Lacybourne Manor

  “Yes, that’s one thing that is obvious,” Scarlett muttered under her breath but loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Claire ignored her which Sibyl thought showed great diplomacy and Sibyl’s already high estimation of Colin’s sister climbed another notch.

  “So someone has to tell your side of things,” Claire went on.

  “His side of things?” Sibyl parroted, beginning to feel like she sounded like a fool.

  “Yes, Sibyl. Colin doesn’t trust very easily, especially women, which isn’t surprising, since every woman he’s ever met was out for something,” Claire explained.

  Colin made an exasperated noise or an annoyed noise or a furious noise. Sibyl wasn’t certain, she’d never heard him make it before. Whatever it was, it showed he was losing what was left of his control.

  “Perhaps you should carry Claire out of the room,” Scarlett helpfully suggested to Colin.

  “Scarlett, will you shut… up!” Sibyl snapped then she swung around to face Colin and asked, “Out for what?”

  Scarlett laughed and Sibyl found herself whirling around again. “Sibyl, girl, I really need to introduce you to Manolo Blahnik. I’m pretty certain most of the women Colin’s dated are intimately acquainted with him and wanted to remain so, indefinitely.”

  At Scarlett’s words, Claire actually clapped.

  “That’s exactly what I mean!” Then she nodded emphatically, smiling beatifically at Scarlett as if she’d met her soulmate.

  Sibyl was pretty certain they were speaking in code and stared at them, trying to decipher it. Then she gave up, it was all too much, this, the whole night. She no longer had the energy.

  “How could Colin help them with shoes?” Sibyl queried.

  At this, for some unhinged reason, Colin threw his head back and roared with laughter and all three feminine pairs of eyes swivelled to him. As he got himself under control, his body still shaking with mirth, his arm shot out, curled around Sibyl’s waist and he tugged her toward him. She could feel, against her own body, the laughter still rumbling through him even as he kissed her soundly on the lips.

  When he lifted his head, his eyes were smiling (hers were dazed, and not just from the kiss). She had the impression that something profound just happened, she just didn’t know what.

  “I will amend my statement, your sister is definitely annoying, you’re just adorable,” he told her.

  “Oh dear goddess, don’t let Mags hear you call her adorable. There’ll be hell to pay,” Scarlett warned.

  Sibyl was beginning to feel a prick of irritation.

  The last two days, she was on pins and needles wondering what was happening with Colin. Then, after a rather frightening dinner, she discovered she was likely the reincarnation of a woman who was murdered centuries before and Sibyl’s lover was the doppelganger of that woman’s dead husband. Two people she cared about lied to her about this bizarre fact for weeks. And now, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, she and Colin were something else. Something other than what they had been. Something that made that thing that curled up and died inside her weeks ago start to feel some life again.

  And they were talking about shoes.

  “I think I’m missing something here,” Sibyl told the room at large.

  “Look around you, Billie. Look really closely, what do you see?” Scarlett prompted, her tone was no longer wry but gentle.

  Sibyl looked around.

  Colin had a very nice bedroom. It was rather large and had richly painted with matte, slate grey walls and accents of ivory and midnight blue. There were fantastic white cornices and intricate ceiling roses. There were deep-seated, diamond-paned windows with heavy drapes. The bed was an enormous four-poster covered with a fluffy comforter in midnight blue and she already knew the ivory sheets were soft, lush and divine. There was a marble-edged fireplace with an elaborate mantelpiece that had two comfortable chairs at angles in front of it (at least, when Scarlett wasn’t sitting in one of them). Several gleaming chest of drawers and gigantic wardrobes were against the walls. Off to one side was a door to a pristine bathroom that used to be a dressing room which contained a fabulous round tub big enough for two. Off the back corner of the bedroom was a small room, sunken by several steps, that used to be a consecrated sanctuary, complete with stained glass windows, but was stripped of its blessing centuries ago and was now a rather glorious reading room, complete with a comfortable-looking chaise lounge covered in grey velvet.

  Sibyl felt somewhat uncomfortable as she looked around the room, standing in it with a man who actually owned and lived in a National Trust property.

  Notions were coming to her fast and sharp.

  He drove an expensive Mercedes.

  He wore tailored suits to work, suits that, after years of living with Scarlett, Sibyl knew probably cost a month of her salary (if not more).

  He hired someone to wait on the table at a dinner party at his house.

  He could afford, in a day, seemingly without effort, to acquire a suitcase full of fifty thousand pounds worth of twenty pound notes.

  And refurnish a room in a Community Centre days after he’d bought a new alarm system for her house.

  The light finally dawned and she looked at Scarlett mainly because she was avoiding looking at Colin.

  Then she breathed out the word, “Oh.”

  She could imagine every woman he met took one look at him, his clothes, his house, his car and saw nothing but his bank account. The fact that he was magnificently handsome, protective, intelligent and could be gentle and even tender was just a bonus. A very nice bonus, but a bonus all the same.

  She couldn’t leave it at that, she had to know so she lifted her gaze to Colin. “You were testing me, weren’t you?”

  She was referring to the fifty thousand pounds.

  He knew what she was referring to and nodded.

  Her heart sank.

  “I failed, didn’t I?” she whispered but she knew. She’d not only failed, she’d done it spectacularly.

  “Sibyl.” His voice was quiet and there was something else there, something that might have been easier to decipher if they didn’t have an avidly watching audience, but, before he could say more, another knock came at the open door and Mrs. Byrne was standing in it.

  “Am I interrupting?” Marian asked.

  “No,” Scarlett offered as an answer.

  “For God’s sake,” Colin muttered under his breath.

  “Sibyl, dear, I just wanted to be certain you weren’t angry with me,” Mrs. Byrne said, looking anxious and coming into the room.

  “Oh, Mrs. Byrne, I was just in shock,” Sibyl answered, pulled from Colin’s arms, walked to the woman and gave her a fierce hug. “I’m not angry with you,” she reassured her.

  “Perhaps we should have the cheese and coffee served in the bedroom?” Colin drawled.

  “Great idea,” Scarlett agreed. “Do you have a bell pull up here so we can call the young, strapping Peter?”

  Colin cut an acid look to Scarlett and Sibyl moved to stand between them in case he was driven to physical violence.

  “I need you to know my part in all of this,” Mrs. Byrne told Sibyl, thankfully drawing her attention away from her sister.

  “I want to hear this!” Claire cried and then threw herself on the bed, stretching out on her side, her head in her hand and she settled in excitedly.

  Colin watched as Mrs. Byrne sat primly on the edge of the bed and then his eyes shifted to the ceiling as if praying for deliverance. Realising there was none, he walked toward the chair next to Scarlett, swiftly pivoted it around, leaned forward and hooked Sibyl (again) about the waist and settled into the chair. He pulled a surprised Sibyl onto his lap and when she squirmed he muttered impatiently, “Sit still.”

  Sibyl watched as Scarlett took this all in, raised her eyebrows and grinned.

  She ignored her sister and did as she was told. Colin was giving the impression of a caged lion who would undoubtedly attack given his fi
rst opportunity and she was the first in line of assault.

  It was then Mrs. Byrne started talking.

  Of witches.

  And magic.

  And horses named Mallory.

  And ancient spells linking lovers for eternity and present day potions that brought old souls back to life in new bodies.

  She went on and on about Granny Esmeralda Crane (whose old cottage Sibyl now inhabited), the results of the grisly murder she happened upon, Esmeralda’s Book of Shadows, Royce and Beatrice and how she, Marian Byrne, was here, after a long line of witches who’d waited in vain to bring together the new lovers and end a nearly five hundred year old curse of doomed, true love.

  What she did not talk of was dark souls, this, unknown to Sibyl, Colin had demanded she keep to herself.

  “So, you see, Sibyl, it was my destiny to bring you to Colin. As you’ve learned, he’s a bit, er… difficult, so I was trying to be clever. I was not so clever as I thought and it made things hard on you and for that, I apologise,” Marian finished with her hands held up in front of her in supplication.

  Sibyl stared at her in astonishment. There was nothing else to do but stare… in… complete… astonishment.

  Finally, she whispered, grasping onto the thing that least affected her sanity and she felt Colin’s arm tighten around her waist when she did so. “Royce’s horse was named Mallory?”

  “Indeed, it was, my dear.” For some reason Marian was smiling at her and her next statement would explain why. “You see, in so many ways, you and Colin were meant for each other, one could even say born for each other. Do you take my meaning?”

  Sibyl felt her sister’s eyes turn to her just as she experienced something raw and unexplainable rip at her heart.

  And she immediately felt panic.

  Sheer, unadulterated panic.

  Because she might be getting what she’d always wanted, what she always knew was waiting for her and instead of being joyful, it scared the living daylights out of her.

  Or she might not get it at all and that frightened her more.

  “I need to go home,” she whispered urgently.

  She had to think. She had to get away and think without an audience, without Colin’s hard thighs under her and his warm arms circling her. She tried to stand but Colin’s hands prevented her.

  “Let me go, Colin,” she said softly, turning beseeching eyes to him. “I need to go home,” she repeated and she hoped he understood, prayed for it.

  He didn’t. Instead, his eyes slid sideways, toward her sister, communicating to her sibling silently.

  Sibyl heard as Scarlett said, “Story time over, folks, time for us to leave,” and she was shocked at her sister’s ready defection but too overwrought to do a thing about it.

  Sibyl tried to stand again as she heard the others quietly exit with nary a word to the couple. Colin kept her where she was, his hands hard at her waist.

  “Please let me go,” she whispered as she heard the door close softly behind the other women.

  “You promised me,” he told her, his eyes moving back to her after watching the door close behind their family and friend.

  “Promised?”

  She was near tears, holding on to her careening thoughts with waning energy. She was frightened to the core of her being by what she’d seen and heard that night.

  And mostly what it meant.

  “To spend the night with me, you promised,” he reminded her, his eyes were searching her face but his own was set and implacable.

  “That was before. You must understand.” Her voice was pleading.

  “No matter what happened, you promised me that.”

  “I wasn’t in my right mind!” she cried. “I thought, just like when we were in the Summer House, that tonight I’d turned you into Royce with my magical powers.”

  Then she stopped speaking for he looked at her like a third eyeball had suddenly popped out of her forehead.

  Then he asked incredulously, “Your what?”

  She immediately felt a fool (or more of a fool than she already was). She should never have told him that. She closed her eyes slowly and wished she could grab the words and stuff them back in her mouth.

  She was tired, no, exhausted, bone weary and, not to mention, frightened out of her mind. She wasn’t thinking clearly, didn’t have her guard up.

  This was too much, he was too much.

  Apparently, he was her dream man, the one she’d been destined to find; the one who she was fated to be with for five hundred years. He’d tested her fortitude, resolve and moral perspicacity and she’d fallen at the first hurdle by taking his money (a great deal of his money) the third time she’d ever seen him. And for what? A minibus for oldies. If he knew, he’d think she lost her mind, if she ever had one in the first place. He’d likely be disgusted, it was almost better to let him think she’d used it on herself. Considering his history with women, that, at least, was something he’d understand.

  “Please let me up,” she pushed against his hands, not able to take a moment more.

  “Will you stop fighting me and talk to me, for Christ’s sake?” he exploded. Obviously, he’d reached the end of his tether and her head snapped around to look at him.

  “Well I didn’t know!” she cried.

  “Know what?”

  “That you’d been given a magical potion! I thought, well, I’d grown up with Mags always telling me that there was magic in the air, in the trees, in the rivers, yadda, yadda, yadda and I was dreaming of Royce and Beatrice and I didn’t know. I didn’t know who they were. I thought it was me! I thought I’d brought Royce out in you.”

  Colin changed the subject and his voice was lethal when he stated, “You knew it was him and you let him kiss you.”

  It was her turn to look to the ceiling and make quick, desperate promises to the goddess for rescue. Then, when no otherworldly aid arrived, she tugged once more at his hands, using her legs as leverage, and she surged up but, unfortunately, he followed her.

  “Why did you let him kiss you?” Colin pressed.

  She was not going to tell him about her dream lover, that she thought she was creating Royce because she needed to believe. She had no idea what this all meant, to her, to them, and she didn’t trust him enough with that knowledge. It was too close to her heart, she barely knew him, until tonight she didn’t know what he did for a living or that he had a brother. He could have twelve more siblings for all she knew. She knew his body intimately but Colin she barely knew at all. Selling her sexual favours for minibuses and living her life thinking she was destined for another was pure lunacy. He wouldn’t want anything to do with her. He was night and she was day. His parents were posh and hers were weird. His sister was sweet and caring and hers was… well… not (exactly).

  They didn’t suit.

  She had to guard her heart, or, at the very least, she had to know what this all meant to him.

  “What am I to you?” she asked in response to his question.

  “Don’t change the subject, Sibyl,” he warned, his voice dangerously smooth.

  “You want an answer then you answer my question. I deserve that and you know it. What am I to you now?”

  “Why did you take the fifty thousand pounds?”

  “Goddess!” she exploded, throwing out her arms. “Can’t you answer a single question?”

  He glared at her.

  She glared back.

  Then she gave up.

  “I’m going home,” she declared and turned to leave, tired, sick at heart and wanting nothing but a nice mug of hot cocoa and her mother’s shoulder to cry on. She didn’t even care how pathetic that seemed for a thirty-two year old woman. Luckily, fortune smiled on her (belatedly) and made it so that her mother wasn’t over a thousand miles away but was right downstairs.

  She had forgotten, briefly and absentmindedly, how ruthless Colin could be when he wanted something.

  And three steps away from the door, she was swung up in his arms. S
he emitted a stunned cry as he swiftly strode back across the room and then she was thrown on the bed. Before she could get her arms and legs under control and scramble off the other side, his weight settled on her, pinning her to the bed.

  “Do I have your attention?” His voice was calm, his eyes were not. His chest was against hers, his heavy, muscled thigh was thrown across both of hers and he was up on one elbow, his other arm stretched across her and he was scowling down at her with blazing eyes.

  She gritted her teeth and stared at him. It was futile to struggle. He had twice her strength, maybe more. When he lifted his brows arrogantly, silently demanding a response, she snapped, “Yes!”

  “Good, now you’re going to answer some questions.”

  She pulled both her lips between her teeth to stop herself from saying something foolish.

  “Why did you take the fifty thousand pounds?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why can’t you tell me? Is it illegal?”

  “No!”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “No.”

  “In debt?”

  “No.”

  She was losing her patience but unfortunately so was he and his lost patience was a tad bit more scary than hers.

  “Sibyl.”

  “I just can’t tell you, you’ll think I’m…” she hesitated.

  “What?”

  “Crazy!” she cried.

  “Crazier than you thinking you turned me into Royce Morgan with your magical powers?”

  She groaned, horrified and humiliated.

  Then she replied what she thought was relatively logically, considering they were discussing a real life, magical potion, “Well, it’s hardly crazier than how you actually did turn into Royce Morgan or any of the other things that I’ve learned tonight.”

  He decided to ignore that and persevered with his interrogation. “Why did you kiss him?”

  She bit her lips again.

  “Am I going to have to make you talk?” he threatened silkily.

  Her eyes rounded. She had no idea how he would do that but she doubted, seriously, that it would include physical violence. However, she did not doubt that it would include something physical.