High Rhymes and Misdemeanors (12 page)

“What happened? What was that about?” Ahmed demanded, joining them.

“They tried to nick her purse,” Peter said. His arm around Grace felt as solid as though encased in shining armor. She understood why the Honorable Allegra Clairmont-Brougham had clung to him with such tenacity.

“Hey, Gracie, you okay?”

She assured Ahmed and the rest of the crowd that she was fine. Peter assured them that she was fine—and at last they climbed into the Land Rover and started back to Rogue’s Gallery.

Grace’s teeth were chattering. That made her mad and the anger steadied her. “So much for that plan!” she said tartly. “I guess they don’t feel like hunting for the stuff themselves.”

“I guess not.”

He had little else to say until they reached the gallery. Then bidding Grace wait for him, he went inside alone.

Tensely, Grace watched the lights go on in the lower level. The moon drifted in and out of the clouds, casting deep shadows over the sleeping banks of flowers and glistening grass.

Peter was back in a few minutes.

“A-OK. No one’s been inside.”

Grace got out and, limping a little, accompanied him into the building. Upstairs he took her coat.

“My skirt’s ruined,” she said, gazing down at the oil marks on the print. Her cream-colored sweater hadn’t fared much better. Peter stared at her but she could tell he wasn’t seeing her.

He said grimly, “We’ve got to head this off now.”

“What does that mean?”

“If the cops come back here with any kind of serious equipment, they’ll find traces of …” He caught sight of her face. “These days, with the equipment they’ve got: DNA fingerprinting, UV, infrared—it’s impossible to cover up every sign of … violence.”

“What are you saying?” She was afraid she knew.

“I’m saying that I must go back down to the police station and file a report. It will look suspicious if we don’t. We mustn’t give them an excuse for coming back here. I’ll say they tried to snatch your bag—that you didn’t recognize them. Understand?”

“But why would the police come here?”

“They’ll come. Trust me.”

His features were sharp and so pale they might have been carved scrimshaw. Why, she wondered? What was he so afraid of? Grace reached for her coat. “Then I’ll go with you.”

“No. I’ll tell them you’re a bit shocky, that you’ll come in tomorrow.”

“I’m not staying here by myself!”

“Steady on. You said yourself you’re no use at lying.”

“I’m not staying here alone!”

“They’re not going to try again.”

“Says
who?
Is it written in the Official Criminal Bylaws?”

“Don’t be daft.” He added, “Wait till the reaction hits. You’ll be only too glad to curl up in bed.”

He had a point. Her muscles were in knots, and her body felt like a mass of bruises and scrapes.

He walked toward the door. “I’ll only be gone an hour or so. You’re quite safe here. The place is like a fortress.”

“Tell it to Danny Delon!”

She could see he didn’t like that, but all he said was, “Chin up, Esmerelda. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”

She was pointing out the obvious illogic of that statement as he closed the door.

Off he drove into the night with Grace watching from the upper story until the embers of Peter’s taillights had vanished into the night.
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind
… Grace let the drapes fall.

In the kitchen she put the electric kettle on. As it boiled, she stared at the answering machine, its red light blinking like a warning signal. She thought about the first day she had arrived and the messages on Peter’s machine. That funny little good-for-nothing Mimi was still leaving him daily phone messages.

She thought about Allegra snooping around in the dark of night. How dreadful to be reduced to such behavior. Grace tried to think whether she had ever cared enough for any man to contemplate such undignified and irrational behavior. Nope. Not even as a giddy teenager. Not that Grace had been a giddy teenager. Perhaps she had read a few too many romance novels, but that was normal.

Through the years she had had one or two undemanding relationships. Like her relationship with Chaz. Theirs was exactly the kind of sensible friendship based on mutual interests and respect that Grace needed. Chaz was good company and they shared many of the same values and goals, but Chaz was not a man to inspire reckless acts or dangerous passion. Nor Grace the woman to perform them.

Which was all to the good.

But the name “Allegra” sparked a train of thought. It was not a common name, although it was very pretty. Musical, she reflected vaguely. Grace knew of one historical Allegra, and that was the illegitimate daughter of George Gordon Noel Byron, one of her very favorite bad boy Romantic poets.

Allegra had been the result of a brief union between Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont, another writer (though not a very good one) who also happened to be Shelley’s sister-in-law. Percy Bysshe Shelley was another of Grace’s favorite bad boy poets. Shelley and Byron had been great pals back in the nineteenth century. In fact, their whole literary circle had been almost incestuously intertwined, with everyone seeming to be related by blood or sex. Sort of like that Kevin Bacon game that the girls of St. Anne’s were always referring to.

Yes, it was all coming to Grace now: a textbook recounting of a centuries-old scandal. Lord Byron had sent the luckless child, Allegra, to an Italian convent where she died of typhoid in 1822.

A little light went on in her brain. Astarte. Surely there was something about Byron and Astarte?

Methodically, Grace began to work down the bookshelves in Peter’s rooms. The man appeared to have a love of literature to rival her own. Or were these valuable first editions just more stage dressing?

There were innumerable volumes on art and antiques. There were philosophy books and history books. There was nothing fiction—and nothing contemporary in nonfiction.
I met a traveler from an antique land,
mused Grace. Despite his clothes and speech and obvious ease with the world around him, something about Peter Fox was not quite of this day and age.

At last Grace found poetry: Wordsworth and Coleridge, who had inspired her sojourn to the Lake District. Staunch Sir Walter Scott. There was also a first edition of Rupert Brooks she would have killed for. There were silk-bound covers of Keats and Shelley, and finally, Byron. Grace sat down Indian-fashion on the floor, skimming through the slender volume, for once resisting the magic spell of the words.

This was all the obvious stuff: “When We Two Parted,” “So We’ll Go No More A-Roving,” “She Walks in Beauty.” For a moment Grace’s eyes lingered on those lovely lines, recalling that for Byron this had been a fairly routine compliment. Resolutely she pushed on. There was no mention of Astarte in any of these. Not even in the footnotes.

Perhaps it had not been Byron? Methodically she scanned the index of the other Romantic poets. Keats was a good bet with his love of things classical. But there was no reference to Astarte in Keats. No reference in any of the other Romantics.

Grace decided her first theory had been right: Byron. Maybe it was one of the longer works. Definitely not “Childe Harold.” Perhaps “Don Juan?” Or “Manfred?” There was an entire landing lined with books right outside the flat door. In one of those leather-bound volumes might lie the answer she needed.

She sipped her tea and ruminated. Would Peter consider her efforts prying? Did the normal rules of etiquette hold with a man who had been responsible for getting you abducted? Miss Manners not being available for comment, Grace knew she would have to go with common sense. Except that common sense reminded her that she didn’t know where Peter had concealed the body of Danny Delon. He certainly seemed panicked at the idea of another police search. Perhaps Mr. Delon had not left the building?
There
was a happy thought.

On the other hand, Grace couldn’t sit up all night biting her fingernails and waiting for Peter to come home—if he came home. Take action, she always advised her girls. Sitting here in the dead of night she was liable to start imagining shadowy figures lurking behind hedges, villains in turbans watching her window light from below. She was liable to start believing every branch brushing against the glass panes was someone prying open a window. (Come to think of it, what was the UK equivalent of 911?) She was liable to start thinking every creak of this old house was someone sneaking up the stairs to get her….

Impatient with herself, Grace unlocked the flat door, and poked her head out. The darkness pressed in on all sides. She felt along the wall until she found a light switch. Light blazed down on the landing and stairs.

Not a mouse stirred. Yet she had the eerie sensation of being watched.

Suspended from the vault ceiling, the mahogany ship’s figurehead hung just out of reach of the balcony. The wooden eyes met hers without emotion. But then, here was a maiden who had swum with sharks.

Grace walked the length of the landing, staring up at the walls of leather-bound volumes. Hundreds of books. Thousands in fact. It could take days to search through all this.

She decided to start with something easy. The stack behind the railing. Squatting, she scanned the titles; there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to their order. A tome on 1950s manners, several novels, a Bible, a history of the Greeks.

Overbalancing, Grace’s hand brushed against the stack. The top book slid off and fell open. Curiously, she picked it up.

It was hollow. A hiding-place book.

She set the book aside and picked up the next one.
A History of Flagellation Among Different Nations
. “Yikes,” murmured Grace. But this, too, was a fake. Beautifully done, but a fake.

Quickly Grace shuffled through the stack. All the books, despite size, width, age, and title were hollowed out.

Grace stared up at the shelves towering above her, and wondered if her research might not take so long after all.

“George Gordon, Lord Byron, 1788-1824,” Grace prompted. “
Byron
. One of the greatest of the Romantic poets and arguably the most famous, if only for his wild love affairs and passionate ideal—”

“I know who Lord Byron was. And nobody, by the way, ever called him George.”

Grace allowed herself an academic smirk. “Augusta called him ‘baby.’ Byron called her ‘goose.’ ”

“Here we go,” muttered Peter, pouring himself another cup.

“Think about it,” Grace said eagerly, leaning forward. “In 1905 Byron’s grandson Lord Lovelace published the
Astarte Papers
as his grandmother’s vindication for having left Byron. This is all documented fact, by the way.”

Peter nodded without enthusiasm. He looked tired this morning. The tiny lines around his eyes were more pronounced. His hair, damp from the shower, fell carelessly over his forehead.

“Now, it seems obvious to me that Lord Byron and Asta—”

“It seems obvious to me,” he interrupted rudely, “that you’ve got Lord Byron on the brain. Frankly, you seem obsessed with dead guys. It’s not healthy in a woman your age.”

“At what age would an obsession with dead guys be healthy?” Grace inquired, momentarily distracted. “Just for the record.”

“For the record,” Peter said, ignoring this, “there is absolutely no reason to suppose we are looking for a manuscript. I know that’s where this is heading. I know you would love to believe we’re after some priceless, long-lost masterpiece, but your mates in the van mentioned gewgaws not papers.”

“But …”

Peter shook his head. “Jewels. For one thing, it has to be something Delon would recognize as valuable. He wouldn’t have recognized a literary treasure if it had hit him between the eyes. It also has to be something Delon could easily conceal on his person.”

“Why assume that? Anyway, a manuscript could be rolled up in a cylinder and carried under a jacket. And someone else could have pointed out the value of it to Delon.”

“Gewgaws,” said Peter.

“What
are
gewgaws?”

“Supposedly the word comes from the Middle English
giuegoue
. Meaning a showy trifle, a useless ornament, or a toy. Not, by any stretch, a manuscript.”

“You’re assuming the thugs who grabbed me use their nouns properly.”

“I’m assuming whoever hired them can tell the difference between a book and a jewel.”

Grace found Peter’s reasoning oddly irritating. She wasn’t used to being outargued, especially by a man.

“Fine, it’s not a manuscript. So what is it? The Jewels of Astarte? There’s no such thing.”

Peter seemed to find something funny; what, she had no idea. He questioned gravely, “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I spent most of last night scaling your bookshelves. I’ve researched every major site of Astarte worship and there are no particularly valuable artifacts associated with her.”

Peter washed down the last of his sausage and eggs with another cup of tea. They were enjoying a traditional English breakfast right down to the fried mushrooms and tomato. Grace was not sure about tomato at breakfast, but she was trying to be a good sport.

Tilting his chair back at a gravity-defying angle, he speculated, “Astarte or Astoreth was regarded by the Greeks and Romans as the Evening Star, and partially identified with Aphrodite. Ishtar to the Assyrians, in fact, she’s the all round great female principle.”

“If you already knew all this, why didn’t you say so last night?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, you’re rather cute when you’re on the boil. In any case, literature is your field, history is mine.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m guessing an artifact. Probably a jewel, though I can’t imagine how Delon would have access—”

“Wrong!” Grace said. “Wrong, wrong, wrong. You’re taking the reference to Astarte too literally. It isn’t a representation of Astarte we’re after. Astarte is a symbol.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Everything points to it.”

“What everything?”

Grace gestured vaguely. “Your girlfriend’s name, for one thing.”

Peter’s black brows rose in an expression of superiority. “Are we talking proof or mystical signs from on high?”

“Allegra.”

“Pardon?”

“Byron had an illegitimate daughter by a woman named Claire Clairmont. That’s what she called herself anyway. Actually her name was Jane, and she was Mary Godwin’s stepsister. Mary Godwin was the author of
Frankenstein,
and coincidentally, Shelley’s wife.”

“I know who Mary Godwin was.”

“She—Claire, that is—practically forced herself upon Byron who was still technically married to Annabella Milbanke—”

Catching Peter’s eye, Grace returned hastily to the point. “
Allegra Clairmont
-Brougham? That’s quite a coincidence. Wait, there’s more!”

Grace jumped up from the table to return a moment later with a stack of weighty tomes. These she dropped on the table, rattling the creamer and sugar bowl.

Aloud she read, “
The Wicked Lord Byron. Lyrical Lords of the Romantic Age
. And here’s my favorite:
He Walked In Beauty
.”

“Please, I just ate,” complained Peter.

“All by your neighbor, noted Byronic scholar V. M. Brougham.”

Peter sighed. “V. M. Brougham is Al’s Aunt Venetia. I fail to see where this is leading.”

“V. M. Brougham is a nut,” Grace told him succinctly. “You think
I
have an obsession with dead guys? This woman has made them her life’s work. You should read what passes for scholarship in these things. It’s embarrassing.”

Peter idly rubbed the side of his nose with his index finger. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

“There’s more. In the bio notes of
He Walks,
it says V. M. Brougham is working on the definitive account of Byron’s relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh, entitled
That Hour Foretold
. That was twenty years ago.”

Peter said nothing.

“You have a Byronic scholar living on the other side of your woods—”

“It’s the Lake District, Grace. It’s not just the tourists who appreciate the literary history here. We’ve got a cottage industry based on the Romantic poets alone.”

Grace stuck to her guns. “
And
there’s the clue of ‘Astarte’ scrawled in blood. There’s
got
to be a connection. At the very least, V. M. Brougham might be able to shed some light on what we’re looking for. Maybe it’s a letter from Byron to Augusta Leigh.”

Grace’s eyes blazed with a fanatical light that Peter viewed with misgiving.

“What happened to the cult angle?”

Grace shrugged.

He lowered his chair on all four legs. “Now listen,” he said firmly, “I appreciate your desire to help. I value your input, but don’t you think that the smartest move on your part would be to go home?”

“Certainly not! This is my field of expertise.” This was the kind of thing she lived and breathed for. With the possibility of finding a literary treasure, any desire Grace had had to flee Britain for home and safety vanished. This was every scholar’s dream. What were a few thugs with guns in the face of academic fame and glory? “Besides, you’re the one who said they might try to snatch me if I tried to leave the country.”

“I know, but I’ve been thinking up ways around that. I just might have a plan.”

“You just
might
have a plan? That’s reassuring!”

“Grace …”

“Peter!”

Unexpectedly he deferred to her. Grace took a deep breath. “What’s the point of arguing? It’s going to take at least a couple of days before I can get a new passport. In the meantime, let me help.”

Still he said nothing. Was she winning him over to her point of view?

“At least grant that there is probably a connection between Byron and this murder.”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing to indicate a lost manuscript.”

“Okay, but it is the most logical conclusion.”

“It’s not logical when the man specifically mentioned jewels.”

Grace agilely jumped track. “As you said, literature is my field. The Romantics are my period. I can be of use to you. You’re working blind.”

“Don’t you have family? People who are going to worry about you when you don’t turn up?”

“Naturally I have a family. I have a lover.” Now why had she thrown that in, for it was surely an exaggeration of her understanding with Chaz. Was this her insurance policy against her attraction to Peter Fox? “But I’m on vacation. No one’s expecting to hear from me till the new term starts in …” She looked up at the kitchen clock and swallowed hard. “Seven days.”

Seven days till the term started? Could her vacation truly have dwindled down to six days? Had she lost a day somewhere?

“Just my luck.” Peter eyed her dourly.

Thinking that perhaps he was softening, Grace said persuasively, “We have nothing to lose by talking to this V. M. Brougham, surely? We could just sort of sound her out.”

After a long moment Peter nodded. “Why not? Provided you agree to go home, once you see that these things are merely coincidence.”

“Sure,” Grace said blithely, crossing her fingers in her lap.

“Petah, dahling!”
exclaimed Lady Venetia, beckoning them forward with a long, ivory cigarette holder.

“Lady Vee,” returned Peter, moving forward to kiss the proffered wrinkled cheek.

Wow,
thought Grace, gazing about herself in fascination. They could have stepped through a time portal into a Regency drawing room. The striped satin wallpaper, green brocade settee, black lacquer spinet: the room was perfect in every detail. Two decrepit Irish wolfhounds lay in front of the marble fireplace over which hung a huge oil painting of Lord Byron looking down his long, perfect nose at them.

In fact, the room’s only anachronism was Lady Venetia herself. She was about eighty years old, tiny and birdlike. Her hair was jet black, and had been bobbed in the style of the roaring twenties. Her lips were ruby red. She wore a black beaded dress although it was just after noontime, and her red-taloned hands were encrusted with jeweled rings.

“And this must be …?” Lady Vee gestured vaguely with the cigarette-holder wand. “I’m sorry dear, I didn’t catch your name.”

“This is Grace Hollister,” Peter introduced.

Grace was offered a doll-sized hand in the royal manner. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to kiss the paw or curtsy. She settled for a firm handshake. Lady Vee winced imperceptibly.

“My
deah,
we’ve heard so
little
about you,” she murmured. She looked Grace up and down, from the sage canvas pants to the white oversize knit shirt, and having summed her up, arched her penciled brows in disbelief.

Here we go,
thought Grace. God help the woman Peter actually got involved with. She directed a dark look his way.

“You’ve had some little bother with the police, I believe? Nothing serious, I hope?”

Peter returned languidly, “The usual. Every time a bicycle goes missing they come to me.” He shrugged as though it were no great concern.

“A bicycle?” Lady Venetia seemed to think this over. “Dear, dear. I suppose it’s your wicked past catching up with you.”

He had turned the full battery of his smile on Lady Vee and the old crone simpered like a girl. “I
do
hope you’ve brought word of that mummy case you promised me.”

“Unfortunately, no.”

Lady Vee pouted. When she had been sweet sixteen that sort of thing had probably been very effective. Nowadays it was scary.

“Actually,” said Peter, folding his long length onto the forest-green brocade sofa, “we’ve come to draw upon your scholarly expertise.”

“Have you? How flattering.” Lady Venetia’s birdlike gaze darted to Grace and then away again. “You will stay to lunch, won’t you?”

“I’m afraid we’ve made plans,” Peter regretted.

“Allegra will be
so
disappointed.”

The verbal Ping-Pong continued back and forth. One of the wolfhounds groaned and rolled onto its side. Or perhaps keeled over dead. Whichever, Grace empathized. She tried to contain her impatience, studying the room they sat in. Lady Venetia’s entire body of work stood behind glass-fronted doors. The Barbara Cartland of the pseudointelligentsia?

Every conceivable book on Byron weighted Lady Vee’s shelves. A bronze bust of the Wicked Lord stood on a pedestal by the window. Grace was convinced that they had come to the right place.

“
Such
a pity you missed the Huxleys’,” Lady Vee was saying, slanting Grace a certain look. “Mimi Kenton-Kydd was simply ravishing.”

“So I’ve heard,” Peter replied.

Grace yawned.

On it went. Lady Venetia flirted outrageously, Peter fenced. Lady Venetia rang a bell and sherry was served. Grace decided Peter had the patience of a saint—or a Machiavelli.

“Now you must tell me what little thing I can do to help you, Peter, my dear,” Lady Vee said at last. “Are you thinking of writing a book perhaps?”