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

dead weight that pinned her to the bed. In the end she gave up and lay still, staring toward the window where the heavy curtains cut out the first signs of a beautiful dawn.

Nick woke just before seven. For a long time he lay unmoving, feeling the woman's body limp beneath his, then slowly he eased himself off her and sat up. He grabbed his trousers and staggered to the window, throwing back the curtains with a groan. It was full daylight. He looked at his watch in surprise, and then back at the bed as the stark daylight fell across Jo. She was lying naked on the bedcover, her hair spread across the pillow, her legs apart. There were vivid bruises on her wrists and breasts, and he could see bloodstains on the bedspread. There was a long jagged cut encrusted with dried blood on her forearm, more blood on the inside of her thighs—

He felt suddenly violently sick. She had not stirred. She did not even seem to be breathing. He threw himself toward the bed. "Jo? Jo! For God's sake, are you all right?"

For a moment she did not move, then, slowly and painfully, she opened her eyes, dazzled by the light, and stared around the room. It was a few moments before she began to remember. He saw the fear flicker behind her eyes as she looked up at him and a wave of nausea shook him again. She still had not moved but he saw her lick her lips experimentally, trying to speak. He reached for her bathrobe, thrown across a chair, and laid it gently over her.

"I'll make some tea, " he said softly.

In the bathroom he tugged at the light pull and stared at himself in the cold, uncompromising electric light. His face looked the same as usual. Tired perhaps, and a little gray, but nothing strange. There was a scratch across his shoulder, otherwise nothing to show for Jo's fight for her life.

He walked slowly to the kitchen and made the tea, comforting himself with the familiar sounds as he filled the kettle and fished in the jar for two teabags. Then he walked through to the living room. It was cold; the French doors had been open all night. The grass in the square was still silvered with dew. He pulled the doors closed, then he turned and picked up his shirt. There were coffee stains on the sleeve. And blood. Pulling it on, he went back to the kitchen. He was numb.

Slowly he carried the two mugs back to the bedroom. Jo had not moved. Sitting on the bed beside her, he proffered one of the mugs tentatively.

"Jo—"

She turned her head away and closed her eyes. "Jo, please. Let me explain. "

"There is nothing to explain. " She did not look at him. "Please, just go. "

He stood up. "All right. " He leaned forward as if to touch her shoulder, but he changed his mind. "I'll come back this evening, Jo. I'll make it up to you somehow, " he whispered.

Leaving the two cups of tea untouched beside the bed, he walked slowly to the door. After unbolting it, he let himself out onto the quiet landing.

As he tiptoed down the stairs toward the street he heard the distant sickly wailing of a baby.

For a long time after he had gone Jo did not move. She lay rigid, listening to Will crying. Her fists clenched, her eyes dry, she stared at the wall, feeling the ache of her body where Nick had bruised her. Suddenly she sat up. She threw herself out of bed and ran to the bathroom, turning both bath taps on full, then she went to find her address book. She fumbled in her canvas bag in her haste, then pulled the book out and began flipping through the pages with a shaking hand, trying not to notice the mess of bloodstains that had soaked into the pale carpet in the middle of the room.

She stopped at Leigh Delamere service station on the M4, pulling into the crowded parking lot and resting her head for a moment on the rim of the wheel. She had thrown in her bags, typewriter, and camera barely fifteen minutes after calling Janet Pugh.

She pulled the rearview mirror toward her and studied her face. Her lips were still swollen and her eyes were puffy from crying so much in the night. She had dabbed makeup over her white skin and used lipstick and eyeshadow. It made her feel better. The long sleeves and high neck of her Victorian blouse covered the worst of her bruises.

She pulled herself painfully out of the car and swung her bag over her shoulder. It was only another twenty miles, if that, to the Severn Bridge. Then she would be in Wales.

Tim stood for a long time outside the house in Church Road, staring up at the gray slate roof with its dentillation of wrought-iron decoration. The house was identical to its neighbors, save for the front door, which was cream with a brightly polished knocker. The windows were hung with fresh, plain net curtains, like old-fashioned muslin, he thought, as at last he raised his hand to the knocker.

Sylvia Walton opened the door at his second knock. She had plaited her hair and wound it around her head in a silvery braid. It made her look like an Austrian peasant. His fingers itched for his camera, but he had not brought it with him. He grinned at her. "It was very good of you and Bill to let me come back and talk to you. "

Sylvia smiled as she led him up the long flight of stairs. "He was pleased to hear from you again. Miss Clifford isn't with you this time?"

Tim shook his head. He followed her into the room they had been in before, but this time the lines of chairs were missing. Instead a small wheeled table that had been