Lacybourne Manor (14 page)

Sibyl blamed her father for her
dream’s medieval wardrobe.

They were riding a midnight
black steed, the horse’s muscled power beneath her, her lover’s
same power emanating into her back as he held her close to his
chest atop the horse. One of his arms was wrapped protectively and
possessively about her waist.

This moment was a stolen one,
her lover wending his expert way through a heavy wooded area until
he found the place for which he was looking. They were not supposed
to be out there alone together some foreign part of her knew and
felt the illicit excitement of it.

He alighted from the horse then
dragged her off, sliding her tantalisingly down the length of his
hard body.

Then he bent his head to kiss
her and it was sweet and wild and beautiful and absolutely
everything a kiss should be.

When he lifted his head, his
eyes hooded and sexy as they had been in the entryway to his house
a week before, she’d whispered, “Colin.”

This made him grin a very
devilish grin.

“
Are you trying to make
me jealous, wench? ‘Colin’ indeed. Say
my
name when I kiss you.”
Then, his lips on hers, he whispered, “Say it, Beatrice…
Royce.”

Confused and not knowing what
to do, not knowing why he was calling her Beatrice, and wanting
another of those kisses, she did as he commanded and murmured the
name, “Royce”.

The instant she did, he kissed
her again and it was all the things before but now also hot with
need. She felt desire flood through her as she slid her hands into
his hair. He lay her down on the forest floor right next to the
horse, his body settled on top of her and she gloried in his heavy
weight.

The horse shifted and she felt
the unsettling feeling they were being watched.

It was then she awoke, the
limbs that had been entangled with his were simply wound through
the sheets of her bed.

“I am going insane,” she told
the dog and Mallory whined.

She pulled the covers off the
bed and grabbed some jeans and sweater to wear to take her dog for
a walk. She resolutely shoved the dream aside (it was only a dream,
just a dream, Colin Morgan was forever out of her life, forever and
ever, she vowed).

So it was a lovely dream.

So it was a
particularly
delicious
and lovely dream.

It was just a dream.

She went through her morning
regime, thinking only of the things she needed to think about.

Walk the dog, feed her pets,
brush her teeth, wash her face, take a shower and so on.She sat at
her dressing table, lightly applied her makeup and attempted to do
something with her hair.

Sibyl loved her bedroom,
it was (as was the whole of Brightrose Cottage, but especially her
bedroom) her sanctuary, perfectly, splendidly
her
.

It had a lovely fireplace with
a black, wrought iron grate surrounded by tile in a rich jade
colour. It had gleaming, wide-planked floors scattered with thick,
pastel-coloured throw rugs. The walls were painted a very pale
green. She and her father had found and restored an ornate iron bed
and they’d painted it white. It was covered with very feminine,
soft sheets and comforter scattered with dainty, pastel flowers
with big, fluffy pillows at the head. It had window seats in the
diamond-paned windows covered with plump pillows and cushions. The
bed was flanked with lovely French provincial bed stands and there
was a matching dressing table with an oval mirror.

It was all girl, fresh and
inviting and lovely.

If Colin Morgan stood in this
room, his immensely masculine presence would be so out of place,
the very thought made her laugh out loud. She took comfort in that
thought and in her room that morning. She needed as much comfort as
she could get after the fiasco at Lacybourne, the conflicting
events of last night and her glorious dream.

Later that morning she walked
into the Community Centre with a cheerful wave to Tina who was
cooking lunch for fifty pensioners in the enormous kitchen.

Sibyl went straight to work on
a grant to get their own minibus. Social Services could help Annie,
of course, but even after another visit from Sibyl, they remained
firm that they couldn’t do much about the minibus driver.

So Sibyl had priced the cost of
buying the bus and training Kyle to drive it. They also needed
enough money for petrol, insurance, maintenance and a cushion in
case of repairs for several years.

As she created the budget, she
saw the rising amount with even more rising alarm.

They’d need a heck of a lot of
money but, as ever, Sibyl was determined to find it.

And she would, somehow.

It turned out Annie had no
children even though she said she did. Sibyl thought that everyone
had to look out for their neighbours and the best people that did
that were the volunteers and staff at the Centre. Certainly, the
minibus driver did not.

Kyle walked into her shabby,
corner office with its makeshift tables she used as desks and the
hand-me-down (most likely handed down two or three times) couch
shoved against the wall. Detritus from talent shows, fayres, Easter
parades and all sorts of Community Centre events crowded every
corner and available surface.

His droopy moustache twitched
and she found herself grinning at him after witnessing this
endearing habit.

“You want me to make those
deliveries for you today, luv?” he asked.

Kyle helped her deliver her
girlie goods to the various stores that stocked them.

“Please. The shops in Clevedon
and Clifton are out of product, they’ve ordered huge and the boxes
won’t fit in the MG.”

“Great car but a death trap,”
Kyle commented darkly and he’d said this before, about half a
million times.

Day-after-day, Kyle was
assuming more and more of a position as Father Figure in Absence of
Bertie and Sibyl appreciated his gruff, but loving, concern.

Before she could reply, Jemma
ran in, her dark hair bouncing around on the crown of her head, her
face panicked.

“I’ve got to call 999, Meg just
fell out of the minibus.”

At these words Sibyl’s heart
squeezed painfully and her stomach lurched.

Her friend grabbed the phone
while both Kyle and Sibyl flew out of the office, through the Day
Centre and out to the street.

Sibyl wanted to burst into
tears at what she saw.

Instead, she ran forward and
skidded to a halt next to the heavy, prone body of Meg.

“Meg, honey, are you okay?”
Sibyl asked, dropping to her knees and grabbing the woman’s hand, a
hand which closed around her own in a painful grip, expressing her
acute discomfort.

“I think I’ve broken a hip,”
Meg answered on a tortured whisper and Sibyl knew Meg was trying to
be strong but at this pronouncement, her voice betrayed a steady
whine of hurt.

“Jem is calling the medics,
we’ll get you to hospital in no time at all,” Sibyl tried to
reassure her.

“Don’t leave me, Sibyl,” Meg
begged, her hand clutching Sibyl’s desperately and Sibyl nodded her
head fervently. Then Meg pleaded, “Can someone please call my
son?”

“I’ll call her son,” Tina was
standing over them, wringing her apron in concern. She stopped
wringing her hands and ran off awkwardly on mangled feet to do her
task as Jemma rushed toward them.

“They’re on their way,” Jem
announced when she was close.

Hours later, the doctors
reported to Sibyl, Jemma and Meg’s son (who had left straight from
work to see to his mother) that Meg
had
broken her hip.

Sibyl waited until she and
Jemma were outside the doors of the hospital before she let her
formidable temper explode.

“
That bloody,
bloody
minibus driver. He
knows
Meg needs help with
transfers. He
knows
Kyle or I have to be there when Meg gets out of
the bus. How could he let her fall?”

“Her son is with her now, she’s
a strong lady, she’ll be okay,” Jemma assured her, her chocolate
eyes melting as she watched Sibyl in full, heartfelt, outrage.

“
She’s
my
responsibility when she comes to that Centre, Jem,” Sibyl
replied, her voice rising. “And she’s my
friend!
How am I going to
face her after this?”

And as she spoke, Sibyl felt
the same hated reminder that no matter what you did, no matter how
hard you tried, things went very, very badly for people who
mattered.

Jem got closer and put a
reassuring hand on her friend’s arm, saying softly, “You can’t save
everyone from every little hurt, Sibyl. You couldn’t have prevented
what happened today.”

“I’m going to damn well try,”
Sibyl snapped and Jemma shook her head gently.

“Oh Billie, mate,” Jem
whispered, using Sibyl’s not-oft-used nickname in an effort to
settle her. “You break my heart.”

“
I’m going to break
something and it isn’t your heart. It’s that minibus driver’s
head!” Sibyl promised dramatically, hanging onto her anger in order
not to feel her pain and definitely not to feel the nagging sense
of guilt that
she’d
been the cause of today’s tragedy. Her and her
big mouth.

Jemma laughed, giving Sibyl’s
shoulder a friendly shove and breaking the intensity of the moment.
She then hugged Sibyl, an uncommon action from her reserved
friend.

“She’ll be okay,” Jem whispered
in her ear.

Sibyl let out a shuddering
sigh. “I hope so.”

But she didn’t hope so.

Sibyl would do everything
she could to
make
it so.

The end was nigh for the likes
of Meg and Annie’s anguish.

Sibyl would see to it.

* * * * *

Colin drove down the attractive
lane that led to Sibyl’s cottage and as he did he saw dotted in the
woods sprinkles of late-blooming snowdrops, crocuses and opening
daffodils. As he approached the picturesque, rambling, sparkling
white cottage, he saw Sibyl’s MG and a Ford Fiesta parked in the
widened drive at the front. Without room to park out front, he
drove around the house and found a parking spot by the side.

As he got out and walked to the
front door, he noted that all the windows had window boxes and
they’d already been planted with early spring flowers that tangled
with dangling ivy.

Colin was there because of last
week but mostly because of last night.

Last week, after sending Tamara
away, Colin had ordered an investigation into the woman who called
herself Sibyl Godwin.

“I’ll need to go to America if
I’m going to find out everything about her,” his investigator,
Robert Fitzwilliam, told him. “Obviously, that will significantly
increase my expenses.”

“Do it,” was all Colin said. He
was happy to pay to find out everything about Sibyl Godwin’s past
and personally intended to find out who she was now.

Arriving home early, Colin had
sent Tamara home Wednesday afternoon.

Things were very much finished
with Tamara Adams, for a variety of reasons.

The idiot woman had attempted
to seduce him while Sibyl and Mrs. Byrne were in the house. He
could barely think with Beatrice Godwin’s double lying in a bed
(stubbornly freezing herself to death) two doors down from his own
room, much less bear another woman’s hands on him. Then she’d had
the temerity to act affronted when he told her, in no uncertain
terms, that he had no interest. Making matters worse, she’d flown
into a jealous rage after Sibyl and Mrs. Byrne had both left the
next day.

“I heard what you said to her!”
Tamara ranted. “You were tempted by her. You said it, right in
front of me!”

He’d simply stared at her
beautiful face, not so beautiful as it was distorted with rage.

“
How
dare
you!” she
screeched when he’d made no response.

“It’s my house, my life, my
bed, I choose who I take to it,” Colin replied calmly.

At this point, she’d flown at
him in a fury.

That was a
big
mistake.

He’d pushed her off, ordered
her out of his house and walked away.

That, he knew, was the end of
Tamara Adams.

Colin would not put up with
jealous rages and feminine pouts. With his usual ruthlessness, he
made an instant decision. He didn’t care if it took years to find a
suitable replacement, Tamara would never have his ring on her
finger.

After dealing with Tamara, he
started piecing it together what he knew of Sibyl.

The people at The National
Trust told him that Mrs. Byrne had been volunteering at Lacybourne
for seven years. She was retired, living on a meagre pension and
spending some of her days in a lavish manor house. She’d
undoubtedly encountered Sibyl somewhere along the line and noted
her amazing resemblance to Beatrice Godwin. Doing so, she’d
probably talked the younger woman either into a con or conned Sibyl
into a meeting with Royce Morgan’s twin.

What they were up to, he
couldn’t care less, for they wouldn’t succeed.

However, considering Sibyl’s
behaviour last night, he was beginning to doubt she was a con
artist, trading on her resemblance to a long dead woman. She seemed
genuinely surprised at his reaction to her and stunned by his
behaviour.

Though, Colin wouldn’t put
anything passed a woman.

His parents were worth money,
he had a large trust fund he’d never touched, substantial sums of
his own, his business was worth a great deal and then there was
Lacybourne. It was filled with priceless antiques, including an
enormous Bristol Blue Glass collection and a centuries old
accumulation of Wedgewood, all of which Mrs. Byrne knew very well,
and, if Sibyl’s deft knowledge of National Trust properties was
anything to go by, she did as well.