Lacybourne Manor (60 page)

Sibyl threw herself on the bed
and he watched as she bounced then came up on both her elbows and
awarded him with a dazzling smile as she settled on her belly.

“I’ll move back to Brightrose
at the weekend after she’s gone,” she told him, clearly (and
inaccurately) having it all planned out.

“No,” he stated firmly.

She blinked in adorable
confusion and her smile faded before she asked, “What?”

“You’re not moving back to
Brightrose.”

Her relaxed and happy body
froze and then she pushed herself up to her knees, resting her
bottom on her calves and stared down at him.

“It’s safe now, she’s been
caught. I can go home and you and I can, well… do things normally,
like normal couples do. Like go out on normal dates and –”

She stopped because
finally, after all the events of the day,
that
he found hilarious and
he threw back his head and let out a sharp bark of
laughter.

“What’s funny?” she asked over
his hilarity, her brow furrowed and her eyes beginning to move from
hazel to green.

“
You want to
date?
” His
voice was dripping with amused incredulity.

She pulled in both of her
lip.
Then said quietly, “Don’t
you?”

He thought about pushing
himself up to be eye-to-eye with her but decided against it and his
hand snaked out and grasped her wrist, giving it a gentle yank and
pulling her down. He rolled on his back and positioned her on top
of him.

“I think we’re beyond dating,”
he noted.

“What’s ‘beyond dating’?” She
looked confused and very wary.

He gathered her hair away from
her face and held it in a tumbled bunch behind her head in one hand
while his other went to rest on her lovely, rounded bottom.

“
You’re moving into
Lacybourne, permanently.” He, too, had it all planned out.
However
his
plan was the
only
plan.

Her head shifted slightly to
the side and she watched him out of the corners of her eyes as her
lips puckered. Then she whispered, “I don’t think so.”

“I don’t think you have a
choice,” Colin returned.

Her body started and her eyes
definitely switched, blazing an emerald green. “You can’t just
order me to move in with you!”

“I just did.”

She put her hands on either
side of his chest on the bed and pressed herself upwards but he
came up with her and flipped her on her back, resting his weight on
her.

“
You’re… I don’t
even
know
what you are!” Sibyl snapped, her temper hitting
altitude.

“Sibyl, can you please tell me
why everything has to be a struggle with you?” Colin asked, what he
thought was patiently.

Her eyes rounded. “I have a
home, a business, a life. I… you… you and I –”

“Yes?”

She clamped her mouth shut,
unable to find any feasible reason why she shouldn’t move in with
him.

“I didn’t think so,” he drawled
knowingly and he couldn’t help but grin when she made a grumpy,
frustrated noise in the back of her throat.

His knee pressed between her
legs and they parted (even her legs moved mutinously, but they
still moved) and he slid his hands slowly down the backs of her
thighs to pull them up at the knees.

“Give me one good reason to
move in with you,” she demanded and, if his chest wasn’t pressed
against hers, he had no doubt she would have crossed her arms.

“I like you in my house.”

“That’s –” she began to
interrupt him.

“I like you in my bed,” he
continued and she closed her mouth and glared at him. “I like the
way your laboratory makes the house smell like fruit and flowers. I
like walking your damned dog. I like seeing your clothes in the
wardrobe. I like you wearing my t-shirts to bed. I like coming home
to you.”

As he spoke, her face shifted
and relaxed, the emerald melted and the sherry took its place.

She regarded him a moment with
her face soft, her eyes warm then she whispered, “Okay, Colin.”

“Okay, what?”

“I get it,” she answered softly
but somehow uncertainly. “I’ll move into Lacybourne.”

“I wasn’t asking.” He felt it
necessary to inform her.

Finally, she let go of whatever
was troubling her and her lips twitched. “I know. You’re very
bossy. I’ve decided that it’s better if I move in with you. If I
live at Lacybourne, I’ll have more time to break you of that bad
habit.”

He smiled at her before he
warned, his head descending, “I wouldn’t count on it.”

* * * * *

He had another good reason for
her moving into Lacybourne.

He could not shake his unease
that Mrs. Byrne was right.

And he didn’t want Sibyl going
anywhere until he was certain she was safe.

The Good Kind. And the Bad.

Sibyl woke in a bed that
felt strange beneath her. It was feather-soft, had no firmness and
the sheets were slightly scratchy.

Her eyes flew open and she
realised she wasn’t in Colin’s bed, she wasn’t in any bed she’d
ever seen before.

And Colin wasn’t there.

She jumped out of the bed
thinking to see Bran or Mallory but neither was in sight. There was
also no elegant furniture in the room, indeed, although the room
was grand, it looked slightly rough and definitely strange.

She was someplace she’d never
been.

Even though she knew, somehow,
she was in Lacybourne.

Her hands went to her hair
which she found was plaited in a thick braid down her back.

She flipped the braid around to
the front and stared at it.

Colin’s hair, nearly dark as
black.

She stared down at her
nightgown and it was old-fashioned and prim.

She was in a different
time.

She was in Royce’s time.

“Oh my goddess,” she
murmured.

Her eyes frantically searched
the room and she found a soft, blue wrapper thrown across the back
of a chair. She grabbed it and shoved her arms into the sleeves as
she ran from the room and down the hall toward Colin’s room which
she prayed silently to the goddess had also been Royce’s room.

She threw open the door and
startled a maid who was making the bed.

The maid’s eyes rounded in
surprise and she stared.

“Miss Beatrice,” she
breathed.

Sibyl didn’t know what to say.
Goddess, she wished she’d listened to her father more closely. How
did one talk medieval?

There was nothing for it, Sibyl
would have to bluff it.

“Where’s your master?”

She must have said the right
thing because the woman’s face melted knowingly. “He’s…” Her eyes
dropped to Sibyl’s body. “But you’re not dressed.”

Sibyl looked down at herself
knowing it was most likely not seemly that she was running around
in her nightclothes but she didn’t care. Time was of the
essence.

“I need to see, um… Sir Royce
right away.”

She felt like an idiot but she
didn’t care about that either. At any moment, she could wake
up.

“But Miss Beatrice…”

“
Where is
he?
” she cried desperately.

The woman jumped at her tone
which was obviously something with which, coming from Beatrice, she
was not familiar. Then she spoke. “He’s at his meal in the
Hall.”

She said more but Sibyl didn’t
hear her. She flew down the corridor like the very devil was at her
heels and then bounded down the stairs. Finally, she skidded to a
halt, seeing the used dishes on the table… but no Royce.

She stomped her foot.

“Blooming hell!” she said in
more than mild exasperation.

“Beatrice?”

His deep, smooth, velvet voice
came from her right and she whirled.

Royce, standing straight and
beautiful in one of the two semi-circular windows, was watching her
with obvious amusement. His hair shown gold and was breathtaking in
the sun pouring in from the window and she wondered if her own
looked like that when hit by the sun’s rays.

“Royce,” she whispered then she
flew right to him and regardless of her relief at finding him, she
stopped a foot away and exploded, “I’ve been looking everywhere for
you!”

He grinned down at her. Without
giving any sign he noticed she’d just yelled in his face, he lifted
a hand and traced his finger softly down her jaw.

“I see, no matter that we will
be wed this day, you are still not capable of a pleasing morning
humour.

Her eyes widened
and
her
brows shot up. “We’re getting married today?”

His grin immediately turned
teasing. “You forgot?”

“No, yes… I…” she stammered and
his grin broadened into a knowing smile.

“I should not be surprised you
would forget, you forget many things, my Beatrice, but our wedding
day? You wound me,” he joked, taking his finger from her jaw to put
his hand to his heart in mock injury.

This was just
too
weird
and he was being
too
sweet. But Sibyl didn’t have time to process
Royce’s effective teasing, she had things to say, things to
do
so she
charged on. “We don’t have time for this, we have to…”

But she stopped speaking when
he leaned forward unexpectedly and reached around her then she felt
a soft, deft yank at the back of her head.

“I do not like this,” he
muttered, his hand coming back around and he held a pale blue
ribbon in front of her face. He dropped it and she had to swiftly
throw up her hands to catch it as his reached back around and she
felt him uncoiling her braid.

Good goddess, just like
Colin.

Her knees went weak.

“Royce,” she whispered.

His eyes, which were looking
over her shoulder, moved to hers and at the look in them she felt
herself holding her breath. “Beatrice?”

She didn’t know what to do,
what to say. Would he remember her from the future?

She couldn’t count on that.

She had to pretend to be
Beatrice.

And she had to work fast.

As he arranged her heavy hair
around her shoulders, he murmured, “Better,” as if to himself.

“
We have to go upstairs,”
she whispered because his eyes had warmed and she
definitely
knew what that meant and she thought it best to press her
advantage while she had one.

His grin turned wicked but his
hand dropped and took hers, lifting it to his mouth, he pressed a
kiss against her fingers. And through this, never once did his eyes
leave hers.

“You are very impatient, my
sweet,” he murmured. “We can wait; it will only be a few…”

“
No!” she cried. “We have
to go now, upstairs, you and me,
now
. There isn’t much
time.”

And she suddenly felt like
bursting into tears. She had to make him go upstairs, she had to –
she gulped – she had to cheat (essentially) on Colin in order to
save Royce and Beatrice. Or, she hoped, get the ball rolling then
wake up in her time and in this time Beatrice could take over. And
hopefully Beatrice wouldn’t come back from wherever she went when
Sibyl was in her body and not be too freaked out.

She didn’t care if it
messed with time (although she really didn’t want Japan to fall
into the sea). She felt, believed to the bottom of her heart, that
she and Colin would find each other, even if she
did
save
Beatrice and Royce.

And she was going to do it, if
there was time.

She’d forgotten that Royce was
a seasoned warrior and he knew the kind of fear he saw in her eyes.
Therefore the warmth went out of his, his body stiffened and he
stared at her with concern.

“Speak to me,” he demanded.

“Royce.” She stepped closer and
his arms instantly moved around her, pulling her protectively,
lovingly against his hard body. She nearly came undone at the
strange, casual beauty of his light embrace. “We have to go
upstairs, Royce, tonight it will be too late because tonight…”

Then it happened, she was
slipping away, she could feel it. She was waking from her dream and
Beatrice was coming back. She had to change tactics, there wasn’t
enough time, she simply had to warn him that tonight they would be
murdered even if he thought she (or Beatrice) was crazy.

“Tonight? Beatrice, what do you
fear happens this night?”

“Royce.” She could have sworn
she shouted his name but it came out less than a whisper.

And then he was gone or she was
gone and instead she was on her side in Colin’s bed, Bran curled up
in the warm space made by her belly and her bent legs. She felt a
hand smooth over her shoulder and she turned her head to see
Colin’s dark one descending to kiss the place where his hand had
been.

She wanted to burst into
tears.

Instead she hid her rampaging
emotions with a sleepy, “Morning,” and she closed her eyes to hide
her feelings from Colin.

She felt his finger run down
her cheekbone. “Go back to sleep, darling.”

And then he was gone.

And when she knew he was, she
finally allowed the tears to come.

For she knew somewhere in the
bottom of her heart that was her last chance.

And she had failed.

* * * * *

First thing that morning,
Mandy walked into Colin’s office with his coffee and whispered,
“Mr. Fitzwilliam is here to see you.”

She was privy to who Mr.
Fitzwilliam was and perhaps, considering she opened his mail and
had access to his desk, what some of his reports
contained.