Lacybourne Manor (29 page)

It could be she’d taken the
money to invest in the business, though it seemed a relatively
small operation from what he could see, considering it was run out
of a chalet in her back garden.

With a temper like hers, he
could imagine she’d gotten herself into some kind of trouble with
someone but he couldn’t imagine how or with whom.

Whatever she needed the money
for, it was likely not for her.

This all made Colin believe
there was a reason Sibyl Godwin had come into his life.

And, even if she was an
excellent actress hiding a deceitful, larcenous heart, (although
this option, day-to-day, was seeming less and less viable) she was
still the vision of Beatrice Godwin, she was still extraordinary in
bed, she was always surprising him (speaking French, looking, while
eating chocolate mousse, (nearly) like she did when she reached
orgasm) and he was still going to have her for as long as he wished
no matter what it took.

Five months would not be
enough; two weeks hadn’t done a thing in assuaging his lust for
her. If anything, after two weeks, he wanted her
more
.

He didn’t question it and
didn’t care to, all he knew was that if he wanted more, he’d get
it.

And he wanted more.

He’d never met a woman like
her, regardless of who she was and what she was. In reality, he
knew there were few women who didn’t have deceitful, larcenous
hearts so he might as well spend his time with one who was open
about it.

Or at least open enough to ask
for fifty thousand pounds.

Once.

Since then, she’d tried
twice (after the second time he’d ordered her to stop doing it and,
with her usual mutinous expression, she’d agreed) to pay the bill
at a restaurant when he took her
to
dinner. She never hinted she wanted presents, nights out, to jet
off on holiday or more money.

She also never asked about his
work, his family, his life and did not share any information about
herself.

She kept him at arm’s length
with everything.

Except in bed.

There she was fiery and
responsive and utterly magnificent.

He had lied to Sibyl only
once, when he told her he didn’t remember anything about the
episode in the chalet in her garden the night before. He
did
remember kissing her. Not the start but definitely the
middle and obviously the end. It was like a kiss he’d never given a
woman in his life, it was almost unbearably sexy, even going so far
as being moving.

Whatever had made him kiss her
like that, he could not imagine, but her reaction to it was
strange.

Receiving a kiss like that
would have been the perfect excuse for any woman to wheedle nearer
to him but Sibyl seemed to want to hide it, hide her reaction to
the kiss and hide the fact that it had happened at all. She set it
aside as if it was unimportant, even though her behaviour said it
was anything but.

She was more intent on taking
care of him and apologising for answering his damn mobile than
talking about the kiss, the episode or the rather upsetting fact
that he’d apparently physically abused her (another advantage she
did not seem willing to turn).

Colin was concerned he’d had a
snatch of his life he didn’t remember but with his strange dreams
and all that had happened between he and Sibyl, Colin was more
interested in her reaction to the entire episode and especially
that remarkable kiss.

And she had lied to him once,
he knew, about her nightmare. She was a spectacularly bad liar
another part of her puzzle that made the option of her being a
scheming mercenary less feasible.

However, what she had told him
was enough for him to realise that something was connecting them
and it was much more than magnificent sex. He wasn’t ready to
believe it was something else, a legend or myth brought to life in
the form of a tall, curvaceous, annoyingly adorable American woman
with leonine hair, but it was something.

Something was definitely not
right about Sibyl Godwin. She was not what he expected her to be
and, that morning, he was going to find out what, exactly, she
was.

When he walked into his office
the morning after the incident in the chalet he expected to see
Robert Fitzwilliam, the investigator who he had sent on Sibyl’s
trail. He’d set the meeting as his first order of business of the
morning.

Colin did
not
expect
to see Marian Byrne in his outer office, nor to see his secretary
glaring at the older woman with barely concealed
distrust.

“Mr. Morgan,” his secretary,
Mandy, popped up the minute he entered the room and said,
unnecessarily and unusually forcefully, “Mr. Fitzwilliam is here to
see you.”

“Thank you Mandy, I can see
that,” Colin replied but his eyes were on Mrs. Byrne who seemed
quite content and smiled happily at him.

Before he could greet the
older woman, Mandy continued, “And
this woman
, who, by the way, was
here yesterday and said she was Neil’s mother but now says she’s
not, is Marian Byrne and she says she needs to speak with you
urgently. I explained you have a very busy morning but she said she
would wait,” Mandy announced, her words coming out in an angry
rush.

Colin raised his brows at the
Neil comment, wondering why on earth Marian Byrne would pretend to
be one of his employee’s mother.

She was still smiling and
shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, giving nothing away.

He’d decided he’d find out soon
enough.

“
I know Mrs. Byrne. I’ll
see her after I speak with Mr. Fitzwilliam.” He turned his
attention to the investigator and motioned to the door to his
office, inviting, “Robert.” Then Colin walked passed Marian Byrne
and nodded politely at her in greeting, saying, “Mrs.
Byrne.”

She calmly returned the
gesture.

Colin had just settled into his
desk chair when the door opened and Mandy brought in a tray of
coffee, her usual morning task. She set it on his desk, handed
Colin his cup and gave one to Robert then left without a word.

Colin ignored her.

“Shall we start?” Colin
invited, ready to hear some answers.

Robert took a sip and put his
cup on Colin’s desk.

“Pretty basic stuff, you’ll be
pleased to know,” he began, his words slightly surprised Colin and
Colin watched him pull a thick file out of a briefcase.

“Sibyl Jezebel Godwin,” Robert
started and something shifted inside Colin as Robert read out her
full name, her real name, truly she was a Godwin. Some part of him
never believed that, for some reason. To have it read to him so
calmly felt like a blow.

Christ, did Beatrice
Godwin’s descendant walk into Lacybourne three weeks
ago?

Dear
Christ
, had she done
so only to have him shout at her?

“Born to Albert Godwin, an
Englishman.” Robert lifted his eyes to Colin and the other man’s
were benign. They showed no signs that anything he was about to say
would be life changing even though, with the two pieces of
information he’d given Colin, they already were.

Sibyl’s father was
English. She
could
be descended from Beatrice’s family.

Robert continued. “Her father
was born in Wells. He teaches Medieval History and took his first
post in Arizona where he met his wife, Marguerite. She was born
Marguerite Wilhemina Den in Sedona, Arizona. Bit of a wild one, is
Marguerite, an aging hippy, studies witchcraft, been arrested seven
times, mostly during demonstrations for civil rights, women’s
rights, anti-war, stuff like that. Nothing serious.”

Colin sat in stunned silence as
the pieces of Sibyl’s puzzle flew together. Everything about her
fit, the damned granola she always seemed to be eating, her lecture
about fuel economy, her pets’ names. Not to mentions Sibyl’s
bizarre muttered comments of “Oh my goddess” were because her
mother had brought her up Wiccan.

Robert went on, “Albert and
Marguerite had two children, both girls, yours, of course, Sibyl,
and a younger daughter, Scarlett. They both were straight A
students, honour role, Who’s Who, barely missed school, travelled a
lot with their parents as the father went from university to
university. Never showed any signs of trouble with all the moving
around, as kids sometimes do. Though Scarlett is a bit of a wild
one, like her mother. Sibyl seems less, er… prone to that, or at
least in that way. Sibyl has two degrees, a Bachelor of Arts in
languages and another in Social Work. Scarlett is finishing up the
final months of a neurology residency.”

Robert kept talking and Colin
felt his gut clench painfully as the information flowed at him,
something about Customs and Immigration, something else about a
domestic abuse charity and something alarming about an animal
shelter.

Sibyl owned Brightrose Cottage
outright, deeded over to her by her parents upon her move to
England over a year ago.

She had only had three
boyfriends that Robert could find, a fact Colin could hardly
believe.

She had close relationships
with family and friends, a fact Colin definitely believed.

She currently worked part-time
at a community centre on a deprived council estate in
Weston-super-Mare (which must be the source of “the girls” who
needed her).

Robert only imparted one small
piece of information to Colin that he already knew. Sibyl ran a
small, but rather lucrative, business on the side making bath salts
and shampoo. It would have been very lucrative if she didn’t divide
forty percent of her profits between Amnesty International and a
small, local animal shelter that took in abused cats that couldn’t
be re-homed.

“From what I heard, they love
her at the Centre and she spends more time there then she gets paid
for. Pretty tight with the family that runs the place as
volunteers, a Kyle and Tina and especially their daughter Jemma.
There was a little bit of trouble a few weeks ago but you saw to
that, obviously,” Robert finished and nodded at Colin, with what,
Colin thought, was a strange gesture of respect.

Colin stared at him. He had no
idea what the man was talking about. He hadn’t even known Sibyl
worked at a community centre.

Therefore, he asked,
“Sorry?”

“The minibus. Your girl was
making some waves about the local minibus company the council had
contracted with to transport the pensioners. Some issue with a
blind lady who was living in squalor, your girl found out about it,
cleaned up the woman’s house and set up a rota to look after her.
She raised hell with Social Services that the driver didn’t report
it. They couldn’t do a thing and your girl was furious. She lost
her nut with the minibus driver when she saw him. A few days later,
during a delivery to the Day Centre, one of the pensioners fell out
of the bus, broke a hip. Apparently this lady was a particular
favourite of Sibyl’s and she took it hard. Then, out-of-the-blue,
there was a convenient ‘anonymous’ donation, clearly from you,
fifty thousand pounds. Bang, new minibus, enough to train one of
the volunteers as a driver, insure the bus, well… I don’t have to
tell you.”

Colin felt his heart squeeze
painfully and he found he was having difficulty breathing but
Fitzwilliam wasn’t done.

“Lucky she met you. Found
herself a nice patron, you two make a striking couple if you don’t
mind my saying. Of course, investigating her I had to watch you for
awhile, you understand, since you spend so much time with her.
Can’t say I blame you…”

Colin wasn’t listening to him,
he was thinking of Sibyl, who she was and what she’d done.

Sibyl had sold her body for a
minibus for old-age pensioners.

Not only that, she’d quit her
job (before she could be fired) at the domestic violence charity
because she’d been found sitting on the porch of a client training
her father’s shotgun on an abuser who had dared to approach his
estranged wife’s house in the middle of the night.

And what had Robert said about
what she did to the people who brought in the dog who’d been burned
by cigarette butts?

He didn’t want to think,
couldn’t think, all he could remember was her staring at the money
in the briefcase and saying, “Thank you,” like it was the answer to
her prayers.

Clearly it was the answer
to
a
prayer, a prayer for a bunch of old people to whom she was
not related, who simply came to her Centre. People who were in the
hands of a thoughtless driver who wasn’t responsible for them but
should have had enough feeling to at least take note and some care,
and didn’t.

So, Sibyl did.

“Christ,” he said under his
breath.

“What’s that?” Robert asked
him.

A memory came to Colin and his
tight chest seized.

“What was the date of the
accident with the woman who broke her hip?” Robert looked at him
curiously and told him the date, a date Colin remembered very well.
He remembered Sibyl talking earnestly to her friend Kyle, her body
stiff and jerky as she walked back to her house, her mind consumed
with something unpleasant.

The date he’d made her his
whore.

“Christ,” he clipped viciously,
shook his head and found when he looked down at his hands on his
desk they were shaking.

He clenched them into
fists.

This woman,
his
woman,
walked into his home innocently for a tour and he’d treated her
like a common criminal.

Then she’d sold her body to him
to make a group of old people safe.

And he’d made her feel like a
whore so she could do it.