Lacybourne Manor (56 page)

His hands slid from her jaw to
lift her hair at the back of her head and as he did this Sibyl
noted his eyes were so intense, they were liquid.

Then, his gaze on her
mouth, he murmured, “I know a
much
better way to deal with
stress.”

“I’m sure you do,” she noted
crisply, “you know everything.”

Colin’s head dipped and he
smiled against her lips and there he whispered, “Just remember
that.”

Then he kissed her.

Then he helped her work out her
stress, succeeding spectacularly.

Settling In

The next week and a half
with Sibyl was eventfully uneventful.

Although they had no attempts
on their lives, Colin found his turned upside down.

Lacybourne was an
enormous manor house that, since he’d moved in, had always seemed
empty, even when he was occupying it. Now, every corner seemed
filled with Sibyl, her pets, her mother, his mother and anyone else
the trio deemed fit to add to the mix.

Sibyl had taken the news
of a bodyguard watching after her very well. Colin inadvertently
hit on the perfect way to break news that she may not like and
avoid her for
midable temper in the
process.

After her rather
endearing yet entirely unacceptable bid to save his life by leaving
him, he’d punished her. For anyone else but Colin Morgan,
inflicting punishment for such a selfless act would seem a strange
reaction. However, he didn’t particularly like how he felt when
he’d walked to their bedroom with the purpose of making love to her
only to find her packing a suitcase. Therefore, when he’d finally
subdued her impulsive, hilarious and ill-conceived flight and taken
her to bed, he’d spent a good deal of time using most of the
weapons in his rather honed sexual arsenal to drive her mad with
desire.

When he had her wrists
imprisoned over her head and after he’d lavished a goodly amount of
attention on her lovely, responsive breasts, he surged over her.
Thinking, finally, she was going to get what she’d been begging him
to give her for at least fifteen minutes, she opened her legs to
receive him.

“By the way,” he muttered
against her mouth and felt her hips tilt upward in invitation, at
this act, his control slipped and he finished through gritted
teeth, “I’ve hired a bodyguard for you. Starting tomorrow morning,
he’ll be with you every minute when I’m not.”

Sibyl’s eyes focussed on him
but Colin realised by their dazed quality she wasn’t hearing a word
he said. Her mind was definitely elsewhere.

“Okay,” she mumbled without
hint of protest and wrapped one long, shapely leg around his hip.
Ever the practised negotiator, he decided to stop while he was
ahead and slid slowly, deeply inside her and then his mind went
elsewhere as well.

Later, he was sitting at the
head of the dining room table, Sibyl to his left. They were all
eating her mother’s vegetarian lasagne, homemade garlic bread and a
salad that was so big it had to be served in two bowls.

Colin turned to Sibyl. “About
Rick.”

Absorbed in eating her mother’s
admittedly delicious meal, she munched a piece of bread and asked,
“Who’s Rick?”

“Your bodyguard.”

Her head didn’t move but her
eyes shifted swiftly to the side to stare at him and her mouth
froze mid-crunch.

Unaffected by her response, he
carried on, “He’s being paid to protect you, not to be your friend,
not to be your project. This is a professional relationship, he
drives you, watches you, guards you, keeps you safe. If he has a
girlfriend he isn’t getting along with, that’s none of your
concern. If his mother has terminal brain cancer, you don’t bake
her cookies and hold her hand during chemotherapy.”

Her head snapped around to
glare at him and she gulped down the bread before snapping,
“Colin!”

“Is that understood?” he asked
the question but didn’t expect an answer, he simply expected to be
obeyed.

“I can hardly ignore it if his
mother has a brain tumour,” she retorted angrily, hilariously
defending her right to be the guardian angel for a fictional
unfortunate.

“Then I suggest you don’t even
talk to him so you won’t find out.”

“I can hardly not talk to him
if he spends every minute of the day with me.”

“Sibyl,” he said warningly.

“Colin.” She used his tone
against him.

“You befriend him and he loses
focus, he’s gone.”

“I cannot believe –” she
hissed.

“
You do it with the next
one then
he’s
gone,” Colin went on and finished. “Do you catch
my meaning?”

Her rebellious gaze slid to
Phoebe and Mags who were sitting across from her. Phoebe was trying
very hard (but failing as her lips were twitching) to keep her face
impassive. Mags wasn’t even trying to hide her smile but at least
she dropped her head so she smiled at her plate of lasagne.

Finding no reinforcements at
the table, Sibyl bit out, “Fine.”

Monday, he had barely sat
behind his desk in his office when Mandy came rushing in with his
coffee.

“There’s a man out there named
Kyle James. He says he needs to talk to you. He says you know him
from what he calls ‘The Centre’.” Mandy’s wide eyes got wider as
she finished, “He mentioned something about a tranquilliser
dart!”

When she finished, her eyes
were round as saucers.

Calmly, Colin told her to send
him in.

Sibyl’s friend strolled in,
taking a good look around him as he did and then put out his hand
for a friendly handshake. “All right, mate?”

“Kyle,” Colin responded to the
familiar West Country greeting.

“Like the office,” he remarked.
“Is Billie’s going to be this nice when you finish building it?”
When he stopped speaking, he had a twinkle in his eye.

“I think something like this
may clash with the current décor of The Centre.” Colin grinned at
him and gestured to a handsome, black leather chair in front of his
enormous desk. Kyle sat and waited as Colin took his seat behind
his desk. Then Colin enquired politely, “Do you want some
coffee?”

“That’s nice of you but I don’t
want to take up too much of your time. Need to be on my way soon
anyhow.”

Colin sat back and regarded him
carefully, wondering why he was there.

The he asked, “What’s on your
mind?”

Kyle shifted and looked out the
window behind Colin’s head and Colin saw, with interest, Kyle’s
normal amiability slowly fade.

“Been asking around. Not good
what happened to you and Billie last Friday.” His eyes moved back
to Colin, the twinkle was gone and it was replaced by something
very serious. “Got a boy on the estate, not a bad kid but he
doesn’t hang around with a good crowd. Heard word he was talking
about a friend of his who showed up at his place Friday night, arm
busted.”

That got Colin’s attention and
his back straightened.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“Me and a couple of…” He
hesitated and stared at Colin assessingly then, deciding he trusted
what he saw, he continued, “My boys paid him a visit. Seems this
kid’s friend didn’t want to go to hospital. Eventually he passed
out with the pain so the kid loaded him up, meaning to take him to
Weston Hospital anyway. On the way there, his friend woke up and
demanded he take him somewhere, anywhere, but Weston or Bristol.
The kid took him down to some place in Exeter. His friend slipped
away after getting treated. Our boy doesn’t know where he
went.”

Colin clenched his teeth but
nodded his head. He realised in that moment he’d vastly underrated
the even-tempered Kyle.

“Another thing,” Kyle
continued, “kid told us his friend said some woman owed him more
considering his arm was broken. He said he was paid a load but not
enough to get his arm busted.” He stopped and watched the muscle
working in Colin’s jaw. “Thought you’d want to know.”

“Thank you,” was all Colin
could manage to get out. It was Tamara, he knew and he was
pleasantly contemplating wringing her skinny, alabaster neck.

“Haven’t told the police yet,
figured you might want to do that, er… anonymous-like.”

Colin nodded again, easily
catching his meaning. Kyle and “his boys” part in this drama was to
remain a secret.

Obviously done with his errand,
Kyle slapped his thighs, morphing straight back to his old,
friendly self. “Well, that’s it. Got things to do.”

He stood and Colin joined him
around the desk for another handshake but when it should have
ended, Kyle’s hand tightened.

“We take care of our own,” he
said in a low voice and stared Colin in the eye and the older man’s
were sober. Then he dropped Colin’s hand. “We’re still lookin’.”
Kyle told Colin. “We find out any more, we’ll let you know.”

Colin wrote his mobile and home
phone numbers on the back of a business card and handed it to Kyle,
making his meaning clear as he said quietly, “Please do that.”

The minute the door closed
behind Kyle, Colin called Robert Fitzwilliam to relate the
news.

Later in the afternoon, he
called the alarm company ordering them to increase security at
Lacybourne, including putting a panic button and warning light in
his and Sibyl’s bedroom. He then called his housekeeper, Mrs.
Manning, to tell her that he was changing all the codes and that he
had guests who would be staying for an indefinite period of
time.

She asked for the new codes but
he told her he would tell her in person when he next saw her, he
wasn’t even going to trust his own damned phone line. She,
strangely, pressed him but he flatly refused to divulge the
information over the phone. He explained she’d have to wait, for
the time being, to be let in by him, Sibyl or whoever else his
mother or Mags dragged into their drama.

That evening he changed all the
alarm codes and explained them and how to work the complicated
system to the three women currently occupying Lacybourne. Then,
upon seeing three uncomprehending faces, he explained them again.
Then, when his mother bit her lip and Mags’s eyes shifted uneasily
this way and that, he patiently explained it again.

He did not even want to
consider what would happen when the new system he’d ordered was
installed.

Preparing for bed, he exited
the bathroom after brushing his teeth to see Sibyl sitting
cross-legged on the bed wearing another one of his t-shirts. Apart
from the fact that she loved him, which he found a vastly
pleasurable experience the like of which he’d never known, the
second thing he liked best about her was her new habit of wearing
his t-shirts to bed. Not just that she did it, but the casual
intimacy it evoked that she did.

Not to mention she looked
utterly adorable sitting cross-legged close to the end of their
bed, her face free of makeup, her fantastic, gleaming hair loose
around her shoulders.

She broke him out of his
reverie by saying, “Um… Colin?”

The hesitant somewhat guilty
tone of her voice tore all pleasant thoughts of Sibyl’s love and
how adorable she was in his t-shirt out of his head.

He just looked at her, mentally
preparing for the worst.

“I have something to tell you,”
she continued.

He stopped at the foot of the
bed and stared down at her.

“Let me guess,” he drawled,
“you discovered your bodyguard’s sister has diabetes and you’ve
decided to give her your kidney.”

Her head jerked slightly and
then her face lit up in a magnificent smile before she burst into
deep, musical laughter. His body jolted at the sound and it
occurred to him that this was the first time he’d ever made her
laugh.

And doing it he felt, oddly,
like he’d conquered the world.

Once she had herself under
control she shook her head, her hair shifting beautifully around
her face, and said, “No.”

“What is it?” He asked and then
leaned forward, unable to prevent himself even if it meant losing
the millions he’d worked so hard for he placed his hands on the bed
on either side of her hips and kissed the smile on her face.

When he lifted his head she
said, “It was National Trust day today at Lacybourne.”

“I know.” He put his knee on
the bed and she had no choice but to grab his shoulders as he
loomed over her and she had to lean back to allow his body into the
space where hers had just been.

“Well, word is getting out
about you and me, Royce and Beatrice.”

He froze then he narrowed his
eyes at her. “How’s that happening…” he paused, “exactly?”

She pulled her lips between her
teeth for a moment then released them and said, “Well…” and that
was all she said but she drew the word out so it lasted several
seconds.

“Sibyl.”

“
They already knew about
you, of course,” she started quickly. “Then some of the tourists
told some of the Trust volunteers last Saturday after they’d seen
us, I mean
me
… with, er,
you
, outside and then,
today, the volunteers and tourists kind of saw me –”

He moved forward more,
this time menacingly and she clutched his shoulders and her legs
uncrossed as he settled her back, dropping his weight on her. She
didn’t have a chance to close her legs and he pressed himself
between them.

“Kind of saw you?” he asked as
he lifted himself up with his elbows in the bed at her sides in
order to look down on her.

“
Yes… well, I was kind
of, er…
mingling
amongst the tourists.”

He closed his eyes and silently
asked whatever deity, God or her goddess, to grant him
patience.