“You do look different,” he remarked, turning at her entrance.
“It’s my hair.”
He shook his head. “Your hair is curly, but that’s not it.”
“Tea? Coffee?” She headed for the tiny kitchen. When in doubt, drink caffeine.
Chaz followed her.
“When did you get in?”
“A few hours ago. I flew into Manchester…” He frowned at his watch. “Three o’clock? Or was that Pacific Standard Time?” He went on calculating while Grace fixed coffee and chocolate praline cookies, or “biscuits,” on a tray.
Carrying the tray into the main room she set it on the carved trunk Peter had loaned her for a coffee table. To fill the silence that fell between them she poured coffee and handed Chaz a cup. She offered him the plate of biscuits, still not speaking. She was too tired to make small talk.
“There wasn’t a hotel,” he began.
That snapped her out of her apathy. “Wait a sec,” she said. “There’s only one bed, and I’m sitting on it.”
“Oh,” said Chaz. “Well, I guess I could sleep on the floor.” He looked doubtfully at the flagstone at his feet.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Neither do I. It’s not like we’ve never—”
“I meant your staying here is not a good idea.”
“You can’t throw me out tonight,” Chaz protested.
She could of course, and Chaz was civilized enough to go, but Grace would only be postponing the inevitable. She shivered.
“Are you all right? You look peaked.”
“It’s been a long night.”
“You said there was an accident?”
She blinked at him with heavy lids. If she started explaining, they would be up for whatever was left of the night. “Sort of.”
She sipped her coffee and was comforted by its warmth, though she still felt chilled to the bone despite the sweater. It was a coldness that went beyond the physical. She was too tired to think clearly, that much she knew.
“You can stay the night, and we’ll talk tomorrow,” she said finally.
She didn’t like the gleam of triumph that she saw in his expressive eyes, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. While Chaz finished his coffee, she stoked the iron stove.
The nip in the air began to dissipate from the room. After making up a bed of extra blankets and pillows on the floor for Chaz, she pulled out the chesterfield and crawled into her own cocoon of flannel sheets and wool blankets.
“My God this floor is hard,” Chaz muttered in the darkness.
“Good night,” Grace said.
Before her smile faded she was asleep.
“That was fast,” Peter remarked.
She came back to awareness of the cold breath of morning across her face.
Grace’s eyes popped open. The front door stood wide. Clad in navy pajamas with white polka dots, Chaz blocked the doorway. She kicked off the blankets and joined him at the cottage entrance.
“Come in,” she croaked.
“I don’t want to intrude,” Peter said courteously. He looked groomed and well rested for a man who had spent the night in police interrogation. His face was expressionless.
“You’re not intruding.”
Chaz looked at his watch. “It’s not even seven.”
“And you are?” Peter inquired urbanely.
“Charles Honeyburn.” He added belatedly, “The Third.”
“Ah, the famous Chip.”
“Chaz.”
“Quite.”
“Who are you?” Chaz demanded.
“This is Peter.” Grace finally got a word in.
“Oh, you’re the guy,” Chaz growled.
“I’m the man,” Peter corrected.
“What man?”
“The man with the power.”
“What power?” Chaz turned to Grace. “What is he talking about?”
“The power of voodoo,” Grace said. “It’s an old vaudeville shtick.”
“You’ll admit,” Peter said, “that this scene has its farcical aspect.”
“Come in and tell me what’s happened,” Grace urged.
The cold morning air reached through her peach silk pajamas and turned her skin to goose bumps. It was affecting her in other ways, too, Peter’s gaze informed her.
“If I’m in the way,” Chaz said, in a rather huffy tone.
“It’s not that,” Grace said. “It’s just—”
“It is that, actually,” Peter said.
“Do you want me to leave?” Chaz asked Grace.
She did, but it seemed both unkind and rude to say so.
“Why don’t I get dressed, and we can go somewhere and talk,” Grace suggested to Peter.
“Don’t be silly,” Chaz said. “I’ll get dressed and go out and you two can talk here.”
“You’re my guest,” Grace protested.
“It’s your home,” Chaz argued.
“Fascinating,” Peter murmured. “Grace, love, what I had to say can wait. I’ll talk to you later.”
He turned on heel.
Grace snatched one of the quilts off the floor, stepped into the Wellingtons by the front door and ran—clumping—after Peter, ignoring Chaz’s protest.
“Peter, wait!”
He paused by the hydrangeas, their heads beige and papery. In the crisp sunlight she could see that there were tiny lines of weariness around his eyes and a faint golden stubble on his jaw. He was carelessly dressed in jeans and green flannel shirt beneath a leather jacket. Maybe not as groomed and well rested as she had initially thought.
“What happened last night? Why did the police let you go?”
“Why wouldn’t they let me go?” His smile mocked her. “Or do you think I killed that poor silly cow?”
“I know you didn’t.” She didn’t have to think about it. She saw an almost imperceptible relaxing of his frame. “What did happen?”
His lashes lowered for a moment, and she knew she was about to get the Reader’s Digest version of the night before.
“Cat provided me with an alibi.”
Grace considered every syllable of that neutral statement. “That means you provide Cat with an alibi as well,” she said finally.
“I suppose so.”
“You suppose so? Like it never occurred to you?”
“It occurred to me. Cat didn’t kill Lady Ives.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we really were together.”
“Oh.”
His eyes were the blue of the shadows that lengthen twilight. “I thought it would be better if you heard it from me.”
“Sure.” She pulled the blanket more tightly about herself. “What about the Peeler? The police believe the two crimes are related.”
“The police are often mistaken.”
“Are they mistaken this time?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t take the Peeler.”
“Did she?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
She stood there breathing in the cold morning air, her Wellies sinking into the mud, and she became slowly aware that she was angry and getting angrier by the moment.
“Is that all you wanted to tell me?” she queried.
“Er…yes.” She couldn’t interpret his expression, but the fact that he was smiling very faintly irked her.
“Thanks for letting me know.” She turned, but the blanket caught on a shrub.
Peter freed the blanket. “My pleasure,” he murmured.
She hoped she didn’t sound as brittle as she felt. “You won’t mind if I take a few days off? I’d like to spend time with Chaz.”
“Really?”
She cast him a baleful look. “Really.”
“He’s not your type, you know.”
There were any number of answers to that, but they all would have come out sounding childish and spiteful. Instead, she took a leaf from his own book and smiled.
It must hav
e been a convincing smile because Peter’s eyes narrowed.
Knowing she had scored, Grace swept off, quilt trailing, boots galumphing. As she closed the cottage door behind her, she had the satisfaction of knowing Peter was still standing where she’d left him.
“So that’s the guy,” Chaz said. “He’s not what I expected.”
Chaz had changed into khakis and a white shirt with a yellow ascot. He always wore ascots, Grace remembered. And tweed golf caps. She’d used to think how dashing he looked in them. How British. She wasn’t the only one. Chaz had been universally popular with students and female faculty alike at St. Anne’s.
“What did you expect?”
Chaz shrugged. “I didn’t know what to expect. No one does. Your parents—”
“What about my parents?” she demanded.
“They’re worried about you. We all are.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Maybe. Partly. I care for you, Grace. I care about us.”
It was difficult, but it had to be said. “There is no ‘us.’ ”
“You can’t just call it off. Not without giving me a chance.”
Chaz believed he could reason his way back into her life. This trust in the infallibility of logic probably came from devoting one’s life to mathematics.
“Why now?” Grace objected. “Why didn’t you say all this a year ago?”
“I don’t know. Would you have listened? I thought the best thing would be to let you try it out. It was such a crazy idea, moving here. I thought the weather alone would have you home in six months.”
“Well, you were wrong. All of you.” She kicked off the rubber boots. “I need a shower.”
The cottage was fragrant with pancakes and sausages when Grace exited the bath.
“Goodness, when did you learn to cook?” she inquired, toweling her hair as she entered the kitchen. Chaz stood at the stove, spatula in hand.
“Cooking classes are a great way to meet women,” he informed her.
Grace chuckled. “Sly dog.”
Chaz smiled. He had a wonderful smile, and she remembered how much she liked him and how refreshingly normal he was. Chaz would never get himself mixed up in jewel robberies or murder.
“Eat your breakfast before it gets cold,” he ordered.
He had found plates and cutlery, setting the table and even making coffee while she bathed. Inevitably it brought back memories—good memories.
They breakfasted on pancakes and sausages while avoiding discussion of anything more serious than how out of control airline security had become.
“I’m seriously thinking of writing to my congressman,” Chaz concluded, spooning a dollop of Sally Smithwick’s blackberry jam on his last pancake.
Grace made some absent comment. She was trying to figure what to do with Chaz. She didn’t want a heart-to-heart, but there was probably no way around it. And she probably owed Chaz that much, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. All Grace could think about were the events of the evening before.
She decided she needed to see the paper and read the local perspective on the murder.
“Now that you’re here,” she said, “can I show you the sights?”
Chaz professed himself agreeable, and Grace changed into black leggings and a long cable-knit sweater of lavender.
The narrow streets of Innisdale were quiet on this Sunday morning. Swans glided on glassy water beneath the stone bridge. The single hand on the main street corner clock ticked soundlessly. On the village green tents and the merry-go-round were being packed up. The trees had lost more leaves, limbs shivery white and skeletal.
“It’s cute,” Chaz conceded, as they trekked along past sleeping houses.
It is, Grace thought, but the thatched, timbered and fieldstone cottages so beloved by American readers and filmgoers were becoming a thing of the past. Standardized windows, uniform doors and a mass production approach to architecture would in time replace the unique character of the English village.
They found a news kiosk and Chaz stopped dead in his tracks as they both took in the banner headline.
MURDER AT THE HUNT BALL! proclaimed The Clarion.
“This was the party you were at last night?” His expression was aghast as Grace paid for the paper and scanned the front page.
The Clarion had little to add to what Grace already knew. The Peeler, hunting bugle of the famed John Peel, valued at over a hundred thousand pounds, had been stolen during the annual Hunt Ball. Lady Theresa Ives had been murdered. The Clarion put less emphasis on the possible connection between the two crimes and more on the fact that Lady Ives’s body had been discovered with two sharp puncture wounds over her jugular vein.
And this time it’s true, Grace thought. This isn’t any rumor, I saw the marks myself.
It was all news to Chaz. He kept making shocked noises as he read over Grace’s shoulder.
“Vampires? They think a vampire killed that woman?”
Grace listened with half an ear.
“What kind of psycho does something like that?”
Chaz’s Adam’s apple was decidedly mobile, giving him the aspect of a very handsome tom turkey.
“They’re just capitalizing on the more sensational aspects,” she said.
“And this Peter Fox is their main suspect for the robbery?”
“It doesn’t say that.”
“It says”—Chaz squinted, trying to get a better look at the paper—“the police spent several hours questioning local antiques dealer Peter Fox. It doesn’t say that about anyone else.”
Grace wasn’t about to get into Peter’s history with Chaz. She paid for the paper and slowly folded and tucked it into the spacious pocket of her jacket.
In uncomfortable silence she and Chaz headed back the way they had come.
As they retraced their footsteps past the village green, Chaz muttered, “Who let Mother Hubbard out of her cupboard?”
“What?” Grace glanced around. Her short hairs rose as she recognized Miss Coke trailing them at a discreet distance.
Chaz’s fair skin revealed his every emotion. Just then he looked rather pink. “Is she following you?”
“Why do you say that?” Grace was hedging, and they both knew it.
“Because she’s been behind us since we left your street. Didn’t you notice her?”
“No.” Apparently you could adjust to anything, even being stalked.
“I thought she was a bag lady planning to hit you up for a donation.”
“She’s the local witch.”
“The local what? What kind of place is this?”
Grace barely heard him. An idea had occurred to her. “I want to stop at the police station.”
Chaz opened his mouth, then changed his mind.
There was no hotel in Innisdale, but bed-and-breakfasts were numerous.
After Chaz was safely stowed in a cozy place a street or so down from Sally Smithwick’s, Grace swung by the police station.
She went inside and asked to see the chief constable but was told he was out investigating the recent tragedy. The constable in charge did not know when Heron would return.
Grace returned to the tree-lined street. Perhaps she was being overly hasty. Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions. It was difficult to know. She didn’t want to start throwing accusations around, harming some innocent person merely because she made Grace uncomfortable. How much did the strange events of the past few weeks have to do with Theresa Ives’s murder? Perhaps there was no connection except in Grace’s imagination.
She got back in her car and returned to Renfrew Hall, parking in the carriage house and cutting through Sally’s sprawling and secluded back garden.
It took only a few minutes to tidy up all traces of Chaz’s brief visit. His appearance was such colossal bad timing. And the fact that her family had not warned her of his impending arrival…had they all lost their minds?
Perhaps it was her own sanity being questioned.
&
nbsp; Of course there was no point brooding over it. Do something productive, Grace ordered herself. She sat down to review her notes for her book. Though intended as a scholarly work, no matter how Grace tried to downplay the sensationalist elements of last year’s academic pursuit, the manuscript read like fiction. A story seemed to have happened to another Grace Hollister. Another Peter Fox. Grace shelved her notes.
Putting the kettle on, she stood for a moment at the kitchen window. From outside came a sweet warble.
Brown birdeen singing thy bird-heart song.
Who had written that? Grace couldn’t recall, indication that it had been too long since she stood in front of a classroom.
The kettle whistle blew, breaking the spell. She poured herself a cup of tea and sat down at the table with a pad of paper and a pen.
Once again she considered the change in Peter. They got along as well as ever, laughed, talked, flirted as before. Sometimes she thought she was imagining his withdrawal. Instinct told her—forget instinct, she thought.
What do you know for a fact?
That everything seemed to be fine before the robberies began in late summer. Still, that wasn’t proof. Maybe their trouble didn’t have anything to do with the robberies. Maybe the timing was coincidence.
Maybe the distance she sensed didn’t even have to do with Catriona. After all, Peter had known an awful lot of women, and he had never yet made a commitment to one of them. He had said that whatever was between him and Catriona had nothing to do with his relationship with Grace, so maybe she should just take him at his word.
Okay, fine, Grace thought. Let’s move on to what we do know: that Peter was an ex-thief, and that he had seemed to change when these robberies began, and that Catriona was somehow involved.
Speculation?
No, because from what Grace had seen of Catriona—and from the little Peter had admitted—Catriona was clearly an important person in Peter’s past. His criminal past. And her reappearance had dovetailed with the local crime wave. So maybe it wasn’t proof, but it was surely a hunk of coincidence to swallow whole.
In fact, even Peter’s cryptic denials that Catriona had anything to do with him and Grace emphasized her mysterious role in his life.
Grace scowled at the blank sheet of paper in front of her and wrote, “Conclusion?”
Verse of the Vampyre Page 12