him. She was trembling violently.
“I’m not going to touch you, Jo.” Nick moved back. He sat on the side of his own bed, his eyes on her face. “You’ve had a bad dream, that’s all.”
“A dream!” Her face was white as she stared at herself in the dressing-table mirror. “Do you think a dream did this? And this?” She thrust her wrists at him and then her shoulder in the thin silk nightgown with its ribbon straps. Both were bruised and there was a long scratch on her neck near her collarbone. Her throat was bruised and swollen.
Nick stared at her in horror. He had become suddenly very cold. “Jo! I hope you don’t think I did that, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t do it!”
“Didn’t you?” She was like a trapped animal, her shoulders pressed against the wall. “How do I know it wasn’t you?”
“It wasn’t, Jo.” Nick moistened his lips nervously with his tongue. “You were asleep last night when I came back from my walk. I didn’t touch you. I slept here in this bed, until just now when you woke me. For God’s sake, Jo! Do you think I could do that to you in your sleep and you not wake?” He was breathing heavily. “You’ve had a dream. Another regression in your sleep. It wasn’t anything to do with me, Jo.”
She was a little calmer now. He saw her arms still defensively clutching the pillow, her face pinched and white. “No,” she breathed at last. “It was at Castel Dinas, I remember now.” She took a deep painful breath. “We rode there with the prince’s men. There was a storm and the castle guard was terribly frightened-of the ancient gods. I don’t know who they were. Celts, or Druids, I suppose, but they still walk the hills. John and I were there. Alone.”
“John?” Nick whispered. He could feel the goose bumps rising on his skin.
Jo looked at him directly for the first time. “Prince John,” she said. They stared at each other in silence.
Nick tried to swallow the sudden bile that had risen in his throat. “And he did that to you?” he said slowly.
She nodded. He could see the accusation in her eyes. “It
“No!” He launched himself from the bed. “Jo, get a grip on reality! It was not me! You were in a trance. No one touched you except inside your head. I took you to the hospital and they kept you there for hours while they examined you. There wasn’t a mark on you. Not yesterday, not last night. It happened in your sleep, Jo!” Gently he took the pillow from her and put it back on the bed, then he caught her hands. They were ice-cold. “Jo. I think we should see Bennet. As soon as possible.” He pushed her into a sitting position on her bed.
She was looking up at him. Tentatively she raised her hand and traced her fingers lightly over his eyes and nose. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears and she threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Nick, don’t let it be true. Please,” she cried desperately. “Don’t let it be true.”
After-dinner cigar smoke wove around fluted silver candlesticks and drifted up to the high ceiling, curling beneath the plastered moldings. Ponderously Sam stood up, a glass of port in one hand, and walked down the long table to a vacant chair near its head. He put down his glass and extended his hand. “Dr. Bennet? My name is Samuel Franklyn.”
Bennet looked up and surveyed him briefly, then he indicated the empty place beside him. “Please, sit down, Dr. Franklyn. I hoped we might meet here this evening,” he said. He reached for the decanter. “We have a patient in common, I believe.” He glanced up once more, his eyes narrowed. “One of the most interesting cases I have ever come across. Cigar?”
Sam shook his head. “She has finally changed her mind about our conferring-now that it is too late for me to stop your becoming involved-did she tell you?”
Bennet raised an eyebrow. “She did not. But I did intend to have a word with you anyway, I must confess.” He was studying Sam’s face with interest. “When did you last see her professionally?”
“On the twelfth. You were away, I believe.”
Bennet nodded slowly. “I saw her the following week. We had a very disturbing session during which I tried, at her request, to suggest to her that her interest in her past life would lessen or be lost altogether. She rejected the suggestion and became very disturbed. It was necessary to sedate her. I have not spoken to her since then. She missed her next appointment.” Thoughtfully he kept his eyes fixed on Sam’s face.
“She went to Wales.” Sam took a sip from his port. “She decided to try to check some of the facts and locations of these regressions for herself. And now, I gather, she has begun to regress spontaneously.”
Bennet sighed. “Autohypnosis. I was afraid that might happen.”
“And not entirely involuntary, I think. I gather you believe in this reincarnation?”
Bennet smiled warily. “I try to be objective about my patients. In fact I had contacted one or two people with whom I would like to have confronted Joanna. A medieval historian. A linguist who would question the Welsh she has begun to speak from time to time. A colleague, Stephen Thomson-you’ve probably come across him-all of whom would be better equipped to judge the material she is producing. They could tell us so much about where all this is coming from if she could only be persuaded to return.”
Sam gave a slow smile. “She will return, I’m sure of it. My brother is with her in Wales at the moment, and I think he’ll see to it, one way or another, that she comes back. You met my brother, I believe?” he added thoughtfully after a moment.
“On more than one occasion.” Bennet laughed ruefully. “He does not trust me, nor my trade.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” Sam fell cryptically silent. He helped himself to some more port and passed the decanter on around the table. “I would be interested myself in your experts’ views. And so I think would Nick.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “He worries me sometimes, Nick,” he said reflectively.
Bennet refrained from commenting. He was watching Sam closely.
“He is becoming more and more unstable,” Sam went on. “With violently swinging moods. If he were a patient I would be a little concerned by now. As his brother I find it hard to be objective.” He gave a disarming grin.
“There didn’t seem much wrong with him to me.” Bennet leaned sideways, his elbow on the back of his chair. “He is worrying about a woman with whom he is obviously deeply in love, that’s all.” He paused. “He also is, I think, a deep trance subject himself. I should like the chance to regress him. I sense a soul much troubled through the ages. I should hazard a guess that you think so too.”
Sam’s hand, lying on the table near his glass, had closed into a fist. “I am not sure I share your belief in reincarnation, Dr. Bennet.”
“That surprises me.” Bennet smiled faintly. “I pride myself in having a nose for these things, and I should say you have reason to believe you have much in common with your brother.”
“Possibly.” Sam gave him a cold glance. “If I were to persuade him to bring Jo to you again, will you assemble your experts? But no more suggestions that she forget Matilda. She has to follow the story through.”
Bennet frowned. “Has to?”
“Oh, yes, she has to.” Sam stood up. He held out his hand. “It’s been very interesting meeting you, Dr. Bennet. I’ll be in touch when Jo and Nick return to London…” He gave a small bow and turned away, walking slowly back along the table toward his original seat.
Bennet watched him as he went, a preoccupied frown on his face. There was something about Dr. Sam Franklyn that disturbed him greatly.
Jo and Nick arrived in Carl Bennet’s consulting room the following Tuesday. Besides Carl and Sam there were three strangers present.
Bennet took Jo’s hand when she came in. “Let me introduce you to my colleagues, my dear. This is Stephen Thomson, a consulting physician at Barts. He is something of an expert on stigmata and other phenomena of that kind.” He gave her an impudent grin. “And this is Jim Paxman, a medieval historian who knows a great deal about Wales, and this is Dr. Wendy Marshall, who is an expert on Celtic languages. She is going to try to interpret some of the Welsh words and phrases you come up with from time to time. She will know at once if they are real-and from the right period.”
Jo swallowed. “Quite a barrage of experts to try to trip me up.”
