Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(31)
Author: Kristen Ashley

And she felt a pain slice through her stomach.

And she decided she hated Colin Morgan (at the same time she hated herself and her stupid temper which she vowed never to lose again).

Having come to her decision, Sibyl pressed her lips together and forced her body to relax.

It was done, it had to be. Two months of his despicable attention would mean years of safety for her oldies. It was, she tried (and failed) to convince herself, a small price to pay.

She’d gotten herself in many pickles, nothing this bad, of course, but in the past, it had been bad. And she’d also lived through it and got to the other side.

She could live through this too.

She probably should have negotiated but she wanted him to let her go and she wanted all of this to be over, for now. She’d think about it again, later, after she learned how to kick herself in the backside.

“Done,” she snapped.

Then she watched as Colin smiled, it was slow and it was lethal.

“Except –” she started to say, the panic overwhelming her.

His arms tightened painfully.

“No exceptions.”

She ignored him and stated, “Not on that table. My father rebuilt and refinished that table, you’ll not…” she paused, not knowing how to put it.

He was ever-so-helpful in a way she was beginning to realise with great annoyance was so very him. “Fuck you on the table?”

She thought she might just burst into tears.

Somehow she felt in her very soul that this was all wrong and she knew it was the dreams. They were just dreams but she felt, even hoped, deep down inside that they meant something more. That they meant her years of searching for her dream man, her knight, the other piece of her heart, were over.

Apparently, they did not.

“Yes,” she hissed and controlled, with a mighty effort, her rampaging emotions.

“Fine,” he relented, the pressure of his hands gentling but he did not release her.

“I want the money tomorrow,” she told him. If she was going to do this, she’d better do it now or she’d chicken out. Her mind was racing, two months yawned before her, filled with blackness.

“Then you’re in my bed tomorrow night.”

Her stomach clenched at his words but she nodded, her hair annoyingly falling all around her face and, with her hands held behind her back, she could do nothing about it.

“How shall we seal this bargain?” he asked, his voice had turned from edgy and intense to something else entirely and she could just not believe that her stomach actually did a mini-flip.

She didn’t even chance a look at his face.

“Mr. Morgan, you don’t touch me…” She had to stop because she was pressed up against him from toe to chest and his arms were wrapped around her. “Anymore… until tomorrow.”

“The name is Colin,” he clipped.

She tossed her head and glared at him.

“Tomorrow,” she snapped.

Surprisingly, he let her go.

She took a quick step back but her pride would not allow more. She was not going to let him know how terrified she was. Nor how devastated.

“My jewellery,” she held out her hand, palm up. This position was familiar and it seemed, now, Colin Morgan would always be holding something of hers she wanted back.

She had to gulp down her tears again as he deposited the jewellery into her hand.

Her fingers curled over it slightly and she dropped her head and poked at the precious pendant with her finger, cursing, for the millionth time, her absentmindedness that caused her to forget it in the first place.

This action also served to hide her face from his view.

She didn’t want to look at him. She didn’t know what she’d do if she looked at him. Probably run from the house and never stop running.

And how was that going to get a minibus?

She could taste the vile disappointment in her mouth that Rescuer Colin was not the real Colin.

And in that moment, Sibyl Godwin let go all of her wondrous dreams of finding her fated one, true, beautiful love. They flew away from her and she felt the acute pain as if they’d been torn from her physically.

His hand came out and he used the side of crooked finger to lift her chin so he could look into her eyes.

His were completely and utterly blank.

And that scared her most of all.

“I’ll be here with the money tomorrow night at seven,” he told her in a surprisingly soft voice.

She jerked her chin away from his hand.

Then Sibyl replied, “I’ll be ready.”

Chapter Eight

Consummation

“Oh dear,” Marian Byrne said as she looked in her crystal ball.

It was milky but she could still see the shadows of two forms in its depths.

Years ago, when she first saw it, Marian had been drawn to the clairvoyant orb, even though the crystal was flawed (which often made it difficult to see), but she bought it anyway. It never gave her a hint of trouble. It lay on its pillow of royal blue velvet atop the spindly legged, tri-footed round table in her magic room.

That night, it showed her something she did not like to see.

She turned and carefully touched the precious book, her hands wearing clean, white, cloth gloves. She, nor her mother, nor her mother’s mother (and so on) ever touched Granny Esmeralda’s Book of Shadows without using the greatest care.

The book was nearly five hundred years old and it was precious.

She read the ingredients of the potion Granny Esmeralda used on Royce and Beatrice (even though she’d read it hundreds of times before and had it memorised).

The protection charm was fierce, half of the ingredients you couldn’t get anymore unless you visited the darkest shops.

Marian saw, however, that using the flesh and blood of the dark soul and the death blood of the lovers may now be causing a bit of havoc for Beatrice and Royce’s descendants.

She knew (as every witch did) that bad things came from bad blood, violence, mayhem or simply (as was the case for Sibyl and Colin) misunderstanding and distrust.

Nevertheless, to make the potion as strong as it needed to be, Marian knew Granny Esmeralda needed all the magic she could get.

It should have been strong enough, the residual love of the wedded Morgans that lasted in the atmosphere for five hundred years. Everything was perfect, Colin and Sibyl were both direct descendants (of this Marian was certain intuitively rather than with any real knowledge). Colin lived in Lacybourne. Sibyl, for some deliciously fateful reason, lived in Granny Esmeralda’s old cottage. Then there was the dog, named for Royce’s horse. Marian didn’t know why the lovers had exchanged hair, but she found it very touching.