High Rhymes and Misdemeanors Read online

In Grace’s opinion, a normal person would have jumped to his feet or made some exclamation or done something as alarm bells clamored through the house. Peter did not move a muscle. In fact, he went very still, his lean face taking on a peculiar listening intentness.

  The next instant he was out of his chair and easing open the door of the flat. “Stay here,” he ordered Grace in afterthought, and with that, was gone.

  Not so long ago Grace would have obeyed. But as Peter slipped silently out of his quarters, she left the table and followed him onto the landing. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom. Peter was already on the ground floor, a shadow gliding through the other shadows. Grace crept down the staircase on stockinged feet.

  A scream, high-pitched and terrified, came from outside, only to be choked off.

  “Peter!” gasped Grace.

  She spotted him racing toward the front door. The door opened onto an Arthur Rackham nightscape: gnarled black apple trees stood silhouetted against a golden lantern moon. Shape-shifting clouds drifted across the sky. Grace abandoned stealth and thudded down the stairs. She paused before the display of weapons, her hand hovering as she realized that the missing ax had been replaced. Polished steel gleamed in the light from the landing.

  Commotion at the shop’s entrance startled her. Peter reappeared, supporting a moaning woman. The woman clutched her dark head with one hand and Peter with the other.

  “He hit me,” she mumbled.

  Peter helped the woman to the nearest Chippendale chair. “Run get some ice,” he told Grace.

  Grace ran. When she returned with ice wrapped in a towel, the other woman seemed to have recovered slightly although she was still clinging to Peter’s shirtfront, and making tiresome noises into his chest.

  She was a “handsome” woman of about forty-five, Grace estimated, handing over the ice pack. She had dark, shoulder-length hair, and a tall, model-thin body. Opening hazel eyes, the woman squinted painfully at Grace.

  “Who is that?” She struggled to sit up.

  “Take it easy, Al,” Peter said, solicitously applying the ice to what, Grace had to admit, was a goose egg-sized bump.

  “But who is she?”

  “This is Miss Grace Hollister from America.” Peter’s eyes met Grace’s briefly. “Grace, this is the Honorable Allegra Clairmont-Brougham.”

  “But who is she?” pressed Al plaintively. “Why is she here?”

  Grace thought she recognized Al’s too-too-refined accent from Peter’s answering machine. Al was the gal who thought “naughty man” Peter was avoiding her phone calls. The Hon. Al’s dark clothing and the hour of the night she’d chosen to come calling indicated romantic reconnaissance. Grace felt sorry for the woman.

  She felt even sorrier for her when Peter said brusquely, “She’s staying with me, Al.”

  “She’s…” Allegra sat up, holding fast to the ice pack. “But I thought you and Mimi—that is—” She turned her disbelieving gaze to Grace. “But Peter, you never have anyone stay,” she protested.

  “Grace is different.” Peter ignored the daggers of Grace’s stare.

  Al dropped back against his broad chest with a pained sound. Grace scowled at Peter over Al’s bowed head. Cad, she mouthed. He looked blank. She was tempted to snatch one of the skulls off the nearby dresser and crown him. Memento Amoure in this particular case.

  Ignoring Grace’s ire, Peter was querying, briskly but not unsympathetically, “What happened, Al? Did you see who coshed you?”

  “Not clearly. I came round the back—I thought I heard something—and I saw a man with a crowbar at the window. Then the alarm went off. After that it’s all a blur.” Falteringly, she put a hand to her head.

  Grace was relieved that Peter had enough tact not to question the obvious. Perhaps he was used to suspicious lovers skulking outside his windows.

  “You didn’t recognize the man? What did he look like?”

  “A shadowy figure, that’s all. Tall. Very tall.” She seemed to hesitate. “His face was all blacked.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing really. Just the way the light fell.”

  “Spit it out, Al. What did you see?”

  Al said uncomfortably, “I rather got the impression…you’ll think me mad, but I…I thought he was wearing a turban.”

  Peter’s eyebrows shot up, mirroring Grace’s own expression.

  Allegra opened her eyes wide and murmured, “Oh, Peter, why didn’t you ring?”

  “I wasn’t home.”

  “But I saw your lights on.”

  “When?” Peter and Grace asked in unison. They briefly exchanged looks.

  “Yesterday evening. Thursday.” She focused on Grace and said pettishly, “I suppose that was you?”

  Grace’s reply was forestalled by Peter’s warning glance.

  Al said, “I’ve been staying with Auntie Venetia while the chimneys at the Carriage House are being cleaned. But the place is like a tomb. Too dreary.” Her fingers crept up to play with Peter’s collar. “Do you suppose…Peter, if it’s not too terribly much trouble, could you run me home? I don’t feel quite up to driving.” She fluttered her eyelashes.

  Grace decided it would be ridiculous to be annoyed by the Hon. Al’s ploys; despite Peter’s deliberate attempt to make it look otherwise, Grace was not involved with him and had no intention of becoming involved with him. What sane woman would want to be involved with a man who clearly couldn’t commit to anything but a life of crime?

  “You should have your head examined,” she heard herself say. Both Al and Peter looked her way. “First,” Grace amended hastily. “You should first have someone examine your…um…head.”

  Al peered at her through pain-narrowed eyes, and then said to Peter, “Peter, how can you be giving Mimi Kenton-Kydd antique pendants one minute, and living with American girls the next?”

  “Yes, I’m curious, too,” Grace remarked.

  The look he shot her promised retaliation. To Al, Peter said, ruefully, “I’m rather afraid it’s going to be less of the former and more of the latter now that Grace is here to keep me in line.”

  Al was still trying to do the math as Peter helped her to her feet once more.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” Grace asked under her voice, holding the door for them.

  Peter’s nod was curt. “Keep the doors locked. Don’t open for anyone but me.”

  “I was thinking of you. Could he still be out there?”

  She was rewarded by an unexpectedly engaging grin. “And I was beginning to think you didn’t care.”

  Al stopped clinging long enough to scowl at Grace.

  “I’ll wait up, shall I?” Grace added for Al’s benefit. She was instantly ashamed.

  “Do.” To her openmouthed surprise, Peter kissed her.

  The next moment he had vanished into the night with the Hon. Allegra Clairmont-Brougham in tow.

  As a kiss it was too brief to analyze, but as Grace went slowly up the stairs to Peter’s flat, she had the funniest impression her lips were tingling.