Lacybourne Manor (33 page)

Not to mention better
furniture.

And, likely, fumigation.

And finally, he called a
contractor, told him to go to the Centre and give Colin a quote on
how much it would cost to build an extension so Sibyl could have a
decent office, one that didn’t
look
like
a salvage yard.

All of this Colin was going to
finance and he didn’t care how much it cost.

It was ridiculous that those
people were forced to spend their time in that dilapidated wreck
and he certainly wasn’t going to allow Sibyl to do so.

He’d had a few words with the
Councillors about that as well.

He wished, two weeks ago, when
she’d slapped the briefcase shut on the fifty thousand pounds, that
she’d told him then what the money was for.

However, he had to admit, he
probably wouldn’t have believed her. She was, on the whole, quite
unbelievable.

He’d thought that before
Robert Fitzwilliam had told him about her. This feeling solidified
after witnessing her in her element at the Centre. He could still
see the look of shining adoration in “her girls” eyes as they
stared at her and he could hear the esteem in the pensioners’
voices when they spoke to her.

He finished his call, quickly
scanned some correspondence that Mandy had left for him to sign,
and tried not to think of how he felt when Sibyl had rested her
head against his chest.

Except for the night she’d had
her nightmare and the morning when she’d attacked him because he
was caressing her “sensitive spot” she rarely touched him of her
own volition.

And Colin liked it when she
did. Very much.

Further, there was something
nearly precious about the feeling that he’d done something she
approved of.

With a good deal of effort,
he’d finally convinced his mother and sister to leave Lacybourne
and come back next week when he was ready to introduce them to
Sibyl and her family.

They were both beside
themselves with the idea of a walking, talking American Godwin
wandering around Clevedon. Not to mention the fact that she was in
Colin’s life. They didn’t even know yet what she looked like and he
hadn’t told them or they would never have left Lacybourne. They
would have hunted her down and forced a Morgan Family heirloom ring
on her finger, he had no doubts about that.

Colin had a great deal of work
ahead of him winning Sibyl’s trust. His meddling mother and equally
troublesome sister would likely disrupt his many, varied, rather
complicated and extraordinarily fragile plans.

Colin felt (quite rightly) that
he’d made great strides that day and that hadn’t even been part of
his plan. He found after talking with Robert and Mrs. Byrne that he
couldn’t wait a moment longer to see her, which was the only reason
he’d gone to the Centre.

Colin’s reaction regarding the
minibus driver was instinctive. When he looked out the window at
the elderly blind woman who wanted to adopt Sibyl trying to alight
while the bastard stood, disinterested and smoking a cigarette,
he’d temporarily lost his mind. He hadn’t intentionally gone
charging in to score points, although he was happy to accept them
if they were a means to his desired end. He’d help every blind lady
he encountered if it meant he got what he wanted.

It only made Colin all the more
satisfied that the person who had inadvertently pushed Sibyl into
selling her body was now to be punished, regardless if the driver
knew his flagrant negligence had cost Colin weeks in winning Sibyl
and cost Sibyl something even more dear.

But he needed Sibyl right where
he wanted her before she learned of Royce and Beatrice, magic and
myth, his lifelong knowledge of it, her place in it and especially
him keeping it from her. She was likely to lose her temper
(justifiably) and Sibyl’s temper, he’d learned, once lost, was
rather difficult to get under control.

His mobile rang and he glanced
at it distractedly not wishing to talk to another North Somerset
Councillor and he saw Sibyl’s name on the screen.

He stared at his phone.

She’d never phoned him. Not
once.

He grabbed it immediately and
flipped it open.

“Sibyl,” he greeted.

There was no response but he
could hear her breathing. At this oddity (oddities being nothing
new with Sibyl), he patiently repeated himself, calling her
name.

“Colin,” she whispered.

His back instantly straightened
at the tone of her voice. It was tremulous and she sounded
frightened.

“What’s happened?” he
asked.

“Colin,” he heard a catch in
her voice, “someone’s been in my house.”

Before she was done speaking,
he was already walking toward the door and a queer sensation seized
him, something akin to panic.

“Where are you?” he
demanded.

“Sitting outside, with
Mallory.”

“Have you called the
police?”

There was a pause. “No, I
didn’t think of that.” Now she sounded both exasperated and
frightened.

Colin found Sibyl’s frequent
absentmindedness both amusing and annoying. Especially now, with
the exception that now he didn’t find it amusing.

“Call them,” he ordered as he
exited his office and walked right passed Mandy without looking at
her.

“Colin, I think,” she hesitated
and then her voice dropped to a whisper, “oh my goddess, I think
they’ve done something to Mallory.”

He was surprised at his strong
reaction to the thought that something happened to her dog. It felt
like someone had kicked him in the stomach.

“Why?” he asked cautiously,
jogging down the stairs.

“He’s lying here, not moving,
not awake. He’s breathing and I feel a heartbeat but he won’t wake
up no matter what I do.”

“Sibyl, call the police,” Colin
ordered. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

When her heard her shaky,
“Okay,” he flipped the phone shut and lengthened his strides.

It took twenty-five minutes, on
a good day when the traffic gods were smiling, to get to Sibyl’s
house.

That day, the traffic gods were
unhappy and Colin still made it there in fifteen.

There were three police cars
outside her house as he pulled up.

After he’d exited his car, he
saw Sibyl talking to five officers, all men, all hovering around
her like she was a female rock god and they were her male groupies.
This was not surprising considering she looked like a rock star
with her hair a shower of golden tangles. She was wearing a long,
full, chocolate brown skirt with a heavy, silver-looped belt
hanging low on her hips. She accompanied this with her red cowboy
boots and a bright red, long-sleeved t-shirt with a collar so wide
it dipped off one shoulder. At the sight of Sibyl and her
law-enforcing entourage, Colin kept hold of his temper by a thread
but he managed this only because Sibyl noticed him and immediately
ran to him.

When she reached him, she threw
herself at him so forcefully it rocked him back on a foot.

This was the third time she’d
touched him affectionately of her own volition (at that precise
moment, he began counting).

She wrapped her arms around
him, tucked her head under his chin and cried into his lapel.
“Colin! Someone shot Mallory with a tranquilliser dart!” she
imparted this extraordinary fact on Colin with a voice that was
part furious, part incredulous and part scared.

Colin’s arms went around her
and he automatically stroked her back and he did this while all the
police were stared at them like they were a piece of performance
art.

Colin lost patience and barked,
“Don’t you have something to do?”

The police all jerked into
motion but Sibyl seemed not to notice his angry outburst. She
leaned back against his arm and peered up at him, a heartbreaking
look in her very confused hazel eyes.

“
Who would
do
something like that?”

He looked down at her
pale, beautiful face and shook his head in answer because, of
course, he had no idea who would do something like that and he
understood now that Sibyl
definitely
wouldn’t
know.

At that moment, he finally
noticed Mallory lying on his side close to the entry of the house,
his big dog body completely still.

Colin had never seen the dog
when he at least didn’t thump his tail and he felt something slice
through his gut at the sight.

He carefully pulled out of her
embrace and, linking his fingers in hers, he guided her over to
Mallory. Once there, he crouched down and felt the dog’s chest,
noting a strong heartbeat and steady breathing. Other than that,
the dog was motionless and, from far away, could even appear dead.
Colin couldn’t imagine the shock that Sibyl had when she arrived
home.

“Christ,” he muttered as he
absently stroked the dog’s head, fury beginning to burn slowly in
him.

“They called a vet to have a
look at him. He hasn’t moved a muscle in ages. I’m kinda used to
Mallory being relatively motionless but this is terrifying,” she
told him, her voice still shaky.

Colin made no comment as he
watched a police officer come toward them as the other four stayed
where they were, pretending to be busy but still staring at
Sibyl.

“And who might you be, sir?”
the officer asked when he arrived.

“I’m her boyfriend.”

He felt ridiculous saying it
but not after he heard Sibyl’s swift intake of breath, noted her
quick, round-eyed glance and, most especially, when he caught the
look of deep disappointment that passed across the policeman’s
face.

“
Oh, right.” He made an
effort at recovery while Colin straightened, put his arm
possessively around Sibyl and pulled her against his side, a
gesture which made his role in her life
perfectly
understood. “There
appears to have been a break-in,” the policeman
continued.

“I already know that,” Colin
informed him.

“And the dog has been shot by a
tranquilliser dart.”

“
I already know that
too,” Colin said, his tone making it crystal clear his patience was
quickly ebbing and that was not a good thing. “Can you tell me
something I don’t know?”

The policeman shifted
uncomfortably under Colin’s irate glare, belatedly, but correctly,
assessing that Colin was not someone to be trifled with.

“We just made it to the scene a
few minutes ago. We’ve ascertained there’s no threat. We have an
officer checking the house now to see if there was anything
obviously stolen, forced entry, that kind of thing.”

“
Wouldn’t that go faster
if all
five
of the officers standing out here checked the
house?” Colin suggested sarcastically, inclining his head to their
audience.

“Um… right,” the officer agreed
and, after a glance at Sibyl and a brief hesitation, he trotted off
to his colleagues who disbursed, some going to their cars, others
going into the house.

Colin watched the sudden action
and muttered with distracted irritation to Sibyl, “You’re too
damned beautiful for your own good.”

When he finally swung his gaze
to her, she was staring at him with eyes no longer hazel, but a
warm, liquid sherry and her mouth was parted slightly in surprise.
Then, as if wishing to hide her response to his comment, she turned
in his arm and pressed herself against him, burying her face in his
chest.

That was when he felt she was
shaking.

“I can’t believe someone shot
my dog,” she whispered.

His fury built and spread as
his free hand went to her hair and stroked the heavy mass. There
was nothing to say, he couldn’t believe it either.

They stood that way for some
time. The longer they did so, Colin found the fury flowed out of
him and he became rather contented. Sibyl, however, continued to
tremble until his hand at her hair stroked the tremors away.
Minutes ticked by then another officer exited the house and
approached them.

“Seems like it’s just vandals,”
he informed them upon his arrival. “We’ll have to ask Miss Godwin
to walk through the house but the stereo’s still there, there’s
some jewellery sitting on the chest of drawers, untouched. There
have been some pillows destroyed, feathers everywhere. Some
crockery broken. No real damage.”

“Has this happened before?”
Colin asked.

“What, sir?” This officer, more
intelligent, was the one who had been checking the house when Colin
arrived as Colin hadn’t seen him before.

“This kind of thing at another
house in the area, tranquilliser darts, vandalism?” Colin
prompted.

“No, nothing,” the officer
shook his head, “I’ll need to take Miss Godwin through to see if
she can determine if anything’s missing.”

It was then that Mallory made a
move, a slight lift of his head then it fell again. Instantly Sibyl
dropped to her knees, pulled the dog’s head in her lap and started
murmuring comfortingly as she stroked his soft, black and beige
head.

Colin crouched beside her and
muttered gently, “Sibyl, go with the officer. I’ll look after
Mallory.”

She lifted her sherry eyes to
him and asked, “You promise not to leave his side?”

He stared directly in her eyes
and said quietly, “I promise.”

She nodded and, with obvious
reluctance, she left with the policeman. As promised, Colin stayed
crouched by the dog who was waking just not very quickly.

While Sibyl was inside, another
police car came up to the house, possibly unloading lab men, or,
more likely, a new set of groupies called in to have a look at
Sibyl. Then another car came up the drive but this was not a police
car. Colin watched as it stopped with a dramatic shower of gravel
and then Marian Byrne came flying out.