Lacybourne Manor

Chapter Twenty-Nine The Real Consummation

“What are you doing?”

Sibyl whirled then with an obviously guilty movement shoved behind her back the small, pink box with glossy, intricate writing embossed on top.

They’d just finished their vegetable shish kebabs and she’d ducked upstairs to begin planning her first night with her new fiancé, who also just happened to be in love with her.

In love with her.

It was, maybe, the most important night of her life.

And it was, definitely, the happiest.

That fiancé was now standing in the door to their bedroom but he didn’t look happy. His face was like the thunder beginning to threaten outside.

“What are you doing up here?” she asked, her voice just as guilty as her posture.

“I asked you a question, you disappeared.”

No, he was definitely not happy.

“I told Mags and Phoebe where I was,” Sibyl explained.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Colin was a dog with a bone.

“And Jemma,” Sibyl continued, for good measure, as he clearly still was not happy.

“Sibyl,” he growled.

She finally gave him an answer, though not enough of one for his liking. “I needed to check something.”

“What?” he asked instantly.

She hesitated.

“Some… thing,” she stalled, drawing out the word for as long as she could.

Slowly he moved into the room and slowly he closed the door.

And also, very slowly, he turned the key which now sat in the lock on a permanent basis.

And then he slowly turned and put the key in his pocket.

“Explain,” he said curtly when he again caught her eye.

“I… can’t,” she whispered.

“And why is that?” He didn’t allow her to answer but kept talking. “Do I have to repeat that I very much do not like it when you disappear?”

She was silent, she felt this was the best course of action until she actually could explain or think of a creditable lie she might be able to impart without getting caught out in it.

She thought, rather hysterically, that the happy, euphoric tone of the evening that followed his vow of love and marriage proposal was sadly brief.

“Explain,” he repeated.

She decided she couldn’t keep her silence (because, obviously, he wasn’t going to let her) and he’d never believe a lie, so she gave in.

“I can’t explain…” she rushed on when he opened his mouth to, what she was sure would be, bark at her, “I have to show you. I was just getting ready for later.”

He was silent but his silence was not hesitant or anxious. It was expectant.

Impatiently expectant.

“Just… hold on,” she said and then she ran to the bathroom and shut the door, praying he wouldn’t follow.

Luckily, he didn’t.

And she loved him a little bit more at that show of trust.

And if she loved him much more, she’d explode with it.

What was in the box was Mags’s present that she brought Sibyl from America. Not any of Sibyl’s favourite treats that she couldn’t get in England, like spiced, black corn chips or grape jelly. But instead, a nightgown so racy that when Sibyl had opened it, Bertie had stood abruptly and left the room on an expletive.

Now Sibyl folded back the pale pink tissue, looked at the contents of the box and wondered if she had the guts to do this. And she wondered also if Colin was right and maybe she was a tad bit prissy (but only a tad).

She heard a soft noise from in the bedroom and she immediately rushed to take off her clothes.

This was because she really didn’t want to keep Colin waiting.

Then she donned the nightie which was made of stretchy, lavender-coloured lace, hugged her body everywhere it touched, hit her just below where her thighs met her bottom in a lovely scalloped hem and had underwire that pushed her breasts up rather suggestively. It also had a pair of lavender satin string-bikini bottoms.

She stared at herself in the mirror in the bathroom and thought, perhaps, she couldn’t do this. That perhaps, she was a bit of a priss (and maybe more than a tad) and she ran her hands through her hair in anxious frustration.

Then she caught sight of the ring on her finger. She dropped her hands but also dropped her head to gaze in wonder for a moment at the sparkling diamond on her left ring finger and that was when decided she could, most definitely, do this.

She opened the door and entered the bedroom and Colin, who was impatiently snapping the drapes shut on the windows, whirled around when he heard her.

Then he froze at the sight of her.

“It’s from Mags,” Sibyl whispered.

Colin didn’t say a word.

“I… um, thought it would be a nice celebratory gesture, you know, get into the swing of things while we’re breaking the curse.”

“Get over here,” Colin snarled in a tone so savage, she didn’t know if he was angry or… something else.

“I’ll take it off,” she offered, “we have guests…”

Colin’s response, “They can wait a couple of hours. Get over here.”

Sibyl’s body jerked and her eyes grew wide.

“A couple of hours?” she breathed.

The room was huge; it would take a normal person twelve, maybe thirteen strides to get across it.

Colin made it in five.

Mallory pulled out of his early evening nap, got to his feet far more gracefully than he had ever done in his whole doggie life and he walked into the house, following the last person of the party to enter as they all went in to escape the oncoming storm.

He walked directly to his master and mistress’s bedroom and sat properly, not lounged, at the door.

And thus he stood sentry.

It wasn’t just people who were reincarnated, you know.

After Mrs. Griffith had risen to hug Sibyl and Colin upon their engagement, Bran leapt from her comfy lap to the ground and stayed in the shadows most of the evening.

The air smelled funny and he didn’t like it. Most of it was good, very good, but there was a hint that was very, very bad.

He followed the dark-haired man who’d come into their lives some time ago. He liked this man. This man was arrogant and assertive and autocratic and a lot of other things that Bran respected.

Bran had long-since approved of this new human in his life.

Without being noticed, Bran slid into the bedroom when the dark-haired man (quite rightly in Bran’s opinion) confronted Bran’s human about her latest reckless endeavour.

While she was in the cold, white, shiny room, Bran silently jumped to a chair and then after his new human closed a set of drapes; Bran deftly leaped to the curtain rod and crouched low, his dark body hidden by the top of the drapes and the shadows.

And he stood guard.

Cats, however, were never reincarnated. They already had nine lives.

Bran was on his third.

Bran thought it should be noted, however, that the loss of the first two was not his fault.

Meanwhile, in another time…

“Royce, stop.”

At Beatrice’s words, Royce pulled back Mallory’s reigns and the horse dutifully halted.

His beautiful new bride twisted to look at him and he caught her eyes, hiding his impatience. He was keen to get to Lacybourne, the weather had turned and the sky was threatening rain and worse.

But with one look at his beautiful new wife and Royce thought that imminent rain was the less important of the two reasons there were to get home, as quickly as possible, to Lacybourne.

“Is something amiss?” Royce asked, staring down into her eyes, noting they’d softened to a mellow brown with only the barest inflections of green at the pupils.

“This morning…” She pulled her lips between her teeth in a gesture he had become used to over the last several months, a habit he found quite endearing. Then she released them and whispered, “I should have told you before we wed, you may have decided…”

Royce sighed his impatience. “Beatrice, rain is coming, do you not feel it?”

“Royce, I think I’ve gone quite mad,” she burst out. Before he could comment on this, her latest bizarre utterance to add to the wealth of bizarre utterances she had amassed since he met her, she went on, “I… sometimes I…” she paused, looking for the right words then she found them, “drift away. These past months, with you, always with you, I just go away, somewhere nice, somewhere peaceful and then I come back and I find time is lost to me. You do not seem to notice I’ve been gone and we have… done things while I’m not here… and… I just do not remember.” She pulled in a broken breath and watched him closely before she whispered, “My love, I think I am mad.”

He did not speak because his entire body stilled.

She dropped her eyes to her lap. “What’s worse, sometimes I think you do it as well.” Her head lifted with a snap and her eyes caught his again. “Sometimes you are simply…” she hesitated again then finished, “not you.”

Royce regarded her for a moment and then swiftly alighted from Mallory’s back. He put his strong hands on Beatrice’s waist to pull her down and he set her before him. Very close before him.

She tilted her head up and he stared at her, her beautiful, dark, glossy hair shining on her shoulders (she’d worn it down, just for him). It was threaded liberally with flowers and he thought, with pleasure and unusual whimsy, that she looked somewhat like a nymph.

But now, her eyes were frightened and wary and she was waiting for him to react to her words.

“I feel it as well,” he admitted, “in me and in you.”

Her eyes warmed and she breathed, “Truly?”

Royce nodded.

Beatrice sagged against him

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said with extreme relief. “I thought it was only me.”

“You are pleased we are both mad?”

Her eyes were shining when she looked at him. “No… yes… no, but I think… yes.”

He grinned at her with every intention of keeping from her, for her own protection (of course) that he felt he knew the woman she became when she was no longer Beatrice. That he had a vague feeling they had been together, somewhere, not there. That she was good and kind, just like Beatrice. That there was nothing to fear because, in some way, she was Beatrice.

It was a fanciful notion and a man like Royce did not waste time on fanciful notions.

He lifted his hand to her neck, setting his thumb on the soft skin under her chin.

“Do you fear this night? Our night?” he asked gently.

Her eyes rounded. “Yes… no… yes, but I think… no.”

He shook his head but still grinned at her.

“You have nothing to fear, beloved.”

Her eyes melted to liquid.

And, at that familiar sight, Royce had no choice.

He bent his head to kiss her.

Esmeralda Crane rushed out of her cottage on her way to Lacybourne and was nearly so attuned to her task of saving the doomed lovers that she missed the change in the atmosphere.

Then she saw it.

It was not just golden but thick as stew.

She felt a timid hope spring into her heart and she quickened her step, clutching the potion to her.

In the present time, in the library, at Lacybourne…

Idly, Marian pulled the volume out of the shelf as she heard Phoebe ask distractedly, “What could have happened to them?”

Marian thought about what she hoped had happened to Colin and Sibyl, that they were breaking the curse. Which, considering Colin’s reputation, might take awhile. She turned the pages, leafing through the book as the guests chattered and the children played.

“I cannot imagine,” Mags answered Phoebe, enunciating every word playfully.

Marian’s eyes skimmed down the book. She hadn’t seen it in years and she had no idea what drew her to pulling it from the shelf. She had mostly memorised it, of course, but…

Her eyes stopped dead on some words on the page and her body got tight.

A date.

A date nearly five hundred years before.

How could she have forgotten?

And then her eyes widened when she saw all the words after the date had become misty and unreadable. As if, even though they were meant to tell the story of long-dead lovers, they had not yet been written. As if they were waiting to form, waiting for the story to unfold, a story that should have been forged with time.

A story that clearly was not.

A thrill ran up her spine, her head jerked up and she asked a question to which she already knew the answer. “What’s today’s date?”

She said it too loudly and with too much alarm. Several pairs of eyes swivelled to her and several mouths gave her the information she sought.

Marian snapped the book shut and strode purposefully toward Mags.

And when she made it to the other woman, she announced gravely, “Marguerite. It’s time.”

In the wood, the man shifted through the leaves, trying to be quiet and definitely being watchful.

No matter how quiet or watchful he was, he would never have heard or seen the spectre drifting behind him.

However, he did feel, for a brief, painful moment, the blow that struck him on the head.

The man collapsed, unconscious, to the ground.

The spectre drifted away.

Light work, it thought.

Resurrected by the dark soul mere moments previously, the spectre had only one gruesome mission this night. His reviver had tried to use beings in this time but they had failed. Thus, it had been called forward to do again what it had done many years before.

Once the task was complete, it could drift back to its oblivion, a dark oblivion it had occupied for nearly five hundred years.

A dark, wicked oblivion.

The spectre was happy for its task. It needed a break from that place.

In the bedroom, Colin lifted Sibyl up in his arms and he kissed her as he walked toward the bed. Her arms slid around his shoulders, one hand drifting into the hair at the back of his head as she kissed him back.

He stopped at the side of the bed and dropped her legs, allowing her feet to fall slowly toward the floor, all the while her body skimming against his.

“I take it you like the nightie,” she breathed, her eyes liquid.

In answer, his hands glided down her sides and he felt her delicious shiver.

“I’ll count that as a yes,” she whispered.

His hands came forward and he watched them as they moved across her ribcage, up under her breasts where they stopped.

Oh yes, Colin most definitely liked the nightie.

“Someone told me once,” Sibyl was saying, although he wasn’t listening to her, he was pleasantly contemplating where to put his hands next. Thinking maybe he’d tug the hem up to get a better look at the satin panties of which he could now only see a tantalising glimpse. Or, perhaps, he’d run his palms against her nipples to see how they looked hardened under that exquisite lace.

She kept talking. “That you should never commit to a man unless you’ve been with him through all four seasons.”

“Mm?” he mumbled as he decided on her nipples.

Then he heard her breath catch as he carried out his plan.

Her voice continued doggedly (although it was now quivering a little). “We’ve only been through one season and we’re not even through that.”

He decided that, as God saw fit to grant him two hands, he could use them for two splendidly different purposes. He ran one down her side, shifting it to slide down the small of her back to her ass. The other, he kept at her breast and again lightly ran his thumb over her nipple.

That earned him another catch of her breath.

But she kept speaking.

“Colin? Are you listening to me? Maybe we’re being a bit hasty.”

With great reluctance, he lifted his eyes from his fascinated study of what his thumb was doing to her breast. He looked at her face just as his thumb, joined by his finger, became a little more relentless. As she was talking, indeed carrying on what seemed a weighty conversation, he decided he wasn’t doing his job very well.

As his fingers tugged at her, his hand cupped her bottom and pressed it to his rigid groin.

Her eyes grew dazed, her mouth parted and a soft breath escaped.

“Sibyl?” he called.

She nodded. “Unh hunh?”

“Shut up.”

In the gatehouse, another spectre dispatched the watchful guard at the same time the last was felled at the edge of the third terrace of the back garden.

The plan was coming together.

Robert Fitzwilliam looked at the clock on the dashboard of his car and then out at the rolling hills. He deduced he was, at most, fifteen minutes from Lacybourne Manor.

He did not like the look in the eye of his employer that morning and he never wanted that look directed at him again.

He was just going to make a quick stop to check on his team.

At the same time, but many years earlier, in the wood a fifteen minute horseback ride away from Lacybourne…

Royce lifted his head; his body was, as usual after he kissed Beatrice, on fire for her.

He yanked at the chain that held his cloak together at his neck, pulled it from his shoulders and whirled it out to lie it on the ground beside them.

“What… what are you doing?” Beatrice gasped, her eyes dazed, her lips swollen from his kiss.

“I cannot wait.” His voice was gruff. He no sooner wanted to bed her their first time on the forest floor in the threatening rain than he wanted the world to come to an abrupt end.

But he told no lie. He simply couldn’t wait. Something was driving him and at that moment, with his new bride’s eyes hazy with passion, her cheeks flushed, his body burning, he had no desire to question it.

She gulped and turned her beautiful eyes to his before she admitted quietly, “Nor I.”

At her words, he snatched her to him and he was not in any mood for romance and gentleness. His mouth devoured hers and she moaned against his lips, against his tongue in her mouth and he swept her up and dropped to one knee, laying her on his cloak.

The horse (neither of them noticed) shifted slightly closer, its ears up and alert.

He stretched out beside her, his hands roving her body, his groin pressed demandingly against her hip.

Lightning streaked the sky as his mouth took possession of hers and he roughly pulled up her skirts, his hand finding the smooth skin of her thigh and gliding across it, touching it for the first time and the silken feel of it made him wild.

“God’s teeth,” he cursed, burying his face in her neck as thunder rent the air. If he didn’t have her soon, he’d spend himself before they were skin against skin.

“What do I do?” she whispered, her voice half timid, half filled with desire.

“Touch me,” he replied without hesitation.

“But… where?”

“Anywhere.”

And she did.

The dark soul stood, hidden behind the copse of the trees.

The air had gone golden even as the clouds rolled in and lightning lit the sky. It made no sense and, further, strangely, it was hard to breath.

“They should be here now,” an accomplice hissed.

The others shifted, uncomfortable, uneasy with the golden air, the delayed carnage.

Something was wrong. The dark soul felt that it should have been done by now.

That somehow, it had been done by now.

And yet, it wasn’t.

Jumping forward in time, at Lacybourne…

Rick strode into the library.

He motioned to Kyle with a quick jerk of his head.

Kyle read the gesture and without word or delay he followed him into the Great Hall.

They had words.

Rick went out the front.

Kyle went out the back.

The (other) plan was in motion.

Phoebe wheeled Meg into the lounge with the children.

Meg had her orders, she had a key to the door and she had the cordless phone.

The children had their DVD.

Annie joined them.

The children decided to take turns shouting to Annie about what was on the screen.

Phoebe carefully locked them in.

And just as carefully, Marian sprinkled a protection charm on the threshold.

Mags ran to the kitchen. She found the huge pot hidden in the butler’s pantry and with an unladylike grunt she tugged it out, brought it to the kitchen proper and hefted it onto the burner. She lit the gas underneath it to the highest heat and pulled the lid off the pot.

Then she peeled the aluminium foil off the top.

Then she removed the plastic wrap that had been underneath the foil.

It did have a very foul odour, one that needed to be hidden for a variety of reasons.

Marian bustled in sprinkling something from a glass vile onto the floor and whispering under her breath. This she had done all through the house where Colin and Sibyl’s guests would be.

Jemma and Tina bustled in and Phoebe followed them.

Mrs. Griffith (a little slow anyway) brought up the rear.

“Mrs. Griffith,” Jemma said, trying to sound stern, “you should be in the lounge.”

“If you think I’m going to miss this, you’re mad,” Mrs. Griffith returned, a highly unusual smile cracking her face.

Before anyone could say anything else, Marian seemed to come to herself and noticed the pot.

“That will not do at all,” she said to no one and then snapped her fingers.

The flames flew up on all sides of the pot, licking it and crackling in the air.

Everyone jumped back a step.

“Let’s go, ladies. We have work to do,” Marian commanded.

Without hesitation, as they had been instructed earlier at the barbeque, they formed a semi-circle around the pot, trying not to breathe the putrid fumes.

And they started to chant the words Marian had taught them over vegetable shish kebabs.

Sibyl was on her back on the bed, Colin on top of her, Colin all over her. His mouth was at one breast and he’d pulled down the other cup of the nightie and there his fingers were teasing her. Unlike normally, when the spirals of hot desire went from her breasts, her stomach, tingling up from her toes and zooming toward the space between her legs, instead, the spirals were zooming out from between her legs and going everywhere.

She’d torn his sweater off, nearly ripped it off over his head before he pushed her back on the bed. Now he was only in jeans, she in her nightie and she could stand it no more. She wanted his skin against her skin, she wanted him inside her.

She put her hands in his hair, tugged his head up to hers and kissed him with every bit of love (which was a lot) and every bit of arousal (which was a lot, a lot) she felt.

He tore his mouth away and gazed at her with eyes blazing so intensely, she was sure she’d melt.

She whispered, “Now.”

Without hesitation, he left her. As she absently heard thunder fill the air, she watched with fascination as he removed his jeans and then leaned forward and in one, quick, luscious jerk, he pulled her panties down her legs. He smoothed the lace up over her hips as she reached for him to bring him to her.

He spread her thighs and surged over her and with one, fierce, beautiful, fluid movement he filled her.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Yes,” Beatrice breathed.

They were finally naked on the cloak, skin against skin. Royce had taken pains to make her ready for him, he’d tasted her, tempted her, teased her. He couldn’t believe the beauty of her body, could not believe she was all his, to touch with his hands, his lips, his mouth.

He was certainly going to enjoy a lifetime of this. Very, very much.

Now with his head bent to her breast, he pulled her nipple sharply in his mouth, rolling his tongue around it and listening to her soft, exquisite moans.

His fingers had found resistance earlier but he had loosened it using her unwavering trust in him against her instincts, as well as his talented fingers, and they were now, finally inside her.

And she was dripping wet.

She was ready for him.

He spread her legs and rolled between them while his mouth took hers in a sweet kiss, his hands moving to frame her face.

“This will hurt, my love,” he murmured against her lips as he found her with the tip of his shaft and, controlling his hips with an immense effort of will, he slid inside her just an inch.

Her eyes grew wide as she felt his invasion.

“Royce,” she breathed.

He slid in more, mere centimetres and gritted his teeth. He had avoided death in countless gory battles on countless blood-drenched battlefields but the exquisite torture of her lush tightness was finally going to kill him.

“I can’t stop the pain, but I shall try and make it…” He had to stop speaking and again grit his teeth so he wouldn’t drive into her with the wild abandon his body was demanding but only press in less than an inch more.

“I can’t…” she whispered.

“You can, my sweet.” He slid in further. “Trust me.”

“I can’t…” It was softer this time and her head moved to the side as he slowly inched in and let her adjust to his further intrusion.

“Trust me,” he repeated.

“I can’t…” she said and then with a glorious jerk, she slammed her hips down towards his. She emitted a soft cry of pain that was drowned out with his low growl as she embedded him fully inside her.

Her eyes opened and they were clear and trusting when she finished, “Wait.”

In both times, the golden air sparkled brightly with white-hot flashes, some of them nearly blue. They tingled skin, the glittered through hair, they brightened the air and they flashed everywhere like fireworks close to the ground.

In the kitchen at Lacybourne…

“Oh my…” Mags muttered, staring at the air.

“Don’t stop chanting,” Marian ordered, staring in the pot.

Close to a copse of trees outside Lacybourne…

“Dear goddess…” Esmeralda breathed as the sparks tingled her skin.

The dark soul cursed under its breath.

Royce drove in further, deeper, hearing her soft panting and feeling it throughout his body as Beatrice’s hands moved, restless and demanding, all over him.

“Royce, something… is happening… to me.” She couldn’t control her voice.

“Let go, my sweet, let it happen,” he urged

Trusting him, her head tilted back, her neck arched, she lifted her knees and he drove into her deeper as he buried his face in her neck and listened with profound satisfaction to the glorious sound of the pleasure overwhelming his sweet, beautiful new bride.

Colin felt Sibyl lift her knees and he buried his face in her neck, her movements allowing him to thrust his cock even deeper inside her and she quietly panted.

“Colin, I think I’m going to…”

And then he listened with profound satisfaction to the glorious sound of his sweet, beautiful new fiancée’s orgasm.

Royce Morgan found his own release moments later and after he did, the rain came.

Colin Morgan came back to himself after his intense climax and vaguely heard the rain against the windows.

Then, magic shafting through time, the two worlds collided.

And for a brief moment, all time stopped.