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

wait until I get back? It's only a week, then I'll fly direct to London and have a chat with her about it. Stall her till then, okay? Don't let her do it. "

"I'll try to stop her. " Nick grimaced to himself. "But you know Jo. Once she gets the bit between her teeth... "

"Nick, it's important. " Sam's voice was very serious. "I may be wrong, but I suspect that there is a whole volcano simmering away in her unconscious. I discussed it with Michael Cohen dozens of times—he always wanted to get her back, you know, but I persuaded him in the end that it was too dangerous. The fact remains that her heart and breathing stopped—stopped, Nick. If that happened again and someone didn't know how to handle it—well, I don't have to spell it out, do I? It must not happen again. And just warning her is no good. If you were to tell her about it, cold, after posthypnotic suggestion that she forget the episode, she either won't believe you—that's the most likely—or, and this is the risk, she may suffer some kind of trauma or relapse or find she can't cope with the memory. You must make her wait, Nick, till I get there. "

"Okay, Sam. Thanks for the advice. I'll do my best. The trouble is, she's not talking to me. "

Sam laughed. "I'm not surprised when you're in another woman's bed. "

Nick put down the receiver.

"So. Why do you have to discuss Jo Clifford with your brother for half an hour in the middle of the night?"

He turned guiltily to see Judy, wearing a tightly belted bathrobe, standing in the doorway.

"Judy—"

"Yes. Judy! Judy's bed. Judy's apartment. Judy's fucking phone!"

"Honey. " Nick went to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "It's nothing to do with you—with us. It's just ... well. " He groped for words. "Sam's a doctor. "

"Sam's a psychiatrist. " She drew in her breath sharply. "You mean there is something wrong with Jo?"

Nick grinned as casually as he could. "Not like that. Not so's you'd notice, anyway. Look, Judy. Sam is going to come and have a chat with her, that's all. Hell, he's known her for about fifteen years—Sam introduced her to me in the first place. She likes Sam and she trusts him. I had to talk to him tonight because he's going to Switzerland tomorrow. There is no more to it than that. He's going to help her with an article she's working on. "

She looked doubtful. "What has this got to do with you, then?"

"Nothing. Except he's my brother and I'd like to think she is still a friend. "

Something in his expression made her bite back the sarcastic retort that hovered in the air. She gave a small, lost smile.

Nick resisted the impulse to take her in his arms.

The next morning he drove over to Jo's apartment. Swinging her keys, he made for the pillared porch that supported her balcony. He glanced up to see the window open wide beneath its curtain of honeysuckle as he let himself in.

"Jo?" As the apartment door swung open he stuck his head around it and looked in. "Jo, are you there?"

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, the typewriter on the low coffee table in front of her, dressed in jeans and a floppy turquoise sweater, her long dark hair caught back with a silk scarf. She did not appear to hear him.

He studied her face for a moment, the slim arched brows, the dark lashes that hid her eyes as she looked down at the page before her, the high planes of the cheekbones, and the delicately shaped mouth set off by the severe lines of the scarf—the face of a beautiful woman who would grow more beautiful as she grew older—and he found he was comparing it with Judy's girlish prettiness. He pushed the door shut behind him with a click.

"I'll have that key back before you go, " she said without looking up.

He slipped it into his breast pocket with a grin. "You'll have to take it off me. Did you know your phone was out of order?"

"It's switched off. I'm working. "

He picked up the top book on the pile by her typewriter and glanced at the title: The Facts Behind Reincarnation. He frowned.

"Jo, I want to talk to you about your article. "

"Good. Discussing topics is always helpful. "

"You know my views about this hypnotism business. "

"And you know mine. "

"Jo, will you promise me not to let yourself be hypnotized?"

She leaned forward. "I'll promise you nothing, Nick. Nothing at all. "

"Christ, Jo! Don't you know how dangerous hypnosis can be? You hear awful stories of people permanently damaged by playing with something they don't understand. "

"I'm not playing, Nick, " she replied icily. "I'm working. Working, not playing, on a series of articles. If I were a war correspondent I'd go to war. If I find my field of research is hypnotism I get hypnotized. If necessary. " Furious, she got up and walked up and down the room a couple of times. "But if it worries you so much, perhaps you'd be consoled if I tell you that I can't be hypnotized. Some people can't. They tried it on me once at the university. "

Nick sat up abruptly, his eyes on her face. "Sam told me about that time, " he said with caution.

"So why the hell do you keep on then?" She turned on him. "Call up your brother and ask him all about it. Samuel Franklyn, M. D., D. P. M., et cetera! He will spell it out for you. "

"Jo, Sam will be in London next week. Just hold on till then. Promise me. Once he's seen you—"

"Seen me?" she echoed. "For God's sake, Nick. What's the matter with you? I need to see your brother about as much as I need you at the moment, and that is not a lot!"

"Jo, it's