Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(93)

“You’re a brute,” she whispered but her tone was teasing and her mind, somehow, was put at ease.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he drawled.

“Did your father build it or refinish it?” she queried mock seriously.

“No.”

“Your mother?” she continued, tilting her head.

“Of course not.”

“A beloved godfather?”

The twitching lips spread into a grin and he shook his head.

She countered by nodding hers.

“I take it that’s a yes?” he pressed.

She smiled her yes then caught her bottom lip between her teeth while his eyes dropped to watch. Then his face turned serious.

“Sibyl, before we join the others, I want to show you something. When you see it, I want you to promise me that you’ll let me finish what I need to say before you fly off the handle.”

Her eyes widened at this sudden change from flirtatious-mode to deadly-serious-liberally-mixed-with-ominous-hints-mode.

Even so, she focussed on something else and declared in self-defence, “I don’t fly off the handle.

His eyebrows lifted mockingly.

At his eyebrow lift, she sighed and said, “Okay, maybe I do but why would I fly off the handle?”

“Just promise me.”

She felt a shimmer of dread slide up her spine at his still serious tone and she started, “Colin –”

He cut her off, demanding, “Promise.”

He was using his silky voice and his warm eyes but they weren’t working on her this time because his look was so intense, it was scaring her half to death. She needed no more shocks tonight. She didn’t know if she could endure them.

But this was Royce, wasn’t it?

And even if it was Colin, she told herself could trust him. He’d taken care of her tranquillised dog, for goddess’s sake. He was buying her an alarm system. He bought a bunch of furniture for her oldies and she couldn’t forget the luxurious swivel chair. And, even though tonight’s dinner seemed doomed to failure for a variety of reasons, that didn’t happen and it wasn’t all that bad.

Yes, she could definitely trust him.

Couldn’t she?

What could he want to show her that might make her angry? Whatever it was couldn’t be all that awful. Especially if he could explain it.

Taking yet another chance that night, Sibyl decided to trust him.

Therefore, looking into his eyes, she nodded and for this, she was rewarded with one of his killer-watt smiles, a smile that told her it was going to be all right.

She drew in a deep, steadying breath as Colin led her down the hall and, instead of turning to the library, where everyone else had gathered, he took her to the Great Hall.

They walked through the big room and Colin stopped her right in the middle.

She’d been there before, of course, she’d just never really looked at it because she was mid-diatribe the last time she’d spent any time there.

It was huge and stunning, right in the middle was an enormous, heavy table made of wood so dark, it was nearly black. Twenty large, ladder-backed chairs surrounded it. In the stone walls, the room had dozens of deep windows with warped panes of glass. Two of the windows were semi-circular, one filled with a sculpted bust on a half column, the other with an immense, antique globe. In the centre of each window were breathtaking stained glass fleur de lis. There were old-fashioned wooden chairs sitting at precise intervals along the walls, almost like sentries standing at attention. There was also a massive mellow-coloured stone staircase built up one wall, a thick, red carpet runner in the centre held to each step by a brass rod. The room was decorated with suits of armour, flags floating from the ceiling beams, pennants dripping from brass rods and crossed swords affixed to walls.

She felt a shiver of apprehension as she stood there, not only because Colin wasn’t speaking a word as she looked around but also because she felt something familiar about this place. Almost like she’d been there before and not when she had her blazing tirade weeks previously.

She noted somewhere in the back of her mind it was now raining, the water streaming down the glass of the windows, the sky dark and threatening.

She did a slow pirouette, mainly because she couldn’t help herself.

“Colin,” she breathed, “it’s love–”

She didn’t finish.

And she didn’t finish because she saw Royce.

In a portrait, hanging on the wall in the Great Hall at Lacybourne.

She took two steps toward it, her hand flying to her mouth.

“Royce,” she whispered as she gazed in shock at the portrait.

She vaguely heard Colin ask, “What did you say?” in a tone that was far more Colin than Royce.

But she wasn’t listening.

It was Royce, stunningly handsome even though he looked fierce, even angry. He was standing in front of a shining black horse with a wild mane, a horse Sibyl knew very well because she’d ridden on his back. She felt her heart squeeze in a mixture of horror and delight.

“My goddess,” she stared, “My goddess, Colin, it’s…” but she stopped again because as she was about to turn to Colin, her eyes fell on the other portrait, the one beside Royce’s.

She gasped and took two steps back.

It was then that thunder rumbled and, seconds later, lightning split the sky.