Lacybourne Manor Page 36

  “Call 999! Call 999!” Mrs. Griffith shouted repeatedly as she rushed (slowly) out of the office.

  “Drop the cane,” the figure demanded, his voice rough and threatening.

  He raised the knife to Sibyl’s throat and Colin froze. The dream seared through his brain, visions of her blood pouring freely from her throat and Colin felt fear spread through him like a virus.

  “Drop the fucking cane!” the figure shouted.

  Colin dropped the cane and held his hands up in front of him, his eyes never leaving the blade.

  “Let her go,” Colin ordered, his words crackling with authority.

  The figure yanked Sibyl’s hair again and she made another noise filled with pain and Colin’s body tensed in fury. He welcomed it as it fought away the fear.

  Colin didn’t take his eyes off the pair and didn’t move. He thought, in an instant, if that blade slit her throat, he’d charge the man regardless, he didn’t care if it next penetrated his gut.

  He was weaponless, powerless and if they came out of this unscathed, he was going to track this man down and take great satisfaction in wringing the air out of his body with his own two hands.

  “Let her go,” Colin repeated and with a swiftness that surprised him, Sibyl was thrown forward. Colin caught her in his arms and wasted no time in whirling her behind the protection of his body.

  As he did this, the figure ran by Colin and Sibyl and Colin immediately gave chase.

  “Get to the Hall,” he ordered Sibyl, not breaking stride, “now!”

  The man was out the Day Centre door, into the night and Colin followed him, running through the grass toward the church that was next to the Centre.

  Then Colin heard a strange noise and felt a piercing, unexplainable pain in his shoulder but he was too intent on his pursuit to pay it any heed.

  The man was fit, Colin realised, but Colin was also fit, swift and tall. He covered twice the distance with one stride as the other man could and he was soon gaining on him.

  He was nearly upon him when he started to feel a penetrating sluggishness permeate his body. He reached his arm out to grasp the figure’s collar and found he could barely hold it up.

  Colin shook his head to clear his rapidly blurring vision and saw the man pull out in front, doubling then trebling the distance as Colin fought the overwhelming, unusual, unexplainable lethargy stealing over him.

  He struggled against it, wondering vaguely why he felt it at all but within moments he slowed to a halt, breathing heavily.

  Then Colin lost his battle and collapsed to the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Fear

  Sibyl sat next to Marian’s hospital bed, leaning forward on the side of it, exhausted and stressed, she rested her forehead on her crossed arms.

  The older woman lay sleeping now and, for the first time, Marian Byrne looked every one of her advanced years. She’d regained consciousness at the Centre, muttering strange, dire warnings about “dark souls” and vehemently lamenting “letting Granny Esmeralda down’. Sibyl and Bertie, witnessing her ranting, feared she’d sustained a terrible head injury as Scarlett carefully tended to her.

  Marian had calmed by the time the paramedics arrived but Sibyl’s panic had increased when Colin hadn’t returned then escalated to sheer terror when she heard the police found his motionless body. Luckily (they thought), in their hunt for him, they discovered the tranquilliser dart that brought him low, a great deal of the tranquilliser still in the shaft. Sibyl did not consider this lucky at all, she was becoming far too acquainted with the awful effects of tranquilliser darts and couldn’t comprehend for the life of her why someone kept shooting beings she cared about with them.

  In all the heartbreak and despair to which Sibyl’s professional life had forced her to bear witness, nothing affected her quite so profoundly as seeing her charismatic, powerful, rugged Colin taken, unconscious, into an ambulance. If Mags hadn’t been holding onto her whispering soothing words, Sibyl knew her body would have collapsed.

  And she knew in that instant that she loved Colin.

  She was in love with Colin and loved him with all her heart, through her blood, veins and muscles, down through to the marrow of her bones.

  She’d finally found him, Colin was him. Her soulmate, the one she’d been waiting for, just plain hers.

  There was no reason for it; he didn’t suit her, not in the slightest. He was autocratic, possessive, dictatorial and had far more money than one person with good conscience should. He was nothing like she expected her true love would be and somehow everything she wanted. She didn’t think it even had anything to do with reincarnated souls of dead lovers, they could have been entirely different people altogether and they would have found each other.

  He wasn’t Royce but now Colin looked at her the same way as if she was the centre of his universe and nothing else existed or mattered beyond her.

  Not to mention, he was a good man, he didn’t like to let on to that sweet, simple fact but he was.

  So, there was nothing she could do. She let him into her heart or more to the point clicked him into the place that had been waiting for him since the day she was born.

  And she thought he fit perfectly.

  Colin had regained consciousness in Accident and Emergency not half an hour before, groggy for approximately five minutes, he shifted quickly to icy fury. Knowing with relief that he was going to be all right, Sibyl escaped to check on Mrs. Byrne and left Colin to talk privately to the police.

  Sibyl had already given the police her account of the evening, of the two masked men who came stealthily into her office, demanding to know where Colin was and for her to take them to him. Neither Sibyl nor her attackers saw Mrs. Griffith who was waiting for her taxi while dozing on the couch, hidden by a precarious pile of Talent Show costumes and props. Sibyl had backed away, telling them Colin had already left and it was then they grabbed her. At that action, Mrs. Griffith rose, like the Eternal Wrath of the Pensioners, wielding her cane and making imperious demands. Moments later, Colin had burst into the room.

  As she sat by Marian’s hospital bed, Sibyl struggled to sort through her rampaging thoughts of tranquilliser darts, knives, Mrs. Griffith avenging her and, most terrifyingly, Colin’s savage display of violence. He was like a Warrior God and she could easily transpose him on an ancient battlefield, swinging a broadsword with deadly intent rather than an old lady’s cane.

  She could still hear the sickening crunch of bone mingled with splitting wood.

  She shuddered at the memory.

  She felt a light touch on her hair and her thoughts skittered away as she lifted her head to gaze into the faded, opened eyes of her friend.

  “Will you call my daughter?” Marian asked weakly.

  Sibyl nodded, her heart breaking at the feeble sound of Marian’s usually strong voice.

  Then she took the number down on a scrap of paper from her purse.

  “They say you’re going to be all right,” she assured Marian after she’d taken her daughter’s telephone number. “You’ll need to stay here a day or two –”

  “It’s the dark soul,” Marian broke in fervently, her eyes growing bright with intensity. “They want to keep you and Colin apart, Sibyl you must listen to me, believe me.”

  Her words were fierce, frightened and Sibyl nodded her head even though she didn’t know what the older lady meant.

  “Sibyl, you must –” Marian went on.

  “Marian, please rest now,” Sibyl interrupted her gently. “Don’t get excited, we’ll talk later.”

  “It’s crucial that you know –”

  Sibyl squeezed Marian’s hand. “I promise I’ll come back tomorrow. You can tell me all about it then and I’ll listen.”

  Mrs. Byrne closed her eyes and there was pain in her expression that had nothing to do with the blow to her head. When she opened them, she nodded.

  “Please, my dear, take the utmost care,” she whispered.

  “
I will.”

  Sibyl went to the front of the hospital and stood outside to make the awful call to Marian’s daughter, Angie.

  After Angie expressed her shock and horror, she asked, “What did you say your name was again?”

  “Sibyl Godwin.”

  “Oh my God,” Angie breathed then rushed on, “I’ll leave right away.”

  Understanding that likely Marian’s daughter knew the whole story of Royce and Beatrice and even Sibyl and Colin, Sibyl didn’t react to her urgency and quietly ended the call with a promise to meet Angie the next day.

  She walked to the A&E and found Colin her family, and a variety of police officers standing in the middle of the bustling department. Colin seemed to be tearing into one of the officers but she could tell it was in his supremely-controlled, still-very-frightening way by how he held his body and the fact that he wasn’t shouting the roof down.

  Sibyl noted absently that Colin, surprisingly, was suffering no visible ill-effects to the dart, indeed he seemed fully awake, alert, emanating his usual power with his face a mask of rage.

  Then he saw her approaching and he turned blazing eyes on her. “Where the bloody hell have you been?” he barked, his voice cracking like a whip.

  She jumped at his tone. “I went to see Mrs. Byrne.”

  “Don’t you fucking leave without telling someone where you’re going and taking someone with you, do you understand me?” he demanded angrily.

  “Colin,” she murmured soothingly, shaken by his tone and his words.

  He was not to be soothed. She knew this when he thundered, “Do you understand me?”

  She nodded mutely. She had left without saying anything to anyone; it just hadn’t crossed her mind. Realising he was worried rather than truly angry with her, she sidled up to his side in an additional effort to soothe him. Gently, she pushed under his arm and slid both of hers around his middle. Without hesitation, he lifted his arm to rest tightly around her shoulders and she felt the tension ease slowly out of him.

  “I’m sorry, it was thoughtless,” she told him quietly when she’d lifted her head to gaze at him. “I just had to see Mrs. Byrne. I promise, babe, I won’t do it again.”

  She saw her family watching this, all with identical expressions of relief mixed and wisely they did not utter a word.

  “We’re going home,” Colin announced and didn’t allow her family or the police to protest. He simply guided her out the door with his arm still around her shoulders, one of hers around his waist.

  Bertie had driven the BMW to the hospital and, without argument Colin allowed Bertie to slide in the driver’s seat. Colin courteously helped Mags (and for once, at this gallant show, she didn’t utter a feminist quibble) in the front and Sibyl sat between Scarlett and Colin in the back.

  “Albert, take us to Brightrose, everyone will pack a bag, we’ll get the animals and we’re all going to Lacybourne,” Colin ordered.

  No one made a sound and, as it wasn’t a suggestion that invited discourse, Bertie did as he was told.

  Her family was set to leave from Heathrow on Sunday, two days… Sibyl glanced unseeing in the darkness at her watch and suspected it was now only one day away. She hadn’t even approached the topic of this latest misadventure with Colin to her family and she didn’t relish the idea. They knew about Mallory and the vandalism at Brightrose but everyone thought that was relatively harmless.

  This was not harmless at all and everyone knew it.

  They all trooped into Brightrose, made swift work of packing while Sibyl saw to her own and sorted out her pets. Scarlett loaded Mallory in the MG and followed the BMW to Lacybourne.

  Exhausted, bidding goodnight to everyone, Bertie and Mags made their bed in one of the six bedrooms with sheets Sibyl uncovered in a linen closet while Sibyl helped her sister with her bed.

  “You okay, Billie?” Scarlett enquired softly as they went about their task.

  Sibyl shook her head, as usual, she wasn’t going to lie to her sister. “I was held at knifepoint, Scarlett, and someone shot my boyfriend with a tranquilliser dart.” She lifted her head and her eyes hit her sister before she finished, “I’m scared out of my mind.”

  Scarlett twitched the coverlet into place, rounded the bed, took Sibyl in her arms and gave her a fierce hug.

  “I think Colin would die before he’d let anyone put a scratch on you,” Scarlett whispered in her ear.

  Sibyl shuddered.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she admitted with a force of feeling and a terrible premonition that she had to keep under complete control or it would overwhelm her.

  Scarlett’s embrace tightened. Her sister knew about the dream, everyone knew about the dream. They also knew that Sibyl had visions like this before, visions that came true. Scarlett was likely just as terrified as her sister but too proud, and too protective, to show it.

  Sibyl kissed Scarlett’s cheek and went to find Colin.

  He was standing in his bedroom, staring out the window holding a cut, crystal tumbler that contained something that was the colour of his beautiful eyes. Mallory lay at his feet and Bran was already curled contentedly at the foot of the bed.

  When she entered, he glanced at her, put the tumbler to his lips, threw back the entire contents of the glass and set it down on dresser.

  With his long-legged strides, he approached her and without a word, he tugged on the belt that kept her wraparound dress in place. It immediately loosened and fell apart at the front. The look on his face was carefully controlled and try as she might she couldn’t read a single thought on it.

  “Colin, we need to talk,” she whispered carefully.

  His hands went to her shoulders, slid the dress off her shoulders and it fell in a pool at her feet.

  “We need to go to bed,” he contradicted, his fingers finding the clasp at the back of her bra and freed it with an astonishing deftness. This he slid it off her shoulders and dropped to the floor too.

  “Colin –”

  “Sibyl,” he interrupted her and slid his hands into her hair on either side of her face, holding her head tilted up to peer at him, “I’m exhausted, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

  He released her abruptly and turned away, his hands going to the buttons of his midnight blue shirt. She flipped off her shoes, walked to one of his dressers, pulled open a drawer and snatched out one of his t-shirts.

  And she didn’t give up.

  “We need to let it out, talk about it, we shouldn’t bottle it in. It isn’t healthy.” She tugged his shirt over her head, pulled her hair free of the collar and turned to him, her eyes on his back.

  He yanked the shirt off his broad shoulders, keeping his back to her. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “Colin!” she protested, her composure slipping. “I’m scared half out of my wits! I have to talk about it. Someone held a knife to my throat and we both know what that means.”

  He turned to her slowly and when she saw the look in his eyes, she pulled in her breath and held it. He looked primitive, even elemental and very, very frightening.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you.” He enunciated every word carefully, nearly brutally. She opened her mouth and before a single sound came out, he repeated, more forcefully than before (if it could be credited), “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

  “What if something happens to you?” she cried. “They wanted you, not me. They asked for you!”

  “I’ll handle it.” He divested himself of the rest of his clothes while Sibyl stood in his bedroom and stared. When he was done, standing there in his naked glory, he commanded, “Darling, get in bed.”

  “Who are those people?” she demanded, he may be done talking but she damned well wasn’t.

  “Get in bed, Sibyl, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “We’ll bloody well talk about it now!” she yelled, letting her temper get the better of her. She’d had enough; she’d had a knife at her throat and seen his seemingly lifeless body loaded int
o an ambulance. She couldn’t just go to sleep, not with her mind racing as it was. “Who are those people, were they the ones who hurt Marian?”

  He closed the distance in two quick strides, hooked her around the waist and swung her up in his arms then stalked to the bed and threw her on it. Mallory lumbered to his feet at this unprecedented flurry of action at such a late hour and Bran flew off the bed.

  “Colin, don’t manhandle me!” she snapped.

  He stood by the bed and scowled at her, the muscles in his body visibly taut, she could see the ones in his upper arms bunching reflexively as he clenched his fists.

  “Sibyl, I’ve been shot by a fucking tranquilliser dart, watched, powerless, while someone held you at knifepoint, you disappeared for what seemed an endless period of time at the hospital and I didn’t know where the hell you were. I’m bloody tired, I don’t know what the fuck is going on and, right now, can’t do anything about it. Talking is not going to help. It’s late, I need sleep, you need sleep, so for Christ’s sake, be quiet and stop arguing with me.”

  She realised then he was just as frightened as she was but too damned much of a man to admit it and her heart, as was Sibyl’s wont, went out to him. She got up on her knees, walking on them across the top of the bed until she reached him, wrapped her arms around him, pressed in close and rested her cheek on his chest.

  Then she said softly into his chest, “Okay.”

  And at her soft word, Sibyl felt his anger drift out of him and his arms wrap around her tight.

  “You’re the most annoying woman alive,” he mumbled this familiar refrain into the hair at the top of her head but there was affection in his tone that obliterated any sting to his words.

  “Come to bed,” she beckoned.

  He did and they did nothing but sleep, nestled together, her back to his front. The warmth of his body and protective arm he wrapped around her comforted her and she surprisingly found herself giving into her exhaustion and drifting to sleep almost the moment they settled.