Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(17)
Author: Kristen Ashley

She clambered into the bed, doing her best to keep her back to him and, when she lay down, he whipped the covers over her. She curled into a little ball, pressed her face into the pillows and it didn’t dawn on her as she did this that he was actually pulling the covers high up her shoulder and then tucking them tight around her.

She hoped he would go now that he had his way but he didn’t. Instead, she felt his warm hand heavy at her neck and her entire body got tight.

Then slowly, even gently, he pulled her hair away.

Then his mouth was at her ear. “You should know that tears don’t work with me.” His voice was as smooth as velvet and completely cold.

She shivered.

She had no idea why he was informing her of this fact but it sounded like he was instructing her. Instructing her in a way that it seemed he felt she needed this information for their future relationship to go much smoother.

Like they had a future relationship!

Not on her life!

(Or his.)

She pressed her head deeper into the pillows, her humiliation complete, wondering in which of her former lives she did something so terrible that her karma included this awful night. She must have been a serial killer in a past life.

“I thought you might like to know, I have the keys to your car as well.” His voice was still at her ear, still quiet, but it seemed to vibrate throughout her system.

“You’re a pig,” she whispered and this comment caused him to laugh softly.

He had, she thought with extreme annoyance, a very handsome laugh.

If she was a violent woman, she would have lashed out. Instead, more tears came up the back of her throat and she choked them down with effort.

Finally, he left the room and the minute the door closed she threw back the covers with such fury that even Mallory woke from his exhausted doggie slumber.

She alighted from the bed and ignored the dizzy feeling her quick movements caused.

She was going to put her clothes back on, she was going to go get Mrs. Byrne, she was going to explain that no volunteer role was worth this and she was damn well going to walk home (if she had to, he didn’t say he took Mrs. Byrne’s keys).

But when she looked she found her clothes were gone.

Colin Morgan had taken them.

She collapsed back into the bed, wondering if she could press charges when this was all over, and holding onto her rage because it was the only thing that stopped her from crying.

And it was the only thing that stopped her from thinking, however dictatorially it came about, she was far more comfortable in his pyjama top, under the covers and in the soft sheets of the bed.

And the room was infinitely warmer.

* * * * *

She finally slept but woke early. The days were still short, the sun not yet fully up in the sky.

She woke because Mallory desperately needed a comfort break and was telling her so by shoving his cold, wet nose in her face.

She had no moment of panic at her unfamiliar surroundings then the events of the night before that were burned into her memory surfaced but she still touched her hand to her aching head in hopes that it was all a very bad dream.

It wasn’t.

She had to take her dog outside. She certainly didn’t want to explain a doggie accident to Colin Morgan and likely the rugs on the floor were irreplaceable.

Sibyl got out of bed and then she and Mallory, with Bran at their heels (the cat probably thinking that breakfast would soon be coming) carefully wended their way through the house.

Sibyl was making more of an effort to be quiet and find her way than attempting to look at the house she once so desperately wanted to see. She visited National Trust properties as a pastime, it was a hobby she enjoyed with her father during their many visits to England, a hobby that she normally loved. At that moment, the first (and, she hoped, last) time she would ever be a “guest” at such a magnificent estate, she was not filled with wonder and awe. She was filled with terror and tried to avoid looking at anything that would eventually make this memory more painful.

She made it to the front door and realised she couldn’t exactly walk outside in a man’s pyjama top and bare feet.

Searching around her, she saw the almost hidden handle to a door in the carved wood panelling in the wall of the entry. Her luck changing when she pulled it open with hopes of finding outdoor gear she could borrow, she discovered a very small room filled with a bunch of National Trust brochures and other paraphernalia, some coats and, as with nearly every English hall closet she’d encountered, a mess of Wellingtons. She grabbed the warmest looking coat in the closet and a matching pair of Wellingtons and pushed her feet into them. Then she wrapped the enormous cashmere overcoat tightly around her body (hoping that it was not his, she’d had enough of wearing his clothes).

Outfitted, she turned and opened the front door. Mallory, who had begun whining at what he thought was Sibyl’s unnecessary delay in searching for ways to stop herself from dying from hypothermia (or, at the very least, avoiding frostbite), shot through the door.

Sibyl and Bran followed him. The morning was bright, crisp and bone-chillingly cold. Sibyl ignored it and hoped to every goddess she knew that Mallory’s morning break did not include something for which she’d have to search the house for a plastic bag.

Luck was shining on her that morning even though it was to be short-lived. Mallory finished his business (business that did not require clean up) and seemed to be enjoying the vast front garden by running around it in circles for no apparent reason. Mallory, being a big, ungainly dog, rarely ran anywhere. He usually took his walks making it clear he did it under duress (because Sibyl made him), got up to eat even though he made it plain he would prefer Sibyl to bring the food to him and then spent the rest of his life sleeping or with his head in Sibyl’s lap getting his ears scratched.

Watching him now, Sibyl wondered with a bit of guilt if she should take him to the park more often.

“Mallory, come here boy, come here you big, lovable, lug,” she clapped her hands and the dog ran toward her, stopped at her feet, his behind up in the air, his front legs spread and close to the ground, his tail wagging so ferociously his body vibrated with it.

She clapped again, smiling at him for she’d never seen him assume this posture, ever. But she loved her pup and she was game so she jumped to one side and Mallory followed her, then she jumped to the other side and Mallory did the same. Then she leaned forward and gave his head an affectionate shake.

“What am I going to do with you, you crazy pooch?” she asked and the dog stood up, accepted her kiss on his soft, fawn head and then his black, floppy ears popped up in alert. He looked around Sibyl, ears flapping, and then dashed back toward the house.