Jo had gone white. “That’s nonsense—”
“Is it? It’s more common to see the future than the past, I suppose, but either way, three hundred years ago you would have been burned at the stake for less.”
“And today I could make my living telling fortunes. Oh, God!” She put her head in her hands. “I’m frightened, Nick.”
“Why?” He picked up the bottle and poured the last of the wine into her glass. “You obviously have a gift. And if you are going to persist with researching into the past, the ability to do it yourself will at least save you Bennet’s no doubt exorbitant fees.” He pursed his lips. “Do you remember what you said?”
She took a sip from her glass, glancing around at the other diners. No one was staring. No one seemed to have noticed anything amiss. “It must have been you asking about Prince John earlier,” she said slowly. “I saw him again. Only he was older this time. A teenager.”
“But you found him as obnoxious as before.” Nick was still twisting his glass between his fingers.
Jo nodded thoughtfully. “He seemed to think me attractive, but his methods of showing it were pretty crass. Thank you.” She looked up and smiled as the waiter put a cup down in front of her.
“Perhaps your reactions were tactless and high-handed.” A nervous tic had begun at the corner of Nick’s eye.
She stared at it. “We are talking about me again,” she said softly. “It was not me. It was Matilda.”
“Whichever one of you it was, you should have had the sensitivity to handle the situation more discreetly.” Nick took the bill and began methodically to check it.
“Why are you so angry?” Jo said suddenly. “It’s as if you’re taking it personally. I didn’t mention Richard, did I? Or is it just because I talked about the past? Or because I wasted this beautiful meal? Or did I shout and yell and make an exhibition of myself?”
He shook his head, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. “None of them. Come on. Let’s go.” He pushed his chair back and stood up.
It was a glorious night, warm and balmy. They walked slowly back up Victoria Road. Most of the houses were in darkness. Here and there a window was still lighted, shadows moving behind the curtains.
Nick did not touch her. He strode ahead in silence. Only when they reached the step beneath the pillared porch did he speak.
“Are you going to let me come in?”
She stared up at his face in the light of the streetlamp. “No, Nick.”
“Please, I won’t hurt you, I promise.” He put his hands on her shoulders and gently pulled her against him.
She wanted him badly. She could feel her heart beginning to beat faster as his mouth moved gently against hers, and she felt her resistance weakening as he moved his hands slowly from her shoulders toward her breasts, massaging them sensuously through the thin material of her shirt, pressing her spine against the door. He felt in his pocket for his key, silencing her feeble protest with another kiss as he slotted it into the lock behind her and pushed it open. The hall inside was pitch-black. He did not bother to try to find the light switch. His arm pinioning hers, he kissed her more fiercely as the heavy door swung shut behind them, leaving them in darkness.
“Nick.” Jo gasped. “Please, don’t—”
“Why?” She could hear the strange exultance in his voice as he tore her shirt open and dropped his head to nuzzle her breasts.
“Please, I asked you not to come in—”
“But you want me, Jo,” he breathed. “You want me.” Catching her wrist, he pulled her with him up the stairs, unlocking the door to her apartment and pulling her inside. Only then did he release her. Jo groped for the light switch, trying to refasten her shirt and tuck it back inside her skirt. “Nick, please, I’m tired—” She backed away from him uncertainly. “Will you go if I make some coffee—”
“No coffee. It sobers you up too fast.” He strode into the room, pulling the curtains shut and turning on the table lamp in the corner. “What we need is some more wine and some music.” Leaving her standing by the door, he disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle. “I see you’ve replenished your cellar.” He smiled at her. “Put some music on, Jo. And relax.” She was standing by the door, her hand on the latch. “Turn off the main lights and put on something quiet and sexy,” he went on, his voice suddenly gentle. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you. Come on. Relax.” He turned away from her to find the corkscrew and set about drawing the cork and pouring out the wine.
Still hesitating, Jo moved to the shelf and shuffled through a pile of cassettes. Her hands were shaking as she picked one up. “Piaf?” she asked, conscious that he had put down the bottle and walked across toward the door. She spun around, afraid that he was moving to lock it, but he merely went to the switch and turned off the main lights, leaving only the soft glow from the one small lamp in the corner.
Trying to steady her nerves, she turned back to the tape, putting it on very low.
“Your wine.” He was immediately behind her.
She faced him and took the glass from him. “You won’t hurt me again, Nick. You promise,” she whispered as he reached up to touch her face.
Nick smiled. “Why should I hurt you?” He took the glass back from her and set it down on the shelf behind her, then gently he drew her to him. With a frown he began to unbutton her shirt once more. He pulled it off then reached up to unfasten her bra. “That’s better,” he murmured as he dropped it on the floor. “Now, why have you still got your shoes on?”
He stood back and folded his arms once more, watching as Jo kicked off her high-heeled sandals, embarrassed at his sudden cold detachment.
She gave a nervous laugh as she turned away from him to pick up her glass. “Aren’t you going to take off your shirt too?”
“Of course.” He watched her drink. “You enjoyed it when I raped you the other night,” he said suddenly.
“I did not,” she flared.
“I think you did. I could feel it. A woman can’t hide it when she’s excited.”
Jo stopped and picked up her shirt hastily, clutching it against her. “I hope you haven’t got the idea that I like being knocked around, because I don’t. Please, Nick, stop teasing me…”
Nick took a step nearer her. He dragged the shirt out of her hand and threw it down behind him, then he caught her by the elbows, pulling her hard against him. “Beautiful, independent, oh so liberated Miss Clifford! I doubt if any man has dared to tell you what to do before, has he? One look from those flashing eyes and men cower back into their corners. What was Pete Leveson like in bed, Jo? He looks like a teddy bear to me. I doubt if he ever beat you. Perhaps that’s why you had such a short affair.”
“Nick—”
“Or Sam. Sam has always wanted you, hasn’t he? My mother came and told me as much today. Has he ever dared to touch you? I doubt it! My brother is scared of clever women!”
“Please, Nick!” She tried to pull away from him. “You’re hurting me. You promised you wouldn’t—”
“I’ll do what the hell I like with you, Jo.” He smiled at her. “Violence excites you. You like powerful men. You like a man who can bring you to your knees.”
She struggled frantically. “You’re drunk, Nick—”
“I don’t think so. In fact, I’ve not drunk nearly enough.” He let go of her so suddenly she nearly fell. “Let’s have some more wine.”
“You’ve had enough.” She dodged away from him, then stooped and grabbed her crumpled shirt. “If you don’t get out of here in ten seconds, Nick, I’m calling the police!”
He had picked up the wine bottle, and, holding it up to the lamplight for a moment, he poured some into his glass. He moved toward her, sipping it. “This is a good year,” he murmured. “I’m glad you care about good wine. Many women don’t—”
Jo was backing away from him toward the phone. As she reached it he lunged toward her and caught the phone cord, jerking it out of the socket. His wine spilled over her ar
m as, with a cry of fright, she dodged past him.
“You know, I quite enjoy your show of resistance, Jo,” he said lazily. “I can see why men always prefer—what is it they call them—women of spirit!”
“Just stop all the chauvinist crap and get out of here!” Jo was shaking violently. She put the sofa between herself and Nick as she pulled on her shirt.
“We were talking about the men who told you what to do, weren’t we?” he went on conversationally. “What about those men of Matilda’s? William de Braose, now. He never asked permission before he screwed his wife, I’ll bet. Did it thrill you? Being forced to obey him? You had to obey your husband, didn’t you?” He was moving toward her again slowly, his handsome face set.
Jo backed toward the French doors. “Please, Nick, go away.”
“You haven’t told me yet. Did William turn you on?”
She shook her head. “Never. He was repellent.”
“Yet you bore him six children.”
“Not me, Nick. It wasn’t me, for Christ’s sake! Look, why don’t we go out? It’s a glorious night. Why don’t we go for a drive? A long drive. Do you remember once we drove down to Brighton. We could have a swim at dawn and then have breakfast down there—”
“Tell me about Richard de Clare,” Nick went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Tell me about the handsome Richard. He turned you on, now, didn’t he?”
“Yes!”
Suddenly her fear and anger overflowed and she was yelling at him. “Yes, he bloody well did. He turned me on, as you put it. He was fun. He was humorous and good to be with. He wasn’t intense and competitive. He wasn’t a bloody chauvinist even though he was a medieval knight and an earl! He was a gentleman, Nick. Something you wouldn’t know how to be, if they exist these days, which I don’t think they do. And yes, he was good in bed. And in the bracken and anywhere else he happened to be! Very, very good. A hell of a lot better than you will ever be!” She stopped, panting.
In the silence between them the brown, spiced voice of Edith Piaf had begun to sing “Milord.”
Suddenly Nick began to laugh. “So we have the truth at last.” He went to the stereo and turned up the volume.
“Allez, dancez, milord! My only consolation, milord, is that you are dead, milord! Dead for eight hundred years! Poor Jo. Being screwed by a ghost! A fucking, imaginary ghost!”
He turned up the volume full, then gave her a mock bow. The sound blazed around the flat, reverberating off the walls, distorted almost out of recognition by the vibration of the bass notes. Jo clapped her hands to her ears.
After snatching his jacket off the chair, Nick slung it over his shoulder and walked to the front door, then he turned. “And you, Jo,” he shouted. “Are you a ghost as well? Think about it, my lady! Think about it!” He opened the door then strolled out onto the landing.
Jo hurled herself at the door and banged it shut, shooting the bolt and putting on the chain. She was shaking from head to foot. Then she staggered to the stereo and switched it off. Only then, in the sudden echoing silence, did she hear the furious hammering on the ceiling from the apartment upstairs.
23
The desk in Bet’s office was covered with slides. She looked up as Jo came in and grinned maliciously as she switched off the viewing box. “God! You look as if you’ve had a hard night. Coffee or medicinal brandy?”
“Coffee, please.” Jo flung herself down in the ocher armchair by the window, letting her bag fall to the floor.
There was a pot perking permanently in the corner of the office, slotted between the bookshelves and piles of magazines. Bet reached for a cup from the tray, filled it with black, unsweetened coffee, and handed it to Jo. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Nick and I had a fight last night.”
“So what’s new?”
Jo raised the cup to her mouth with a shaking hand. “He’s behaving so oddly, Bet. Not like himself at all.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised. You heard about the screw-up Jim Greerson made of the new Desco campaign? He commissioned some unknown to do the artwork, then I gather Nick wasn’t interested enough even to look at it, so Jim went ahead and approved it to show to Mike Desmond. Mike had fifty fits it was so lousy and ran screaming off to Franklyn-Greerson’s nearest competitor and had hysterics in their lap.” Bet scrutinized Jo’s face with cool amber eyes. “But you knew all that.”
Jo smiled wearily. “I knew the gist of it. Can I have some brandy in this coffee?”
Bet walked to her desk, opened the right-hand bottom drawer, and took out a full bottle of Courvoisier. “He didn’t knock you around did he, Jo?” Her eyes were resting on the fading bruise on Jo’s wrist.
Jo shrugged. “Only verbally last night.”
“You mean he has before?” Bet was vastly intrigued.
Jo smiled. “Not really, I suppose. Sorry to disappoint you, Bet. But he did frighten me. It was as if he’d changed personality completely. It can’t have just been business worries. Hell, I was around when he and Jim first went into partnership. They weathered all sorts of crises then and Nick just took them as a challenge. He wouldn’t let one thing like this change his whole personality!” She gave a little shiver. “He’s acting like someone possessed.”
Bet sat down on the chair behind her desk. She crossed her elegantly trousered legs.
“Do you still love him?”
Jo sipped her coffee. “God knows!”
“Then I suggest you leave the relationship to God for the time being.” Bet scrutinized the soft red leather of her ankle-length boots. “What about thinking about work instead? I haven’t seen your byline on the newsstands for weeks. You only appear to feature as the subject of other people’s articles these days.”
“Bet, I said I was sorry about that—”
“Forget it.” Bet put her elbows on the desk. “I want this story for W I A, Jo. The whole story, as it happens. Matilda’s life story. Not the romantic crap Pete Leveson was spooning out. I want the real version. The blood-and-guts reality. I want exclusive rights from now on. And I’ll pay. I want to serialize more or less as it happens. Right to the bitter end.”
“I don’t know if I’m going on with it, Bet.” Jo reached for the brandy bottle and slowly unscrewed it. “It frightens me so much. I was thinking of going back to Bennet and asking him again to help me forget all about Matilda. I went to Wales, to the places Matilda knew. When I got there I went into a regression spontaneously, without anyone there to hypnotize me. It was as if I were being taken over by her. I couldn’t stop myself.” She bit her lip. “I panicked and came home. It was terrifying, Bet. I couldn’t handle it. I could suddenly see the whole thing getting out of hand, see her life unrolling hour after hour, day after day, taking over my own existence—”
Bet’s eyes were shining. “Exactly! Jo, you’ve got to let it happen. Come on, don’t tell me you don’t want to do it. It’s the scoop of the year. I want to know what it feels like for a twentieth-century woman to go through the time barrier into the dark ages—”
“It’s hardly the dark ages, Bet. The twelfth century was a time of renaissance.” Jo smiled wearily. “And it’s not me who goes back. I am not conscious of myself as having any identity other than that of Matilda at the time. I only make comparisons afterward.”
“Then make them afterward!” Bet picked up a pen and held it in front of her with both hands. “Come on, Jo, it’s not like you to duck out of a challenge. Throw yourself into it. You said you had been to Wales?”
Jo nodded.
“Then go back. Go back now. Concentrate on the story. Don’t fight it. Take this hypnotist man with you if you want to. W I A will pay. I’ll draw you up a contract giving us exclusive rights. You can have three consecutive months. Maximum publicity, TV advertising—cover line, of course. It’s possible a TV series might come out of it—who knows? I’ll talk to one or two people I know at the BBC and see what they think. Come on, Jo. We’re talking about a lot of money apart from anyt
hing else.” She paused, giving her a sideways glance. “It’ll get you away from Nick for a bit. That can’t be bad either.”
Jo took a deep breath. “True,” she said. She was torn. The journalist half of her wanted to do it; it was the other half, the deep-rooted private half, which resented Bet’s intrusion, and that half of her was still afraid. She looked thoughtfully past Bet out of the windows toward the river. “What about the rest of my series if I agree?”
“We’ll do one of your other articles on its own if you’ve finished it. Drop the rest of the series for the time being. We can go back to them later.” Bet stood up. She walked around the desk and took the brandy bottle out of Jo’s hand. “Come on, I’ll take you out to lunch. You have to admit it, Jo, it’s a bloody good story. You’re too experienced a journalist not to see that. You once told me you’d like to have been a war correspondent, remember? Now is your chance to prove it. Okay, so you’re taking some risks, but think of the experiences you’ll be having. There is a book in this, Jo. You can base it on our series.” She scooped the strap of her tote bag onto her shoulder. Then she paused. “Listen, why not see if Tim Heacham will meet you down in Wales?” She dropped the bag and turned the phone on her desk to face her. “I’ll call him now.”
“I haven’t agreed yet, Bet.” Jo stood up.
“Yes you have.” Bet grinned as she dialed. “You wouldn’t have come to see me this morning if you’d really wanted to stop. You would have gone straight to your hypnotist. Here”—she held out the phone—“the number is ringing.”
***
Bet met Pete Leveson for lunch at Langan’s the following Monday. They sat downstairs, both greeting other diners for a few moments before they turned to one another. Pete grinned. “Perrier with a slice of lemon at this time of day, right?”
Bet raised an eyebrow. “That will do for starters.” She sat back in her chair and looked him straight in the eye. “I’m prepared to bet you know why I asked you to meet me here.”