Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (english love story books .TXT) 📗

over her finger and let herself out of the apartment. It was eight twenty-seven.

Nick returned at eight forty-five, paying off the cab and running up the stairs to the apartment two at a time. He knew she must be awake as soon as he opened the door. He could smell coffee, and the lamp on her desk was switched on.

"Jo?" With a little stab of unease he slammed the front door and put his pile of folders down on a chair. "Where are you?"

He knew instinctively that the apartment was empty, but even so he searched it, throwing open the bedroom door and staring at the bed, where the blankets on the floor showed the speed with which she had gotten up. Her dress was lying on the bathroom floor, the shower in the bath still dripping where she had failed to turn it off properly.

He leaned over and tightened the tap, then he turned back to the living room. The notebooks on her desk were haywire as if she had been searching for something. He pulled one toward him, running his eyes down the page of close writing. One line caught his eye.

Matilda and her son were sent to a dungeon at Windsor. Jo had crossed out Windsor so hard that her pen had torn through the paper. Over it she had written Corfe.

He went cold. He ran to the French doors, tore at the handle, and flung the door open so he could step out onto the balcony. The rain was pouring down now, splashing up from the flowerpots, drenching the passion flower till it hung in heavy garlands away from the wall. Leaning over the balustrade, Nick squinted down into the street to look for his car. He had noticed it earlier as he ran for a taxi and debated swiftly whether to go back for his keys. Then a taxi had cruised past and slowed as he flagged it down, and he had forgotten the car. God, how he wished now he had taken it! The parking space was empty.

His hands shook as he dialed Bennet's home number. "I know I was a fool to leave her, but she was asleep and I had to fetch these damn contracts. She's taken my car. "

There was a brief silence. "She will be in no condition to drive. Do you know where she might have gone?"

"Corfe. " Nick's fingers drummed on the phone. "That's down in Dorset on the coast somewhere, I think. I've never been there. But it must be three or four hours' drive at least. "

"I'll bring my car and come and collect you, " Bennet said briefly. "How much start has she got?"

"It can't be more than half an hour. "

"Another half hour before I pick you up. That makes her an hour ahead of us. Be ready!" Bennet slammed down the phone.

In her hotel room just outside Frome Ann Clements stared out at the rain and groaned. She hated driving in bad weather. It took all the joy out of it. She looked at the boxes of pamphlets on the bed. She had been a fool to unload them from the van the night before. She had been so afraid they might be stolen from the parking lot, but now she was going to have to carry them back through the rain. She had collected them the day before from the printer, now she had to get them to London. She made a face. London in wet weather was worse, if possible, than London in the sun, and she didn't even know anyone to go to the theater with. She stopped in her tracks. Jo.

The phone was answered after just one ring. She grinned, sitting down on the bed as she inserted her diary, with Jo's number, back into its place in the huge straw tote bag. "Well, hi, Nick. How are you both?"

His reaction was less than reassuring. "Ann. It's not good. Jo's in a bad way. "

"I'm sorry. " Ann could hear the depression in his voice as she slumped back onto the bed. "I was calling to say I'd be in London this afternoon. I wondered if I could come over and see you both. I'll still come if I can help. I came down to Frome last night and now I'm—"

"Did you say Frome?" Nick's voice cut through hers. "Frome in Somerset?"

"Well, I'm just outside the town actually—"

"Ann. Please, you've got to help. Jo is on her way to Corfe. You know what that means. She mustn't be there on her own, Ann. I'm leaving now to follow her but she's got my car and it's fast. Can you get there? Please?"

"Why, sure. " Ann stood up anxiously. "But where is Corfe?"

"It's in Dorset. Nearly on the coast. It can't be more than an hour from where you are. Have you got a good map?"

"Yes, but the old van doesn't go very fast. "

"Ann, I don't care how fast it goes. You can be there before us. Please. "

Ann took a deep breath. "Okay, Nick, I'm on my way. "

She slammed down the phone and turned to look at the boxes. Damn the things! They would take at least ten minutes to load.

Jo peered through the windshield, fighting the heaviness in her eyelids as the long wipers drew great arcs on the rainswept glass. Back and forth. Back and forth. The road stretched out endlessly, the verges beyond the windows blurred gold and mauve with wet ragwort and rosebay, the visibility ahead cut to nothing by the heavy spray thrown up by trucks as they thundered westward.

Once she pulled in at a service station and filled the car with gas. In the bright garish cafe next door she ordered a cup of black coffee and sat at the plastic-covered table, staring at a jam jar full of ox-eye daisies. She ached with fatigue. The long drive through the heavy Saturday morning traffic, the strange muzzy feeling in