High Rhymes and Misdemeanors (28 page)

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Authors: Diana Killian

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The tree offered little concealment; so after a moment’s hesitation, she scooted over to a headstone. Peering over the top, she spotted Peter a few yards down the slope. He stood very still, apparently scanning the nightscape, then he continued down the crooked hillside path. In a moment he would be out of sight.
What next? wondered Grace. The more she moved around, the greater her chances of being discovered, but there was no point in following him if she couldn’t figure out what he was doing.
She looked around, but her next move would take her into the open.
She tensed as Peter gave a low whistle that could have passed for some nocturnal birdcall. Instinctively, Grace leaned forward, watching him pass through the crowd of stone lambs, sleeping marble cherubim, and tilting crosses that stretched across the clearing to the dark woods beyond.
Was someone out there, hiding and watching from the dense shelter of forest? It was a creepy thought.
Tree branches stirred in the night breeze but no one appeared. Grace looked to Peter, but he stepped to the right, out of her line of vision. Once again she was tempted to leave her hiding place, but the ornate headstone provided good cover. And she knew from past experience how sharp Peter’s hearing was.
Beyond the graveyard pine trees stood in black attitude, their jagged tops resembling fangs. Grace tried to make out a shape that shouldn’t be there. If anyone was out there, she stuck to the shadows. It would be a woman. The voice on the phone call that Grace had inadvertently overheard had definitely been female. And a woman would indicate romance, a tryst perhaps; although the caller’s husky, mocking voice, while seductive in tone, had held a hint of threat. Had there been something familiar about that voice? All afternoon Grace had tried and failed to pin down the caller’s identity.
High above, the moon was veiled in mist, its diffused light shimmering on the headstones. The inscriptions wavered like incantations.
Another bird trill issued from the direction Peter had gone. At least Grace assumed it was Peter. Maybe it really was a bird this time.
But again the signal, if it was a signal, met silence.
She shifted her cramped position. Peter was still lost to view behind a flat box tomb. Uneasily she glanced back to the overgrown crypt. Trails of mist were rising off the ground like ghosts taking form. She shivered.
This is crazy, she told herself. What if he catches me? How am I going to explain? The truth was, there was no explanation. Her decision to come here tonight had been on impulse, triggered by Peter’s odd behavior the last few weeks. Now that she thought about it, he had seemed to change right around the time the jewel thefts had started.
That’s right, a little voice in her head jeered. This is about saving him from a life of crime. It has nothing to do with moonlight tête-à-tête with sultry-voiced females. A graveyard was a weird place for an assignation, in any case.
Quick footsteps returning up the path had Grace flattening herself against the sheltering headstone. Peter was coming back.
There wasn’t time to move, to find better concealment. Grace shrank down and held her breath. He didn’t pause, didn’t glance her way. He was a shade moving through the silver shadows.
Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon
.
The quote from Shakespeare came unbidden; Grace bit back a wry grin. She couldn’t believe that Peter Fox, ex-jewel thief extraordinaire, had returned to his former profession, but something was going on. If he wasn’t involved in the recent rash of jewel robberies, she bet he knew something about them.
In a few moments Peter’s footsteps died away. The gate groaned and clanged shut. Grace was left with the sleeping dead and her own less than comfortable thoughts.
The tree above her creaked in the wind. Grace gave it a quick look. Just her luck if she were knocked out by a stray tree limb.
In the distance she heard the engine of Peter’s Land Rover revving up; the hum of the engine faded away leaving only night sounds. Lonesome sounds.
Feeling very much alone, she stared up at the sky at the milkweed dust of stars. How long did she have to wait? Absently, she massaged her thigh muscles.
Listening to the soft tick of her wristwatch, she pictured Peter driving down the country lane back to Craddock House. The cemetery was out in the middle of nowhere, so the chances of running into anyone else were infinitesimal—unless his quarry was still lurking about, and that seemed unlikely.
At last Grace moved to rise, reaching for the headstone to pull herself up. Abruptly, she realized that this was not a park; she was kneeling on someone’s grave. The thought jolted her a little.
And all is dark and dreary now, where once was joy
.
Grace gathered herself to stand.
Mid-rise, a scrape of sound froze her. She listened.
Nothing.
Cautiously she raised her head over the smiling cherubs atop the tombstone.
There was movement to her left. Something inside the portico of the crypt stirred. Grace’s eyes widened.
There it was again. Motion. And then, as her brain tried to assimilate this, a figure in a cape stepped out of the doorway and into the moonshine.
Grace’s hand covered her gasp.
Even across the distance of grass and graves she recognized the tall, gaunt figure of Lord Ruthven, Innisdale’s newest resident.
Am I dreaming, Grace wondered? Did I fall asleep waiting? That would make sense. What didn’t make sense was Lord Ruthven, the London producer who had volunteered to help with the local theater group’s production of
The Vampyre,
hanging out at the village cemetery. Granted, Grace—who had been roped into acting as technical advisor to the production—had pegged Ruthven as an eccentric, but this was turning into an episode of
Tales from the Crypt
.
Could Lord Ruthven have been the person Peter intended to meet?
Then who was the woman who had called Peter? Lord Ruthven’s secretary? That would be some job. Grace smothered a nervous giggle. But if Ruthven arranged to meet Peter, why would he remain hidden?
No, hard to believe as it was, it did appear as though Lord Ruthven had also been observing Peter.
As she stared at the caped figure, the moon slipped behind the tattered clouds; its lantern light flickered and went out.
Even a year ago Grace would not have dreamed of doing what she did now, but her acquaintance with Peter Fox had been … empowering. (Although that was probably not the word Ms. Winters, principal of St. Anne’s Academy, would have used.)
Grace slid down and began to crawl very slowly and cautiously across the wet grass for a better view. Her knees and elbows dug into the soggy ground as she moved ahead foot by foot.
But the treacherous moon glided out of cloud cover and the glade was bathed in radiance once more. A radiant emptiness.
Grace sat and stared.
Lord Ruthven had vanished.
“You’re late,” Peter said when Grace arrived at Rogue’s Gallery the next morning. He was wielding a crowbar on a wooden crate with the nonchalance of a man who had more than a casual acquaintance with proper crowbar usage.
Grace was helping out at Rogue’s Gallery most weekdays to supplement her sabbatical.
“I know. Sorry, boss.” Avoiding his keen blue gaze, Grace headed for the stock room. She shrugged out of her mac and hung it behind the door. Peter must have received a shipment. There were several pieces of Staffordshire creamware sitting on the floor. She placed the pieces on the desk. Not that Peter ever dropped or broke anything. She had never met anyone more surefooted (or light-fingered) than the owner of Rogue’s Gallery Antiques and Books.
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.
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 now, 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.
“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 inquired, and Grace laughed, slipping her hand free.
While Grace worked, she unobtrusively kept an eye on Peter. She thought if anyone seemed edgy, he did. Or maybe restless was a better word. 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.
At noontime they retreated upstairs to Peter’s living quarters and shared a “ploughman’s lunch” of crusty hot bread, a thick slab of farmhouse cheddar, pickled onions, and a pint of ale from one of the small local brewers.
The 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?”
It was so obviously not what he had been thinking that Grace had to rack her brains 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 JR 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, but said, “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 Ives 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.”
“Fox hunting season officially opens a week from 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, fox hunting 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 of “D’ye Ken John Peel” fame.
“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 had was less for the stage and more for Derek Derrick, one of the other actors.
“The truth is,” Grace admitted, “it’s not the greatest play in the world.”
“No!” Peter leaned back in his chair, 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, she 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 was 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.”

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