Barbara Erskine 3-Book Collection: Lady of Hay, Time’s Legacy, Sands of Time. Barbara Erskine

towards the kitchen.

      With a sigh Nick walked over to the coffee table and picked up the top book on the pile which was there. It was a biography of King John, borrowed from the London Library. Surprised, he flipped it open at the place at the back, marked by an envelope. There, in the voluminous index, underlined in red pencil, was the name Briouse, Matilda of.

      Putting the book down, he glanced curiously at the others. A two-volume history of Wales, the Everyman edition of Gerald of Wales’s Itinerary and Poole’s volume of The Oxford History of England.

      ‘Phew!’ Nick let out a quiet whistle. Gently he put the books back in place and moved away from the table. ‘So, you’re not taking it seriously, brother mine,’ he whispered thoughtfully. ‘Like hell you’re not!’

      It was Tuesday morning before Carl Bennet could see Jo. Sarah Simmons was waiting, as before, at the head of the stairs, her restrained manner barely hiding her excitement as she led Jo through into Bennet’s consulting room. He was waiting for her by the open window, his glasses in his hand.

      ‘Joanna! I am so glad you came back.’ He eyed her as she walked towards him, noting the paleness of her face beneath her tan. Her smile, however, was cheerful as she shook hands with him.

      ‘I explained what happened on the phone,’ she said. ‘I had to come and find out why. If it had anything to do with the past, that is.’

      He nodded. ‘Your throat was bruised, you said.’ Putting on his glasses he tipped her chin gently sideways and peered at her neck. ‘No one else saw this phenomenon?’

      ‘No. It was gone by yesterday morning.’

      ‘And there has been no recurrence of pain or any of the other symptoms?’

      ‘None.’ She threw her canvas bag down on the chesterfield. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if I imagined the whole thing.’

      He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘We can’t be sure that it had anything at all to do with your regression, Joanna. It is, to be honest, so unlikely as to be almost impossible. It presupposes a degree of self-hypnosis on your part that I find hard to credit and even if that were possible, we had no intimations that anyone tried to strangle you in your previous existence. However –’ he drew his breath in with a hiss ‘– what I suggest is that we try another regression, but very differently this time. I propose to regress you to an earlier period. Your Matilda was scarcely more than a child when we met her last. Let us try and find her again when she is even younger, and when, hopefully,’ he grinned disarmingly, ‘the personality is less strong and more malleable. I intend to keep a tight control of the session this time, and before we start, whilst we drink our first cup of coffee – please, Sarah –’ he laughed in suppressed excitement, ‘I suggest that you and I draw up a list of questions which I can ask her. Knowing who she is and the period to which she belongs makes everything so much easier.’

      He picked up a volume from his desk and held it out. ‘See.’ He was as pleased as a child. ‘I have brought a history book. Last night I read up the chapter on the reign of King Henry II and there are pictures, so I even know roughly about her clothes.’

      Jo laughed. ‘You’ve done more research than me, then. Once I knew she was real, and what happened to her –’ She shivered. ‘I suppose I was more interested with the technicalities of regression originally and I never considered that it would really happen to me. Or how I would feel if it did. But now that it has, it’s so strange. It’s an invasion of my privacy, and I’m conscious all the time that there is someone else there in my head. Or was. I’m not sure I like the feeling.’

      ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. People react in different ways. Interest, fear, resentment, complete disbelief, mild amusement. By far the most common reaction is to refuse to have anything more to do with regression.’

      ‘For fear of becoming involved,’ Jo nodded almost absently. ‘But I am involved. Not only professionally, but, somehow, inside myself. Because I’ve shared such intimate emotions with her. Fear … pain … horror … love.’ She shook her head deprecatingly. ‘Am I being very gullible?’

      ‘No,’ Bennet smiled. ‘You are sensitive. You empathise with the personality.’

      ‘To the extent where I develop the symptoms I’m describing.’ Jo bit her lip. ‘But then while it’s happening I am Matilda, aren’t I?’ She paused again. ‘I don’t understand about my throat, but after Friday’s regression …’ She stopped in mid-sentence. If she told Bennet about Sam’s warning, he might refuse to risk hypnotising her again, and she did want very much to go back to Matilda’s life. She wanted to know what happened.

      ‘You’ve had other symptoms?’ Bennet persisted quietly.

      She looked away. ‘My fingers were very bruised. I hurt them on the stones of the castle wall, watching William kill those men …’ Her voice died away. ‘But they only felt bruised. There was nothing to see.’

      He nodded. ‘Anything else?’ She could feel his eyes on her face as she took her coffee from Sarah and sipped it. Did the ability to hypnotise her mean he could read her thoughts as well? She bit her lip, deliberately trying to focus her attention elsewhere. ‘Only stray shivers and echoes. Nothing to worry about.’ She grinned at him sheepishly. ‘Nothing to put me off, I assure you. I would like to go back. Amongst other things I want to find out how she met Richard de Clare. Is it possible to be that specific in your questions?’ Had he guessed, she wondered, just how much, secretly, she longed to see Richard again?

      Bennet shrugged. ‘We’ll see. Why don’t we start and find out?’

      He watched as she took out her tape recorder and set it on the ground beside her as she had done before, the microphone in her lap. She switched on the recorder then at last she lay back on the long leather sofa and closed her eyes. Every muscle was tense.

      She was hiding something from him. He knew that much. And more than that understandable desire to see Richard again. But what? He thought once again about the phone call he had had from Samuel Franklyn and he frowned. The call had come on Monday morning before Sarah had arrived and Sarah knew nothing about it. He had not allowed Franklyn to say much, but there had been enough to know that there was some kind of problem.

      He looked at his secretary, who had seated herself quietly once more in her corner, then he turned back to Jo. He licked his lips in concentration and taking a deep breath he began to talk.

      Jo listened intently. He was talking about the sun again. Today it was shining and the sky was clear and uncomplicated after the weekend of storms. But there was no light behind her eyelids now. Nothing.

      Her eyes flew open in a panic. ‘Nothing is happening,’ she said. ‘It isn’t going to work again. You’re not going to be able to do it!’

      She pushed herself up against the slippery leather back of the sofa. The palms of her hands were damp.

      Bennet smiled calmly. ‘You’re trying too hard, Jo. You mustn’t try at all, my dear. Come, why not sit over here by the window?’ He pulled a chair forward from the wall and twisted it so that it had its back to the light. ‘Fine, now, we’ll do some little experiments on you to see how quick your eyes are. There’s no hurry. We have plenty of time. We might even decide to leave the regression until another day.’ He smiled as he felt under his desk for a switch which turned on a spotlight in the corner of the room. Automatically Jo’s eyes went towards it, but he had seen already that her knuckles on the arm of the chair were less white.

      ‘Is she as deeply under as before?’ Sarah’s cautious question some ten minutes later broke into a long silence.

      Bennet nodded. ‘She was afraid this time. She was subconsciously fighting me, every inch of the way. I wish I knew why.’ He looked at the list of questions in his hand, then he put it down on his desk. ‘Perhaps we’ll discover eventually. But now it just remains to find out if we can re-establish contact with the same personality at all! So often one can’t, the second time around.’ He