Clare there?” His jaw tightened. “Are you lying in his arms at this very moment?” He clenched his fists. “Why here, Jo? What happened here? What triggered it off?”
She didn’t answer. Far away in the mists of that other storm, Matilda was staring at the streaming torches of the frightened soldiers.
A heavy drop of rain fell on Nick’s naked back. He glanced up, aware suddenly of how close the storm had come. The sky overhead was indigo above the soft weight of the slate-bellied clouds. Two more drops fell on Jo’s white blouse as he stared down at her trying to control the conflict of strange emotions inside himself. “Christ!” he cried out loud suddenly. “Oh, Jesus Christ!”
He bent over her and kissed her fiercely, his eyes closed as he felt the complex web of anger and frustration and desire ride over him. Then it was gone as fast as it had come and he was aware only of the fact that he was kneeling on the bleak mountainside with an unconscious woman and that it was about to pour with rain. He scrambled to his feet and, gently extricating the shirt from beneath her head, shrugged it on. Then he stooped and lifted her from the ground. Slowly he began to descend back toward the car, holding Jo in his arms, wary of the steep ground that was slippery now beneath the rain. He had gone perhaps half the distance back toward the lane when he heard a shout. The rain was falling harder now. He shook his head to clear it from his eyes, conscious of the sweat standing on his forehead. His heart was pounding. Jo was slim, but she was tall, and already her weight was exhausting him, tearing at the muscles of his arms and shoulders.
“Wait, man, wait! I’ll help you!” The figure was gesticulating now as it appeared out of the rain, a black-and- white collie at his heels. “An accident, was it?” He was beside Nick now, a small man in plus fours, incongruous with shirt sleeves and a flat cap against the rain. Nick gently lowered Jo’s feet to the ground, supporting her weight on his shoulder, gasping for breath.
“She fainted,” he said after a moment, noting with relief the broad shoulders and sinewy arms of his rescuer. “I had to try to get her out of this rain.”
“Put her arm around my neck, here. I’ll give you a hand.” The man spoke with calm authority. “We’ll get her to my car, see. It’s only down there.” He gestured to a stony track leading up from the lane. In the dancing lightning Nick could see a silver Range Rover drawn up on the grass immediately below them.
Between them they lifted Jo into the back, her head cushioned on a blanket. Then Nick climbed in beside her as their rescuer vaulted into the driver’s seat, the dog beside him. Outside the rain became heavier every second, drumming on the roof, surrounding them in a wall of streaming water as it poured down the windshield and slammed against the windows.
The man turned, his elbow over the back of his seat. “They’re the devil, these storms. They come so fast then in ten minutes the sun is out again. Is that your Porsche I saw a couple of miles back?”
Nick nodded. “We walked farther than I realized.” The man was staring down at Jo. He nodded. “Easy to do in the mountains. And in this funny old weather too. Will we take the lady to the hospital? It’ll be easier in this, I reckon.”
Nick stared down at Jo. She was deathly pale, her head rolling sideways as the man turned back to peer through the windshield, beginning to ease the car forward slowly up the rutted lane. Her hands were ice-cold, her breathing very shallow. Nick rubbed her hand gently. After finding another blanket covered in dog hairs, he laid it over her. With a sigh he nodded at the man’s back. “Yes, please,” he said. “I’d be very grateful if you would take us to the hospital.”
Jo awoke in the hospital, disoriented and afraid, and meekly she submitted to a barrage of tests before at last she was discharged by a puzzled doctor who could find nothing more wrong than a possible allergy to electrical storms. Deeply relieved that she appeared to be all right, Nick phoned Margiad Griffiths and told her to expect them back in Hay that evening.
“You poor child. Come on up. I’ll help you to your room,” Mrs. Griffiths met Jo at the door as Nick pulled their suitcases from the car. “I’m just so very sorry you couldn’t come here on Wednesday when you asked, but we were so full up, we were.” She took Jo’s elbow in her hand and firmly guided her toward the stairs. “Your fiance said you’d share a room. I hope that is all right?”
Jo nodded wearily. “That’s fine, Mrs. Griffiths, thank you.”
“And that nice Mr. Heacham?” Mrs. Griffiths asked curiously as she stopped on the landing, panting.
“Has gone back to London. He was a colleague, as I told you.”
The other woman sniffed loudly. “Colleague he might have been, my dear. But he was very much in love with you. But you know that of course.”
Jo gently removed her arm from Mrs. Griffiths’s protective clutch. “Yes, I know,” she said bleakly.
“May we see our room?”
Jo jumped visibly as Nick’s voice came from immediately behind them on the stairs. He was carrying their suitcases.
Flustered, Mrs. Griffiths threw open the door opposite them. “There,” she said. “I hope you like it.” She shot a nervous glance at Nick.
The room was a large one. Two single beds with a foot space between them faced the windows that looked out onto the street. The bedspreads and curtains were of primrose yellow chintzy material and the carpet moss- green. Jo walked to the window and threw it open, staring out at the quiet houses opposite. She was trembling slightly. “This is a lovely room. Thank you.”
Mrs. Griffiths preened herself visibly. “I wanted you to have the best this time, my dear. Now, Mr. Franklyn said you’d like supper in, so I’ve put on a nice piece of lamb. It’ll be ready about eight, if that is all right with you.” She smiled from one to the other. “My Ted, he loved my cooking when he was alive. He always said my lamb roasts were the best he’d ever tasted. Now”-she looked around with quick confident possessiveness-“I think you’ll find you’ve everything you need. But you’ve only to call downstairs if you can think of anything.” She glanced nervously at Nick once more as he opened the door for her and ushered her out, then he closed it firmly behind her.
He spun to face Jo. “So, even she could see that Tim Heacham is in love with you!”
Jo froze. Slowly she turned to face him. “Tim has gone back to London, Nick. He came here to take photographs. That was all.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
She walked across to the nearest bed and pulled her suitcase up onto it. “I didn’t sleep with Tim, no.”
She had still been Matilda when she had slipped into Tim’s arms, and he? Surely for a few hours he had been once again Richard, Earl of Clare. She looked up and met Nick’s eye steadily for a moment before beginning to pull clothes from her bag. That hard suspicious face, the tightened jaw, the eyes cold with anger. He had changed again to that other Nick. The Nick who had made her so afraid because he reminded her of an arrogant Plantagenet prince. She swallowed hard, trying to put the thought out of her mind, shaking out her two dresses, hoping he would not see how her hands were trembling. “Are there any coat hangers in the closet, Nick?” She forced herself to sound normal. “I think I should change for this sumptuous dinner, don’t you?” She gave him a hesitant smile. “I’ll have a shower and get the smell of hospital out of my hair.”
He picked up his own bag and flung it on the other bed. “Right, I’ll have one after you.” He grinned at her suddenly as he pulled out a fresh shirt. He was himself again.
Jo picked up her bathrobe and washing things and opened the door, glad to escape. She wanted to be alone, to think; to try to face the terrible suspicion that was becoming every second more real in her mind-that Nick had once been John, King of England, the man responsible for her death.
She closed the door behind her softly and took a deep breath. Below her Mrs. Griffiths was climbing the stairs once again. She came to an abrupt halt as she saw Jo with her hand on the handle of the door.
“Miss Clifford, I forgot to tell you. After you left here on Wednesday a Miss Gunning called from London. She said I was to tell you if I saw you again to call her urgently. You can use the phone in the parlor if you like.”
Jo frowned. She glanced at her watch, then back at the bedroom door. “I might just catch her before she goes out. Thank you. I’ll phone straight away.” She followed Mrs. Griffiths down the stairs. “She’s my boss, in a manner
