you’re right.” Leaning on the balustrade, she sniffed at the delicate red and gold flower. “I tried to call Dr. Bennet but he’s still away in the States. Sam, I’ve got to work this thing through, haven’t I? I’ve got to get it out of my system. And the only way to do that is to go on with the story. Find out what happened next.” She turned to face him. “Please, Sam, I want you to hypnotize me. I want you to regress me.”
Sam was watching her closely. Thoughtfully he raised his glass and took a sip of wine. “I think that’s a good idea, Jo,” he said at last.
“You mean you will?” She had been prepared for a stand-up argument.
“Yes, I’ll hypnotize you.”
“When?”
“After lunch. If the mood seems right we’ll have a go this afternoon.”
To her surprise Jo wasn’t nervous. She was relaxed in Sam’s company, relieved not to be alone in the apartment anymore, and she enjoyed the lunch with him. Several times she found herself talking about Nick, as if she could not avoid the sound of his name, but each time she sensed Sam’s disapproval and, not wanting to spoil the atmosphere between them, she changed the subject. They played music and drank the wine, and she lay back on the sofa, listening to the soft strains of the guitar.
She was almost asleep when she felt him sit down on the sofa beside her and gently take the empty wineglass from her hand.
“I think this is as good a moment as any to start, don’t you?” he said. He raised his hand and lightly passed it over her face, closing her eyes as he began to talk.
She could feel herself drifting willingly under his spell. It was different from Carl Bennet. She could hear Sam’s voice and she was aware of her surroundings, just as in Devonshire Place, but she could not move. She was conscious of him standing up and going over to the front door, where she heard him draw the bolt. Puzzled, she wanted to ask him why, but she could feel part of her mind detaching itself, roaming free, settling back into blackness. Suddenly she was afraid. She wanted to fight him but she could not move and she could not speak.
Sam sat beside her on the sofa. “No, Jo,” he said softly. “There is nothing you can do about it, nothing at all. It never seems to have crossed your mind, Jo, that you might not be alone in your new incarnation, that others might have followed you. That old scores might have to be settled and old pains healed. In this life, Jo.” He gazed down at her silently for several minutes. Then he raised his hands to her face again. “But for now, we’ll meet in the past. You know your place there. You are still a young and obedient wife there, Jo, and you will do as I say. Now, you are going back…back to that previous existence, Jo, back to when you were Matilda, wife of William, Lord of Brecknock, Builth and Radnor, Hay, Upper Gwent and Gower, back to the time at Brecknock after Will’s birth, back to the day when you must once again welcome your husband and lord into your bed.”
16
The dining room in the hotel on the rue St. Honore was beginning to empty. Nick was immersed in some sketches and Judy was bored. She got up and helped herself to some English newspapers discarded on the next table, then, pouring herself some coffee, she began to leaf through them.
“God! They’re not even today’s,” she exclaimed in disgust after a moment.
Nick glanced up. “They get the new ones in the foyer. Here.” He tossed some francs on the table. “Get me a
But Judy was staring down at the paper on the table in front of her, open-mouthed.
“So he went ahead and did it,” she said softly. “He actually did it.”
There was something in her voice that made Nick look up. Even upside-down he recognized Jo’s photo.
“What the hell is that?” he said sharply. He snatched the paper from her.
“It’s nothing, Nick. Nothing, don’t bother to read it-”
She was suddenly afraid. After a week without a mention of her name, Jo’s shadow had risen between them again. She stood up abruptly. “I’ll get today’s,” she said, but he never heard her. He was staring down at yesterday’s copy of the
He read the article twice, then, glancing at his watch, he stood up, folded the paper under his arm, and strode toward the iron-gated elevator. He passed Judy in the foyer and never saw her.
Impatiently he allowed the elevator to carry him slowly up to his floor. He wrenched the doors open, then strode to their room. It was several minutes before the number in London was ringing. He sat impatiently on the bed, spreading the paper out beside him with his free hand, as he waited for someone to answer.
The tone rang on monotonously in Jo’s empty apartment. Upstairs, Henry Chandler looked at his wife in exasperation. “Why doesn’t she get an answering machine if she’s a journalist? If that phone doesn’t stop ringing it’ll wake that damn baby again.”
“She’s gone shopping,” Sheila Chandler said slowly. “I saw her leave earlier.”
“Did you see the kid?”
“No, she was alone.”
They looked at each other significantly.
Downstairs the faint sound of the phone stopped. Seconds later they both heard the thin protesting wail.
“Who are you calling?” Judy threw back the bedroom door and stood in the doorway, staring at Nick.
“Jo.”
“Why?”
Nick put the receiver down with a sigh. “I want to know why she did such an idiotic thing as to give that story to Pete Leveson. She’ll lose every bit of credibility she has as a serious journalist if she allows crap like this to be published. Look at this. ‘I was married to a violent, vicious man, but my heart belonged to the handsome earl who had escorted me through the mountains, protecting me from the wolves with his drawn sword.’ Dear God!”
He picked up the phone and rattled it again. “
“It is nothing to do with you, Nick,” Judy said softly. “Jo has done it, for whatever reason, and it can’t be undone now.”
She saw his knuckles whiten on the phone. “
“You’re making a fool of yourself, Nick.”
“Very probably.” He tightened his mouth grimly as he slammed the phone down at last. “Sam’s not there either. Look, look at this last bit. ‘I shall not rest, Jo told me, until I have learned the whole story…’ Even you, Judy, know enough now to have guessed that that is dangerous for her.”
Judy turned away. “I don’t expect she really meant it.”
Nick stood up slowly and walked across to her, spinning her around by the shoulders. “You knew about this article, didn’t you? Down there, in the dining room, you weren’t surprised. You were triumphant.” His eyes narrowed as he held her facing him. “So what do you know about all this?”
Judy stood quite still, staring up at his face. “You tell me something first, Nick Franklyn! Are you still in love with Jo? Because if you are, I shall bow out of your life now. Perhaps I could write an article or two myself. ‘How my lover challenged a man eight hundred years old to a duel over another woman.’ That’s it, isn’t it? You can’t bear to think of her in his arms, this Richard de Clare. You watched her, didn’t you? Last week when you rushed off and left me, you went to Dr. Bennet’s and watched her dreaming about making love to another man. You had to see it!”
She broke off with a little cry as Nick raised his hand and gave her a stinging slap across the face. The impact of it threw her against the wall and she stood there, her hand pressed to her cheek, her eyes brimming with tears. “You bastard-”
“That’s right.” His face was hard and very white. “I’ve warned you before, Judy. Leave Jo alone.” He turned to
