Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(61)

That had been beyond magnificent.

Earlier, he’d been so furious with not being able to contact her, he couldn’t think of anything else. In fact, for a week without her when he was in London, he couldn’t think of anything but her. The minute the train came into Yatton, he drove directly to the cottage, not even stopping at Lacybourne. He didn’t intend to wait another moment to have her in his arms.

He was even dreaming of her, except he knew he was Royce and she was Beatrice, dark hair and medieval clothing. She called him Royce in the dreams and she stared at him with all the love in the world in her eyes. He had them every night and they were most vivid dreams he’d ever had.

But she had not been at the cottage when he arrived and was not answering her phone.

Colin was not used to not having what he wanted the moment he wanted it. And he didn’t like that at all.

He also didn’t like that he seemed to have an insatiable desire not only for her body, but for her company but she much preferred to be somewhere else, even after days apart. He’d always been pursued, chased, seducing only when that game needed to be played. He was a target, a trophy, all the woman of his experience grasping and sucking everything they could from him. Not once had Colin met a woman who had her own life, her own interests or anything outside her pursuit of him. He had never been in this position and found he contradictorily loathed it and admired it.

Then she’d shouted at him about her “girls” and something shifted in him through her speech.

Her eyes were furious; blazing with an intensity he’d never seen the like on her or anyone. Even though she refused to allow him into that part of her life, had been for days keeping him at arm’s length, carefully guarding anything personal, he knew those girls, whoever they were, were so important to her she’d likely lay down her life for them.

Or throw fifty thousand pounds at them.

He knew from her expression this afternoon that the money was gone and he also knew, most likely, she hadn’t spent it on herself.

It was time to find out just who the hell Sibyl Godwin was.

Robert Fitzwilliam was due to make a report in a week.

Colin was going to give him until Tuesday.

Chapter Twelve

Potion

Marian Byrne slid behind the wheel of her car and told her windshield, “Sometimes, it’s good to be old.”

The windshield, as with many of the inanimate objects Marian found herself talking to since her husband Arthur died, didn’t answer back.

She started the car, put it into gear and thought about the last hour of her life.

No one questioned an old lady wandering around the office, no one said word one when she walked through, giving a breezy wave to the security guard, and headed (slowly) up the three flights of stairs to Colin Morgan’s office.

When his harried secretary ran into the kitchen to make Colin a cup of coffee, Marian was waiting, sitting at the table and knitting. Although she didn’t knit and didn’t know what she was doing, no one really noticed anything but masses of yarn and the clicking of the needles. Knitting was what stereotypical old ladies did and, since Marian was in disguise, she felt it was a good prop.

She was right; the secretary barely reacted when Marian spoke.

“Would you like me to make that for you, dear?” she’d offered in her kindliest, old lady voice.

She knew it was Colin’s secretary, Mandy. She’d been paying close attention to a lot of things about Colin Morgan’s Bristol offices since she began her stakeout some time ago. Colin worked later than everyone, his secretary left the building a quarter of an hour before him every night.

The Mandy’s startled eyes came to Marian.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m Neil’s mother. Come for a visit,” Marian lied.

She knew a Neil worked there, on that very floor. She had sat next to him at lunch one day in the busy café down the street. There were no other tables and she was “forced” to ask him to share his table with a tired, old, talkative lady who just needed a cuppa and a rest of her weary feet. Being a polite young man, he’d agreed. He’d also (somewhat magically, Marian had to admit) talked a great deal about the comings and goings at the office and how a girl he liked, the boss’s secretary, was too tired to go out to drinks after work because her boss always worked her later than anyone else.

“I’m making coffee for Mr. Morgan, he’s kind of picky about his coffee,” Mandy explained, breaking into Marian’s thoughts.

Marian had no doubt Colin Morgan was picky about his coffee.

Marian thought the young secretary looked like she had a great many other things she would prefer to be doing rather than making coffee.

“I think I can handle coffee, dear. How does he take it?”

The girl hesitated only briefly before her expression changed and then she looked thrilled to have one less task. With vows of gratitude, she gave Marian instructions and left.

And then Marian carefully made the coffee, not wanting Mandy to get into trouble and definitely needing Colin to drink it. When she was finished, she surreptitiously took the vial from her old lady handbag (she didn’t normally carry such an unfashionable handbag but she was undercover). She tipped the concoction in the drink and stirred. Colin liked his coffee strong; a splash of milk, no sugar, the potion wouldn’t change the taste one bit (she hoped).