Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(32)
Author: Kristen Ashley

But something, obviously, was wrong and it was likely that potion.

“Well, Granny Esmeralda, there’s nothing for it. I’m just going to have to keep my eye on them,” Marian told the book. “And maybe meddle, just a wee bit,” she finished.

She knew it was dangerous to meddle but if she didn’t it would likely be another five hundred years before their descendants could start again.

The book, not unusually, said nothing in return.

Marian stood and felt some pain in her knees.

“I’m too old for this,” she complained to one of her cats.

The feline blinked at her.

Without further hesitation, Marian went to her vials and drawers.

She had work to do.

* * * * *

What did a woman wear when she became a whore?

Sibyl would have never thought in a million years, with ignorant bliss at her own eventual stupidity, that she would be asking herself that question.

Now, for fifty thousand pounds and peace of mind for the well-being of several dozen old people she really didn’t know all that well, she was asking herself that question.

At least, she told herself, she hadn’t sold her body to the devil, better-known-as Colin Morgan, for, say, just the price of petrol.

However, she found herself obsessing about whether she should have asked him for twice that, they needed work done on the stage too. And rewiring. And decent heating. And new furniture.

Of course, that may have meant four months of anything he wanted which was an idea not to be borne (not that her current predicament was easily tolerated, it was just a bargain she’d made and, regrettably, had to keep).

That might be the worst part of it all (in a situation where it was very difficult to assess what exactly was the worst part). Considering that he was a raving lunatic with a multiple personality disorder, “whatever he wanted” could be very much not worth getting paid fifty thousand pounds.

Staring in her wardrobe and not seeing anything that was “Become a Whore” worthy, she did what any girl would do in her situation.

She called her little sister.

“Little black dress,” Scarlett replied instantly when Sibyl asked what to wear on a “date” (her sister didn’t need to know any details) that she knew, at the end, would be a sure thing.

Sibyl didn’t have a little black dress so, mainly out of curiosity, she asked what Scarlett would wear on a “date” that she was certain would not be a sure thing.

“Little black dress,” Scarlett repeated.

“Scarlett, you do not wear little black dresses on every date!” Sibyl snapped, beginning to allow the niggling feeling of panic she’d been harbouring for over twenty-four hours to bud out-of-control.

“Yes I do, my entire wardrobe consists of scrubs and little black dresses,” Scarlett retorted.

For some reason, Sibyl believed this.

“Well, I don’t have a little black dress and he’s going to be here in…” She looked at the clock on her bedside table. Then she gulped before she finished, “Thirty minutes.”

“That’s okay, keep him waiting,” Scarlett retorted airily.

Sibyl didn’t like the idea of what might happen if she kept Colin Morgan waiting. She didn’t like it at all.

Her sister, like her mother, could read her mood from thousands of miles away.

“Jeez, Billie, this guy sure has your knickers in a twist,” Scarlett noted and finally finished helpfully. “Just tell me what you have in your closet.”

Sibyl didn’t want to think of twisted knickers either.

Therefore, she focussed on Scarlett’s offer of help and in great detail she recited her wardrobe to her sister.

Luckily, she had already done her hair (pulled it up in a severe twist at the back of her head) and her makeup (dramatic, it suited her mood).

She’d also bought a bottle of red wine; a bottle of white wine; three different types of beer; champagne (did one toast their entrance into the World of Whoredom? Sibyl was not up on the etiquette). She’d also bought brie, apples, water crackers and made shrimp cocktail. Further, she’d prepared platters of these as nibbles, just in case.

She might be careening quickly down the low road (the very low road) but she was not going to lose her hostessing skills in the process, her mother would never forgive her.

He would not be getting a plate of tasteless cheese and a sad ham sandwich, although, he deserved a big bowl of ashes.

“What was that? The last thing you said,” Scarlett interrupted Sibyl’s recitation and her culinary reverie (Sibyl was frantically, and possibly hysterically, multitasking).

“Silk camisole with some sequined beading,” Sibyl repeated.

“What colour?” her discerning sister enquired.

Sibyl fingered the soft material of a top she’d bought last year when a girlfriend from Boulder was out in England for a visit. She’d never worn it. She didn’t go clubbing or out to dinner very often and it wasn’t the type of thing to wear to the Community Centre. The top was too fancy and bared too much skin; she didn’t want to give the old men coronaries. She had enough trouble with the damned minibus.

“Kind of a deep violet,” Sibyl answered.

“Wear that,” Scarlett declared decisively, “with a nice pair of jeans. Now, let’s talk shoes. What’ve you got?”

And thus, ten minutes after she hung up the phone with her sister (the call had unfortunately included the third degree about “the guy”), and five minutes after Colin Morgan was meant to arrive, Sibyl stood in the dining area of the cottage wearing a dark violet, silk, sequined camisole, her best jeans (that had gone a bit snug due to a day of stress-eating which was now turning her stomach sickeningly) and a pair of high-heeled sandals that consisted solely of a strip of rhinestones across her toes and a daring rhinestone ankle strap. They were shoes she had purchased to wear with a bridesmaid dress and she hadn’t worn them since. She walked on them down the aisle and immediately kicked them off at the reception because they killed her feet.

Which they were doing now.

She thought, with fervour, that she just might hate her sister.

But then again, at that moment, she hated the entire world.

Most of all, she hated herself (and, of course, Colin Morgan).

And she couldn’t shift the feeling that something, far beyond the fact that she’d sold her body to a man she didn’t like, was terribly, terribly wrong.

She just thanked the goddess that she had a decent pedicure, complete with pale pink nail varnish. She’d hate to enter the World of Whoredom with chipped toenails.