Lacybourne Manor (16 page)

He realised he wanted
her, wanted her
now
, wanted to rip her clothes
off, toss her delicious body on the dining room table and bury
himself inside her. He wanted it so badly it took a supreme effort
of will not to give in to the impulse and the strength of this
hunger made Colin deeply surprised. He’d never felt such a lack of
control, such a feral need, in his life.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “You feel
good, you smell good, you probably even taste good.”

The panic flared in her eyes
but her voice was quiet when she demanded, “Let me go.”

“I’ll pay you.”

Gone was the quiet but the
panic escalated.

“
You’ll
what?
” she
screeched.

“Name your price. I’ll pay for
the use of that body of yours. You tell me how much you want and
I’ll tell you what it’s worth to me.” She was looking at him as if
he’d grown a second head and she didn’t reply so he continued.
“Name your price and I’ll tell you if it’s worth one time, two
times or a whole month of me having you whenever I want.”

“
You
are
mad,” she
whispered, staring up at him with intensity in her green
eyes.

His fingers tightened on her
wrists and he pushed his game. “Just name your price. If it’s too
high then we’ll add things on. I’ll have you on that table, for
example,” he expressed his thought from moments before.

Her head jerked to look at the
table then jerked back to him, the tendrils of her hair catching
fetchingly on her lips.

“Or, I’ll have you on all
fours,” he suggested in a thoughtful attempt to help her make up
her mind, driven by something he didn’t understand to shock
her.

At that, she started to
struggle again, in earnest, anger and panic warring in her
expression and she shouted, “Let me go!”

The dog, who had stopped
barking, started again, backing up in confusion at this turn of
events.

Colin’s hands tightened further
on her wrists and he knew it was painful because she ceased
struggling immediately. But her luscious body wriggling against
him, her eyes flashing green, Colin was definitely no saint, he
lost his patience luckily before he lost his flagging control.

But he had to know.

He had to know if she was after
his money or if she carried Beatrice Godwin’s reincarnated
soul.

The more she struggled, the
longer she hesitated, the more he felt his hope grow and he had to
know.

Was all that was Sibyl Godwin
more than just coincidence?

Was she born destined to be his
as he was to be hers?

Colin had been waiting his
whole life. He had to know.

Therefore, he dipped his head
so his face was an inch from hers and growled, “Name your
price.”

* * * * *

Sibyl stared at him, more
terrified than she’d ever been in her entire life.

Her mind was racing, her heart
was beating like a hammer and panic was welling up in her chest so
strongly, she thought she would explode.

This was not Lunatic
Colin or any nuance of Rescuer Colin, this was
Scary
Colin
.

“Quiet!” he thundered at
Mallory and she jumped. Her dog gave a soft, confused whine and
then ran out of the room, up the stairs and, likely, into the
corner of her bedroom.

She closed her eyes in stunning
defeat at her dog’s retreat.

And saw Meg lying on the ground
by the minibus.

She opened her eyes again,
knowing the exact figure because she had just that day worked on
the budget.

She’d promised herself,
whatever it took, she’d find a way.

And here Colin Morgan was,
offering her a way.

It was an unthinkable,
despicable way.

But it was a way.

She couldn’t believe she was
going to do it, this man was loathsome, hideous.

But she was going to do it.

If he agreed.

How many people had fifty
thousand pounds to throw around, especially for something like
this?

Thinking (more like hoping),
he’d never agree to it and would be so disgusted he’d walk out the
door, out of her life, leaving her in peace (forever and ever),
Sibyl announced, “I want fifty thousand pounds.”

That would buy the minibus, the
driving lessons for Kyle, petrol, insurance and maintenance for
several years, if they were frugal.

And it would buy peace of mind
for Meg and Annie and all the other oldies who depended on the
minibus to get them out of their homes so they could have a good
meal and a few hours of companionship.

“And what does that buy me?”
His eyes betrayed both a disappointment so extreme it was tangible
and a desire so strong she felt her body heat. Her stomach twisted
inexplicably as he looked at her with that strange expression on
his face.

“You tell me.” Sibyl shot back,
trying for bravado. She felt like she was on the edge of a sharp,
dark precipice, just about to jump over into the blinding abyss and
it scared the living daylights out of her.

If she became this man’s whore,
she would never find her true love. She would never be the same
again.

And she couldn’t shake the
constant feeling she had when she was with him that there was
something else, something missing between them, something she
didn’t understand, couldn’t put her finger on but it was something
vitally important.

And, because of that, because
he, too, had to feel it, she couldn’t imagine he’d say yes.

“It gets me anything I want for
two months,” he declared.

Oh dear goddess, he said
yes.

She blinked at him and felt the
world falling away as she toppled into the abyss.

He stared down at her, his
clay-coloured eyes burning into her and she realised it wasn’t
done, she could take it back, order him out of her home and tell
him she never wanted to see him again.

It was the moment of truth,
could she do this vile thing?

But, her heart sinking, she
knew she could.

No, she
had
to.

For Annie and especially for
Meg.

And she felt a pain slice
through her stomach.

And she decided she hated Colin
Morgan (at the same time she hated herself and her stupid temper
which she vowed never to lose again).

Having come to her decision,
Sibyl pressed her lips together and forced her body to relax.

It was done, it had to be. Two
months of his despicable attention would mean years of safety for
her oldies. It was, she tried (and failed) to convince herself, a
small price to pay.

She’d gotten herself in
many pickles, nothing
this
bad, of course, but in the
past, it had been bad. And she’d also lived through it and got to
the other side.

She could live through this
too.

She probably should have
negotiated but she wanted him to let her go and she wanted all of
this to be over, for now. She’d think about it again, later, after
she learned how to kick herself in the backside.

“Done,” she snapped.

Then she watched as Colin
smiled, it was slow and it was lethal.

“Except –” she started to say,
the panic overwhelming her.

His arms tightened
painfully.

“No exceptions.”

She ignored him and stated,
“Not on that table. My father rebuilt and refinished that table,
you’ll not…” she paused, not knowing how to put it.

He was ever-so-helpful in
a way she was beginning to realise with great annoyance was so
very
him.
“Fuck you on the table?”

She thought she might just
burst into tears.

Somehow she felt in her very
soul that this was all wrong and she knew it was the dreams. They
were just dreams but she felt, even hoped, deep down inside that
they meant something more. That they meant her years of searching
for her dream man, her knight, the other piece of her heart, were
over.

Apparently, they did not.

“Yes,” she hissed and
controlled, with a mighty effort, her rampaging emotions.

“Fine,” he relented, the
pressure of his hands gentling but he did not release her.

“I want the money tomorrow,”
she told him. If she was going to do this, she’d better do it now
or she’d chicken out. Her mind was racing, two months yawned before
her, filled with blackness.

“Then you’re in my bed tomorrow
night.”

Her stomach clenched at his
words but she nodded, her hair annoyingly falling all around her
face and, with her hands held behind her back, she could do nothing
about it.

“
How shall we seal this
bargain?” he asked, his voice had turned from edgy and intense to
something else entirely and she could just not
believe
that her
stomach actually did a mini-flip.

She didn’t even chance a look
at his face.

“Mr. Morgan, you don’t touch
me…” She had to stop because she was pressed up against him from
toe to chest and his arms were wrapped around her. “Anymore… until
tomorrow.”

“The name is Colin,” he
clipped.

She tossed her head and glared
at him.

“Tomorrow,” she snapped.

Surprisingly, he let her
go.

She took a quick step back but
her pride would not allow more. She was not going to let him know
how terrified she was. Nor how devastated.

“My jewellery,” she held out
her hand, palm up. This position was familiar and it seemed, now,
Colin Morgan would always be holding something of hers she wanted
back.

She had to gulp down her tears
again as he deposited the jewellery into her hand.

Her fingers curled over it
slightly and she dropped her head and poked at the precious pendant
with her finger, cursing, for the millionth time, her
absentmindedness that caused her to forget it in the first
place.

This action also served to hide
her face from his view.

She didn’t want to look at him.
She didn’t know what she’d do if she looked at him. Probably run
from the house and never stop running.

And how was
that
going
to get a minibus?

She could taste the vile
disappointment in her mouth that Rescuer Colin was not the
real
Colin.

And in that moment, Sibyl
Godwin let go all of her wondrous dreams of finding her fated one,
true, beautiful love. They flew away from her and she felt the
acute pain as if they’d been torn from her physically.

His hand came out and he used
the side of crooked finger to lift her chin so he could look into
her eyes.

His were completely and utterly
blank.

And that scared her most of
all.

“I’ll be here with the money
tomorrow night at seven,” he told her in a surprisingly soft
voice.

She jerked her chin away from
his hand.

Then Sibyl replied, “I’ll be
ready.”

Consummation

“Oh dear,” Marian Byrne said as
she looked in her crystal ball.

It was milky but she could
still see the shadows of two forms in its depths.

Years ago, when she first saw
it, Marian had been drawn to the clairvoyant orb, even though the
crystal was flawed (which often made it difficult to see), but she
bought it anyway. It never gave her a hint of trouble. It lay on
its pillow of royal blue velvet atop the spindly legged, tri-footed
round table in her magic room.

That night, it showed her
something she did not like to see.

She turned and carefully
touched the precious book, her hands wearing clean, white, cloth
gloves. She, nor her mother, nor her mother’s mother (and so on)
ever touched Granny Esmeralda’s Book of Shadows without using the
greatest care.

The book was nearly five
hundred years old and it was precious.

She read the ingredients of the
potion Granny Esmeralda used on Royce and Beatrice (even though
she’d read it hundreds of times before and had it memorised).

The protection charm was
fierce, half of the ingredients you couldn’t get anymore unless you
visited the darkest shops.

Marian saw, however, that using
the flesh and blood of the dark soul and the death blood of the
lovers may now be causing a bit of havoc for Beatrice and Royce’s
descendants.

She knew (as every witch did)
that bad things came from bad blood, violence, mayhem or simply (as
was the case for Sibyl and Colin) misunderstanding and
distrust.

Nevertheless, to make the
potion as strong as it needed to be, Marian knew Granny Esmeralda
needed all the magic she could get.

It should have been strong
enough, the residual love of the wedded Morgans that lasted in the
atmosphere for five hundred years. Everything was perfect, Colin
and Sibyl were both direct descendants (of this Marian was certain
intuitively rather than with any real knowledge). Colin lived in
Lacybourne. Sibyl, for some deliciously fateful reason, lived in
Granny Esmeralda’s old cottage. Then there was the dog, named for
Royce’s horse. Marian didn’t know why the lovers had exchanged
hair, but she found it very touching.

But something, obviously, was
wrong and it was likely that potion.

“
Well, Granny Esmeralda,
there’s nothing for it. I’m just going to have to keep my eye on
them,” Marian told the book. “And maybe meddle, just a
wee
bit,”
she finished.

She knew it was dangerous to
meddle but if she didn’t it would likely be another five hundred
years before their descendants could start again.

The book, not unusually, said
nothing in return.