Lacybourne Manor

Chapter Seventeen The Story Comes Out

Throughout the introductions to Sibyl’s family, Colin kept her close by holding her hand. Then his father gave him a gin and tonic and Colin stood drinking it, keeping her close with an arm about her waist. He also kept her close, his arm consistently wrapped around her, as he chatted amiably with everyone. Even though she was struck practically mute while everyone else seemed bright and cheery (irrationally so), Colin seemed to make little of all this and behaved as if this was your normal, average, everyday dinner party.

Which it most definitely was not.

He was Royce, though he answered to the name Colin, he was someone else.

Relaxed, amused at Mags and Scarlett’s hilarious behaviour (which seemed somewhat desperately hilarious), respectful to her father (regardless of Bertie’s expression, which lapsed consistently into one that could only be described as astonished), familiar with his family and possessively demonstrative to Sibyl – this was not mercurial Colin, this was loverly Royce who couldn’t get enough of her and didn’t care who knew it.

Somehow, Royce had taken over Colin.

Completely.

They eventually headed in to dinner, Colin/Royce allowing the others to precede them. While they wandered ahead, Colin pulled her back down the hall a few steps and then did the first Colin Act of the entire evening. He pushed her against the wall and kissed her breathless.

The kiss was definitely different, far more loverly-sexy-Royce than sexy-lover-Colin and Sibyl’s heart started racing.

She’d done it. She hadn’t meant to do it but with her mystical powers, she’d nearly obliterated Colin and replaced him with a dream lover.

When he lifted his head, he murmured, “I’ve been wanting to do that since the minute I saw you in that very charming dress.”

Sibyl, recovering from the kiss and the inconceivable knowledge that she could change a man’s personality with her magical powers, blinked at him.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He smiled, a white flash against tanned skin. All his smiles tended to be disarming in one way or another, but she was not certain he’d ever smiled at her the way he was doing now. He was smiling like the cat who managed to snag a couple of field mice, a juicy bird and came home and got his cream.

Her racing heart skipped a beat.

“Perfect,” he responded, his deep voice like velvet.

“You’re not…?” she began to ask him if he was having another episode but he wouldn’t know. The last time he didn’t remember a thing. Though the last time it had lasted minutes, this seemed to be going on forever.

What if he came back to Colin in the middle of dinner, spitting mad and wondering who all these people were and why they were eating his food?

She was uncertain what to do or say, thinking he might be unstable. Thinking she should call a doctor. Wondering how she could find a witch doctor. She laid her hand against the side of his face (a thoughtful gesture that masked her checking his temperature, just to be sure he wasn’t in the throes of some kind of walking, talking fever that rendered him partially delirious).

“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“I’ll explain later.” Then he moved into her, pressing her against the wall. “Stay with me tonight,” he whispered, his voice smoothing along her skin like a silken caress but the words sounded like a request, not an order.

“I… is that an order?” she queried, confused at how to proceed.

He smiled his devastating smile again and shook his head. “No, I’m asking you to stay the night.”

Her heart skipped to a stuttering halt and then started beating again, double time. She was going to have a heart attack, at thirty-two years old, in the hallway of a National Trust property.

Definitely Royce.

“My family –” she started.

“I’ll have the car take them home and return in the morning for you, early if you like.”

If she liked?

She opened her mouth and then closed it. What could she say? She wanted to be with this Colin. She knew it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, she was practising an insidious voodoo against her will and his (well, maybe not against hers).

Perhaps she was going to have to bring Mags into deal with it after all. Her mother couldn’t actually do anything but she might know someone in her loopy collective that had some knowledge of how to exorcise a dream man from a real, flesh and blood man.

“Sibyl?” he prompted.

“Colin?” she returned.

She was testing him, saying his name to see his response. His head tilted and he watched her with an expression on his face that even blind Annie could have seen showed he thought she was adorable.

Her heart still racing, she now caught her breath.

“Now that we’ve ascertained we remember each other’s names, perhaps you’ll promise me that you’ll spend the night with me, here at Lacybourne, in my bed, no matter what happens tonight.”

She’d stopped listening on the word “bed”.

She let her breath out in a gush. “Where’s your family staying?”

“Here.”

“I can’t stay with you while your family –”

“Trust me, they don’t mind.”

This was a bizarre statement in a bizarre evening. They were both consenting adults but it wasn’t seemly, especially not the first night she’d met his family. They’d think she was a screaming slut.

She was, of course, his paid for sexual partner but his parents didn’t know that.

“Colin.”

“Sibyl, promise me.”

His voice was silk. His eyes were warm. His lips were less than an inch away.

She was no match for that combination.

“Okay.”

He grinned, his grin filled with triumph and then he kissed her breathless.

Again.

When he released her mouth, he turned and guided her to the dining room. Distractedly, she heard the hushed conversation but, the minute they entered hand-in-hand, all talk ceased and everyone stared at them. Then, covering, they rushed on with what seemed like great determination to appear natural and at any other time in her life Sibyl would have found it curious and, probably, hilarious.

Now, she did not.

Colin’s seat at the head of the table was vacant. Phoebe sat at the foot, to her right sat Mrs. Byrne, to her left, the only other empty chair next to Mike. On Mike’s other side sat Mags, who sat to Colin’s right. Scarlett (to Sibyl’s despair) was to Colin’s left then Bertie then Claire coming full circle to Mrs. Byrne.

It was the Seating Arrangement of Doom.

Sibyl took her seat and a young man in dark pants and a white shirt immediately entered carrying a tureen of soup to the side table. Sibyl watched, captivated at the idea of having a waiter at a dinner party in your home.

“Sibyl, I hear you make lotions and bath salts,” Phoebe forged in while the waiter served soup. “You smell divine, is your perfume one of your creations?”

“Yes,” she admitted, leaning back to allow the young man access to her place setting. “If you like, I can make you a goodie basket of my products,” Sibyl offered and then wondered why she did and then gave herself a mental forehead slap.

“She makes the best goodie baskets,” Scarlett put in helpfully and, if she’d been close enough, Sibyl would have kicked her sister. There was a small chance that Phoebe would have demurred.

“Oh, I’d like one too,” Claire said exuberantly.

Gone was the small chance.

“Of course,” Sibyl murmured.

“Tell us about your work at the Community Centre,” Mike boomed so loudly, Sibyl started.

Everyone stared at her curiously, even her family who knew all about her work at the Community Centre. Therefore, she had no choice, so she did. While everyone ate their soup, Sibyl talked about the oldies, their bingo and sing-a-longs and the kids, their art projects and their talent show. She talked and pretended to eat while she felt Colin’s eyes on her. Then she gave up all pretence of eating to focus her attention to pretending she didn’t feel his eyes on her.

Once she’d petered away on a story about Mrs. Griffith using her cane on an unsuspecting neighbour with an overly loud dog (Mrs. Griffith was feeble, it didn’t hurt her neighbour… too much) the waiter came in and whisked away the bowls, quietly asking if Sibyl was done with her nearly full one. She nodded mutely and he swept it away.

“So, what do you do Colin?” Bertie enquired.

Sibyl turned startled eyes to her father then to Colin, realising, with a hysterical feeling rising inside her, that she didn’t even know what Colin did for a living.

“I buy and sell companies,” Colin replied.

This was met with complete silence and Sibyl tensed.

If Mike and Phoebe were posh, tailored yin to Mags and Bertie’s oddball, unconventional yang, Colin’s profession was the Antarctic in relation to Sibyl’s Arctic Community Centre.

“He’s very successful,” Mike offered hopefully into the silence.

“What does that mean, you buy and sell companies?” Mags asked dubiously.

“It means he’s a corporate raider, Mom,” Scarlett offered and Sibyl held her breath at that explosive comment, definitely wishing she was close enough to kick her sister.

“Not exactly,” Colin muttered, his eyes on Sibyl.

“The corporate raid stopped over a decade ago,” Mike boomed in defence of his son as the waiter walked in carrying salads this time.

“What does it mean?” Bertie asked, every liberal bone in his body rankling and Sibyl wished the floor would open up and swallow her.

And Colin, of course. She couldn’t leave him behind at the Table of Doom.

“I buy mismanaged companies, clean them up and sell them for a profit,” Colin answered patiently.

“Sometimes not still in one piece, I assume?” Scarlett asked sweetly, perversely loving every minute of this. Sibyl hoped that the Morgans would realise that Scarlett was annoying in the extreme, even to her own family and especially to her sister.

Colin opened his mouth to answer but instead, Claire, desperately burst out, “Colin saved a girl from drowning when he was sixteen.”

All eyes swung to Claire.

“Remember that, Colin, at the club?” Claire continued courageously. “She nearly died. Colin had to give her CPR and everything. It was quite something,” she told the table at large.

Mike laughed, remembering. “Yes, of course, you dated her for six months after that, remember son? She was quite a looker.”

Sibyl was in the middle of them and therefore caught a bit of the polar freeze that came from the frosty glare Phoebe directed at Mike. Sibyl realised Phoebe would also very much like to be in kicking distance of her husband and quickly tucked her legs beneath her chair.

Everyone turned their attention to their salads. Sibyl saw Mrs. Byrne smile at her reassuringly after Sibyl had rearranged several walnuts and pear slices in a more decorous display on top of the spinach leaves.

“I know!” Phoebe exclaimed, making everyone jump. “You brought that puppy home. Do you remember, Colin, the one someone abandoned?”

Every pair of eyes moved to Colin hopefully.

“That was Tony, Mum,” Colin reminded her and Sibyl watched as a muscle leaped dangerously in his jaw when he clamped his mouth shut after speaking.

Phoebe muttered a dejected, “Oh.”

Sibyl felt her stomach sink.

“Who’s Tony?” Mags whispered to Mike.

“Youngest son,” Mike answered softly and Sibyl was surprised to hear that Colin had a brother.

It was at this point that she decided to enter the fray.

Someone had to.

“Colin saved me from the advances of a drunk man at a club,” Sibyl said quietly to her salad and felt, rather than saw, all eyes turn to her. “He also got a terrible man, whose inattention was borderline abuse, a man who drove a minibus of oldies, fired by getting his secretary to call seventeen councillors to do it.” She continued fiddling with her food and didn’t once raise her eyes. “And he just bought all new furniture for the Day Centre so the oldies would have somewhere nice to eat and relax away from home.”

This was met with an even more profound silence and Sibyl continued in her pursuit of making certain every leaf of spinach was finely coated with dressing.

The waiter reappeared to collect the salad dishes but Colin’s authoritative voice stopped him. “Miss Godwin hasn’t finished her salad, Peter.”

“Yes sir,” Peter replied and slid back out of the room as Sibyl turned her eyes from her food to Colin. He was leaning back in his chair, the comfortable lord of the manor, smiling at her like they were the only two people in the room. She felt the warmth of his smile tingle all through her body, from the top of her head straight to the tips of her curled toes.

She smiled back and was so immersed in the moment that she missed all the air being sucked out of the room as their audience pulled in their breaths at the fascinating (and hopeful) sight before their eyes.

“Now that my character has been assassinated and redeemed in the expanse of ten minutes, perhaps we can give Sibyl a chance to finish one of the courses by moving away from the third degree, shall we?” Colin suggested in only the way Colin could suggest, which meant it wasn’t a suggestion at all.

“That sounds like a fine idea,” Mike agreed readily.

But Sibyl was now watching her father and, to her surprise, after the corporate raider pronouncement, she saw Bertie looking at Colin with what appeared to be approval.

The rest of the dinner progressed relatively well (considering its start meant it couldn’t get much worse). Course after course followed, a nice goat’s cheese wrapped in puff pastry with red onion marmalade and then a huge, succulent portobello mushroom cap topped with puy lentils and minced garlic drenched in olive oil with a side of sugar snap peas. Sibyl was finishing an utterly delicious passionfruit gateau when she realised, belatedly, that the entire meal was vegetarian.

And that Colin had eaten it.

After all the dishes had been whisked away by Peter and everyone was drinking the last drops of their full-bodied, dry red wine, Phoebe announced, “Let’s finish the evening in the library, where it’s more comfortable. Peter will be serving cheese, liqueurs and coffee.”

Everyone seemed to think this was a smashing idea. So much so that, with nary a word, all chairs scraped backwards almost before Phoebe finished the word “coffee’.

Colin hung back at the door and grabbed Sibyl’s hand so she would do the same.

When everyone had left, Colin ducked his head and whispered into Sibyl’s ear, “Thank you for defending me.”

She gulped, a tremor of awareness went through her even as she was feeling somewhat ill-at-ease with this exciting new Royce/Colin hybrid. “You’re welcome.”

He turned so he was fully facing her then glanced over her shoulder at the table.

“Are you… is everything okay?” she asked, still feeling somehow timid. She couldn’t say she knew Colin all that well but she definitely didn’t know Royce and most definitely not Colin/Royce. It was almost like this was a first date. And anyway, who knew when Colin would wake out of his magical slumber and how he would react when he did.

His gaze came back to her and what she read in his eyes made all thoughts fly out of her head and her knees went instantly weak.

“I was wondering, for future reference of course, if this dining room table was fair game?” he asked.

Her lips parted, her eyes widened and her head jerked around to look at the table. She felt her stomach flip and little tingles spiral delicately throughout her body.

Her head came back around and she saw his lips were twitching.

He was teasing.

“You’re a brute,” she whispered but her tone was teasing and her mind, somehow, was put at ease.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he drawled.

“Did your father build it or refinish it?” she queried mock seriously.

“No.”

“Your mother?” she continued, tilting her head.

“Of course not.”

“A beloved godfather?”

The twitching lips spread into a grin and he shook his head.

She countered by nodding hers.

“I take it that’s a yes?” he pressed.

She smiled her yes then caught her bottom lip between her teeth while his eyes dropped to watch. Then his face turned serious.

“Sibyl, before we join the others, I want to show you something. When you see it, I want you to promise me that you’ll let me finish what I need to say before you fly off the handle.”

Her eyes widened at this sudden change from flirtatious-mode to deadly-serious-liberally-mixed-with-ominous-hints-mode.

Even so, she focussed on something else and declared in self-defence, “I don’t fly off the handle.

His eyebrows lifted mockingly.

At his eyebrow lift, she sighed and said, “Okay, maybe I do but why would I fly off the handle?”

“Just promise me.”

She felt a shimmer of dread slide up her spine at his still serious tone and she started, “Colin –”

He cut her off, demanding, “Promise.”

He was using his silky voice and his warm eyes but they weren’t working on her this time because his look was so intense, it was scaring her half to death. She needed no more shocks tonight. She didn’t know if she could endure them.

But this was Royce, wasn’t it?

And even if it was Colin, she told herself could trust him. He’d taken care of her tranquillised dog, for goddess’s sake. He was buying her an alarm system. He bought a bunch of furniture for her oldies and she couldn’t forget the luxurious swivel chair. And, even though tonight’s dinner seemed doomed to failure for a variety of reasons, that didn’t happen and it wasn’t all that bad.

Yes, she could definitely trust him.

Couldn’t she?

What could he want to show her that might make her angry? Whatever it was couldn’t be all that awful. Especially if he could explain it.

Taking yet another chance that night, Sibyl decided to trust him.

Therefore, looking into his eyes, she nodded and for this, she was rewarded with one of his killer-watt smiles, a smile that told her it was going to be all right.

She drew in a deep, steadying breath as Colin led her down the hall and, instead of turning to the library, where everyone else had gathered, he took her to the Great Hall.

They walked through the big room and Colin stopped her right in the middle.

She’d been there before, of course, she’d just never really looked at it because she was mid-diatribe the last time she’d spent any time there.

It was huge and stunning, right in the middle was an enormous, heavy table made of wood so dark, it was nearly black. Twenty large, ladder-backed chairs surrounded it. In the stone walls, the room had dozens of deep windows with warped panes of glass. Two of the windows were semi-circular, one filled with a sculpted bust on a half column, the other with an immense, antique globe. In the centre of each window were breathtaking stained glass fleur de lis. There were old-fashioned wooden chairs sitting at precise intervals along the walls, almost like sentries standing at attention. There was also a massive mellow-coloured stone staircase built up one wall, a thick, red carpet runner in the centre held to each step by a brass rod. The room was decorated with suits of armour, flags floating from the ceiling beams, pennants dripping from brass rods and crossed swords affixed to walls.

She felt a shiver of apprehension as she stood there, not only because Colin wasn’t speaking a word as she looked around but also because she felt something familiar about this place. Almost like she’d been there before and not when she had her blazing tirade weeks previously.

She noted somewhere in the back of her mind it was now raining, the water streaming down the glass of the windows, the sky dark and threatening.

She did a slow pirouette, mainly because she couldn’t help herself.

“Colin,” she breathed, “it’s love–”

She didn’t finish.

And she didn’t finish because she saw Royce.

In a portrait, hanging on the wall in the Great Hall at Lacybourne.

She took two steps toward it, her hand flying to her mouth.

“Royce,” she whispered as she gazed in shock at the portrait.

She vaguely heard Colin ask, “What did you say?” in a tone that was far more Colin than Royce.

But she wasn’t listening.

It was Royce, stunningly handsome even though he looked fierce, even angry. He was standing in front of a shining black horse with a wild mane, a horse Sibyl knew very well because she’d ridden on his back. She felt her heart squeeze in a mixture of horror and delight.

“My goddess,” she stared, “My goddess, Colin, it’s…” but she stopped again because as she was about to turn to Colin, her eyes fell on the other portrait, the one beside Royce’s.

She gasped and took two steps back.

It was then that thunder rumbled and, seconds later, lightning split the sky.

“Sibyl,” Colin was saying but she interrupted him and took another step away from what she saw.

“That’s…” she raised her arm and pointed a trembling finger at the portrait. A picture that showed exactly what Sibyl saw in her mirror every morning, except with dark hair. It even had Mallory and Bran in it. “That’s me!” she cried and swung confused eyes to Colin who, she saw, was watching her closely. “Why do you have a portrait of me in your house? How? Why?”

“Do you know Royce Morgan?” Colin asked and she heard a thread of accusation in his tone.

“Why do you have a painting of me in your house?” she returned, her voice rising with hysteria. Then she processed what he said, her stomach clenched and she breathed, “Royce Morgan?”

“Yes.” He glanced swiftly at the portraits and then back to Sibyl. “Royce Morgan and his wife, Beatrice, born Beatrice Godwin.”

She felt as if she’d been struck, all her breath went out of her in a whoosh.

Beatrice Godwin.

She stumbled back another step, throwing her arm out for something to steady her and catching one of the ancient chairs around the ancient dining room table that was known to her because she had sat there and eaten a meal.

A meal that happened in her dreams which took place in ancient times when the table was new.

“Beatrice Godwin?” When Sibyl spoke her voice was loud and it was shrill.

Sibyl felt rather than saw someone come into the room but she didn’t turn to see who it was.

“Beatrice and Royce Morgan,” Colin explained tersely. “He was the owner of Lacybourne and they were married for a few hours. On their way home to Lacybourne after their wedding, they were murdered.”

“Oh my goddess. Oh my goddess,” Sibyl was blathering, her hand clutched the chair like a lifeline. “Oh my goddess! He… he looks like you! And… and, she… she looks like… me!” Sibyl shouted her last.

It was then Sibyl remembered her father talking about the lovers who never got the chance to live at Lacybourne because they’d been killed. She hadn’t listened to much of what he said but she remembered the story was famous, a tragic, romantic tale of true love lost.

What had her father said?

“Oh my goddess,” she whispered.

They’d had their throats slit. Just like in her dream.

Without thinking, hysteria filling her, she turned to run, to escape, to get far away from Lacybourne and Royce and Beatrice, Colin and her dreams and what this meant to her.

She’d asked Royce, when he was Colin, who Beatrice was and he’d said it then.

She’s you.

She’d manage to run two steps when she was grabbed at the waist by Colin. He swung her effortlessly around to face him.

“Do you know Royce Morgan?” Colin asked, hanging on to his temper, but, she could tell distractedly, just barely. He was staring at her with narrowed, angry eyes.

“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.