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

"No. "

"But he is part of the story—"

"So is Nick, but I won't include him either. " Jo stood up suddenly. "Don't worry, you'll get your money's worth. I shall pillory myself for my avid readers, but not my friends. "

Bet shrugged. "As you wish, but you're omitting some of the most extraordinary parts of the story, Jo. And don't forget, the big bad world has already read about Nick and Sam. "

"Then let them make their own connections. " Jo picked up her file of notes. "I'm working on the Clements story now, so please, tell me where I'll find a desk, and I'll start. "

Ceecliff paid off the taxi and walked slowly up the steps to ring Jo's bell. It was several seconds before the intercom buzzed into life.

"It's me, dear. " She stooped toward the disembodied voice in the wall.

"Are you alone, Ceecliff?"

Celia Clifford stared around her carefully. "Totally. And I haven't been followed! I changed taxis twice to make sure, " she said solemnly.

There was a gurgle of laughter from the wall. "Enter then and be recognized!"

"What on earth is all this about?" Panting after her climb up the stairs, Ceecliff watched as Jo bolted the front door behind her and fixed the chain.

"Nothing. I'm just being careful. "

Ceecliff divested herself of her lightweight coat and dropped her handbag and shopping bags on a chair. "Have you locked Nicholas in or out?"

"Out. Oh, Granny—" Jo threw herself into the older woman's arms.

"You haven't called me that since you were quite tiny, Joey, " Ceecliff murmured gently. "My goodness, look at you. If you cry like that, you'll dissolve, child. " She led Jo to the sofa and pulled her down beside her. "Best let all the tears out first, then you can tell me everything. "

It was eight-thirty when Ceecliff opened the front door to Nick. She smiled at him and gave him her cheek to kiss, then, taking his hand, she led him into the living room. "Joey is in the kitchen, Nicholas, fixing us some paella, so we can talk in here. "

Nick put the bottle of wine he was carrying on the coffee table and sat down obediently. "I thought I might not be coming here again, " he said slowly. "I had arranged to go back to the States this afternoon. "

"Running away is not going to solve anything. " Ceecliff sat down on the edge of the sofa beside him. She reached forward and took his hands in hers. "That's why I called you. Joey told me everything this evening. The whole story. "

"Including what I did to her last night?"

"Including everything. " She gave a small wistful smile. "Nicholas, amid all your problems, your anguish and your fear for Jo and for yourself, has it ever crossed your mind to acknowledge the fact that your spirit, the kernel of life inside you that is the essential you, has loved one woman for eight hundred years? That is some love story, Nicholas, and the way Jo tells it, it sounds as if there are three of you who have been given a second chance to redeem the mistakes you made all those years ago. A chance to fulfill your love, Nicholas, not repeat the terrible mistakes you made before. A chance for your brother, if he was this dreadful man, William, to prove he isn't a coward any longer, and for Richard—" She shrugged. "I don't know what Richard did, except perhaps grow old. But maybe there is to be another chance somewhere for him as well. "

"You don't really believe all this?"

"Wait, I haven't finished. " Ceecliff tapped him on the knee reprovingly. "I know nothing about psychology, or this frightening hypnosis business, but it does cross my mind that your brother has been practicing some kind of mental isometrics on you. He is using your resistance and your fear to fight yourself, within yourself. " She paused, searching his face gravely for a reaction. "Have you thought of admitting to yourself that you were once another man? That that man made some terrible errors, for which his soul has lived in torment, and that a kind, not a vengeful, deity has given him the chance, through you, to make amends?"

Nick let out a deep breath. "No, I hadn't thought about it that way. "

Ceecliff laughed. "You can say I'm gaga if you like, but I haven't lived nearly eighty years without learning something. And one of the things I've learned is that anything is possible, Nick. Why do you think you met Jo? It cannot have been coincidence. "

"Sam introduced us. "

"Perhaps that act was his first step on his own road to salvation. "

"Perhaps. " Nick looked skeptical. "Look, Ceecliff, I'm sorry, I'd love to believe this, I really would—but I can't. " He stood up and began pacing up and down the carpet.

"But you do believe in your brother's power over you?" Ceecliff looked up at him, not moving from the sofa.

He stopped. "I've had proof of that. "

"And you have had proof that your love for Joey is stronger than his evil intent. You nearly hurt her, Nicholas. You had it in your power to hurt her, even to kill her last night, but you didn't actually do it. " She reached up toward him. "You were ungentle and ungentlemanly. " She gave him a smile. "But you did not actually harm her, did you?"

Nick shook his head slowly.

"You could have forced her to tell you her story to the end last night, Nick. You could have forced her to experience once more the moment of death. But you didn't do it. You could have killed her, Nick. And if you were going to, if that was what you really wanted, you would have done it then. But you didn't!" She pulled herself up off the sofa and went to her shopping bags, which still lay on the chair near the door. "I bought