Free Stealing Magic (Vampire Primes) by Susan Sizemore

rounded the curve onto Mayfair Crescent. He considered quickly turning and walking away as not even his shadow had yet to be caught in the glow of the nearest gaslight. It was Lady Emmaline who stepped out of the shadows, making him pause as she rushed toward him.
    He held a hand up. “I told you before that I do not want to see you.” Anger roared through him at the sight of the mortal. Not so deadly strong as it had been on the day Grace disappeared from McHeath Manor, but still strong enough to tinge his vision red with blood lust. Emmaline had been so pleased with her role in Grace’s leaving, initially taking all the credit for it. She had not understood she was in danger of losing her life for having ‘the silly bitch sacked and turned out’. It had become evident after much questioning of the staff that no one had sacked Grace, because no one had any memory of having hired her. A guest’s coach and driver had also left that day. No one knew who the guest was. It turned out the mystery was all of Grace’s making, but that did not stop Julien from being furious at Lady Emmaline’s attempt to interfere.
    She stopped a few feet from him, and wrung her hands. “I thought of something that might help you find her, Julien. Please listen. I only want to help.”
    “As you were so helpful before?”
    She flinched at his bitter tone. “No! Will you listen if I tell you that I am not helping for your sake, but for hers?”
    “Why would you want to help a servant?”
    “Because she did me a great kindness. I thought it was an insult at the time, but she read my palm and told me to return to my husband. I couldn’t get her words out of my mind. I did return to Henry.” She gave a breathless little laugh. “I am happy with him, Julien. But that is not the point.”
    “What is?”
    “She read my palm. She told my fortune. She mentioned her people. Perhaps she is some sort of gypsy. There are many fortune tellers in the city. Perhaps you can discover something about her from them.”
    “Gypsy? Grace hardly looks like a gypsy.”
    “Aren’t there folk who travel with the gypsies sometime? Irish and Scottish travelers?”
    Grace was certainly Scottish.
    It would be most ironic if Emmaline had found him a clue when all his supernatural and Beverly’s government contacts had done no good at all.
    Julien took Lady Emmaline’s hands for a moment. He gave them a friendly squeeze. “Thank you. Perhaps this will help. And may you be happy with your husband.”
    He kissed each of her gloved palms, and hurried away.
----

Chapter Twelve
    “You should ask me how I come to be here.”
    Grace sighed, and turned onto her back. She was used to hearing Julien’s voice in her sleep, but this time it seemed clearer than usual. And the usual affection was not in his tone.
    “How did you get here?” she asked. Talking in her sleep, she supposed, or at least in a half-waking dream.
    “With the aid of a werewolf, if you must know.”
    “Werewolves exist? I had no idea.”
    “Nor should you. What matters is that I am here, and you have much explaining to do, my dear.”
    He didn’t sound friendly, but at least Julien had called her ‘my dear’.
    Grace opened her eyes. And there he sat on the end of the bed.
    “Thank the goddess!” she shouted.
    She sat up quickly and would have leapt into Julien’s arms but he stood and backed away. He put his hands behind him.
    She threw off the covers and stood before him in her nightgown and bare feet, her hair in a thick braid down her back. He looked her over, hunger in his gaze. She looked just as hungrily at him.
    “Werewolf?” she asked, when she couldn’t take the tension growing between them any longer.
    “Followed the scent of a witch from an empty shop in London all the way to this farm. The physical scent, as all the mental signs of the McCoy family are masked and hidden.”
    “Really? I did not know that.”
    No answer.
    “So. Did you catch your spy?”
    “Yes. It