Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(89)

“Please call us Mags and Bertie, everyone else does,” Mags invited as she hooked her arm through Phoebe’s and they turned to the door.

Bertie didn’t reply, he was speechless with excitement at getting a tour. The older people went off, leaving the four women together but, again, Mike firmly closed the doors to the Great Hall behind him after they’d gone through.

“Sibyl, are you okay? You look a bit pale.” Her sister, the soon-to-be-fully-practising neurologist, pointed out the not-so-medically obvious.

Before Sibyl could answer, Claire noted, “Scarlett, I don’t think you’ve met Mrs. Byrne.”

Then the four women wiled away the minutes, all but Sibyl joining in easy conversation while Sibyl tried to decide why, on earth, Colin had arranged this hideous tableau.

And what she decided eradicated that hope she’d felt earlier.

For, she decided, she had been right about their first encounter.

He had to hate her. Whatever reason there was for him to hate her, she knew there could be no other reason for him to do this to her. This whole thing was simply… well, she’d never been the paid sexual plaything for a man but she couldn’t imagine it was de rigueur to invite her family to meet his parents (and sister). In fact she was pretty certain it was the exact opposite. He’d spent weeks lulling her into a false sense of security and now he was going in for the kill.

“Sibyl, you aren’t saying a word,” Claire noted, her blue eyes looking concerned. “Are you quite all right?”

“No,” Sibyl stood, her heart was fluttering in a funny way that felt almost like pain and she replied honestly, “No, I don’t think I’m all right.”

All three women stood with her, glancing at each other with concerned eyes and Sibyl felt a great wave of nausea building inside her. She was no longer seething, no longer angry, she was humiliated and defeated.

“Sibyl,” Mrs. Byrne said, her voice full of weight, urgency and a meaning Sibyl did not understand. Sibyl heard their parents coming back into the room as Mrs. Byrne went on. “Did you hear what I said to you earlier? Did you understand me?”

Sibyl wasn’t listening. She was staring at her parents.

It looked like her mother had been crying but they were joyous tears and there was a smile, a smile the like she’d never seen on Mags’s face and Sibyl had seen many smiles on Mags’s face.

It was a smile that made Mags’s face illuminate with happiness.

For his part, Bertie looked stunned and pleased as punch, as if Mike had told him there was an ancient archaeological ruin in the backyard that no one had ever touched and it was all his.

“What’s going on?” Scarlett asked, clearly also noting the buoyant looks on their parents’ faces.

“A word in the Hall, Scarlett,” Bertie had recovered first and promptly commanded his younger daughter in a tone he rarely used but both girls had obeyed for a lifetime.

Scarlett followed her father out of the room.

Sibyl stood stock-still.

“What’s going on?” Sibyl repeated her sister’s question.

Mags walked to her daughter, her eyes shining with a beautiful light that, for some reason, made Sibyl feel even more frightened and sick. Mags grabbed Sibyl’s hand and squeezed.

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” she whispered to her mother and Mags simply leaned in, looked into her daughter’s eyes with her own still bright with tears then she turned her head and kissed her Sibyl on the cheek.

At this, Sibyl started to shake. She felt that the world had tilted and she was the only one remaining upright.

She was about to scream blue bloody murder when she heard Phoebe Morgan exclaim, “Colin! Finally, you’ve arrived,” and relief was palpable in her words.

Sibyl’s head snapped around and she saw Colin, wearing one of his dark suits with a deep green shirt as usual unbuttoned at his masculine throat.

He looked around the room, seeming tense, until saw her. Then he relaxed, took one look at her face and strode forward, straight to her. She felt like fleeing, she felt like screaming at him, she felt like bursting into tears, but instead, she held her ground. He ignored everyone else in the room even though everyone else was watching.

Avidly.

“Colin,” she whispered when he was close enough to hear her. She was physically unable to make her voice any louder.

He stopped close to her, too close, closer than was seemly in front of his parents, her parents (well, maybe not Mags), everyone.

Then he did something strange.

He took both her hands in his.

Then he did something even stranger.

He dropped his forehead to rest it against hers and murmured in a low, intense voice filled with urgency and a meaning akin to Mrs. Byrne’s, meaning she didn’t understand, “Trust me, Sibyl.”

She shook her head in a panic and his hands squeezed hers.

It was then she noticed his eyes, the look in them, a look that immediately melted away her fear and nausea.

He’d called her Sibyl but this wasn’t Colin.

Not at all.

It was Royce.

“Trust me,” he repeated.

She gulped.

As she stared, close up, into his beautiful eyes, her heart fluttered again, dangerously, but the feeling had a soft edge which was a weak sense of hope.

Sibyl latched onto the hope.