Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(63)

Throughout doing this, Sibyl was singing with Janis, now about a Mercedes Benz, when, with no warning and for no reason, the CD stopped right before the door to the Summer House crashed open.

She whirled around to stare.

Colin was there.

Except, with one look at him, she knew it wasn’t Colin, even though it was.

She studied him and felt a shimmer of fear run up her spine, alongside it an evocative thrill.

She knew in an instant, looking at his face, into his eyes, that it was Colin but it was also someone else entirely.

And because of this peculiarity, and the familiar look in his eyes she couldn’t quite place, she braced.

“What are you wearing?” he barked and Sibyl jumped at his fierce tone.

He didn’t even sound like Colin, yet he did.

She was wearing a white, lacy, gypsy camisole with wide straps edged in lace and a pair of her oldest jeans that had a rip in the knee and a tear just below the right cheek of her bottom. Her feet were bare and her hair was screwed up in a clip.

Her hands went immediately to the clip and tore it out of her hair. His eyes followed the action as her hair came down in a tumble around her face and shoulders.

And it was then, he roared (yes, roared) “What have you done to your hair?” and he did this as his eyes narrowed dangerously so Sibyl jumped again.

“Colin?” she asked in a timid voice.

He was across the short space to her in one angry stride, pulling her to him with his hands closing around her upper arms so painfully she cried out. He ignored her and crushed her to his body.

“Why do you use this name when you’re with me?” His voice was full of warning and his eyes were hard. “I no longer find it amusing.”

His hands were biting into her flesh and she stared at him, filled with terror.

She’d looked into those eyes before, she knew those eyes.

“Royce?” she ventured.

At the sound of her uncertainty, he pushed her slightly away and shook her roughly. So roughly that her teeth clattered together and her head snapped back.

She grabbed onto his upper arms to steady herself but as quickly as he shook her, he stopped. He seemed to notice where he was and she watched as he stared around the room. He took in her jars and bottles, the essential oils neatly labelled and stacked on shelves. The vats of ingredients carefully lined up on the floor. The huge mixing bowls and paddles she used. The rolls of stickers with which she labelled her products.

“What is this? You’re at the witch’s cottage. Are you a witch? Have you bewitched me?” he rapped out these questions in quick succession, his voice low and even. The same voice Colin used when he was very angry but controlling it with an effort of will.

“Royce, you’re –”

She stopped speaking when she saw that something was changing in him. It changed his eyes, his face, even the line of his frame. It was something even more otherworldly than before.

Then, suddenly, his hands gentled, his eyes warmed and they roved over her face. They did this as if he hadn’t seen her in years. Indeed, as if he hadn’t seen her in centuries.

As if she was the most precious creature in the entire universe.

Her stomach did a somersault.

Then he lifted one hand to her hair. Capturing a tendril at the side of her face, he twirled it in his fingers tenderly.

“Oh Beatrice,” he murmured, his voice thick and throaty but she knew he was not speaking to her, he was talking to someone else. Someone who wasn’t there. And his voice so filled with pain that Sibyl felt a lump form in the base of her throat. “I gave you my hair.”

She had no idea what he was talking about but, at the tender ache in his voice, the pain stark in his eyes, she felt compelled to lay her hand on his cheek. “Royce?”

His gaze slowly shifted to hers.

“You’re so like her.” His voice was now soft, his eyes unbelievably warm. “So like her.” He cupped her face worshipfully in his hands, making her knees go week. “But not her.”

“I know you,” Sibyl whispered to him. “I’ve seen you in my dreams.”

“And I saw you in her.” He smiled a beautiful, heart-wrenching, sad smile. “You called me Colin when you were her. I thought she was attempting to vex me.”

Her heart lurched at the sound of adoration in his tone when he spoke of “her”.

“How can you be here? Is it me that’s doing this to you?” Sibyl asked.

He shook his head, she knew it was not in the negative but telling her he didn’t know.

“Where are you from?” she asked urgently.

“I know not,” he answered.

“Another time? A different place?” she pressed.

“Not here,” he told her the only thing he knew.

“Royce, who’s Beatrice?”

His look turned intense and he whispered, “She’s you.”

And then, before she knew what he was about, he wrapped his fist in her hair and pulled her head back with a gentle tug, his arm gliding around her waist and he kissed her.

And his kiss was sweet and wild and beautiful and everything a kiss was meant to be, because it was filled with yearning and love.

Experiencing the sad joy and intense beauty of the kiss, she relaxed into him and felt tears burn the backs of her eyes then roll down her temples. When she opened them after he lifted his head, she knew in an instant Royce was gone and Colin had returned.