Lacybourne Manor (2 page)

“Oh, you could,” Marian moved
forward and encouragingly placed her hand on the woman’s forearm.
“Truly, he won’t mind.”

That was an outright lie,
Colin Morgan would very much mind. But what could she do? She could
see the indecision on the other woman’s face, Marian
had
to do
something.

Marian forged ahead. “We’ll set
it at six o’clock, shall we? You can give me your telephone number
and I’ll phone you if there’s a problem. What’s your name, my
dear?”

“Sibyl,” she said, smiling her
gratitude so sensationally Marian felt her heart seize at the
sight. “Sibyl Godwin.”

It was with that
announcement that Marian’s hand clutched the woman’s arm with
vigour far beyond her seventy years.

“I’m sorry, what did you say
your surname was again?”

The woman was studying her with
curiosity and Marian watched the spectacular sight as the hazel in
the other woman’s eyes melted to the colour of sherry as curiosity
became concern. Her hand, Marian noted distractedly, had moved to
cover the older woman’s hand protectively.

“Godwin.”

At her single word, Marian
couldn’t help herself, she whispered, “Oh my.”

* * * * *

“Tell her, no,” Colin Morgan
said into the phone, his rich, deep, baritone voice showing his
obvious irritation.

“Mr. Morgan, she’s been wanting
to see the house for over a year. She’s a very busy lady –”

“I said no.”

“She’ll be very
disappointed.”

Colin attempted to conjure an
image of the woman to whom he was speaking. He assumed he’d met her
at some point but he couldn’t remember. Her voice was strong but it
betrayed her age. If it hadn’t, he would have told her exactly how
little he cared that an unknown American would be disappointed at
not having a private evening tour of his home. The very idea was
ridiculous.

Instead, he said, “If you
would, please remind this woman of the opening hours of the house
and request that she visit
during
them.”

There was a sigh and if he
wasn’t mistaken it was a vaguely reprimanding sigh. “Very well, Mr.
Morgan.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Byrne.”

For the life of him, he had no
idea why he was thanking the older woman for annoying him but the
impeccable manners his mother had drilled into him would not allow
him to do otherwise.

When he set the handset in the
receiver he dragged frustrated fingers through his dark hair and
looked up at the two portraits in front of him without seeing
them.

Tomorrow, Tamara would be
at Lacybourne. He had far more interest in entertaining Tamara (or,
more to the point, allowing her to entertain
him
) than avoiding
some American wandering around his house proclaiming everything
“quaint” and exclaiming, “Oh, if these walls could
talk!”

The will of his Uncle
Edward and Aunt Felicity was clear; he inherited the house
only
if he
continued to open it to The National Trust. Colin did so but under
his terms. He had no idea why he moved into the house in the first
place. He vastly preferred London to this sleepy seaside town and
the enormous house was far too big for only one man to be in
residence.

If he was honest with himself,
it was, he knew, those bloody portraits.

His eyes focussed on them
but he didn’t have to look at them to know what they portrayed.
He’d long since memorised them.

Since he was young and his
parents would bring their children to this house during holidays to
visit their childless aunt and uncle, he and his brother and sister
were always fascinated by the portraits and the famous, romantic
yet grisly history of their subjects.

For obvious reasons, as Colin
grew older, the portraits became all the more captivating.

Throughout his life, everyone
said he resembled the long dead Royce Morgan but as he grew from a
child to a man, that resemblance became stunningly clear.

It was that, Colin knew, that
drew him to this damned house.

That and the portrait of
Beatrice Morgan, of course.

She had been Beatrice Godwin
when the portrait was painted; she’d only been Beatrice Morgan for
scant hours of her short life. She stood in the portrait holding a
fluffy, black cat in one arm with the hand of her other arm resting
lovingly on the head of a great mastiff. She was surrounded by the
black shadows of trees with the blue-black backdrop of night and
the sky behind her was dark and, strangely, rent with a bolt of
lightning.

It was unusual for these old
portraits to depict their subjects smiling, but regardless of the
dire, nightly setting, Beatrice Godwin was most definitely smiling,
magnificently. In fact, it looked like she was close to laughing.
Her face was not painted white, her neck was not bound in some
hideous ruff, her hair was not tamed but its dark curls were flying
wild about her face.

The portrait of Royce Morgan,
on the other hand, did not depict him as smiling. He stood wearing
armour in front of a mighty black steed that Colin knew, from the
many books on the subject of Royce and Beatrice in the library at
Lacybourne, was named Mallory. In the painting, Royce looked fierce
and battle worn and Colin had little doubt why the lovely, smiling
Beatrice Godwin had caught the warrior’s eye.

Colin’s mother and younger
sister had always believed in the romantic notion that Colin would
find the reincarnated Beatrice, marry her and live happily ever
after with dozens of children flitting around Lacybourne. Local
legend said that the unconsummated love of Royce and Beatrice would
one day, with magical help, be fulfilled when their tormented souls
rested in new bodies.

Colin grew up believing it too.
Since he could remember, he knew somewhere in the depths of some
hidden place in his soul that he was meant to play a vital part in
the Royce and Beatrice Saga. Because of that, since he was a young
boy, he had always been in love with Beatrice Godwin or, at least,
the idea of her.

Now, Colin was thirty-six years
old and he had no interest in falling in love. He’d done it once
and he’d never do it again. Furthermore, he didn’t believe in love
or magic or destiny. He believed you made your own destiny or
bought it, sold it, stole it or wrested it away from anyone who
wanted to keep it from you.

Instead, he was considering
asking Tamara Adams to marry him. She, unlike all of the other
women in his vast experience (and most of the men), made absolutely
no bones about the end to which she used her many, talented means.
She blatantly and with purpose used scheming, lies, tears, guilt,
begging and sex to get exactly what she wanted. Tamara had done it
since he knew her, which had been most of her life as their parents
had been friends for as long as he could remember.

Colin Morgan did not love
Tamara, he wasn’t certain he even liked her. Then again, Colin
didn’t like most people and he specifically did not like women.

Indeed, it could be said that
he disliked women with a ruthless passion.

He had reason.

Colin came from money;
his father and mother were both members of the upper,
upper
middle class. Michael and Phoebe Morgan had both been (if
somewhat distantly, in the case of his father, but
not
in the
case of his mother) doting to their three children – Colin, Claire
and Anthony.

Colin had gone to Harrow then
Cambridge then he took a job on the Exchange. Within two years of
graduating from Cambridge, Colin started his own brokerage firm.
Then, shortly after, he stopped buying and selling stocks and
started buying and selling companies. Or, more to the point,
wresting companies away from their mismanagement, cleaning them up
and selling them off, sometimes in pieces, for a vast profit.

He was known as ruthless but he
didn’t care in the slightest.

He
was
ruthless.

Since he was a young boy, he’d
never cared what people thought of him. Colin always excelled,
always triumphed, no matter what. It was simply his nature. Part of
his success was natural ability and extreme intelligence, both of
which Colin had in abundance. Nevertheless, Colin was driven to
succeed, pushed himself to be the best and settled for nothing less
in himself or the people around him.

His father didn’t need to
encourage his son or make demands of him. Michael Morgan often
found himself concerned about his son’s single-minded pursuit of
anything he wanted.

Phoebe Morgan’s feelings went
well beyond concerned catapulting directly to outright worry.

As Colin grew older and
matured, their son’s seemingly easy accomplishments, his
determination and aggressive competitive streak set him up as a
target. It didn’t help matters that he was unbelievably handsome,
fabulously sexy, unusually tall, mentally and physically strong and
inordinately rich.

Colin had it all and what he
didn’t have, he obtained.

Many people didn’t like
that.

Colin was a target to those who
wanted to best him or those who Colin bested and who wanted
vengeance.

These were mostly men.

Colin was also a target for
those who wanted to tame him, trap him or wished to bask in the
blazing spotlight of his glory.

These were
always
women.

Therefore Colin Morgan
understood innately that nearly everyone was capable of betrayal,
anyone could be (and was) devious and no one lived their lives
without ulterior motives.

He cared for his family, had
close friends but anyone not in his private circle mattered nothing
to him. Colin rarely trusted; he knew from a wealth of experience
that people did not deserve to be trusted.

And the majority of those
“people” were women.

It had started with a girl who
became besotted with him when he was still a young man. She’d
written him long, lovesick letters and posted them to Harrow. He
had little interest in her but didn’t have the desire to tell her
to stop writing. Yet when he came home for a holiday, he found her
kissing another boy at the tennis courts at their club. Upon seeing
his knowing face, she assured Colin she did, indeed, love him, but
she certainly wasn’t going to be bored and lonely on Saturday
nights while he was away at school.

Then there was the first woman
he actually felt some emotion for, a bright woman at Cambridge, a
woman with raven hair who reminded him, somewhat, of the portrait
of Beatrice.

They had been seeing each other
for some months when he’d come across her at a pub when they were
out separately one night, her with her girlfriends, he with his
friends. Colin had been pleased to see her and approached while her
back was to him.

“
I cannot
believe
you’re dating Colin Morgan. He’s gorgeous!” he heard her
friend say.

“
Yes,” his girlfriend
replied, “
and
he’s got a
huge
trust fund.”

All the girls had laughed.
Colin had walked away and the next day when she phoned, he hung up
on her. He completely cut her out of his life, turned away from her
if he met her on the pavement and put the phone down on her the
dozens of times she called. He never told her what he heard, he
never gave her the chance to explain herself, indeed, he never
spoke a word to her again.

Then there was Portia.

Colin had met Portia in London
shortly after starting his own brokerage. Slowly, over time, she’d
broken down the barriers that seemed, for no reason at all (and yet
every reason), to have been around his heart since he was born.
Eventually, after a great deal of effort on her part, he’d fallen
in love with the passionate, chestnut-haired beauty.

On the verge of asking her to
marry him, he’d come home far earlier than normal and found her
naked on the floor in the living room of his flat. She’d been on
all fours, his best friend, Kevin, on his knees behind her. He
could still remember when her face, looking strangely bored and
definitely resigned, turned to him. He could still remember how her
expression melted to horror at being caught.

Colin had never been so furious
in his life. He’d nearly torn Kevin limb-from-limb and he could
have easily struck Portia and not regretted it.

Instead, he’d walked out of the
room, moved out of the flat they shared and remorselessly turned
his back on the both of them, never seeing either one of them
again. Though, she had phoned. He could still remember the pleading
in her voice when she tried to win him back.

“
Colin, I’ve been with
you for months and you didn’t ask me to marry you. I need to get
married, I
have
to. Don’t you understand? That’s what girls like
me do,” she explained as if it was the most natural thing in the
world.

She was hedging her bets,
pursuing Colin with Kevin waiting in the wings.

Kevin married her. They
divorced after a year with Portia in possession of a good deal of
Kevin’s trust fund
and
personal earnings.

That had been over a decade
ago. Since then many different women drifted in and out of Colin’s
life. At six foot two, he had a lean, muscular body that he kept
fit with relentless determination. He had thick, waving hair, only
a shade lighter than black, light brown eyes the colour of clay,
strong, prominent cheekbones, a hard jaw and, incongruously, an
immensely sensual, generous lower lip.

What he didn’t have was any
problem attracting women. His family name, the quantity of his
money, his good looks, his arrogance and cold heart (that many
women felt they could melt) made him an object of great
attraction.