Lacybourne Manor (10 page)

“Let me pass,” she demanded
once his laughter quieted.

Mallory was seated half a foot
away, looking up at Mr. Morgan, his tongue lolling out of his
mouth, his tail still wagging. Before Colin Morgan could reply to
Sibyl’s demand, the dog leaned forward and licked his hand.

Sibyl stared in disbelief.

Her dog had always, always
hated men (except her father).

“Mallory!” she snapped and the
dog whined then he licked Mr. Morgan’s hand again. ‘Mallory! Stop
that!” she scolded the dog and then, to her surprise, she found her
arm in a vice-like grip and she was yanked through the door.

It was slammed behind her and
before she could get her bearings, she was roughly pushed backward
until she hit door.

And again, before she even
realised what was happening, Colin Morgan stepped into her, not
even a foot away, cutting off any escape. Then he dipped his face
to hers and he was so close she could feel the heat from his body
through the coat and the warmth of his breath on her face.

“The police just called,” he
told her.

She blinked up at him and there
was something about him being there, so close, all she could see,
almost like he was everywhere and everything, her entire world. His
presence simply overpowered her.

And this was an odd,
frightening
familiar
sensation too. It was as if she’d looked up into
his clay-coloured eyes so near she could count his eyelashes and
she’d not done it once or twice but countless times.

Countless.

She could also smell his
cologne (a nice woodsy, musky scent, she noted with professional
detachment, with hints of cedar). She could see his lashes, very
thick and long. And she noticed for the first time that his lower
lip was, surprisingly, sensuously full.

“I have a friend at New
Scotland Yard. He did a search on you last night. It appears you
are who you say you are,” he was saying.

That got her attention and her
gaze snapped from his lips upward. “Of course I am who I say I am.
Who else would I be?”

He watched her, his eyes
strange and glittering and again he had no response.

After several very long moments
of silence, Sibyl realised she was holding her breath but she also
knew it was either that or pant. Although she had just been out in
the chill morning air, suddenly her body felt very hot and her
heart had begun to pound.

“I still don’t trust you for a
moment,” he informed her.

She had no idea what to make of
that comment so she simply told him exactly what was in her
mind.

“You’re mad.”

He proved her right by
responding to her insult with, “What’s that smell?”

Sibyl looked wildly around for
Mallory, hoping that she didn’t miss something during his morning
business when Morgan’s voice came again. This time softly, so
softly she thought she could almost feel it on her skin.

“It smells like lilies.”

Her eyes jerked to his and his
were still glittering. But instead of anger, she was shocked to see
(and her heart began pounding all the more insistently at the
sight), there was an odd, sweet warmth there.

Something was happening
to her, something she didn’t understand and something she
definitely couldn’t control. She felt the tenseness slide from her
body and her bones felt like they were softening. She felt
compelled to touch him, to get closer to him, to move her body into
his. Her eyelids lowered and she looked at him from underneath her
lashes.

Her voice came out, just as
soft as his. “It’s my perfume.”

He watched her for a second,
his head slowly, nearly imperceptibly, descending to hers and she
thought, hysterically, that he was going to kiss her.

And she braced for it.
Ready for it.
Wanting
it.

Then he stopped, she watched
his eyes blink and then, his tone back to cool civility, he
remarked, “God, you’re good.”

And this was
not
a
compliment. She knew this comment was meant to be insulting, knew
it right to the very marrow of her bones.

It felt like she was sitting in
a dunking booth, someone hit the bulls-eye and she’d crashed into
its ice waters.

“I want to go home,” she
demanded and he hadn’t moved away so she put her hands on the hard
wall of his chest and shoved.

He didn’t budge.

And finally after banging her
head, having her license confiscated, being held hostage, forced to
change in front of a male stranger who, according to her very
faulty dreams, was supposed to be the love of her life and, most
importantly, forgetting to count to ten, the full force of her
temper exploded.

“I want to go home!” she
shouted in his face. “Give me my damned clothes and my bag and my
car keys and my license and let me get out of this crazy
place!”

He did not react to her fury as
she expected him to. He didn’t move away. He didn’t seem offended
or angered.

If anything, he moved
closer.

Sibyl completely ignored it and
announced, “Mr. Morgan, if you want me to leave here and not press
charges then you better step back, let me take my animals and go
home.”

“
What if I told you I’m
tempted?” he replied bizarrely, his eyes hooded and he looked
(goddess help her,
she
was going insane too) unbelievably
sexy.

“Tempted by what?” she
squeaked.

“By you.”

Her eyes rounded, she sucked in
her breath so deeply her chest expanded and then she shoved him
with every ounce of strength she possessed. Fortunately this
worked, he went back on a foot.

Then she cried, “You’re
deranged!” She pulled off the coat and threw it at him, not
noticing that he caught it deftly because she bent down to yank off
the Wellingtons. She’d lost it, in a rage that was completely
out-of-control and so done with Colin Morgan, if she
could
control it, she
wouldn’t
. “You’re like a male Mrs. Rochester
except
you
have run of the house.”

She noticed over his shoulder
that Ms. Winter Wonderland, Tamara, was staring at the scene with
polar spears darting from her eyes.

“You!” Sibyl pointed at the
woman. “Need to lock him up before he does any damage.” Then she
stomped (as much as she could stomp in bare feet) into the Great
Hall. “Now will someone give me my fucking clothes?” she shouted at
the top of her voice.

“I’d be delighted,” Tamara
returned, her voice calm and smooth.

In an ungracious tone, Sibyl
replied, “Thank you.”

“Follow me,” Tamara
invited.

Sibyl did and gratefully,
Mallory following closely behind, his tail still wagging.

* * * * *

Mrs. Byrne had witnessed
this scene and was left watching Colin from across the Great Hall
as Sibyl (looking
very
appealing in his pyjama top) and Tamara
disappeared up the stairs.

Colin carelessly tossed the
expensive coat over a chair and saw the older woman look up at the
portraits then back at him and he knew he was meant to understand
her meaningful glances.

They stood that way, squaring
off like opponents on a battlefield as moments turned to minutes
and then Sibyl, struggling to pull her shirt over her head while,
impossibly, her jacket and boots where tucked under her arm,
stamped down the stairs, muttering to herself such phrases as
“loony bin” and “danger to society”.

Sibyl stopped, shrugged into
her jacket then bent over to pull on her boots and then she strode
angrily to Colin. He stared down his nose at her.

He’d seen her earlier
that morning, out the window, in her ridiculous outfit (an outfit
that still managed to look enticing on her) and it was almost as if
he couldn’t control himself. It was almost as if an invisible force
pulled him to the front door to watch her cavorting with her damned
dog.

She was (he knew, as he was a
connoisseur of woman) unbelievably beddable. His hands itched to
touch her, his mouth was dry with the effort not to kiss her. Last
night, when he found her stubbornly shivering in her sleep, he had
the strong urge he almost couldn’t beat back and very nearly warmed
her with his own body.

Earlier, every time she’d said
“Mallory” it made his gut twitch because it sounded so familiar, as
if he’d heard her say it before, many times before.

It didn’t help matters
that when the dog licked his hand
that
seemed bizarrely familiar
and welcome as well.

Now, she was standing before
him, her eyes flashing that intriguing green when five minutes
before, when he looked into her eyes, they were a warm sherry, and
she held her hand out, palm up.

“Keys!” she barked in his face,
her clearly formidable, and just as appealing, temper flashing like
lightning in the room.

He calmly pushed his hand into
the pocket of his jeans and deposited her car keys in her palm.

Tamara came forward and held
out the red purse to Sibyl who snatched it out of the woman’s hand
without a word.

Colin slowly, taking his time,
looked between the two women.

Tamara was his type, dark,
petite, thin, sophisticated and cool.

Sibyl was not his type, she was
golden, lush, curvy and tempestuous.

To his stunned surprise, there
was absolutely no comparison. Tamara, he found, was sadly
lacking.

Colin decided in that moment
that Sibyl was rather magnificent, even if he felt certain that
every movement was a studied performance. He had no idea what she
and the older woman wished to gain but he was beginning to think
that it might be rather diverting to turn the tables on them.

Especially if Sibyl Godwin (if
that was, indeed, her real name as the police had assured him the
resident of Brightrose Cottage, the address on her license, was
named) was as splendidly hot in bed as she was out of it.

The other option remained
that she
was
Sibyl Godwin, the reincarnation of the legendary
Beatrice. The fact that option existed, even minutely, Colin knew
meant it had to be explored.

He noticed throughout her act
that she didn’t even glance at the portraits and he didn’t know
what to make of that then Sibyl interrupted his thoughts by
speaking.

“
Mrs. Byrne, I’d love to
have coffee somewhere far,
far
away from Lacybourne. Please
call me if you’d like to do that sometime,” she said to the older
woman, her voice lower and more controlled.

“I would be delighted,” Mrs.
Byrne replied.

“
And as for you,” she
turned to Colin, her eyes shimmering emeralds, she finished hotly,
“I hope I never see
you
again!”

Colin studied her knowing he’d
see her again.

He was planning on it.

And looking forward to it.

Thus, he did not reply.

With that, and without a
comment to Tamara, she stomped out the door whistling to her dog
and, when outside, calling to her cat.

They heard doors slam, the car
start and the gravel fly as she peeled out of Lacybourne.

“
I must say, Mr. Morgan,”
Mrs. Byrne was talking and Colin’s eyes slid to the older woman. He
read, very clearly this time that her voice held a more than mild
rebuke. “
That
was
not
very well
handled.”

Then, with great dignity, she
exited the room.

Rescue

Sibyl was
not
having
a good time.

Her life, since the morning she
left Lacybourne, (not unusually but still upsettingly) descended
into a mess. The only shining good fortune she seemed to have was
Mrs. Byrne, who she now had a standing date to have breakfast with
every Monday morning. They’d met last Monday nearly a week since
their first encounter on the steps of Lacybourne and decided to
make it a ritual. Sibyl had enjoyed the woman’s company and was
thrilled to have a new friend.

Social Services was very
understanding about Annie and the sad state of her house but their
hands were tied regarding the minibus driver. Therefore, Sibyl
decided to have a few choice words with him. Her choice words, and
the hold on her calm, deteriorated to the point where Kyle had to
pull her back as she began to shout into the driver’s pitted,
sneering face.

“
You’ll make it worse for
them, luv, if you upset him,” Kyle explained, gently pushing her
toward the door to the Day Centre.
She
didn’t have to ride the
minibus, Kyle reminded her, the pensioners did. And angering the
driver would only make matters worse.

Kyle was right, of course and
after her minibus driver tirade, Sibyl sought out Jemma and
collapsed in a chair in her office, sipping at a fortifying cup of
coffee that Tina made her to calm her down (something Tina had
become adept at doing in the past year).

“I’m out-of-control,” Sibyl
admitted to her friend.

Days before, when Jemma
had asked at the bandage at her temple, she’d told her friend
everything about Lacybourne. She had
not
told her mother or her
sister, especially considering her premonitory dream and Colin
Morgan’s part in that. Both women would have been in fits
(especially if she described him in every luscious detail) and
likely would have wanted her to go back and explore her options,
crazy man or not, especially if she’d relayed the information that
he’d told her he was “tempted”.