Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine

Author:Barbara Erskine [Erskine, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical Romance, Free, Time Travel, Fantasy
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Published: 2010-10-01T05:00:00+00:00

23

The desk in Bet’s office was covered with slides. She looked up as Jo came in and grinned maliciously as she switched off the viewing box. “God! You look as if you’ve had a hard night. Coffee or medicinal brandy?”

“Coffee, please.” Jo flung herself down in the ocher armchair by the window, letting her bag fall to the floor.

There was a pot perking permanently in the corner of the office, slotted between the bookshelves and piles of magazines. Bet reached for a cup from the tray, filled it with black, unsweetened coffee, and handed it to Jo. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Nick and I had a fight last night.”

“So what’s new?”

Jo raised the cup to her mouth with a shaking hand. “He’s behaving so oddly, Bet. Not like himself at all.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised. You heard about the screw-up Jim Greerson made of the new Desco campaign? He commissioned some unknown to do the artwork, then I gather Nick wasn’t interested enough even to look at it, so Jim went ahead and approved it to show to Mike Desmond. Mike had fifty fits it was so lousy and ran screaming off to Franklyn-Greerson’s nearest competitor and had hysterics in their lap.” Bet scrutinized Jo’s face with cool amber eyes. “But you knew all that.”

Jo smiled wearily. “I knew the gist of it. Can I have some brandy in this coffee?”

Bet walked to her desk, opened the right-hand bottom drawer, and took out a full bottle of Courvoisier. “He didn’t knock you around did he, Jo?” Her eyes were resting on the fading bruise on Jo’s wrist.

Jo shrugged. “Only verbally last night.”

“You mean he has before?” Bet was vastly intrigued.

Jo smiled. “Not really, I suppose. Sorry to disappoint you, Bet. But he did frighten me. It was as if he’d changed personality completely. It can’t have just been business worries. Hell, I was around when he and Jim first went into partnership. They weathered all sorts of crises then and Nick just took them as a challenge. He wouldn’t let one thing like this change his whole personality!” She gave a little shiver. “He’s acting like someone possessed.”

Bet sat down on the chair behind her desk. She crossed her elegantly trousered legs.

“Do you still love him?”

Jo sipped her coffee. “God knows!”

“Then I suggest you leave the relationship to God for the time being.” Bet scrutinized the soft red leather of her ankle-length boots. “What about thinking about work instead? I haven’t seen your byline on the newsstands for weeks. You only appear to feature as the subject of other people’s articles these days.”

“Bet, I said I was sorry about that—”

“Forget it.” Bet put her elbows on the desk. “I want this story for W I A, Jo. The whole story, as it happens. Matilda’s life story. Not the romantic crap Pete Leveson was spooning out. I want the real version. The blood-and-guts reality. I want exclusive rights from now on. And I’ll pay. I want to serialize more or less as it happens.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.