Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (reading an ebook TXT) 📕

She smiled faintly. "I'll be okay. After a good night's sleep. I'm just so very, very tired. "

He drove for about twenty minutes through narrow lanes in the teeming rain before drawing up outside a long white-painted, stone-built inn. He peered through the windshield wipers at it and grinned. "It looks nice. I can almost smell that dinner. "

Jo smiled. "Lead on then, " she said. But it was with an effort that she climbed out of the car after him.

The landlord was a tall, florid man of about fifty, who greeted them like long-lost friends. "The best dinner in Gwent, I can give you, " he said to Tim with confidential modesty as Jo sank onto the settle in the dark hallway. "And I've a cellar here would make some of your London hotels green with envy, man. There's only one problem. I've just got the one room free, see? A double it is. But just the one. "

Tim glanced at Jo. Then he nodded. "We'll take it. "

She did not protest.

A hot bath and a change of clothes in the low-ceilinged whitewashed bedroom and Jo was beginning to feel herself again. She grinned at Tim. "I'll toss you for that sofa thing later. "

He grimaced. "You won't have to. I'll do the gentlemanly thing and volunteer. "

They both looked at the small two-seater settle by the window with its worn toile de jouet cover. Jo laughed. "And you over six feet tall. Perhaps we can put a bolster down the bed in the best tradition. "

"No need. I shall take a temporary oath of abstinence. Anything that would be more comfortable than this bed of Procrustes. " He slapped the arm of the sofa.

"I'll trust you then. " She laughed. "Come on. Let's eat. "

The meal was all they had been promised and more. Looking around the small dining room, Tim let out a contented groan. "I shall recommend this place to Egon Ronay. "

Jo leaned forward to top up his wineglass. "Don't. It will be swamped with horrible townees and spoiled. This must stay a secret. Just ours. " She yawned. "But, nice as it is, Tim, I think I'm going to have to go to bed. I'm completely exhausted. "

He nodded. "I think you should. You still look shattered. Go on up, Jo. As it's stopped raining I shall go for a bit of a walk. "

Jo stumbled up the narrow twisting staircase to their room. Snapping on the light, she stared around it. There was little furniture. The large old-fashioned bed, with a candle-wick bedspread, an Edwardian dressing table and chair, and the settee by the window. On the polished floor there was a rush mat. With a sigh she slipped off her clothes and put on her thin silk bathrobe. She brushed her hair slowly, then, after pulling one of the books from her tote bag, she flung herself down by the window.

The casement was open, looking out over a small back garden. Beyond the drystone wall the hillside stretched downward into the shadows of the valley. In the silence she thought she could hear the sound of a stream out of sight in the darkness. Slowly she opened the book, frowning as a moth dived in through the window and blundered toward the lamp at her elbow. The volume was a biography of King John. She looked at the picture of him on the cover. It showed an elegant stone effigy, wearing a crown. She turned slowly to the illustrations in the book, staring at statues, sketches, illuminations, even coins. One thing they all seemed to agree about. John had been a good-looking man. A straight nose, a firm mouth—frequently bearded—and deep-set arrogant eyes. She half closed her eyes with a shiver. This was the man who had ordered Matilda's death.

She glanced up at the window again, staring at the raindrops as they fell, huge and wet, onto the sill. Then with an effort she tore her gaze away. She forced her eyes open as slowly the book slid from her hands to the floor. She did not try to pick it up. She stared around the room. The walls appeared to be moving slightly in the shadows; the floor rippled. She pushed herself up on the sofa, clutching at its back, and put her hands over her eyes, rubbing them violently, trying to swing her feet to the mat, but somehow they would not obey her. They felt heavy, as if they no longer belonged to her. Her head was hammering and once again she was conscious of a strange flickering behind her eyes. Exhausted, she fell back, her head on the shiny material of the sofa arm, and, defeated, she closed her eyes.

The borders shimmered beneath the burnished August sky as Matilda and William and their attendants rode toward Marlborough for the royal wedding. It was a long time since Matilda had thought about the girl who was soon to become John's wife. It pained her to think of the child she remembered—small, frail, and very frightened—being linked forever with the volatile prince, a prince who was now heir to the throne after his father's death and the succession of his brother, Richard.

The Downs reflected the beating sunlight as the horses wearily made their way toward the encampment around the abbey outside the walls of Marlborough. The pennants and the flags hung limp and unmoving from the tents and flag-staffs. Everywhere horses and men stood dejected and exhausted in the heat. In the center of the encampment the royal pavilion stood open and empty. Prince John had taken a few companions and gone into the forests, seeking the cool of the shade.

In the Countess of Gloucester's quarters, late at night, after William had gone off to roister with the prince and his cronies, Matilda found Isabella, seated quiet and pale before a polished mirror, looking in something like wonder as