Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(155)

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.