Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(71)

“Oh, I believe you,” Colin said smoothly.

This announcement startled her but she recovered quickly.

“But the reason I’m here is to tell you what my part is in all of this,” Mrs. Byrne explained.

“All of what?”

“You, Sibyl and Royce and Beatrice Morgan,” she announced.

He did not show any reaction to this.

Colin had a great deal to do and did not have the patience to sit through this interview. Considering she was just a meddling National Trust volunteer who had very clumsily, not to mention with the addition of with unneeded mystery, instigated a meeting with him and an American woman who looked like the portrait of Beatrice Godwin, Colin lost interest in her.

“Do you know of Esmeralda Crane?” Mrs. Byrne asked.

That got his attention and his eyes focussed on her.

Of course he knew Esmeralda Crane. Anyone with any knowledge of the legend of Royce and Beatrice knew it was Esmeralda Crane, the local midwife rumoured to be a witch who discovered the bodies of the newlyweds. She was also rumoured to be the one who cast the spell on them, linking their souls for eternity.

He sat back in his chair and raised his eyebrows but did not respond.

She inclined her head. “I’m her great, great… let’s just say, many ‘greats’ granddaughter.”

Colin decided the old woman sitting across from him was clearly unbalanced.

“You are?” he asked out of politeness because he was not at all interested in her tale and was trying to figure out a way to get rid of her.

Quickly.

“Yes, Mr. Morgan. And I, like my mother and her mother and so on, back to Granny Esmeralda, am a witch.”

Yes, Colin decided, clearly unbalanced.

He lost his patience but held onto his good manners.

Barely.

“Mrs. Byrne –”

She interrupted him. “Did anything unusual happen to you yesterday, Mr. Morgan?”

Colin froze.

She was watching him knowingly. What she saw while regarding him answered her question.

“I was in your offices yesterday, as your secretary told you. I should apologise for what I did but I don’t think there were any unpleasant consequences. It has been vowed down the line of Granny Esmeralda to do whatever needs to be done to –”

“What were you doing in my offices yesterday, Mrs. Byrne?” Colin cut into her rambling.

She fiddled with the straps on her handbag and hedged, “It was for a good cause.” But when he leaned forward menacingly she rushed on, “I put a potion in your coffee.”

She couldn’t have surprised him more if she got up and danced a jig on his desk.

Then he realised what she was saying and the implications and he began to lose his temper.

His tone was low and even when he asked, “What kind of potion?”

“A magical potion to bring forward a past life, in your case the life of Royce Morgan,” she explained.

He stared at her in disbelief.

There was, he knew, no such thing as magic.

She carried on. “For a time, a brief time, Royce, through you, would be in this world again. Using your body to exist in this time, he would be you but he would be you as Royce.”

Colin felt his fury building as he stared at the woman and realisation dawned.

The kiss.

If this bizarre explanation was true then he had, as Royce, been in Sibyl’s small chalet in her back garden most likely kissing who he thought was Beatrice.

And Sibyl had kissed him back.

You weren’t yourself, Sibyl told him.

He wasn’t himself; he was Royce f**king Morgan, kissing Sibyl. Kissing Sibyl in a way that made tears come to her eyes.

Colin felt a searing jealousy tear through him even though he knew it was ridiculous, because it had been him but also, it had not.

Fury he could no longer contain made Colin slowly stand.

Mrs. Byrne watched him, her calm never leaving her and she stood as well.

“I had to do what I did,” she defended herself. “You and Sibyl did not have a very good start and things were not progressing very smoothly.”

His hands were clenched into fists but he held himself in check, though his voice was dangerous.

“Do not ever do that again, particularly, do not give such a…” he could barely make himself say it because he could barely believe it, “potion to Sibyl.”

“Of course not! I wouldn’t dream of it!” she cried, clearly affronted at the very thought.

“But you not only dreamt of it, you did it, to me,” he shot back.

“You’re a bit more difficult than Sibyl. She’s a sweet woman,” Mrs. Byrne replied calmly.

“I know that!”Colin thundered and, surprisingly in the face of his fury, Marian Byrne smiled.

“Well, finally. I thought you thought we were a couple of con artists. Hardly complimentary of myself but certainly not Sibyl…”

He stopped listening to her, sat back down in his chair and buried his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his desk.

This, although he didn’t know it, was a posture Mrs. Byrne was familiar with as she’d seen Sibyl do precisely the same thing.

His carefully controlled life had just turned over.

He was sleeping with a real life avenging (if somewhat misguided) angel, willing to raise shotguns at abusive husbands and sell her body for old people. This same angel was, apparently, the living reincarnation of the woman he, and his entire family, thought would magically enter his life at some point, not only to be his wife, but also to fulfil some longstanding legend of true love. He was right then sitting across from a “witch” who thought she was, and could even be, the descendent of the famous Esmeralda Crane. And she’d given him a magical potion that evidently worked, very well. He’d just decided to marry Sibyl, though he could not imagine, considering her spectacular temper, how she would react to all of this. And in the midst of that, how he’d convince her to bind herself to him in holy matrimony at the end of it, considering what he’d done to her.