Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(13)

There he was, right before her, not four feet away, in real life.

The man of her dreams.

It was then that Sibyl Jezebel Godwin did something she had never done in her entire life.

She fainted.

Unfortunately, when she did so, her head smashed rather painfully against a jagged rock.

Chapter Four

Misunderstanding

“Call the doctor!”

Colin shouted this order to Tamara and Mrs. Byrne who were both crowding around him while he carried into the house the unconscious, unbelievable woman he’d encountered outside moments ago.

The very vision of Beatrice Godwin.

Except blonde.

Like the woman in his dream.

Not only were Tamara and Mrs. Byrne crowding him but an enormous, beige beast with a black face and black floppy ears was following closely at his heels, barking ferociously and a fluffy, black cat was darting in and out of his legs, nearly tripping him.

“Oh my goodness! What happened?” Mrs. Byrne queried, her voice filled with concern.

“Call the damned doctor!” Colin answered, striding swiftly through the Great Hall and into the library, carrying his burden.

Tamara peeled off the scene hopefully to phone a medic. Mrs. Byrne stayed with him as he carefully deposited the woman onto the leather of a burgundy couch in the library and she leaned forward to arrange the woman’s long legs in a comfortable position.

Then she looked at the woman.

“She’s bleeding!” Mrs. Byrne exclaimed.

“Get a towel, the bathroom –” Colin started to explain but Mrs. Byrne was already rushing towards the bathroom (rather agilely for a woman of her age). He realised with a delayed reaction that in her role as a volunteer at Lacybourne, she probably knew the house better than he.

The dog was still barking and the cat had leapt up to walk daintily the length of the woman’s body.

“Quiet!” he ordered the dog and, to his surprise, the dog ceased barking immediately and sat down in a slouch where most of his body reclined against the side of his couch. He then inclined his neck forward and licked Colin’s hand. Not quite finished, he turned his massive head and sniffed his mistress’s hair before sloppily licking the entire side of her face with one long lash of his exorbitantly wet, enormous tongue.

“Down,” Colin commanded and the dog settled onto the floor and, with a loud groan, rested his head on his front paws.

Colin had laid her on her back and now, gently, he leaned forward and pulled the soft, heavy hair away from her face.

Then he saw her, as he’d seen her outside, except now she wasn’t exactly mimicking the pose from the portrait.

Beatrice’s double, right here in Lacybourne Manor.

She was the woman in his dream.

Albeit, without a slit throat but with a bleeding head wound.

“Good Christ,” he muttered, his body frozen, his eyes staring into her pale, familiar face, his mind unable to process anything but the incredible vision of her.

The cat had decided to settle smack in the middle of her chest, curling into himself and licking one of his paws.

Colin stared at her as finally Colin’s mind again started working and he thought of Mrs. Byrne arriving not ten minutes ago to explain that she had, because of her extreme age and faltering memory, forgotten to call the American to tell her not to arrive for her tour.

Then they’d all heard the frustrated, shouting woman’s voice rising above the storm outside.

Then Colin had gone out to investigate.

Then in the unbelievably long flash of lightning, he’d seen her standing amongst the trees in a perfect rendition of the pose of Beatrice Godwin.

“I’ve called 999, they’re sending someone straight away,” Tamara said as she rushed into the room.

Colin didn’t look at Tamara, he continued to stare at the woman on the couch.

All the years he’d waited and now here she was.

And she was blonde.

And suddenly and very strangely, he felt his body react, every muscle tightening instantaneously as he continued to drink in the sight of her. His gut clenched and his heart felt clutched in an iron fist.

“Colin?” Tamara called, her hand lightly touching his tense arm but her light touch felt like pinpricks of icicles sinking into his flesh and he experienced the strange desire to shrug her off and eject her forcibly from the house.

Before he could wonder at this reaction, he heard, “I’ve got a wet flannel. She’ll need some ice.” Mrs. Byrne was walking quickly into the room. She pushed past Colin and sat next to the woman, leaning forward to press the flannel gently against the bloodied area of the woman’s head.

Not even close to coming to terms with his shock at seeing the vision of Beatrice (but blonde), Colin stared at the older woman as she ministered to her charge in a way that Colin thought distractedly was rather familiar. Mrs. Byrne had said the woman was just an American who wanted to view the house and now the older woman was caring for her as if she was her own granddaughter.

Furthermore, Colin thought, his mind clearing quickly as he watched the scene, Mrs. Byrne had been working in Lacybourne for years. She had to have seen the uncanny, even otherworldly, resemblance of this woman to the portrait that had hung in the Great Hall for nearly five hundred years.

Colin felt a feeling recognised very well slicing quickly through his fogged brain.

No, not this, not her, he thought.