Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(154)

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 br**sts 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 ni**les 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 ni**les.

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.