Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(119)

“I’m sorry, it was thoughtless,” she told him quietly when she’d lifted her head to gaze at him. “I just had to see Mrs. Byrne. I promise, babe, I won’t do it again.”

She saw her family watching this, all with identical expressions of relief mixed and wisely they did not utter a word.

“We’re going home,” Colin announced and didn’t allow her family or the police to protest. He simply guided her out the door with his arm still around her shoulders, one of hers around his waist.

Bertie had driven the BMW to the hospital and, without argument Colin allowed Bertie to slide in the driver’s seat. Colin courteously helped Mags (and for once, at this gallant show, she didn’t utter a feminist quibble) in the front and Sibyl sat between Scarlett and Colin in the back.

“Albert, take us to Brightrose, everyone will pack a bag, we’ll get the animals and we’re all going to Lacybourne,” Colin ordered.

No one made a sound and, as it wasn’t a suggestion that invited discourse, Bertie did as he was told.

Her family was set to leave from Heathrow on Sunday, two days… Sibyl glanced unseeing in the darkness at her watch and suspected it was now only one day away. She hadn’t even approached the topic of this latest misadventure with Colin to her family and she didn’t relish the idea. They knew about Mallory and the vandalism at Brightrose but everyone thought that was relatively harmless.

This was not harmless at all and everyone knew it.

They all trooped into Brightrose, made swift work of packing while Sibyl saw to her own and sorted out her pets. Scarlett loaded Mallory in the MG and followed the BMW to Lacybourne.

Exhausted, bidding goodnight to everyone, Bertie and Mags made their bed in one of the six bedrooms with sheets Sibyl uncovered in a linen closet while Sibyl helped her sister with her bed.

“You okay, Billie?” Scarlett enquired softly as they went about their task.

Sibyl shook her head, as usual, she wasn’t going to lie to her sister. “I was held at knifepoint, Scarlett, and someone shot my boyfriend with a tranquilliser dart.” She lifted her head and her eyes hit her sister before she finished, “I’m scared out of my mind.”

Scarlett twitched the coverlet into place, rounded the bed, took Sibyl in her arms and gave her a fierce hug.

“I think Colin would die before he’d let anyone put a scratch on you,” Scarlett whispered in her ear.

Sibyl shuddered.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she admitted with a force of feeling and a terrible premonition that she had to keep under complete control or it would overwhelm her.

Scarlett’s embrace tightened. Her sister knew about the dream, everyone knew about the dream. They also knew that Sibyl had visions like this before, visions that came true. Scarlett was likely just as terrified as her sister but too proud, and too protective, to show it.

Sibyl kissed Scarlett’s cheek and went to find Colin.

He was standing in his bedroom, staring out the window holding a cut, crystal tumbler that contained something that was the colour of his beautiful eyes. Mallory lay at his feet and Bran was already curled contentedly at the foot of the bed.

When she entered, he glanced at her, put the tumbler to his lips, threw back the entire contents of the glass and set it down on dresser.

With his long-legged strides, he approached her and without a word, he tugged on the belt that kept her wraparound dress in place. It immediately loosened and fell apart at the front. The look on his face was carefully controlled and try as she might she couldn’t read a single thought on it.

“Colin, we need to talk,” she whispered carefully.

His hands went to her shoulders, slid the dress off her shoulders and it fell in a pool at her feet.

“We need to go to bed,” he contradicted, his fingers finding the clasp at the back of her bra and freed it with an astonishing deftness. This he slid it off her shoulders and dropped to the floor too.

“Colin –”

“Sibyl,” he interrupted her and slid his hands into her hair on either side of her face, holding her head tilted up to peer at him, “I’m exhausted, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

He released her abruptly and turned away, his hands going to the buttons of his midnight blue shirt. She flipped off her shoes, walked to one of his dressers, pulled open a drawer and snatched out one of his t-shirts.

And she didn’t give up.

“We need to let it out, talk about it, we shouldn’t bottle it in. It isn’t healthy.” She tugged his shirt over her head, pulled her hair free of the collar and turned to him, her eyes on his back.

He yanked the shirt off his broad shoulders, keeping his back to her. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Colin!” she protested, her composure slipping. “I’m scared half out of my wits! I have to talk about it. Someone held a knife to my throat and we both know what that means.”

He turned to her slowly and when she saw the look in his eyes, she pulled in her breath and held it. He looked primitive, even elemental and very, very frightening.

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” He enunciated every word carefully, nearly brutally. She opened her mouth and before a single sound came out, he repeated, more forcefully than before (if it could be credited), “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“What if something happens to you?” she cried. “They wanted you, not me. They asked for you!”