Lacybourne Manor (38 page)

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.

Then she leaped off her second
precipice in a month, leaped into the great unknown.

And she nodded and, even in
front of her parents, his parents, their sisters and Mrs. Byrne,
Colin came even closer and brushed his lips tenderly against
hers.

The Story Comes Out

Throughout the introductions to
Sibyl’s family, Colin kept her close by holding her hand. Then his
father gave him a gin and tonic and Colin stood drinking it,
keeping her close with an arm about her waist. He also kept her
close, his arm consistently wrapped around her, as he chatted
amiably with everyone. Even though she was struck practically mute
while everyone else seemed bright and cheery (irrationally so),
Colin seemed to make little of all this and behaved as if this was
your normal, average, everyday dinner party.

Which it most definitely was
not.

He was Royce, though he
answered to the name Colin, he was someone else.

Relaxed, amused at Mags and
Scarlett’s hilarious behaviour (which seemed somewhat desperately
hilarious), respectful to her father (regardless of Bertie’s
expression, which lapsed consistently into one that could only be
described as astonished), familiar with his family and possessively
demonstrative to Sibyl – this was not mercurial Colin, this was
loverly Royce who couldn’t get enough of her and didn’t care who
knew it.

Somehow, Royce had taken over
Colin.

Completely.

They eventually headed in to
dinner, Colin/Royce allowing the others to precede them. While they
wandered ahead, Colin pulled her back down the hall a few steps and
then did the first Colin Act of the entire evening. He pushed her
against the wall and kissed her breathless.

The kiss was definitely
different, far more loverly-sexy-Royce than sexy-lover-Colin and
Sibyl’s heart started racing.

She’d done it. She
hadn’t
meant
to do it but with her mystical powers, she’d
nearly obliterated Colin and replaced him with a dream
lover.

When he lifted his head,
he murmured, “I’ve been wanting to do that since the minute I saw
you in that
very
charming dress.”

Sibyl, recovering from the kiss
and the inconceivable knowledge that she could change a man’s
personality with her magical powers, blinked at him.

“Are you all right?” she
asked.

He smiled, a white flash
against tanned skin. All his smiles tended to be disarming in one
way or another, but she was not certain he’d ever smiled at her the
way he was doing now. He was smiling like the cat who managed to
snag a couple of field mice, a juicy bird
and
came home and got his
cream.

Her racing heart skipped a
beat.

“Perfect,” he responded, his
deep voice like velvet.

“You’re not…?” she began to ask
him if he was having another episode but he wouldn’t know. The last
time he didn’t remember a thing. Though the last time it had lasted
minutes, this seemed to be going on forever.

What if he came back to Colin
in the middle of dinner, spitting mad and wondering who all these
people were and why they were eating his food?

She was uncertain what to
do or say, thinking he might be unstable. Thinking she should call
a doctor. Wondering how she could find a
witch
doctor. She laid her
hand against the side of his face (a thoughtful gesture that masked
her checking his temperature, just to be sure he wasn’t in the
throes of some kind of walking, talking fever that rendered him
partially delirious).

“You’re sure you’re okay?” she
asked.

“
I’ll explain later.”
Then he moved into her, pressing her against the wall. “Stay with
me tonight,” he whispered, his voice smoothing along her skin like
a silken caress but the words sounded like a request,
not
an
order.

“I… is that an order?” she
queried, confused at how to proceed.

He smiled his devastating smile
again and shook his head. “No, I’m asking you to stay the
night.”

Her heart skipped to a
stuttering halt and then started beating again, double time. She
was going to have a heart attack, at thirty-two years old, in the
hallway of a National Trust property.

Definitely Royce.

“My family –” she started.

“I’ll have the car take them
home and return in the morning for you, early if you like.”

If she liked?

She opened her mouth and
then closed it. What could she say? She
wanted
to be with
this
Colin. She knew it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, she was
practising an insidious voodoo against her will and his (well,
maybe not against hers).

Perhaps she was going to have
to bring Mags into deal with it after all. Her mother couldn’t
actually do anything but she might know someone in her loopy
collective that had some knowledge of how to exorcise a dream man
from a real, flesh and blood man.

“Sibyl?” he prompted.

“Colin?” she returned.

She was testing him, saying his
name to see his response. His head tilted and he watched her with
an expression on his face that even blind Annie could have seen
showed he thought she was adorable.

Her heart still racing, she now
caught her breath.

“Now that we’ve ascertained we
remember each other’s names, perhaps you’ll promise me that you’ll
spend the night with me, here at Lacybourne, in my bed, no matter
what happens tonight.”

She’d stopped listening on the
word “bed”.

She let her breath out in a
gush. “Where’s your family staying?”

“Here.”

“I can’t stay with you while
your family –”

“Trust me, they don’t
mind.”

This was a bizarre statement in
a bizarre evening. They were both consenting adults but it wasn’t
seemly, especially not the first night she’d met his family. They’d
think she was a screaming slut.

She was, of course, his
paid for sexual partner but
his parents
didn’t know
that.

“Colin.”

“Sibyl, promise me.”

His voice was silk. His eyes
were warm. His lips were less than an inch away.

She was no match for that
combination.

“Okay.”

He grinned, his grin filled
with triumph and then he kissed her breathless.

Again.

When he released her mouth, he
turned and guided her to the dining room. Distractedly, she heard
the hushed conversation but, the minute they entered hand-in-hand,
all talk ceased and everyone stared at them. Then, covering, they
rushed on with what seemed like great determination to appear
natural and at any other time in her life Sibyl would have found it
curious and, probably, hilarious.

Now, she did not.

Colin’s seat at the head of the
table was vacant. Phoebe sat at the foot, to her right sat Mrs.
Byrne, to her left, the only other empty chair next to Mike. On
Mike’s other side sat Mags, who sat to Colin’s right. Scarlett (to
Sibyl’s despair) was to Colin’s left then Bertie then Claire coming
full circle to Mrs. Byrne.

It was the Seating Arrangement
of Doom.

Sibyl took her seat and a young
man in dark pants and a white shirt immediately entered carrying a
tureen of soup to the side table. Sibyl watched, captivated at the
idea of having a waiter at a dinner party in your home.

“Sibyl, I hear you make lotions
and bath salts,” Phoebe forged in while the waiter served soup.
“You smell divine, is your perfume one of your creations?”

“
Yes,” she admitted,
leaning back to allow the young man access to her place setting.
“If you like, I can make you a goodie basket of my products,” Sibyl
offered and then wondered why she did and
then
gave herself a mental
forehead slap.

“
She makes
the best
goodie baskets,” Scarlett put in helpfully and, if she’d
been close enough, Sibyl would have kicked her sister. There was a
small chance that Phoebe would have demurred.

“Oh, I’d like one too,” Claire
said exuberantly.

Gone was the small chance.

“Of course,” Sibyl
murmured.

“Tell us about your work at the
Community Centre,” Mike boomed so loudly, Sibyl started.

Everyone stared at her
curiously, even her family who knew all about her work at the
Community Centre. Therefore, she had no choice, so she did. While
everyone ate their soup, Sibyl talked about the oldies, their bingo
and sing-a-longs and the kids, their art projects and their talent
show. She talked and pretended to eat while she felt Colin’s eyes
on her. Then she gave up all pretence of eating to focus her
attention to pretending she didn’t feel his eyes on her.

Once she’d petered away on a
story about Mrs. Griffith using her cane on an unsuspecting
neighbour with an overly loud dog (Mrs. Griffith was feeble, it
didn’t hurt her neighbour… too much) the waiter came in and whisked
away the bowls, quietly asking if Sibyl was done with her nearly
full one. She nodded mutely and he swept it away.

“So, what do you do Colin?”
Bertie enquired.

Sibyl turned startled
eyes to her father then to Colin, realising, with a hysterical
feeling rising inside her, that
she
didn’t even know what Colin
did for a living.

“I buy and sell companies,”
Colin replied.

This was met with complete
silence and Sibyl tensed.

If Mike and Phoebe were posh,
tailored yin to Mags and Bertie’s oddball, unconventional yang,
Colin’s profession was the Antarctic in relation to Sibyl’s Arctic
Community Centre.

“He’s very successful,” Mike
offered hopefully into the silence.

“What does that mean, you buy
and sell companies?” Mags asked dubiously.

“
It means he’s a
corporate raider, Mom,” Scarlett offered and Sibyl held her breath
at
that
explosive comment, definitely wishing she was close enough
to kick her sister.

“Not exactly,” Colin muttered,
his eyes on Sibyl.

“The corporate raid stopped
over a decade ago,” Mike boomed in defence of his son as the waiter
walked in carrying salads this time.

“
What
does
it mean?” Bertie
asked, every liberal bone in his body rankling and Sibyl wished the
floor would open up and swallow her.

And Colin, of course. She
couldn’t leave him behind at the Table of Doom.

“I buy mismanaged companies,
clean them up and sell them for a profit,” Colin answered
patiently.

“Sometimes not still in one
piece, I assume?” Scarlett asked sweetly, perversely loving every
minute of this. Sibyl hoped that the Morgans would realise that
Scarlett was annoying in the extreme, even to her own family and
especially to her sister.

Colin opened his mouth to
answer but instead, Claire, desperately burst out, “Colin saved a
girl from drowning when he was sixteen.”

All eyes swung to Claire.

“Remember that, Colin, at the
club?” Claire continued courageously. “She nearly died. Colin had
to give her CPR and everything. It was quite something,” she told
the table at large.

Mike laughed, remembering.
“Yes, of course, you dated her for six months after that, remember
son? She was quite a looker.”

Sibyl was in the middle of them
and therefore caught a bit of the polar freeze that came from the
frosty glare Phoebe directed at Mike. Sibyl realised Phoebe would
also very much like to be in kicking distance of her husband and
quickly tucked her legs beneath her chair.

Everyone turned their attention
to their salads. Sibyl saw Mrs. Byrne smile at her reassuringly
after Sibyl had rearranged several walnuts and pear slices in a
more decorous display on top of the spinach leaves.