Lacybourne Manor (41 page)

“Scarlett –” Sibyl started, her
voice edged with warning.

“You must know, it isn’t easy
for him,” Claire burst out.

Everyone’s eyes turned to
Claire who was standing, her arms straight down at her sides, her
hands clenched in fists. She was upset about something and Sibyl
thought for a moment she was angry at Scarlett (deservedly so), but
her eyes were directed at Sibyl.

“
Who?” Sibyl asked,
thinking maybe she was confused. It wouldn’t be surprising if she
was confused, considering her whole world had been turned on its
head. However, Sibyl could not imagine Claire was referring to
Colin.
Everything
seemed easy for Colin.

“Colin,” Claire answered and
Sibyl’s eyes widened.

Sibyl looked at her sister and
Scarlett shrugged and turned her attention to Claire.

“It’s just that every woman he
meets –” Claire began but Colin interrupted.

“Claire, I don’t think –”

“Wants her pound of flesh,”
Claire finished stubbornly, looking at Colin with a rebellious
gleam in her eye.

“
Pound of flesh?” Sibyl
echoed.

“Yes. Her pound of flesh,”
Claire repeated.

“
Claire,” Colin said
again, this time
his
voice held a warning.

“Really, Colin, I’m not
entirely certain what all this intrigue was about tonight but we
went along with it. Though, it’s obvious something isn’t right with
the pair of you,” Claire retorted.

“
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 first 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.”