Verse of the Vampyre Read Online Free Page A

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 designed 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.
    Grace pulled to the side, turned the engine off and took a couple of deep breaths. Her hands were shaking. Ahead, she could see the men in slickers gesturing and shouting. She had probably scared them even more than herself.
    She got out of her car, walking toward them. She could see that two of the moving truck’s big tires were mired in the roadside mud. Rain pelted down. It was a horrible night to be stranded.
    “I’m so sorry! I nearly lost control,” she called to the nearest man, a short burly figure in olive green. “Is there anything I can do? Do you have a radio? Have you called for help?”
    His face was a white wet blur as he waved her away. “Dinna fash yerself!” he said in a broad Scots accent. “We’ve got it under control.” He made another push-away motion.
    The other man had returned to wedging wood beneath the truck’s tire. His back was to Grace, and he did not acknowledge her