a silver bullet the car shot up the main road and disappeared around a curve.

Even the hounds seemed to be looking at each other for explanation.

At last someone remarked, “I say. Now that
is
a clever fox!”

A
week to the day after his departure, a parcel arrived addressed in Peter’s bold black scrawl.

Grace opened it with trepidation, but there was no message. Apparently it was just what it seemed: items for resale. She lifted out an alligator hatbox and matching makeup case. The kinds of things glamorous film stars from the forties used to lug around. The kinds of things Peter knew Grace loved.

The hatbox was empty, but the makeup case contained fascinating odds and ends: Limoges lipstick cases, an enamel pillbox (with tiny pink pills that Grace promptly tossed in the trash), delicate jeweled hair combs and a fragile silk scarf that still whispered scent. Precious junk, she thought. The sum of an unknown woman’s life. A pair of rhinestone cat’s-eye glasses in a velvet case made her smile.

For laughs she slipped them out of the case and tried them on.

“The better to see you with?” Peter inquired dryly.

“Peter!” It came out in a yelp of surprise. “You startled me!” How had she not heard him come in? But he always moved quietly and with an economy of movement. Lost in her pleasantly melancholy thoughts, she hadn’t noticed a thing, and now he was standing right over her.

She blinked up at the magnified vision of him. She had forgotten how brilliant his eyes were. She was reminded of a line by Keats:
laughs the cerulean sky.

He wore Levi’s and a lambs’ wool pullover in a muted plum color. The neck of his undershirt was crisp white against his tanned skin. He’d had time to take his jacket off.

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

The corner of Peter’s mouth quirked with private amusement. He removed her specs, tossing them on the desktop.

Grace tried to keep her voice measured and hoped her cheeks weren’t as pink as they felt. “How was your trip?”

“Interesting.” He bent and kissed her, a swift, sure, make no mistake about it kiss. Grace’s mouth seemed to tingle from the warm pressure of his.

“Oh.”

“What have you been up to?” he asked, smiling faintly.

An exasperating man and far too sure of himself, but it was no use pretending she wasn’t happy to see him. The relief of having him back, of the kiss that answered one thing at least, seemed to open the floodgate; and Grace poured it all out, the weird happenings at the theater, Miss Coke’s nebulous threat, Lord Ruthven’s peculiar behavior, the caped man who had followed her from the pub. She barely paused for breath.

Peter had the knack of listening with total attention, making a woman feel she was the only thing of interest in his world. He didn’t interrupt, he didn’t ask questions, he simply listened. At last Grace rolled to a full stop. He waited a moment to make sure she had truly run out of gas, then questioned, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me any of this before I left?”

“I wanted to, but there wasn’t time. Besides, most of it happened after you’d gone.”

“It’s nice to know you’ve been spending your time productively.” He raked a hand through his pale hair. “Grace, this may sound funny coming from me, but one of the chief things I like about you is your honesty. Your directness. You speak your mind. You don’t play games.” His gaze found hers, and he added simply, “I need that.”

Were they still talking about mysterious happenings, or had they moved on to their own relationship? She wasn’t sure. Catriona would be direct, although Grace had no idea how honest she was; but for most of the women Peter knew, for most of the women he had romanced, love was a game, and Peter was first prize.

The tone of his voice, the expression in his eyes gave her the courage to ask, “What is Catriona Ruthven to you?”

From beside Grace the phone rang.

“You’ve
got
to be kidding!” said Grace.

Peter’s smile was wry. He picked up the phone and replaced it on the cradle. Then he removed it, listened, and set the receiver on the desk.

“I don’t like to lie to you, so we’ll leave it at this. Nothing between Cat and myself has anything to do with what happens between you and me.”

Cat.
The casual intimacy of the diminutive smarted.

She had hoped for a denial; so this admission that there
was
something between them hurt. She was surprised that the sound that came out was a laugh. Well, sort of a laugh. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer I can give you.”

Do you love her? she wanted to ask, but she was afraid to hear the answer. She looked down at her hands, her slim bare fingers, then up into his face. “Okay, well then, what
is
between you and me?”

His smile was twisted, and there was a darkness in his eyes that was almost sadness. His expression said more than his words, and the message frightened Grace in some indefinable way.

He said huskily, “Everything and nothing. How’s that for an answer?”

It felt like time stopped. Or maybe it was her heart. But Grace being Grace was analyzing his words before he’d finished speaking them, and after the initial emotional recoil, common sense reasserted itself.

“Uh, well, actually…am I grading by points or on a curve? Come on, Peter, how am I supposed to respond to that? As you pointed out yourself, my sabbatical is nearly over.”

Peter, who had been half-sitting on the desk, straightened. He wasn’t looking at her, as he said unemotionally, “I’m not in a position to make promises.”

She knew he wasn’t married, but there were other kinds of commitment. Grace sighed. “Swell. Okay, has it occurred to you that you’re being set up by Cat Woman?”

That got his attention although he didn’t say anything.

“I’m not stupid, Peter. Well, not most of the time. Obviously you know her from the bad old days. She’s the girl with hair like a fox and the temper to match.”

His mouth opened, but nothing came out. Which made a nice change. Usually Grace was the one left speechless. “You told me about her ages ago,” she said with a blasé air that took a fair amount of work. “At Penwith Hall, remember?”

“No.”

“Well, you did. And, unless I miss my guess, besides being your paramour, she was your partner in crime.”

“My what?”

“Partner in—”

“No, the other.” He was laughing at her now.

“Your lover.”

He was still laughing, but she knew him well enough to know that, behind the teasing, his brain was calculating how much she knew and how much was guesswork.

“You can laugh all you like, but I’ve watched her. Granted, it’s not hard evidence, but Catriona has some of your mannerisms and expressions. The same turn of phrase. And she does that thing with her eyebrow.”

On cue his own eyebrow raised.

“You must have known each other a long time.” Sister? Cousin? Wicked Stepmother? Grace wished she could convince herself of any of those.

Peter was no longer laughing; his expression was guarded.

“She’s the only person I’ve ever seen with reflexes like yours. When that trapdoor gave way, any normal person would have fallen through. She has terrific upper body strength and amazing balance.”

“Perhaps she escaped from a circus,” Peter quipped.

Grace thought, but did not say,
And like you she’s living by her own rules, her own code. She’s larger than life and probably believes herself outside the law.

“And things started to change between us from almost the moment she arrived here. That’s also when the robberies began—or just about then.”

“Grace, this is unwise.” He was moving away from her, heading toward the door, ending the conversation.

“You can say that again. Do you think it’s a coincidence that she arranged a rendezvous on the night of a robbery, leaving you without any alibi?”

His laugh was without humor.

“She tried to set you up. It almost worked.”

“Let it go.”

“Fine. I’ll let it go. But there’s something else you should probably be aware of. I think someone’s trying to kill her.”

If she was expecting some dramatic reaction, she didn’t get it. True, he went still and thoughtful for a moment before saying, as he disappeared through the door, “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

After Peter went upstairs, Grace could hear him moving about, hear the restless beat of music. The Waterboys. Peter’s first choice when he was, as the poets put it, “unquiet of soul.”

She felt unquiet of soul herself; you couldn’t force someone’s trust—and for the first time it hit her squarely that Peter did not entirely trust her. She was so used to questioning whether she really did—or should—trust him that it came as a little bit of a shock to realize that he might feel the same.

Lost in her thoughts, only gradually she became aware that the seductive scent of cooking was wafting down the staircase and that Peter was calling her to close the shop and come up.

Grace found him in the kitchen braising pieces of chicken in butter and shallots. Hot water boiled on the stove top.

“Chicken with Riesling over noodles,” Peter informed her.

“Smells delicious.” She went to the glass-fronted cupboard and took down plates.

As she set the table, Peter asked her about the play. He seemed to zero in on how they had selected their material. “Why not
Dracula?”
he pressed. “Who originally came up with the idea of doing Polidori?”

“That’s something I’ve tried to pin down, too,” Grace said. “Do you think it’s important?”

He did not answer this directly. “You wouldn’t be involved in this production if it hadn’t started out as a work by Byron. If early on the material had been switched—for example—to
Dracula,
you probably would have withdrawn.”

“Maybe. That’s true of Lady Vee, too.”

“Yes.” She thought she detected a “but” in there though Grace couldn’t guess what it was.

He seemed to change the subject. “Polidori killed himself, didn’t he?”

“Yes. He drank prussic acid. To spare the feelings of his family the coroner pronounced death by ‘visitation of God.’ ”

“Any reason for suicide?”

“Mental instability?” Grace hazarded. “He wasn’t the most wholesome character. He had tried to kill himself at least once before during his stay with Byron at the Villa Diodati.”

“What a delightful houseguest.”

“Byron had fired him. They had fallen out by then, and although Byron saved his life, apparently that was the last straw.” She fell silent as Peter ignited the cognac with a long match. When the flames subsided he poured in the white wine and covered the pan. Grace enjoyed watching him cook. The contradiction of a virile man capably performing tasks traditionally regarded as feminine was just plain…sexy.

“I take it they were more than friends?” he asked, disrupting her reflections.

“Friendship seems to have had little to do with it. Polidori envied and emulated Byron, who was never the most patient of men, let alone lovers. He, Polidori I mean, fancied himself one of the unrecognized literary giants of his era. I guess Byron thought he needed cutting down to size. He was pretty savage.”

“The Chinese have a saying, ‘Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend.’ ”

“Byron would have agreed with that. He hadn’t much tolerance for human frailty. Including his own. And poor Polidori did seem to bring out the worst in people.”

The kitchen was redolent with the luscious scent of chicken simmering in wine and butter. Her mouth was starting to water.

“Did Polidori write anything besides
The Vampyre
?”

“Yes. The problem was that when
The Vampyre
was published it was attributed to Byron. Byron disassociated himself from it, but for some reason people were slow to accept his word. And when Polidori laid claim to the work, saying that only the original concept was Byron’s, he was accused of plagiarism. The charge stuck, and nothing else that he wrote was taken seriously.”

“Should it have been?”

“It’s hard to say. Byron and Shelley dismissed his efforts, but it is possible their criticism wasn’t objective.”

“Do me a favor and open the wine.”

Grace took wineglasses out of the Italian cabinet painted with ivy and tiny purple flowers. She found the corkscrew and uncorked the bottle of Riesling.

While she poured the wine, Peter drained the boiling noodles in the sink. They finished preparing the meal in a companionable silence and sat down to eat.

“How’s the book coming?”

She smiled across the table at him. Peter smiled, too, and she knew he was also remembering the adventures they had shared not so very long ago: the mad race to find the stolen “gewgaws” that Grace had believed would lead them to a lost work by Lord Byron. For a moment it was as though the doubt and misunderstandings of the past month had never happened.

“You may close your eyes to the truth, my dearest Aubrey, but there are things in this world that no mere mortal can comprehend until his fate is upon him. Swear upon the love we bear each other that you will return this night before the power of these fiends walks abroad.”