Lacybourne Manor (21 page)

Then he realised in that
moment that he didn’t know a lot of things when it came to
Sibyl,
and
his reaction to her, and he found that
supremely
annoying.

They studied their menus in
silence and they ordered their meals after the drinks were brought
to the table.

She spent a great deal of time
pretending he wasn’t there and looking out the windows at the
sea.

He spent that time watching
her.

The waiter brought Colin’s
steak and the bottle of wine Colin ordered. He also set some dish
down in front of Sibyl that looked entirely concocted out of
mushrooms.

Colin made no comment and Sibyl
did the same.

They ate in silence.

When he was finished, he sat
back in his chair, stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing
them at the ankles, and continued to watch her while drinking his
wine.

She valiantly attempted to
finish her meal but then set her fork down and sat back herself,
sipping her wine nervously, her eyes darting anywhere but to
him.

“Do you want dessert?” he asked
politely and she jumped in surprise at the sound of his voice.

She looked at him. The
restaurant was illuminated with a romantic, candlelit ambiance so
the lighting in the room was dim and therefore Colin couldn’t see
the colour of her eyes.

She shook her head.

He took his money clip from the
breast pocket of his suit jacket, peeled off enough notes to pay
for dinner and tossed them on the table.

He stood and Sibyl stood
too.

He moved behind her, took her
coat from her chair and helped her put it on. He felt her body was
stiff under his hands.

This annoyed him even
further.

The waiter scurried to their
table looking alarmed.

“Is there anything wrong?” he
asked (Colin noticed, with still growing irritation, the waiter
asked Sibyl, staring at her like a lovesick puppy).

“We’re leaving,” Colin answered
in clipped tones.

“Everything was lovely, thank
you,” Sibyl assured the waiter and smiled at him again.

Colin’s irritation grew
even more at her smile, another smile
not
directed at him. Without
another word, he grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the
restaurant.

Once outside, she yanked her
arm away and quickened her step in an attempt to avoid him,
something that some force inside him was driving him not to allow.
As they hit the pavement, Colin’s fingers curled around her upper
arm just as he saw a flash from the headlamps of a car parked not
two car lengths away. Without warning, the engine revved and the
car shot forward.

Sibyl was a step ahead of him,
ready to cross the road to get to the Mercedes, when the car came
directly at her like it was aiming. Instinctively and swiftly,
Colin dropped his hold of her but hooked his arm around her waist
and snatched her from the street, pulling her into his body with
such strength that her head crashed against his chin. He ignored
the jolt of pain and at the same time took two deep steps backward.
This meant the car narrowly missed them both as it flew passed, two
of its tires up on the pavement, and kept going without
braking.

He set Sibyl down in
front of him but held her, the warmth of her back pressed tightly
against his body, and he could feel her heavy breathing. His arm,
which had been about her waist, had slid up and was closed around
her ribcage, her fingers were clutching it as if she’d never let
him go and he could feel her heart beating wildly. Both of their
heads were turned, staring after the car for a long moment even
after it disappeared before Sibyl lifted her hand to touch the back
of her head distractedly where it had smashed against his
chin.

“My goodness, he narrowly
missed you. Are you all right?”

This came from an elderly lady
who was rushing toward them and to Colin’s irritated surprise, it
was Marian Byrne.

“Mrs. Byrne!” Sibyl gasped.

“Sibyl!” Marian Byrne replied
and Sibyl broke free of his arm and gave the woman a tight
embrace.

“
Did you see that?” Sibyl
exclaimed when she ended the embrace. She swung toward Colin, her
evening’s silent treatment a memory. “That lunatic driver nearly
hit us. It was like… it was like he was
aiming
at us.”

Colin stared at her then
swung his head to where the car had gone, his thoughts
racing.

She was correct. It seemed
exactly as if the car was aiming at them.

Marian Byrne obviously
agreed. “
I
saw it and it
did
look like he was aiming at
you. My goodness gracious, goodness, goodness gracious,” Marian
Byrne chanted, her voice filled with alarm.

Colin turned his head again and
stared at Mrs. Byrne.

Regardless of what seemed to
Colin like a telling coincidence – these two women tended to “run
into” each other with alarming frequency – Marian Byrne looked
genuinely distraught.

“Mrs. Byrne, you need to sit
down.” Sibyl had moved toward the older woman and slid her arm
around her. Carefully looking both ways, she guided Mrs. Byrne
across the street to a bench under a streetlamp that faced the sea.
Colin followed silently and watched as Sibyl crouched down next to
the older woman once she was seated.

Sibyl looked up to him.

“
Should we take her back
to the restaurant, get her a drink?” she asked and in the light of
the streetlamp he could see her face was awash with
concern.

“I’m fine, I just need to take
a few deep breaths,” Marian answered.

“
Mrs. Byrne, why are you
out tonight?” Sibyl voiced the question to which Colin wanted an
answer. “It’s late. You should be home. What if
you’d
been in the path
of that crazy man? You wouldn’t have been able to get out of his
way,” she glanced hesitantly at Colin and whispered,
“
I
nearly didn’t get out of the way,” and he realised that was
the closest he would likely get to any expression of
gratitude.

Marian gave a deep shudder and
replied, “I’m restless. I think it’s this unseasonable weather.
England is never this sunny and warm in March. At least not in my
many years of experience.” She smiled wanly and her hand lifted to
pat the hand that Sibyl was resting on her arm.

Finally Colin spoke. “I’ll take
you home.”

“Oh no, Mr. Morgan, I live not
a five minute walk from here, ten at the most.”

“I insist,” Colin said in a
voice that seconded the words he uttered.

When Mrs. Byrne looked like she
was going to protest, Sibyl moved closer to her, shifting awkwardly
on her crouched legs. “Let Colin take you home, Mrs. Byrne. Please?
For me?”

Sibyl smiled at the other woman
and Colin noted this smile was not dazzling but faltering. She was
still reacting to the near-miss with the car and it became clear,
even though he had thought differently moments before, that both of
these women had nothing to do with the events of that night.

Marian turned to Colin and gave
in to Sibyl’s plea. “Thank you, Mr. Morgan, that would be very
kind.”

Colin looked at Sibyl, his car
was a two seater and she’d have to wait until he returned from this
errand.

“Go to the restaurant,” he
ordered curtly, “I’ll be back for you in ten minutes.”

Without a word in protest, she
nodded and then gracefully stood. She helped Mrs. Byrne to the car
and Colin waited to get in himself while he watched Sibyl, again
with great care, her head swinging from side to side as she scanned
the road, cross the street. He didn’t get into the car until he saw
the restaurant door close safely behind her.

As he drove off, Marian Byrne
gave him quick directions and then asked, “Are you quite all right,
Mr. Morgan?”

He lied gruffly, “I’m
fine.”

“That was a nasty scare,” she
noted on a trembling sigh. “Drivers these days. So impatient. You
must promise me you’ll be most careful.”

He nodded.

“I take it things with you and
Sibyl are on a much better footing now?” she asked, her voice
tentative and polite, she knew it was none of her business.

“That depends on how you look
at it,” he replied honestly at the same time not giving her very
much information.

“
Well, Mr. Morgan,
considering my tenure at your house and what I know of its history,
I look at any time you spend with that delightful girl to be a
very,
very
good thing, if you understand my meaning.”

His eyes slid to her briefly
then back to the road.

“So you admit to arranging our
meeting?” he enquired bluntly.

“
Of course!” she
confessed, her voice losing its tremble and becoming more cheerful.
“I thought you’d figured that out on the night.”

“I did,” he told her then
demanded, even though he thought he knew, “What was Sibyl’s part in
it?”

“Oh, she has no idea.” Her tone
was very cheerful now but her words rocked Colin to his core. “What
I find most amusing is that she spent an entire night at
Lacybourne, even had her little, shall we call it an ‘episode’?”
She laughed softly to herself, finding this all very amusing,
something which grated on Colin’s nerves. “Right underneath the
portraits and never once spared them a glance. Have you told her
yet?”

He hesitated.

“About Royce and Beatrice,” she
prompted.

“No.”

“
Oh my,” Mrs. Byrne
sighed. “
Are
you going to tell her?”

“
I don’t know.” And, at
this news, he didn’t not only not know if he was going to tell
Sibyl about Royce and Beatrice, he didn’t know
why
he didn’t know if
he was going to tell her or why, if she was not in partnership with
Mrs. Byrne, why Sibyl had taken the money and lastly, and most
annoyingly, he realised he didn’t know much of anything.

And he didn’t like that
either.

“Well, I won’t say a word,” she
surprised him by assuring him and he surprised himself by believing
her. “I’ll leave it in your hands.” Then she murmured, “It’s right
here,” and motioned to an elegant, well-kept house on Victoria
Road. “Thank you, Mr. Morgan, you’ve been very kind. No,” she said
when he started to alight, “I’m quite fine, get back to Sibyl, she
seems a bit shaken.”

For some reason, he did as he
was told (though he waited for the elderly lady to make her way up
her walk, enter her house and the light in the front room to come
on) and, five minutes later, he pulled up at the restaurant,
leaving the car to collect Sibyl who had seen him arrive and was
walking from the restaurant to the car. He opened her door and made
sure she was safely inside before he went to his side and they took
off.

They didn’t speak a word the
entire way to her home but he noticed she was clasping her hands
together so intensely he could see the whiteness of her skin by the
dash lights.

He hadn’t given her the time to
lock the door to the cottage so when they arrived she turned the
latch, shoved it open and pushed inside. Instead of taking her coat
off, she grabbed the dog’s lead. Mallory came lurching excitedly
into the room before she’d cleared the lead from the peg.

“I have to take Mallory for a
walk,” she explained to Colin, her voice soft and still a bit
shaky.

“I’ll go with you,” Colin
replied, his voice hard, his mind preoccupied with their near-death
experience and what it might mean. Or if it meant anything at all
and was just an accident.

Her head jerked up to look at
him and then it tilted while she studied him. He noticed her eyes
were more sherry than green.

Colin didn’t know what to make
of that.

She nodded, clipped the lead on
Mallory’s collar and they walked out into the night.

And as they walked, Colin noted
that Mallory didn’t seem like a dog who didn’t like his walks. He
seemed thrilled to be outside, smelling every blade of grass, and,
as they made it down the secluded drive and turned onto the
pavement, every car tire, post and inch of pavement he traversed.
He was so excited Colin noticed that Sibyl was having trouble
controlling the lead.

“Give it to me,” Colin ordered
and then didn’t wait for her to act, he took it from her hands.

“
I don’t understand. This
is how he behaves during his morning walks sometimes. He
never
likes the evening walks. He just does his business as
quickly as he can and we go home,” she explained.

As if realising they were
talking about him, Mallory stopped. The dog looked down the length
of his enormous body at them both and Colin could see that
Mallory’s mouth was hanging open in what looked like a version of a
canine smile. A long sliver of drool slid off his lip and plopped
on the pavement.

“We’re going home,” Colin told
the dog and Mallory, just as happy with this idea as he was with
the walk, immediately turned around and headed back to the
house.

“Utterly bizarre,” Sibyl
muttered under her breath.

Colin did not reply.

Mallory decided on the pillar
of a streetlamp and took care of his business on the way home and
the three of them walked down her dark lane in silence (except for
Mallory’s excited panting). Sibyl pushed open her door when they
arrived and, once inside, Colin unhooked the dog’s lead and hung it
on the peg while Sibyl took off her trench coat.

Without a word, his mind
occupied with both the events of the evening (including the
near-miss with the car
and
his strange conversation with
Mrs. Byrne) and his continued anger at Sibyl, Colin walked up the
stairs and straight to her bedroom. He was shrugging off his suit
jacket when she arrived in the room.