Lacybourne Manor (40 page)

“Colin, don’t!” Mrs. Byrne
cried from somewhere in the room.

“
Of course I do! I see
him every night in my dreams,” Sibyl yelled in his face, struggling
against his arm. “Every night. But they aren’t dreams, they…
they’re
memories!
” she cried frantically.
“I’m Beatrice in my dreams.”

It was then, Sibyl felt her
face pale.

Oh dear goddess, she
might even
be
Beatrice in reality.

Royce had said,
You called me Colin when you were
her. I thought she was attempting to vex me.

“Oh my goddess. Oh my goddess.”
Sibyl was back to chanting.

“Sibyl, calm down,” Colin
commanded and her eyes flew to his. They were no longer irate, they
were concerned. His hands were no longer grasping her bitingly but
had gentled.

That’s when
she
became
irate.

“
Calm down?
Calm down?
Are you mad? You have a portrait of a dead medieval woman
in your house. A woman who had her throat slit. A woman that looks
exactly like me, I even think she
is
me in a way and…”

She stopped and her body went
utterly still.

He had a portrait in his house
that looked like her. A portrait that likely had hung there for
hundreds of years.

She stared at him and then her
eyes cut to Mrs. Byrne.

Lightning split the sky.

Mrs. Byrne had been working at
Lacybourne for years.

Her eyes cut back to Colin.

“
You knew!” she cried and
heard others entering the room but she couldn’t think about
anything else because thoughts, memories, visions, snippets of
dreams, her first meeting with Mrs. Byrne (who was
very
keen
to have Sibyl come to the house), her first meeting with Colin and
his maniacal behaviour all came crashing into her brain and she
understood, she finally understood. “You knew I looked like her and
you knew you looked like him.” Her eyes went back to Mrs. Byrne.
“You both knew and you never said a word.”

“Dear –” Mrs. Byrne began
placatingly.

Sibyl cut her off. “You
knew! I even told you about my dreams and you knew!” Sibyl shouted
at Marian. “Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Her head swung back
to Colin who was close, very close, holding her against the warmth
of his body and staring at her, a muscle working in his jaw but
this time, not with anger. “Why didn’t
you
say anything to
me?”

“I thought you were –” Colin
started to say but with a forceful jerk she pulled out of his arms
and quickly took several steps away from him, putting needed space
between them.

Because the dawning light
finally rose in her dim brain and it all made startlingly clear,
hideous sense.

“
I know what you thought.
I know
exactly
what you thought. You thought I knew who she
was.” Sibyl’s hand flew to point at the portrait of Beatrice. “And
that I was after the family silver. That’s what you thought!” She
screamed these words, her fury completely out-of-control, her voice
ringing in the hall. She held tightly to her rage, if she didn’t,
she would likely curl up and die.

This was not a dream. This was
magic but it wasn’t the light airy-fairy kind. This was dark and
ugly and she wanted no part of murdered, star-crossed lovers, the
male half of which reincarnated into a misanthropic beast.

Colin started toward her as
Mrs. Byrne called out, “Sibyl, you must listen.”

Sibyl didn’t respond, she was
watching Colin.

“
Don’t come near me!
Don’t you even
touch
me!” she warned but Colin didn’t stop, indeed
not only didn’t he stop but he was coming at her with grave
purpose. “You wanted to punish me?” she asked acidly. “Well you
did! You got my family here to make a fool of me, to humiliate me
and you made me your…
omph!
”

She didn’t finish because she
had his shoulder in her belly and then she was being lifted. Her
breath was knocked out of her as he threw her over his shoulder and
carried her toward the stairs.

She recovered quickly and
struggled, shouting, “Let me down!”

He didn’t stop and he didn’t
let her down.

She lifted her head, her
hair falling away from her face and as he carried her up the
stairs, she saw her family
and
his family, watching their
ascent in fascinated, horrified silence.

But no one came to her aid.

Real Life Magic

Colin put her down in his
bedroom and the minute her feet touched the floor, Sibyl started to
run toward the door.

He grabbed her by hooking an
arm about her waist and yanking her back against his body. She
crashed against the length of him and he wasted no time. He reached
out, leaning into her, his upper body pushing her torso forward,
and he slammed the door.

“Sibyl, five minutes. Listen to
me,” he demanded, his mouth at her ear.

“
No!” she shouted and
struggled, tearing at his hand at her waist. Her mind was whirling,
her head was spinning. No one down there helped her, not even her
family. They
all
knew before she did, that was what they were so
damned
cheerful
about. That was why they were all acting so
strange.

She felt, at any moment, she
was either going to cry, scream the house down or be sick.

Or all three at the same
time.

He caught one wrist and twirled
her out then used her arm to jerk her forward. She slammed against
his hard body while he twisted her arm carefully behind her back.
Her other hand came up to push against his chest but he grabbed
that too and it joined the one behind her back.

She was pressed full-frontal
against his body and completely powerless.

This, of course, made her
angrier.

She tipped her head back, her
hair flying everywhere. “Let go of me!” she yelled in his face.

He shook her, a gentle but
rough gesture that caused her no pain but further angered her all
the same.

“Listen to me!” he commanded,
his voice an urgent rumble.

“No!” she repeated. “You have
nothing to say that I want to hear.”

“I dreamed of you, the night
before I met you.”

She became instantly still.

Perhaps that was something she
was willing to hear.

“What?”

“I dreamed of who I thought was
Beatrice, but she had your hair. It was you. I was making love to
you and then you were torn from my arms and I was held back as
someone slit your throat.”

Her mouth dropped open and she
gaped at him, completely at a loss for words.

What on the goddess’s green
earth was going on?

She’d dreamed of him too.
The same exact dream. Except it was
his
throat that was
slit.

“Does that dream sound
familiar?” he asked, watching her closely.

She blinked and shut her mouth
so fast, her teeth clacked together.

Damn, she always got caught in
her lies.

“Sibyl, I know you were lying
about your nightmare that night. You’re the worst liar I’ve ever
met.”

She stayed silent, not ready to
let go of her rage and instantly deciding she did not want to hear
anymore of this latest revelation. Really, how much could a girl
take?

“You’ve had the same dream,
haven’t you?” Her eyes went to the door with visions of escape
dancing in her head but he shook her again. “Haven’t you?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she
told the floor to her side.

His hands released hers but he
didn’t let her go. His arms tightened around her, holding her to
him even as her hands went to his chest and tried to force him
away. She didn’t lift her eyes above his throat as she pushed with
all her strength.

All this work was to no avail.
He didn’t shift an inch.

“Stop struggling and talk to
me,” he demanded.

Her eyes lifted to his and she
obliged, “You made me your whore.”

He flinched as if she’d struck
him and he seemed, for a moment, genuinely to be in pain. And she
felt, to her surprise and annoyance (for a moment), upset for
him.

“You were never my whore,” he
murmured gruffly, his eyes drilling into hers.

“I felt like it,” she informed
him with complete honesty, still trying to pull away.

His arms tightened. “I’m sorry
for that but I never thought of you that way.”

“You did that first night,” she
corrected him.

“All right, I never thought of
you that way after that first night,” he conceded through gritted
teeth.

She knew that. Rationally,
logically, looking back at all that transpired between them. She
wasn’t exactly hip to how paid sexual partners were treated but she
doubted their men took them out to dinner and on jaunts to National
Trust properties on the weekend.

She knew all of this but she
wasn’t rational or logical at that moment.

Far from it.

“Then how did you feel about me
the night you threatened to fuck me on my dining room table?” she
pushed, her voice was nasty.

Now she was out of line, he
threatened it but he didn’t do it.

He didn’t apologise for
threatening it but he still didn’t do it.

She wasn’t going to feel
badly about being out of line.
He’d
been lying to her for
weeks
.

She told herself that but
what he said next made
her
feel like an absolute
heel.

“I’d been away from you for
days. I wanted to see you and you weren’t home. So, I suppose what
I felt was that I missed you.” he clipped, his patience with her
beginning to wear and it was showing.

At his words, she stopped
pressing against his chest to get away.

“
You
missed
me?” she
breathed, her eyes rounded in surprise.

He just stared at her and she
(wisely) let it go.

Then she rushed on. “Why
didn’t you tell me about the portraits? And, why did you offer me
fifty thousand pounds to sleep with me? I mean, who
does
that?
And –”

“Why did you take it?” he cut
in and, at his turning of the tables, she clapped her mouth
shut.

It was her turn to stare at
him.

Unlike her, however, he
actually intended to get an answer.

“Would you care to answer me?”
This was voiced as a request however it was anything but.

Sibyl mentally kicked herself
for again, after the many times in the past, not learning her
lesson. How she managed to get herself in these tricky situations,
she did not know. She had two degrees, got straight A’s, graduated
with honours, she kept her home tidy, managed to take care of her
pets, hold down a job, keep a business, pay her bills, but her life
was (always) an absolute mess.

She decided to remain silent.
She figured it was her best option at that point.

“Christ, for someone as
beautiful and warm-hearted as you, you’re truly the most annoying
woman I know,” Colin ground out, looking over her head rather than
at her.

She was now staring at him in
wonder.

She’d kind of heard the word
“annoying’ but she was stuck on “beautiful’ and “warm-hearted” so
she didn’t fully process the “annoying’ bit.

It was then that there was a
knock on the door.

“Come in,” Sibyl called
automatically.

“Go away,” Colin barked at the
same time.

Of course, since it was the
sisters, they listened to Sibyl and opened the door.

Looking over her shoulder,
Sibyl watched Claire and Scarlett walk in, Claire watching them
with her heart in her eyes, Scarlett’s eyes were scrutinising.

“We came to see if you were all
right. That was quite a scene down there and we were a bit
worried,” Claire announced, walking fully into the room, her gaze
swinging worriedly from Colin to Sibyl.

“
I
came in a medical capacity. After carrying Sibyl
up the stairs, I thought you might need me to check if you’d
sustained a hernia,” Scarlett drily informed Colin.

At that, Sibyl’s head snapped
back around to look to Colin. “Would you like to amend your comment
about the most annoying woman you know?” she quipped angrily.

His arms loosened around
her as one corner of his lips twitched tellingly. Sibyl stepped
away from him, breaking the hold of his arms and gave him a look
that told him
she
did not think her sister, or any of this, was
amusing.

“I’m fine, he’s fine, we’re
fine, everything’s fine,” Sibyl curtly assured Claire who was still
looking as if one, the other, or the both of them was about to
spontaneously combust and she didn’t want to be in the way of
flying body parts.

“We were hoping to have a
private conversation,” Colin said pointedly then glanced at the
door.

Scarlett ignored the
glance, walked toward the fireplace and turned one of the
comfortable armchairs there around to face the room. As she did,
she noted, “
You
clearly wanted to have a private conversation,
but as you carried my sister to your bedroom like a Neanderthal, it
is somewhat debatable if
she
wanted a private conversation
with you.” Then she sat, crossed her legs and groaned. “These damn
shoes are killing me.”