“He was a coward,” she retorted. “A bully and a coward.”
Sam flinched visibly beneath her scorn. “He paid for that last betrayal,” he said. “He paid. Dear God, how he wanted to make reparation. Don’t you think he wanted to return to save her?”
Nick pushed open the kitchen door behind them. “Come on, you two, what’s happened to supper?”
“No!” Jo did not even hear him. “No, I don’t think he did. He didn’t give tuppence for anything but his own skin. Don’t forget, he let his own son die too. His eldest son!”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “His son! Will wasn’t his son. Will was the bastard of that weak fool, de Clare. An incestuous bastard!”
“Sam!” Nick shouted. “Stop it!”
Sam ignored him. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Jo’s face. “Do you know who little Matilda de Clare married? No, not Reginald. Not good, honest, upright Reginald, so like his father. No, you let her marry Will! You let her marry her own brother!”
“No!” shouted Jo. “No, that’s a lie. Will was William’s true-born son.”
“I don’t believe you. Matilda was a whore. She deserved to die the way she did.”
“Sam, shut up!” Nick glared at his brother. “You bastard! Leave it alone, do you hear?”
Suddenly Sam smiled. “Of course. I’m sorry. How tactless of me.” He was breathing hard. “Yes, why don’t we have supper! It can’t matter now, anyway, can it, what happened eight hundred years ago?”
It was a quiet meal. After leaving most of her food untouched, Jo pushed her plate aside and toyed instead with the glass of wine. It was only just after eight when Nick stood up.
“I must go, Jo.” He took her hands as she rose too. “Take care, won’t you.”
She gave a watery smile. “Of course. Don’t worry about me.”
“If you want to speak to me, Jim will have the phone number in the office. And I’ll be in touch with them just as soon as I hit New York. Do you want me to call you?”
She shook her head. “Forget me for ten days, Nick. Concentrate on your work. I’ll see you when you get back.”
He looked at her hard for a few moments, his blue eyes intense, then he kissed her gently on the forehead. “Sam will be here to take care of you, don’t forget, if you need him.”
Sam was still seated. He refilled his glass slowly, watching as Jo raised her arms suddenly and threw them around Nick’s neck.
He frowned. “I’ll see you back at the apartment later, Nick,” he said.
“You’re not coming with me now?” Nick disengaged himself gently. There was a hint of caution in his tone as he looked down at his brother.
“There are one or two things I want to say to Jo first.”
“
“I won’t keep you long.” Sam did not move.
Nick put his hands on the back of Sam’s chair. “Come on, you can see Jo wants us both to go.”
“She’ll change her mind.” Sam glanced up at Jo with a smile. “A cup of coffee, then I’ll leave if you still want me to. I promise.”
She clung to Nick for a moment on the landing and stood watching him walk down the stairs, then slowly she turned back. “You really want coffee?”
“Please.” Sam had collected the plates. He carried them through to the kitchen, then he leaned against the wall, watching as Jo set about making some instant coffee. “Not the real thing?” he inquired lazily. There was a slight smile at the corners of his mouth.
“It takes too long,” Jo said over her shoulder. “I mean it, Sam. I really am too tired to talk.” She turned suddenly and looked at him. “Sam-”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Is Nick-” She hesitated. “Have you ever hypnotized Nick?”
Sam smiled. “That’s an odd thing to ask.”
“Have you?”
“Put down the kettle for a moment and look at me.”
“I’m making your coffee.”
“Put it down, Jo.”
She did so, slowly. Then she stared up at him. “Sam-”
“That’s right, Jo. Close your eyes for a moment. Relax. You can’t fight it. There is nothing you can do, is there? You are already asleep and traveling back into the past. That’s it.” Sam stood for a moment staring at her, then he moved forward and took her hand, leading her out into the apartment’s short hall. A right turn would take him toward the front of the apartment, the living room with its open balcony doors. To the left was the bedroom and next to it the bathroom.
He turned left. In the bedroom he pushed Jo into a seated position on the end of her bed, then he moved to the windows and closed the heavy curtains. He switched on the lamp. It cast strange synthetic shadows in a room where the evening sunlight was still struggling through between the folds of the heavy material, lighting up a dazzling wedge of gold on the dusty rose of the carpet.
Sam folded his arms. “So, my lady, do you know who I am?”
Jo shook her head dully.
“I am your husband, madam!”
“William?” She moved her head slightly as though trying to avoid some dazzling light.
“William.” He had not moved. “And you and I have a whole night, do we not, to remind you of your duties to your husband.”
Jo stared up at him, her gaze alarmingly direct. “My duties? Of what duties do you intend to remind me, my lord?” Her tone was scornful.
Sam smiled. “All in good time. But first I want to ask you a question. Wait. There is something I must fetch. Wait here until I return.”
Matilda stared at William’s retreating back. He slammed the heavy oak door of the bedchamber and she heard the ring of his spurs on the stone as his footsteps retreated. She shivered. The narrow windows of the chamber faced north and the shutters braced across them did nothing to keep out the cold. She went to stand near the huge hearth, drawing her fur mantle around her. Her bones had begun to ache now in the winter and she could feel her soul crying out for the balm of spring sunshine. She must be beginning to feel old! What had William gone to find? Wearily she bent and picked a dry mossy apple bough from the basket and threw it on the fire. It scented the room immediately and she closed her eyes, trying to imagine herself warm.
William returned almost at once. He flung back the door and stood before her, his face closed, his eyes hiding some new anger. She sighed, and forced herself to smile.
“What is it you wish to ask me, William? Let us speak of it quickly, then we can go down to the great hall where it is so much warmer.”
What was it he held behind his back? She stared at him curiously, feeling as she always did now for him a strange mixture of scorn and fear and tolerance and even perhaps a little affection. But he was so hard to like, this man to whom she had been married now for so many years.
William slowly held out the hand he had been keeping behind his back. In it was a carved ivory crucifix. She drew back, catching her breath, recognizing it as coming from a niche in the chapel, where it was kept in a jeweled reliquary. It was reputed to have been carved from the bone of some long-dead Celtic saint.
“Take it.”
“Why?” She clutched her cloak more tightly around her.
“Take it in your hand.”
Reluctantly she reached out and took the crucifix. It was unnaturally cold.
“Now,” he breathed. “Now I want you to swear an oath.”
