Lacybourne Manor

Chapter Twenty The Calm before the Second Storm

Colin pulled the BMW out of the garage on his way to pick up Sibyl and her family to take them to the Community Centre’s Talent Show.

Last weekend, when Colin arrived in the BMW to transport the five of them on a day trip to the Cotswolds, Sibyl walked out of the cottage and had been shocked at first sight of the car.

“Colin, I didn’t even think. You had to rent a car!”

He just stared at her and she quickly, and accurately, interpreted the stare.

“How many cars do you own?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

“More than one,” he’d answered carefully.

She’d sighed dramatically as if she was in fear for his mortal soul.

Then she suggested, “Let’s just not tell Mags, agreed?”

Spending time with Sibyl’s mother, Colin had swiftly learned that he could have told Mags he had twelve cars, with half of them being Land Rovers, as well as a number of sweat shops in the deepest regions of Vietnam, and Mags wouldn’t have cared as long as Colin continued to service Sibyl sexually.

Nevertheless, for Sibyl’s peace of mind, and to reward her for being the only woman of his acquaintance who thought owning more than one vehicle a fault in his personality, he’d agreed.

Sibyl’s surrender had been complete. Colin instantly recognised just how much she had been holding back when she opened her heart to him fully. He found the offer of it into his care a gesture so precious, he wasn’t certain how to handle it but he was certain that he would not, under any circumstances, let it go.

Regardless, the last two weeks of Sibyl had been a form of torture. True, most of it was a splendid kind of torture, but it was torture nonetheless. He couldn’t imagine a lifetime of it, just as he was looking forward to it. He was pleasantly contemplating their children (lots of them) and then old age. Sibyl could use some wrinkles, a few extra pounds (perhaps a stone or two) and a dozen children to slow her down.

If she didn’t slow down, she’d likely kill him. And if she didn’t (or he didn’t) control her rampant benevolence, she’d kill them both.

The sweet torture had started immediately after their morning at Lacybourne.

Before he had learned about her, he had planned to catch up on work while her parents were in England. He wanted to give her some private time with her parents, therefore, he’d set up meetings in Manchester and Leeds the first week and the second, he was to be in London for an entire week of nearly back-to-back meetings he’d postponed since Sibyl.

The first week they were in town, he attended only one dinner with her and her family. Claire had gone home the night after dinner at Lacybourne (or, as Sibyl described it, “The Dinner of Doom”) to return to her family. Phoebe and Mike had stayed on to spend some time with the people who they knew (as Colin told them) would soon be part of their extended family.

Colin had arrived late at the Indian restaurant and they’d all been ensconced in a huge booth and tucking into their starter.

The minute Colin arrived at the table, Mags or Phoebe would hear of Colin sitting anywhere but right beside Sibyl. As Sibyl was to the back at the very inside of the booth next to a window, Scarlett, Mike and Sibyl had to shift out so Colin could slide in. Once he was in, he was crushed against the wall with Sibyl practically in his lap. She’d ordered a starter for him and another upheaval was caused when everyone handed their plates around to each other.

Forced to rest his arm along the back of the booth in order to accommodate himself and Sibyl in their spare space, he ate with one hand, his left. He had no problem with this, it left his right hand free to stroke the skin at the nape of Sibyl’s neck and feel her delicate shivers beneath his fingers.

During dinner, the conversation was tangled, Scarlett, Mike and Mags in a fierce verbal battle of one-upmanship as to who could tell the most outrageous story (Mags won by a landslide). Not in the line of fire, Colin kept to himself, enjoying the feeling of Sibyl pressed contentedly against his side while, any time she’d want to share her humour with him, she looked over her raised shoulder, resting her chin against it as she prized him with one of her gorgeous smiles.

Bertie, seated opposite him, noticed Colin’s absence from the conversation and took it upon himself to draw him into a private one of their own. At first a one-sided private conversation where Bertie explained to him (in detail) how he felt about what he described as the “Henry, the Second and Thomas Becket fiasco”. Colin eventually found himself drawn into Bertie’s passion for his subject and into a discussion about it, thinking Bertie was undoubtedly a popular professor considering both of these things.

When they left the restaurant and arrived at their assorted cars, Mags said to Sibyl, “I’m guessing you want to spend the night at Lacybourne.” This was not so much a guess as a command when she produced (to Sibyl’s stunned glare) a small overnight bag that Sibyl obviously didn’t pack and knew nothing about. Mags handed it to her daughter with a meaningful look.

Bertie sighed.

Phoebe and Mike looked dumbstruck.

Scarlett chuckled.

Colin could have kissed her.

Sibyl took the bag with a killing look at her mother and slid into the Mercedes.

“I told you my mother was odd,” she announced when he reversed out of the parking spot.

“I’m not complaining,” he pointed out, manoeuvring the car out of the lot.

“You wouldn’t,” she grumbled, clearly embarrassed.

“Would you like me to take you back to Brightrose?” he queried politely even though he had no bloody intention of doing any such thing.

“No,” she mumbled.

“Are you sure?” he couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice.

She made an irate noise.

“You have better sheets at Lacybourne,” she told him and he burst out laughing.

He spent the rest of the week letting himself into Brightrose in the dead of night, calming an always excited Mallory and then sliding into bed beside her long after she went to sleep. Once there, she would snuggle against him or, more to the point, he pulled her into him. He usually left long before she or her family woke or just in time to give her grumpy morning face a kiss before leaving to get to work.

Saturday and Sunday were days of revelation.

Mike and Phoebe had gone home on Friday morning after exchanging addresses, phone numbers and e-mails with the Godwins.

Saturday morning, Colin took Sibyl and her family to Bourton-on-the-Water and the morning passed in peaceful tranquillity (if you didn’t count Sibyl shouting like a drill sergeant at her lagging family and marching them into the newly discovered BMW).

Then, late morning, Colin’s tranquillity fragmented. While in a fudge shop, Sibyl saw a young boy at the counter trying to buy a box of fudge and coming up short by twenty pence. Sibyl sidled up beside the boy and slid the twenty pence to the clerk. This not being a kind enough gesture, one Colin would never think of doing, she then handed the boy a two pound coin.

“Don’t want to be caught short, again, do you?” she’d asked with a wink. Then she so bedazzled the boy with one of her winning smiles, he’d walked straight into a display of candy. The entire display (which was a foot taller than him) came crashing in a great clamour to the floor.

Scooting him kindly on his way to his parents, Sibyl spent (with Mags and Scarlett) a quarter of an hour helping the clerk right the candy stand while chatting amiably and becoming the best of friends with the clerk in the process.

As they walked the streets of Bourton, every person she passed who had a dog on a lead, no matter how grand or ugly the dog was (indeed, she lavished more affection on the ugly ones), she would stop the owner with a joyful cry and beg, “Can I pet your dog?” Unwilling, or more likely, unable to decline her friendly request and her sunny smile, the owners would acquiesce. She’d then crouch, ruffle the dog’s fur and accept sloppy kisses all over her face and hands. All the while she cooed at the dogs and she and the Godwins would engage the owners in friendly conversation about any subject that came to mind – the unseasonably warm weather, the beauty of Bourton, dogs and what they thought of the ever-increasing danger of the greenhouse effect.

Then they’d stopped at a tea shop for cream teas on the way home. As they were all relaxing over their scones, clotted cream and jam, Sibyl was staring out the window with rapt attention. Moments later, without a word, she abruptly ran from the table and out into the sunny back garden. As she approached she startled a family who were lazing in the warm day at a picnic table. She was talking intently and gesturing carefully and then she herded them solicitously into the tea shop. To Colin’s stunned surprise, the family joined Colin and the Godwins for tea, crowding around a too small table, while they thanked Sibyl profusely for warning them of the beehive that nestled in the tree above their picnic table.

Not done, Sibyl sought out the owners of the tea shop to inform them of the hive. Then she stood outside in the garden with the owners, Bertie and Mags, discussing (at length) what was to be done about the beehive while Colin sat with Scarlett, his legs stretched in front of him and crossed at the ankles, as he took in the scene. He was prepared, if necessary, to haul Sibyl, kicking and screaming (he had no doubt), to the car if she tried to climb a ladder and see to the hive herself.

“Nothing to say?” Colin offered Scarlett her opening, not taking his eyes from Sibyl.

“Not right now,” Scarlett answered, not taking her eyes from Colin.

Sunday he went to work in the morning and at noon he left to meet Sibyl and the Godwins on the seafront. When he arrived he found Bertie seated on a blanket in the grass with the remains of what appeared to be a vegetarian picnic. Mags was five feet away, talking animatedly to two women who both had babies in prams. Colin took in Mags, her red hair not faded but streaked with comely shafts of white, wearing a bright, gauzy concoction that looked delicate enough to disintegrate at a hint of wind.

After greeting Bertie, Colin asked, “Where are Sibyl and Scarlett?”

Bertie tilted his head across the green and Colin saw both sisters (Sibyl wearing a tight-fitting, faded, oft-worn Grateful Dead t-shirt and her daringly torn jeans, Scarlett wearing a pair of black capri pants and an emerald green fitted, scoop-necked t-shirt) playing Frisbee with five men.

Colin watched for precisely thirty-eight seconds (Bertie timed him). Then he saw one of the men semi-tackle Sibyl, wrapping his arms about her middle and whirling her away from the Frisbee she was trying to catch. Her deep laugh filled the air at what she thought was friendly frolicking and Colin knew was anything but.

Without hesitation, Colin prowled toward them and Sibyl caught sight of him.

“Colin!” she cried as she smiled and ran to him, skidding to a bare-footed halt inches away, her golden hair flying in an attractive mess about her shoulders. She touched him with a hand at his waist, hooking her thumb in a belt loop at the side of his jeans and leaned in to ask playfully, “Do you want to play Frisbee?” and she asked this as she pulled her heavy, gorgeous hair away from her face with her other hand.

“No,” he stated shortly.

Her face fell and he ignored it, dragged her against his body and kissed her hard on the lips.

When he lifted his head, she stared up at him, stupefied.

Then she breathed, “What was that for?”

Colin looked about the green at five crestfallen male faces and Scarlett’s knowing one and said, “Just making things clear.”

He dropped his arm, not waiting for her reply, turned and walked back to Bertie, settling down beside him on the grass, one leg stretched out, one knee bent, his wrist dangling on his knee.

Bertie was silent for a moment and then said thoughtfully, “Welcome to my nightmare.”

Colin’s eyes reluctantly left Sibyl, slid to her father and he asked, “I’m sorry?”

Bertie again indicated his two daughters playing what was now a far more lackadaisical game of Frisbee and Colin glanced that way. Regardless if the men took Colin’s possessive gesture in the spirit it was intended and backed off entirely, that didn’t mean the magnificent sight of Sibyl and Scarlett racing around after a Frisbee wasn’t the height of entertainment for most of the men on the seafront.

“I must say, Colin, I’m happy to have you around,” Bertie told him.

“Why’s that?” Colin enquired, giving Sibyl’s father his full attention.

“A problem shared is a problem halved, in my case, literally.”

At his comment, Colin threw his head back and laughed, as did Bertie.

When he’d controlled his hilarity, Colin told the older man with a hint of admiration, “I can’t imagine how you did it for all these years.”

“I’ve lost three inches and all my hair, so count yourself warned,” Bertie stated then asked, “Do you have a plan?”

“I’m taking it day by day,” Colin answered on a smile.

Bertie nodded with approval. “That’s a good plan.”

“What are you talking about?” Mags queried as she joined them.

“Nothing,” Bertie replied after he accepted a swift, but rather ardent, kiss from his wife.

“You were laughing,” Scarlett also sat with them and Colin looked up to see Sibyl drop to her knees beside him. She awarded him a flush-faced grin and then, to his deep satisfaction, she didn’t hesitate a moment before she settled on her back with her head on his outstretched thigh, her hair falling haphazardly all over his lap.

“You must allow us our private little joke,” Bertie murmured.

“About us girls? I don’t think so,” Scarlett parried.

“Enough Scarlett,” Bertie warned.

Sibyl shifted onto her side but didn’t lift her head.

“You were joking about us?” she asked her father.

“You joke about men all the time,” Bertie defended. Colin noted his tone was far less strict with his first born.

“That’s true, men, as a whole, are our private little joke,” Scarlett confirmed cynically.

“Scarlett! Be good.” It was Mags’s turn to chastise her daughter but it was clear she didn’t mean it and this was made clear by her blue eyes dancing wickedly.

Sibyl moved again to her back and caught Colin’s eye. “You aren’t my joke,” she assured him, her eyes dancing but not like her mother’s, her eyes weren’t wicked but warm and sweet.

“Colin isn’t anybody’s joke,” Scarlett declared, for the first time giving Colin an indication of her blessing and she collapsed on her side and popped a grape in her mouth.

“With practice, you’ll learn to ignore her,” Sibyl confided to him and froze her sister with a glance.

Colin leaned back on an elbow. He had Sibyl’s head on his leg, her hair spread across his lap, the sun was shining on them and she’d just indicated he’d be around long enough to learn to ignore her sister. He’d long since been ignoring Scarlett as well as the envious looks he was getting from most of the men in the vicinity, and had, for longer than he could remember, perfected the art of ignoring the looks from the women.

Colin couldn’t call up even a hint of irritation because at that precise moment, all was right in Colin Morgan’s world.

They went to Brightrose shortly after, Colin driving the lot of them and their picnic paraphernalia in the BMW as they’d walked to the seafront. While Mags cooked dinner, Bertie, Scarlett, Sibyl and Colin spent the rest of the afternoon playing Trivial Pursuit.

Colin lost, soundly. Bertie knew everything about everything. Scarlett, a neurologist, also had an amazing knowledge of entertainment and sport. Sibyl’s subjects were history, art and literature and geography. The whole game, Bran spent tucked in Sibyl’s lap while Mallory lay by Colin, his head, when he was given the option, resting on Colin’s feet.

Mags stepped out of the kitchen and announced that dinner would be ready in five minutes. At her announcement, Sibyl gave a panicked cry, dropped her cat and sped into the kitchen. After a great clamour, Mags came out of the kitchen again and announced with a grin that dinner would be in twenty-five minutes.

Colin made Bertie and himself a gin and tonic and they settled on the couches while Scarlett went to help in the kitchen.

“Sibyl says you have the dreams, just like she does,” Bertie noted.

Colin had confided in Sibyl that he, too, was dreaming of Royce and Beatrice. This was confided in an effort to soften their eventual discussion about her time with Royce in the chalet. A discussion Colin still fully intended to have but only after she was more comfortable with him and in their relationship.

“Yes,” he answered.

Bertie leaned forward excitedly. “What’s it like, being back there, being in that time?”

Colin regarded his soon-to-be-father-in-law, a medieval history professor who undoubtedly thought this of extraordinary interest, and answered honestly, “It isn’t like anything. I don’t pay attention to it. I only pay attention to Beatrice. My dreams aren’t like Sibyl’s, she’s participating, Royce knows there’s a difference in Beatrice when she’s with him. I’ve always known who I was when in the dream, why I’m there, because I knew where I was, who she was. I just experience it.”

“Does it feel like a memory?” Bertie asked.

Colin thought about it and had been thinking about it a great deal lately, mainly because of how Sibyl described her own dreams. She’d hinted that Royce had recognised her, knew who she was that afternoon in the chalet. This lent an added, unknown dimension to their meeting in the present time and, possibly, their kiss, a thought Colin did not particularly relish.

“It’s too vivid to be just a dream, so yes, it must be a memory.”

“Superb,” Bertie muttered.

“Dinner in five minutes!” Scarlett called from the kitchen door.

Mags set a bowl of what looked to be tofu, black beans and barley liberally mixed with onions and parsley, an enormous salad and a bowl of spiced cous cous on the table. Sibyl slid a pair of succulent chicken breasts, rice pilaf and steamed broccoli in front of Colin and he realised what caused the delay in dinner. Sibyl had prepared a non-vegetarian option specifically for him.

No one uttered a word about this considerate gesture likely because they were used to such gestures from Sibyl.

Colin, however, was not.

“I could have eaten the tofu,” he whispered to her as she settled in beside him at the round table.

“Do you like tofu?” she asked with an engaging grin.

“Not particularly,” he admitted, responding to her smile.

She didn’t reply, just nodded her head as if that was that and accepted the bowl of cous cous from her sister.

Later that evening, after Mags’s much more enticing raspberry pavlova, Colin made to leave as he had to wake even earlier than usual to catch his train to London and he didn’t want to disturb any of Sibyl’s family. When he made his move, Mags disappeared swiftly up the stairs.

Sibyl was walking him to the door when Mags descended, carrying an overnight bag as well as canvas carrier bag.

“I took the liberty to buy some bits and pieces you could keep at Lacybourne, baby,” she told her daughter with a challenging glance at Colin, to which he acceded without a hint of rancour, indeed, biting back a smile. “You don’t want to keep lugging things back and forth.”

Sibyl opened her mouth to say something but Mags interrupted her with an admonishing tone. “We aren’t going to see Colin until Wednesday, you’re surely not going to allow him to leave town without an uninterrupted evening of privacy, are you?”

Sibyl clamped her mouth shut.

“Give her a good tumble, Colin,” Mags urged audaciously, pushing a stiff-with-humiliated-fury Sibyl out the door ahead of Colin. “She’ll need it to keep her in good spirits for the next couple of days.”

At that, Sibyl pulled out of her freeze, yanked the bags out of her mother’s hands and stomped to the car.

“She’s too much!” she declared while Colin slid into the driver’s seat.

“Are you unhappy about spending the night with me at Lacybourne?” Colin asked, turning toward.

“No,” she snapped grumpily, staring straight ahead.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“My mother told you to give me a good tumble!” she cried then ended on a mumble, “my goddess, it’s embarrassing.”

“Why?”

She twisted to look at him. “You don’t think it’s embarrassing?”

“No,” he replied frankly.

“Really?” she asked, her voice filled with disbelief.

“Really.”

She watched him in the fading light of the evening and then, slowly pulling in both of her lips (an endearing habit of hers he was getting used to), she considered something important to which Colin wasn’t privy. He didn’t push but allowed her to sort it through.

Finally, she smiled, leaned forward and gave him a soft kiss.

Then she whispered, “Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked, lifting his hand to graze her cheek with the tips of his fingers then sliding it through her soft, lustrous hair and around her nape to keep her close.

“For accepting my crazy family. I’ll warn you though, they’re holding back. They’re actually a lot weirder than this.”

He found that hard to believe but didn’t voice this comment and ended the conversation with a swift, hard kiss that held a promise of what was to come.

Upon arrival at Lacybourne, Sibyl wasted no time in presenting her reward for his acceptance of her bizarre family. Silently, she wandered away from him deep into the house as he dropped her bags at the foot of the stairs in the Great Hall.

He followed her and found her in the dining room.

He stood in the doorway watching her as she moved a chair away from the table and then pressed her palms on the top, putting her weight into it.

With her back to him, she enquired with mock-innocence, “How sturdy do you think this table is?”

Reading her meaning, feeling an instant arousal tightening in his groin, in two great strides he closed the distance between them, whirled her around and crushed her to him. She tilted her head up to his, her mouth twitching slyly. Sliding his hands down her bottom and thighs, he lifted her and set her ass on the table.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” he murmured against her mouth.

And they found, after rigorous experimentation, the table was very sturdy.

Much later, lying in his huge bed, Colin was on his back struggling between feeling sated, exhausted and aroused. Sibyl, pressed against his side, was absently drawing soft patterns on his stomach with the tips of her fingers.

“Sibyl?”

She nodded her head against his chest but didn’t speak.

“I need to be at the train station tomorrow at six-thirty.”

“Okay,” she mumbled against his chest but her hand didn’t stop.

“And it’s relatively important that I have my faculties about me when I arrive in London.”

It was more than relatively important, two of his meetings concerned deals that involved millions of pounds.

“Mm,” she carried on with her hand distractedly.

He gently took her hand in his and shifted it lower, under the sheet, showing her the unconcealed evidence of what she was doing to him. He felt her cheek move on his chest as she smiled.

He ignored it.

“So, perhaps you’ll tell me what’s on your mind,” he suggested.

She lifted up on her elbow and pulled her hand from his, rested it on his chest and looked him in the eyes. Hers were a thoughtful hazel.

“Colin?”

“Hmm?”

“I just wanted you to know that I…” She hesitated and he watched as she struggled with some unknown. When she found it, she finished, “Like you.”

He stared at her in incredulity for a moment and then roared with laughter. Shifting her on her back, he covered her body with his.

“You like me?” he teased affectionately.

“Yes.” She now looked disgruntled as if she regretted her decision to impart this information on him.

“I’m pleased to hear it, darling,” he murmured after he bent his head and nuzzled her neck, laughter in his voice.

“No, I mean it.”

“I know you do.” He lifted his head and cupped her beautiful face in his hands.

“You’re a good man,” she told him fervently.

“Thank you.” He smiled at her, his body beginning to shake with mirth.

Something shifted in her face. “Colin, listen to me,” she said forcefully and very sombrely. “You are a good man.”

His amusement fled at the grave look in her eyes. She was telling him something important, her true intent still guarded but he recognised that this moment was profound for her.

“Thank you.” This time, he said it seriously.

“You’re welcome.” Her voice was solemn and intense and she was watching him with an entirely new look on her face, a look full of exquisite hope and he felt, for the very first time in his entire life, humbled. So humbled, if he had been standing, he would have fallen to his knees.

“Jesus, Sibyl,” he muttered as he recognised what was so profound about this moment and it being the fact that she’d let him into her heart.

And knowing that, he did the only thing he knew how to do. He made love to her, slowly. It was not about sex, about passion or about climax, it was about something else. It was sweet and wild and beautiful and very nearly, but not quite, everything a coupling should be and after it was done, Colin found it had moved him to his deeply, right into his soul.

And falling asleep, his front pressed full-length against the back of her body while his arm was wrapped around her waist, his hand cupping her breast, he did not notice the dim, golden, ethereal shimmer that slid out of the bedroom, waving, undulating and growing as it spread through the house, around the house and over the house. It continued, covering the grounds of Lacybourne Manor and up into the very atmosphere, going so far as to brighten the moon in the cloudless sky.

The next two days in London, he was luckily so busy he only spent half of his time thinking about Sibyl.

Between meetings, he’d called her on Monday, listening to her shouting into her mobile over the wind, “We’re at Tintagel, over the other side of the ruins. Oh Colin! I haven’t been here in so long; I forgot how beautiful it is. I wish you were here.”

Colin Morgan was not one to go tramping through ruins. Ever. But regardless of that, he found himself wishing it too.

Again, he called her on Tuesday to hear what could only be described as pandemonium behind her. “Colin, I’m sorry, babe, but I can’t talk now. I’m at the Day Centre and Mags suggested a game of strip bingo to the oldies and they’ve taken her up on it. I’m in Damage Control Mode,” she spoke urgently as Colin heard the words “unlucky for some’ called in the background. “Dear goddess, they’ve started!” she groaned into the phone. “I’ll call you later.”

He didn’t care that she couldn’t talk. Not only had she called him “babe’ in her engaging American accent, he needed her to control the proposed game of Pensioner Strip Bingo. He didn’t even want to think about it much less learn it actually occurred.

On Wednesday, after a meeting finished in his conference room, he headed to his office to return some calls when his London secretary stopped him and announced, “Miss Godwin is waiting in your office.”

He nodded curtly and lengthened his stride at news of this surprise. The Godwins had come on a shopping and museum expedition to London and they were supposed to meet Colin and his entire family at Claire’s house in Kew at six o’clock.

He opened the door to see her standing across the expanse of his office, staring out the window at his unobstructed view of the Thames, Big Ben and the London Eye. She looked contemplative, standing behind his vast desk lost in thoughts he couldn’t fathom.

At her posture, he felt an unusual sense of dread creep through his bones.

He halted and shut the door and, when she heard it, her head turned to him with a jerk.

He rested his back against the door, crossed his arms on his chest and waited for her to speak. She didn’t move a muscle as she regarded him.

Finally, she broke the silence. “I left my family at the Tate,” she said in a voice so low he could barely hear her. “I came around, thinking you might have time to join us for lunch.”

Even though he was delighted at this news, he didn’t answer. Something in the way she was speaking and holding herself stopped him.

She broke his glance and looked back at the view.

After a moment, she spoke again.

“How much money do you have?” she asked the window despondently.

Without hesitation, he answered, “A lot.”

He saw her shudder and felt his heart squeeze painfully in response.

“I don’t know what to do with that information,” she admitted, her voice loaded with a wealth of meaning, none of it good for Colin.

“Does it matter?” He couldn’t believe he was in the position of having to defend his wealth. Women were normally seduced by it, coveted it, went out of their way to the point of demeaning themselves to get it.

Sibyl, however, was not like normal women.

And this made her all the more precious, and, he feared in that moment, perhaps the only thing in his life that had ever been out of his reach.

She turned to face him. “There are a lot of people who don’t have anything and you have so much.”

“I work hard for it,” he informed her honestly.

“I know,” she whispered, watching him with an expression he could not read as he was too far away to see the colour of her eyes.

“Why are you standing over there?” she asked absently, as if noticing for the first time he had not approached her.

“I think, right now, you need to come to me.”

Her body froze as she realised what he was asking and the importance of it. And he waited with a great deal of trepidation as she made up her mind.

“Halfway?” she suggested.

“No,” Colin stated implacably. He was who he was, he wasn’t going to change. She was who she was, he had no desire to change her. Perhaps protect her from her own good intentions, but not change her.

She nodded, turned back to the window and sighed. It was in that moment, he thought he’d lost and the very idea of it nearly drove him across the room.

But he stood his ground.

He needed her to accept him as he was.

“Do you have time for lunch?” she asked the window, still not moving toward him, her shoulders held straight and tense.

“No,” he answered honestly again.

“I didn’t think so,” she whispered.

It was then she turned and, without hesitation, she walked straight to him. She put her hands on either side of his waist when she arrived and tilted her head to his.

His relief was so great, his arms closed around her with stunning force and he pulled her to his body. Then he buried his face in her neck and smelled the same scent of lilies he’d smelled when he first admitted he wanted her that morning in Lacybourne.

“I suppose I should let you get back to work,” she murmured.

He lifted his head and she smiled, it was not a full-fledged Sibyl smile but it told him everything he needed to know.

It was then, after all their misunderstandings and distrust and across the great expanse of difference in their personalities and upbringing, that he found, finally, she was truly and completely his.

And Colin felt such an immense satisfaction that it overwhelmed him.

Hiding it from her in order not to frighten her, he brushed her mouth with a light kiss and she laid her hand on his cheek.

“At least I don’t feel so guilty about the fifty thousand anymore. Obviously, you can afford it.” Her voice was hesitantly teasing.

He was so relieved laughter erupted from him with the force of thunder.

Outside his office, his London secretary lifted and turned her head at the amazing, heretofore unknown, sound coming from her boss’s office. She had been told that should a Miss Godwin phone, she was to be put through immediately, no matter what. Apparently, after the many before her, this woman had found her way into Colin Morgan’s cold, unyielding heart.

His secretary wasn’t at all surprised, she was a beauty (of course) but she also had the sweetest smile.

The evening was spent in easy, but loud, camaraderie with the Godwins, Phoebe and Mike, Claire, her husband Jack and their two young children, Colin’s brother Tony and his wife, Ellen. Tony and Ellen found Sibyl and the Godwins just as enchanting as the rest of the family seemed to do.

After, Colin took Sibyl and her family back to Paddington Station to catch the last train to Yatton. Before allowing her through the ticket machines, he engaged her in a full-fledged, back-bending, passionate kiss that granted him a gleaming smile of unadulterated approval from her mother.

That had been Colin’s last two weeks with Sibyl.

Now, he pulled up outside her cottage and alighted from his car, seeing around him the flowers of full spring blooming everywhere. He opened the door and entered, responding to easy calls of greeting from Bertie and Scarlett who were both sitting in the living room. Scarlett had given him her full blessing somewhere along the way and her behaviour was no longer sardonic but almost cheery (or as cheery as Scarlett could get). Mallory charged him but skidded to a halt at the last moment, planted his bottom on the floor and licked Colin’s hand in welcome.

Sibyl walked in from the kitchen, holding Bran upside down in her arms, the cat’s feet dangling uselessly up in the air, his tail twitching angrily over her arm. The cat turned a baleful glare at Colin, promising later retribution at this grievous affront to his feline dignity.

Sibyl walked right up to Colin and gave him a brief kiss.

“Hi,” she breathed, her eyes warm with happiness and he completely lost himself in them.

“Hi,” he returned.

“You’re early and I’m running late.” With her attention on him, Sibyl lost hold on her cat and Bran took his opportunity at escape and jumped away. Then she leaned further into him and Colin’s left hand glided around her waist while his right hand cupped her jaw. “I’ve got to finish getting ready.”

He ran his thumb along her cheekbone, dipping it to slide along her lower lip, watching its progress with fascination the entire time.

Then he lifted his eyes from her mouth to her gaze and he whispered, “I’ll wait.”

Regardless of what she said, she didn’t move and they stood there, pressed against each other next to her father’s dining room table as Scarlett and Bertie watched with contented glances and Mallory settled to the floor with an exaggerated dog groan.

And in their sweet, close huddle, staring into each other’s eyes, no one in the room could know that the two lovers were about to enter a battle for their lives.