Verse of the Vampyre

by Diana Killian

  Grace made herself a cup of tea using the hot plate in the back room. She refilled Peter’s mug, joining him on the shop floor. He took the mug with absent thanks, busy examining the contents of the wooden crate.

  Books. More books. The entire landing of the shop’s second story was devoted to books. Old books, rare books, beautiful books. What had started out as a private passion had developed into a lucrative sideline. This lot looked to be mystery books. Vintage paperbacks with lurid and inviting covers. Peter smiled faintly as he read the back of Silken Menace, its cover decorated by a reclining blonde in naughty purple undies.

  Grace stared out the bow windows overlooking the front garden and the road. It was raining, one of those misty autumn rains that did wonders for the garden and very little for hairstyles. Especially Grace’s, as a quick glimpse in a foggy antique mirror confirmed. Her French knot was slipping, and her cheeks looked hot and pink.

  She tucked a damp chestnut strand behind her ear, and said briskly, “I guess I’ll finish cataloging the Stark collection.”

  Peter caught her wrist as she moved past him. “What’s up?”

  She stilled. “Nothing. What do you mean?”

  “I’ve never known you to be late. And you seem rather…” He considered her for a moment. “Edgy this morning.”

  And she thought he wasn’t paying attention? She steeled herself to meet his gaze. Grace was no good at lying, and Peter was a difficult man to fool. He studied her, his eyes curious, his thin mouth quirking in that unreadable half smile. His long fingers circled her wrist lightly, but she could feel his touch in her bones.

  It was hard to believe that she had once thought he wasn’t handsome—but perhaps “handsome” was too weak a word. Elegant bones, the contrast of dark brows and pale hair, startling blue eyes beneath eyelids as hooded and mysterious as an Egyptian pharaoh’s. Maybe “striking” was a better word.

  “You look guilty,” he murmured. “What have you been up to?”

  “Oh, the usual. Murder and mayhem.”

  “When did you take up the mayhem?” Peter queried, and Grace laughed, slipping her hand free.

  She glanced through her notes on the Stark library. She was about three-quarters through cataloging the two-hundred-book collection, a tedious process of noting each book’s title, author, subject, publisher, date of publication and ISBN number—although most of the books in the estate’s library were too old to have ISBN numbers.

  While Grace worked, she unobtrusively kept an eye on Peter. She thought if anyone seemed edgy, he did. She caught him staring out the window a couple of times, as though watching the road, and each time the phone rang, she was sure he tensed.

  What’s wrong? she wanted to ask. But she had already asked during the past weeks, and each time Peter had acted as though he didn’t know what she was talking about. It was as though they had reverted to the initial days of their acquaintanceship, when neither quite trusted the other. If she forced the issue, she might make matters worse; but Grace feared that day by day they were slowly growing apart.

  Perhaps because of the rain, or maybe because October was the off-season, they had few customers that day. Generally Grace loved such mornings: she and Peter bantering with each other or working side by side in comfortable silence. Peter usually fixed lunch, or they went down to the pub together. It was friendly and relaxed. Companionable. She had begun to believe that this was the way she was supposed to spend the rest of her life.

  Most evenings were spent with each other. And Peter made no secret that he found her attractive. He wined and dined her, kissed her and flirted with her, but he had yet to attempt—in the vernacular of the young ladies of St. Anne’s—to put the move on her. That had been fine with Grace. She wasn’t a woman to rush into anything. Knowing Peter’s reputation with the feminine populace, she had found his restraint flattering. Until recently.

  At noontime they retreated upstairs to Peter’s living quarters and shared a ploughman’s lunch of hot crusty bread, a thick slab of farmhouse cheddar, pickled onions and a pint of ale from one of the small local brewers.

  Grace loved this kitchen, with its gleaming kettles hanging from convenient hooks and old oak-leaf china sparkling from inside glass-fronted cupboards. The hardwood floors shone like glass. The scrubbed pine table and chairs nestled in a cozy nook overlooking the garden, where roses and peonies made bright splashes of color.

  The autumn rain pricking against the kitchen windowpanes had a forlorn sound. Grace looked up from her plate to find Peter studying her.

  “What?” she inquired.

  He said at last, “How’s the play coming?”

  Her thoughts a million miles away, Grace had to rack her brain for a response. “Oh,” she said finally. “Well, there’s been another program change. Now we’re doing Polidori’s The Vampyre.” Or rather, a play based on J. R. Planche’s play based on the short story by Polidori.

  “Dr. John William Polidori? I thought you were doing Byron.”

  “It turns out Byron doesn’t have a version of the play. There’s a fragment of a story, but it’s not enough to base a play on.”

  Peter seemed more amused than sympathetic. “Bad luck. Still, I can’t imagine most of the others care whether the play is based on Polidori, Byron or Wes Craven. Are the Iveses still committed to the project?”

  “Theresa is. I think Sir Gerald is beginning to resent the time she’s spending away from the home fires. He’s stopped coming to rehearsals. Not that any rehearsing is going on at this point.”

  “Foxhunting season officially opens a week Monday,” Peter commented, and it was not an inconsequential remark given that Sir Gerald Ives was Master of Hounds of the Innisdale Pack. In these parts, foxhunting was more religion than sport. The hills and fells of the Lake District were home to the legendary Six Fell Packs and birthplace of Sir John Peel, the eighteenth-century farmer and MFH who had gained immortality when his friend John Woodcock Graves honored his hunting exploits in the song “D’ye Ken John Peel.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to convince her ladyship to abandon the boards. She definitely seems to have the bug.” Privately, Grace suspected that the bug Lady Ives (fifteen years younger than her hunt-obsessed husband) had was less for the stage and more for Derek Derrick, one of the other actors. It wasn’t hard to see why. Not only was Derek capable of talking about something besides whelping, foaling and cubbing, he was as gorgeous as a Saturday matinee idol. Tall, blond, blue-eyed…

  “Your eyes are glazing over,” Peter remarked.

  “Hmm? Oh. Well, the truth is,” Grace admitted, “it’s not the greatest play in the world.”

  “No!” Peter leaned back, quoting in mock dramatic tones, “ ‘But when they arrived, it was too late. Lord Ruthven had disappeared, and Aubrey’s sister had glutted the thirst of a VAMPYRE!’ ”

  Grace chuckled. Although the Romantic period in literature was her field, Grace had been unaware of Dr. John William Polidori’s contribution to the genre. In fact, her impression of Lord Byron’s doctor was solely based on unflattering cinematic portraits in films like Ken Russell’s Gothic. Greater familiarity with Polidori’s creative efforts reinforced her sympathy if not her critical respect for the tragic figure of whom Byron had written, “A young man more likely to contract diseases than cure them.”

  “I know, I know. I guess it’s sort of a classic, but it’s melodramatic and overwrought and…goofy.” She thought it over. “And it is kind of a weird coincidence that our producer/director has the same name as the title character. It would be one thing if his name were Lord Smith.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence,” said Peter.

  What was it in his tone? Something…

  “But what else could it be? Maybe Ruthven is a stage name, and he was attracted to the material because of the PR opportunity.”

  Peter raised a skeptical brow. “Photo ops from a provincial production?”

  “Don’t ask me. He’s supposed to be very
well known in London theater circles. Derek Derrick has done some television at least. He thought the project was worth his time.”

  “Ah yes. Who can forget his stirring portrayal of the devoted spouse of an allergy sufferer?”

  Peter didn’t own a television, so it was unlikely he had seen Derrick’s work with his own eyes. Someone besides Grace was keeping him updated on the cast and crew of The Vampyre. The entire village of Innisdale was probably snickering into its collective pint.

  She would have liked to tell Peter about Lord Ruthven’s peculiar behavior in the cemetery, but she would have had to confess her own peculiar behavior.

  “Well, why else would they—?” But the downstairs buzzer proclaimed that a customer had finally discovered them on their quiet country lane, and the conversation ended. Peter went downstairs, and Grace cleaned up the remains of lunch.

  “So how is it that you don’t ride to hounds but you’re still invited to the Hunt Ball?” Grace inquired later that afternoon as she was finishing up the Stark catalog.

  “Eligible bachelors are welcome at any social event,” Peter informed her.

  “Eligible?” she mused.

  He corrected, “Willing to dance with anyone.” He studied her. “Your first Hunt Ball. My, my. You are moving up in the world.”

  She laid aside her pad. “I know it’s old hat for you, but I’m very excited.”

  “I know you are. It’s rather sweet. Did you buy a new frock?”

  Frock. He really was something of a throwback.

  I met a traveler from an antique land…

  “I can’t afford to. The riding habit was expensive, even getting the jacket secondhand.”

  Peter shook his head.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” Grace said.

  “I understand. You’re suffering an acute case of Anglomania. If I find you buying champagne glasses with the queen’s portrait, I’ll have to take steps.”

  “I probably watched too many episodes of Masterpiece Theatre at an impressionable age,” Grace agreed. “I used to dream about going to balls and foxhunts and village fetes.”

  “My dear girl, you can’t really tell me that your life’s ambition is to rub elbows with overfed, under-educated boobs whose aim in life is to kill small animals with as much pomp and circumstance as they can afford.” He had gone back to scanning a bill of lading, so perhaps the grimness in his voice had to do with freight charges.

  “Since you put it that way, no. But if I’m here, it seems a pity not to experience everything offered.”

  “ ‘Everything’ covers a lot of ground. Your sabbatical is nearly over, isn’t it?”

  She didn’t know how to take that. She knew her sabbatical was nearly over as well as he did. And she remembered, if he did not, why she had taken this sabbatical.

  Anything she might have said was cut off as the shop door opened with a jingle of bells. Mrs. Mac, Peter’s “char lady,” backed in, shaking out her dripping umbrella.

  “Afternoon, dearies!” she chirped.

  An apple-cheeked dumpling of a woman with a mop of gray curls, Mrs. Mac could have passed for the grandmotherly type except for the sharp cold of her faded blue eyes.

  “Wet through, I am.” Mrs. Mac dropped her umbrella and heavy carpetbag on the counter. “Such a to-do in the village!” Her eyes twinkled with wicked pleasure. “I could do with a cuppa.” She started for the stockroom, shedding her black raincoat as she went.

  “Neither rain nor wind nor sleet nor snow,” said Grace.

  Peter said, “I was thinking more along the lines of ’In thunder, lightning or in rain.’ ”

  Grace chuckled at the reference to Macbeth. Mrs. Mac did look a bit like a witch.

  “What’s happened in the village?” she asked, when Mrs. Mac returned, mug in hand.

  Mrs. Mac made an unlovely sucking sound at her tea before pronouncing, “Vandalism. Someone spray painted the side of the chapel.”

  “Obscenities?” Grace inquired. Peter had already lost interest. Vandalism was not his idea of crime.

  “No, no.” Mrs. Mac chortled. “It said, ‘The vampire walks’!”

  2

  The gallery windows flashed white, and with the kind of timing for which amateur theater productions are famous, Mrs. Mac’s startling announcement was nearly lost in a deafening crack. Thunder boomed so loud it sounded artificial. The lamps flickered, then brightened. Above them, the suspended mermaid swayed gently, cresting invisible seas.

  “It was a dark and stormy night,” Peter drawled, as the rumble faded away, and Mrs. Mac laughed uneasily.

  Grace barely heard them, blinking at the recollection of the caped figure of Lord Ruthven flitting around the graveyard the night before. “Could the graffiti be publicity for the play?” she suggested doubtfully.

  Mrs. Mac cackled, though whether in agreement or derision was impossible to know. She hied off to begin her afternoon’s chores. Mrs. Mac might look prone to shortcuts and sweeping under the carpet, but when it came to cleaning, whether by mop or magic wand, she got results.

  “Publicity?” Peter inquired, raising one black eyebrow in a characteristic gesture.

  “Lord Ruthven’s a tad eccentric.”

  “Vandalizing a church is a lot eccentric.” Peter had surprising streaks of conservatism—surprising considering his criminal background.

  “It’s probably just some kids acting up. Halloween is only a couple of weeks away.”

  Before moving to Innisdale, Grace had been under the impression that the British did not celebrate Halloween. It turned out that while trick-or-treating did not seem to be a local tradition, there was an annual village fete to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve. Perhaps that explained Lord Ruthven’s costume, but somehow she didn’t think so.

  “Very likely. Did you want to redo the pottery display?”

  Grace spent the rest of the afternoon rearranging the newly acquired Staffordshire pottery amongst the other pieces artfully displayed on the furniture throughout the shop.

  It was hard not to become attached to some of these treasures. She had been sorry when the merry-go-round horse that had sat in the bow window the day she first found Rogue’s Gallery was sold. Perhaps in some secret corner of her mind she had pictured that merry-go-round horse in a particular nursery. Now the window shelf was filled with a collection of Victorian children’s toys, including a tall penny-farthing cycle and porcelain dolls.

  It was getting dark when Mrs. Mac, the day’s hurly-burly done, came downstairs. She gathered her things.

  “G’night, dearie!” she called to Grace. The rain was thundering down. It poured off the eaves and splashed on the stone walk as Mrs. Mac opened the front door.

  Grace called good night. It was closing time and, with rehearsal tonight, she, too, should be leaving. She wondered if Peter would ask her to stay to dinner. Up until a few weeks ago, she had taken these invitations for granted. What did he do on the evenings he no longer spent with her?

  Her attention was on positioning a creamware pierced basket and undertray to best vantage; so she almost failed to overhear Mrs. Mac whisper to Peter, “I hear there was another jewel robbery last night.” Grace’s ears pricked up, but she didn’t turn her head.

  “Where?” Peter, too, spoke undervoice.

  Mrs. Mac’s laugh was as dry as a stick breaking. “As if you didn’t know, my lad!”

  The shop door bells jangled behind her.

  Grace drove cautiously through Innisdale Wood, headlights illuminating the throng of dripping trees and darkness. Oily black rain pooled in the narrow road beyond her glistening windshield. She decelerated, splashing through a puddle that was deeper than expected. The road would be flooded soon.

  Grace had not done much driving in bad weather before her stay in the Lake District, but she was learning fast. Other lessons took longer.

  A year ago she had visited the Lake District to research her doctoral dissertation on the Romantic poets. It had been a trip desig
ned to combine business with pleasure: Grace was on vacation with her friend and fellow instructor at St. Anne’s Academy for Girls, Monica Gabbana. Every mile, every minute of that long-awaited holiday had been carefully planned, then…Fate had intervened.

  So Grace was officially on sabbatical, and the doctoral dissertation had expanded to a proposed book that promised new insight into the nineteenth-century Romantic poet and rake, Lord Byron. But, as much as she loved the Lakes, and as much as a successful academic career required publishing something, that was not really why she had stayed.

  Caught in the beam of the Aston Martin’s headlights, eyes gleamed out of the undergrowth, and Grace swerved on the slick road. Better not to think of affairs of the heart when she needed to concentrate on her driving. She could think about the play instead. Or she could think about Lord Ruthven’s mysterious behavior. Or she could think about Lady Ruthven.

  Grace was a people watcher, and she found Catriona Ruthven fascinating. She reminded Grace of a line by Shelley, “A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift.” It wasn’t all attitude. Her hair was a magnificent shade of red, and instead of the freckles that should have been hers, her skin was the pale gold of honey. Old whisky was the color of her eyes.

  The only mystery about Lady Ruthven was how she ended up with Lord Ruthven. She was vibrantly alive, almost…elemental. And he was pretty much your standard-issue dried stick. Or so Grace had thought before she found him pulling his Count Dracula routine the night before.

  Rounding a bend, she braked sharply at the sight of flares in the road. Her tires skidded, and she had to fight to correct. A giant moving van had gone off the pavement and was partially blocking her way; for one frightened moment, before she regained control of the car, Grace feared she might career into it. Two figures in hooded rain slickers slid in and out of her headlights before she straightened out.