Lacybourne Manor (49 page)

Scarlett slid in beside
him after she made sure Flower was buckled in the back and they
took her to her Nan’s, which was further away than he expected.
Colin was pleased Sibyl wasn’t with them, if she knew the distance
the girl had walked alone, she’d likely abduct the child
and
her
brothers from their Nan’s house.

After receiving their dutiful
wave, on the way back to the Hall, Scarlett spoke, “She’s not of
the earth, you know?”

“I’m sorry?” Colin asked,
surprised at her tone which was sedate and earnest. Since she
shined the light of her approval on his union with her sister,
Scarlett had been her usual drily humorous just not caustic. He’d
never heard her serious before.

Still, he had no idea what she
was talking about.

“Sibyl, she’s not of the earth
but of the air. She’s like a kite, all her life, darting about in
the wind with no one holding onto her string.”

Colin remained silent,
patiently waiting for further explanation.

“You’re of the earth,” she
carried on. “You have your feet firmly planted on the ground. She’s
lucky to find someone like that, like you, willing to let her dart
about happily in the wind but still keeping her tethered to the
ground.”

Colin couldn’t help but be
moved by her compliment, especially coming from Scarlett, however,
she wasn’t finished.

Quietly, she said in a near
whisper, “All my life, I thought she’d get swept away. Get herself
helplessly tangled in some trees and be torn to shreds when someone
yanked her free. It was terrifying.”

“I can imagine,” Colin murmured
and he could.

“Please protect her, Colin.” It
was now a whisper and even though he barely knew her, Colin knew
how much it cost her to make this request.

“I will.”

“You must promise,” she
pushed.

He pulled up outside the front
doors of the Community Centre, fixed the emergency brake, turned to
Sibyl’s sister and promised, “I’ll protect her.”

It was a vow and she knew
it and for the first time of their acquaintance, she gave him one
of
her
spectacular smiles.

Then she whispered, “I believe
you.”

And without another word she
turned to her door so Colin did the same.

They walked, both lost in their
own thoughts, into the Hall together where they saw volunteers were
cleaning up, Sibyl’s mother and father helping to stack chairs
against the walls.

“Where’s Sibyl?” Colin asked
Tina who was tidying the small kitchen to the side.

“She went to her office to get
her handbag,” Tina responded. “I’m doing cuppas for everyone. Would
you two like one?” Her kind gaze drifted from Colin to
Scarlett.

“I’d love one and I’ll help,”
Scarlett replied but Colin moved toward Sibyl’s office just as a
young boy came flying into the Hall and slid to a halt beside
Jemma.

“Mum, there’s an old lady lying
out back in the grass. She isn’t moving.” His words were rushed
with panic and his brown eyes were filled with fear.

Colin froze and caught Bertie’s
frightened eye.

Bertie made a dash out the
front door.

Colin went in the opposite
direction, to Sibyl’s office.

He threw back the sliding doors
and immediately heard the muffled noises coming from behind the
office’s closed door. He ran to the room, threw open the door and
was momentarily stunned motionless by what he saw.

A black-clad figure wearing a
ski mask was holding a struggling Sibyl in the corner of the room,
one arm gripping her about the waist, one hand held over her
mouth.

Another figure wearing the same
outfit was being pounded violently by the end of Mrs. Griffith’s
cane, each blow causing an angry, pained grunt to come out of
him.

“Let her go, I tell you!” Mrs.
Griffith shouted.

Colin jerked out of his shock
and exploded into the room, wresting the cane out of Mrs.
Griffith’s hand and swinging it with far more force on the cowering
figure. With furious pleasure, he heard it connect with a hideous
noise of cracking bone at the same time the cane split in half and
a stifled howl came from his victim. Wasting no time, the figure
shoved Mrs. Griffith aside and, holding his injured arm in his
healthy one, he ran from the small office.

Colin whirled on the other
figure, raising the remains of the cane threateningly.

The figure let go of
Sibyl’s waist, his arm went around his back and Sibyl took her
opportunity to break free. She took one step forward but was yanked
back as the man grabbed her hair. She gave a startled, pained cry
and Colin took two quick, menacing steps forward when the figure’s
arm whipped back around and Colin saw the glint on the blade of a
knife.

“Call 999! Call 999!” Mrs.
Griffith shouted repeatedly as she rushed (slowly) out of the
office.

“Drop the cane,” the figure
demanded, his voice rough and threatening.

He raised the knife to Sibyl’s
throat and Colin froze. The dream seared through his brain, visions
of her blood pouring freely from her throat and Colin felt fear
spread through him like a virus.

“Drop the fucking cane!” the
figure shouted.

Colin dropped the cane and held
his hands up in front of him, his eyes never leaving the blade.

“Let her go,” Colin ordered,
his words crackling with authority.

The figure yanked Sibyl’s hair
again and she made another noise filled with pain and Colin’s body
tensed in fury. He welcomed it as it fought away the fear.

Colin didn’t take his eyes off
the pair and didn’t move. He thought, in an instant, if that blade
slit her throat, he’d charge the man regardless, he didn’t care if
it next penetrated his gut.

He was weaponless, powerless
and if they came out of this unscathed, he was going to track this
man down and take great satisfaction in wringing the air out of his
body with his own two hands.

“
Let her go,” Colin
repeated and with a swiftness that surprised him, Sibyl was thrown
forward. Colin caught her in his arms and wasted no time in
whirling her behind the protection of his body.

As he did this, the figure ran
by Colin and Sibyl and Colin immediately gave chase.

“
Get to the Hall,” he
ordered Sibyl, not breaking stride, “
now!
”

The man was out the Day Centre
door, into the night and Colin followed him, running through the
grass toward the church that was next to the Centre.

Then Colin heard a strange
noise and felt a piercing, unexplainable pain in his shoulder but
he was too intent on his pursuit to pay it any heed.

The man was fit, Colin
realised, but Colin was also fit, swift and tall. He covered twice
the distance with one stride as the other man could and he was soon
gaining on him.

He was nearly upon him when he
started to feel a penetrating sluggishness permeate his body. He
reached his arm out to grasp the figure’s collar and found he could
barely hold it up.

Colin shook his head to clear
his rapidly blurring vision and saw the man pull out in front,
doubling then trebling the distance as Colin fought the
overwhelming, unusual, unexplainable lethargy stealing over
him.

He struggled against it,
wondering vaguely why he felt it at all but within moments he
slowed to a halt, breathing heavily.

Then Colin lost his battle and
collapsed to the ground.

Fear

Sibyl sat next to
Marian’s hospital bed, leaning forward on the side of it, exhausted
and stressed, she rested her forehead on her crossed
arms.

The older woman lay sleeping
now and, for the first time, Marian Byrne looked every one of her
advanced years. She’d regained consciousness at the Centre,
muttering strange, dire warnings about “dark souls” and vehemently
lamenting “letting Granny Esmeralda down’. Sibyl and Bertie,
witnessing her ranting, feared she’d sustained a terrible head
injury as Scarlett carefully tended to her.

Marian had calmed by the
time the paramedics arrived but Sibyl’s panic had increased when
Colin hadn’t returned then escalated to sheer terror when she heard
the police found his motionless body. Luckily (
they
thought), in
their hunt for him, they discovered the tranquilliser dart that
brought him low, a great deal of the tranquilliser still in the
shaft. Sibyl did not consider this lucky at all, she was becoming
far too acquainted with the awful effects of tranquilliser darts
and couldn’t comprehend for the life of her why someone kept
shooting beings she cared about with them.

In all the heartbreak and
despair to which Sibyl’s professional life had forced her to bear
witness, nothing affected her quite so profoundly as seeing her
charismatic, powerful, rugged Colin taken, unconscious, into an
ambulance. If Mags hadn’t been holding onto her whispering soothing
words, Sibyl knew her body would have collapsed.

And she knew in that
instant that she loved Colin.

She was in love with
Colin and loved him with all her heart, through her blood, veins
and muscles, down through to the marrow of her bones.

She’d finally found him,
Colin was
him
. Her soulmate, the one she’d
been waiting for, just plain
hers
.

There was no reason for it; he
didn’t suit her, not in the slightest. He was autocratic,
possessive, dictatorial and had far more money than one person with
good conscience should. He was nothing like she expected her true
love would be and somehow everything she wanted. She didn’t think
it even had anything to do with reincarnated souls of dead lovers,
they could have been entirely different people altogether and they
would have found each other.

He wasn’t Royce but now Colin
looked at her the same way as if she was the centre of his universe
and nothing else existed or mattered beyond her.

Not to mention, he was a good
man, he didn’t like to let on to that sweet, simple fact but he
was.

So, there was nothing she could
do. She let him into her heart or more to the point clicked him
into the place that had been waiting for him since the day she was
born.

And she thought he fit
perfectly.

Colin had regained
consciousness in Accident and Emergency not half an hour before,
groggy for approximately five minutes, he shifted quickly to icy
fury. Knowing with relief that he was going to be all right, Sibyl
escaped to check on Mrs. Byrne and left Colin to talk privately to
the police.

Sibyl had already given the
police her account of the evening, of the two masked men who came
stealthily into her office, demanding to know where Colin was and
for her to take them to him. Neither Sibyl nor her attackers saw
Mrs. Griffith who was waiting for her taxi while dozing on the
couch, hidden by a precarious pile of Talent Show costumes and
props. Sibyl had backed away, telling them Colin had already left
and it was then they grabbed her. At that action, Mrs. Griffith
rose, like the Eternal Wrath of the Pensioners, wielding her cane
and making imperious demands. Moments later, Colin had burst into
the room.

As she sat by Marian’s hospital
bed, Sibyl struggled to sort through her rampaging thoughts of
tranquilliser darts, knives, Mrs. Griffith avenging her and, most
terrifyingly, Colin’s savage display of violence. He was like a
Warrior God and she could easily transpose him on an ancient
battlefield, swinging a broadsword with deadly intent rather than
an old lady’s cane.

She could still hear the
sickening crunch of bone mingled with splitting wood.

She shuddered at the
memory.

She felt a light touch on her
hair and her thoughts skittered away as she lifted her head to gaze
into the faded, opened eyes of her friend.

“Will you call my daughter?”
Marian asked weakly.

Sibyl nodded, her heart
breaking at the feeble sound of Marian’s usually strong voice.

Then she took the number down
on a scrap of paper from her purse.

“They say you’re going to be
all right,” she assured Marian after she’d taken her daughter’s
telephone number. “You’ll need to stay here a day or two –”

“It’s the dark soul,” Marian
broke in fervently, her eyes growing bright with intensity. “They
want to keep you and Colin apart, Sibyl you must listen to me,
believe me.”

Her words were fierce,
frightened and Sibyl nodded her head even though she didn’t know
what the older lady meant.

“Sibyl, you must –” Marian went
on.

“Marian, please rest now,”
Sibyl interrupted her gently. “Don’t get excited, we’ll talk
later.”

“It’s crucial that you know
–”

Sibyl squeezed Marian’s hand.
“I promise I’ll come back tomorrow. You can tell me all about it
then and I’ll listen.”

Mrs. Byrne closed her eyes and
there was pain in her expression that had nothing to do with the
blow to her head. When she opened them, she nodded.

“Please, my dear, take the
utmost care,” she whispered.

“I will.”

Sibyl went to the front of the
hospital and stood outside to make the awful call to Marian’s
daughter, Angie.

After Angie expressed her shock
and horror, she asked, “What did you say your name was again?”

“Sibyl Godwin.”

“
Oh my
God,
”
Angie breathed then rushed on, “I’ll leave right away.”

Understanding that likely
Marian’s daughter knew the whole story of Royce and Beatrice and
even Sibyl and Colin, Sibyl didn’t react to her urgency and quietly
ended the call with a promise to meet Angie the next day.