Verse of the Vampyre by Diana Killian Page B

you!”
    “I’m not sure what she’s after, but she’s been following me around. Has she ever said anything to you? Threatened you?”
    “She doesn’t say anything,” Theresa told her. “That’s why the police won’t do anything. She simply stares in that ghastly way like—like Isis.”
    “Isis?”
    “Or whatever her name was. The goddess of revenge.”
    “Nemesis, you mean?” The Honorable Allegra Clairmont-Brougham, a model-thin rather handsome woman in her forties, tied the belt on her camel hair coat. Grace realized that their conversation was more public than she had planned. “I suppose you’re speaking of Miss Coke. Just ignore her,” Allegra instructed Grace.
    “That’s easy for you to say,” Theresa said, pouting. Derek put a hand on her shoulder in a gesture both comforting and proprietary. Grace’s gaze caught that of the Hon. Al. It wasn’t often they saw eye to eye, but apparently on this point, they were agreed.
    “It’s easy enough to do,” Allegra retorted.
    Grace said, “But if she’s harassing people—”
    Allegra tossed her black hair. “Oh, harassing! She’s a harmless old crackpot.”
    “But I heard that”—it sounded silly but Grace pressed on—“bad things have happened to people who…got on Miss Coke’s bad side.”
    Allegra made another impatient sound. If she wasn’t careful, in a few years she would be saying “bah!” or “pshaw!” like Lady Vee. “ Anyone can break his neck foxhunting,” she said, and swept out through the theater doors.

6
    T he dawn cast an eerie bloodred tint over the dale.
    A covey of quail started from the underbrush as Grace swung up into the saddle. The mare sidled, hooves powdering the frost on the ground. Grace quickly righted herself, putting a hand to her black velvet cap. Safely mounted, she looked around, past the horse trailers and Land Rovers and milling people in the “north forty” of Ives Manor, to the vista beyond.
    In the distance she could see mountains, towering and dark, and she reflected on the irony that it was really those mountains that made Lakeland unforgettable.
    O! for the crags that are wild and majestic, the steep, frowning glories of dark Lochnagar, Lord Byron had written of Scotland, but his words held true for Helvellyn or Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain. The crags and fells of the Lake District gave the country its distinctive character, a character reflected in the “kept-stone” spirit of its natives.
    Grace had yet to hike any mountains, and she resolved that before she left this island—assuming she did not break her neck that morning—she was going to treat herself to scaling one of those slate-and-granite ridges right up to the point where earth met sky.
    That said, she was just as glad that today’s meet was on relatively flat land, although she knew that beyond the immediate fields and woods were heather-topped hills studded with stony outcrops, and it was as easy to take a header down a little hill as a big one.
    The mare snorted and tossed her head. She was on loan from the Ives stable, and Grace was not too sure of her. She was not too sure of any of this, but she loved the smell of horse and leather and crisp morning air…she wasn’t quite as crazy about the whiff from the flask Sir Gerald Ives waved under her nose.
    “Have a nip,” he invited.
    Sir Gerald was about fifty, big and rawboned with a face like a slab of good English beef.
    “Good morning!” Grace said.
    “She suits you.” He again proffered Grace a swig from the silver flask, which she declined. “Takes the chill off.”
    “Oh gosh, no thanks. I don’t eat breakfast.”
    She was joking but the baronet replied seriously, “You should have had your breakfast. Takes a hell of a lot out of you, hunting.” His breath smoked in the chill air. It was about five-thirty in the morning, cold but reasonably dry—though in the Lake District a cloudless sky could be a temporary phenomenon.
    Shrugging, Sir