Lacybourne Manor by Kristen Ashley
She shot him a false smile and hoped she fooled him (she didn’t).
“I’m fine, Dad. It’s fine. We have a kind of…” she searched for a word that would not worry her father, “an unusual relationship.”
He looked at her with searching, faded, blue eyes and then nodded. She felt that he did not, at all, like what he saw and she hated herself for kind of lying to him.
Bertie escorted his daughter to the imposing door, his hand firmly at her elbow, his demeanour nowhere near his normal, relaxed, mellow self.
He knocked loudly, uncharacteristically taking control as her father and the man of the family. Mags and Scarlett trailed behind.
Sibyl steeled herself against the sight of Colin on the other side.
Instead a beautiful, older woman, with greying dark hair swept back in a chic chignon, kind, cornflower blue eyes and flawless skin opened the door. She was wearing her own version of the mature woman’s little black dress and she wore it well.
The woman looked first at Bertie and smiled an obvious warm welcome. Then her eyes skittered to Sibyl and, upon seeing her, the older woman’s mouth dropped open, the colour drained from her face and her hand went to her throat in a gesture that seemed meaningful in its profound surprise.
Sibyl didn’t know what to make of this bizarre reaction nor did she know who this woman was.
Thinking she was Mrs. Manning, the best dressed housekeeper in the world, she said with a small smile, “Hello, we’re here to have dinner with Colin.”
At Sibyl’s smile, the woman’s eyes actually filled with tears.
Yes, they filled with tears.
At the sight, Sibyl stepped forward instinctively, detaching herself from her father as Bertie stared in confusion at the other woman’s outlandish reaction to his daughter.
Sibyl put her hand on the woman’s arm in concern and asked, “Are you okay?”
The woman blinked once then twice. Then she nodded her head and smiled a smile that was faltering but it was warm.
“Yes, my dear girl, I’m definitely okay,” she replied in a breathy voice filled with what sounded like wonder. “You must be Sibyl.”
“Yes,” Sibyl responded and squeezed the woman’s arm reassuringly, awarding her with the force of a full smile.
Then she said something that nearly made Sibyl faint for the second time in her life. “I’m Phoebe Morgan, Colin’s mother.”
It was Sibyl’s turn to react in a bizarre manner as she stared at Colin’s mother in obvious distress. Vaguely she heard noises behind her. Her father made some kind of indistinct murmur, her mother chuckled and Scarlett muttered, “Now this is interesting.”
“Good God, woman, don’t stand in the doorway. Let the people in.”
This was a booming, deep voice and it came from a tall man who could only be Colin’s father. Sibyl dazedly watched as he moved into the entryway. He was a few inches shorter than his son, he had thick, attractive, salt and pepper hair and nearly Colin’s exact bone structure. His eyes, however, instead of the rich clay of Colin’s, were a deep, warm brown.
“You must be Sibyl,” he commented knowingly and he was smiling with what appeared to be extreme, almost unnatural, delight.
Sibyl felt a hysterical bubble of laughter rising up as both of Colin’s parents said the same thing in greeting and were both now staring at her as if she was an unusual and intriguing creature but one from another planet.
“Come in, come in.” He gestured magnanimously and pulled Sibyl gently into the entryway that not long before had been the scene of Colin’s first audacious indication that he was attracted to her. “Colin just phoned. He’s been detained at the office but will be here shortly. We’ll have a few drinks, have a chat, get to know one another, the usual.” He let go of Sibyl and walked to her father. “I’m Mike.”
“Albert,” Bertie responded, also looking a bit dazed.
Sibyl noted with distracted eyes that Mike was wearing a superbly-tailored suit. Her father looked, as usual, like the absentminded professor he was in a brown suit that had seen lots of wear but never really better days. Her mother was dressed flamboyantly in an outfit she had bought that day, pairing a bright pink peasant blouse (which she tried to get Sibyl to buy herself, an effort that failed mostly because Scarlett would not allow it) and a deep purple gypsy skirt complete with little metal dangles that tinkled when she walked.
Phoebe and Mike Morgan were the stylish and tailored opposite to Albert and Marguerite Godwin’s eccentric and showy. Yin and yang, night and day. Sibyl’s heart sank and she hoped her parents felt comfortable in the face of this new horror.
Sibyl knew, at that moment, that this night was doomed to be a disaster.
“It’s all going to be fine, absolutely fine,” Scarlett whispered in her ear as if sensing her dismay then Scarlett moved forward to interrupt Phoebe and Mike introducing themselves to Mags.
“I’m Scarlett, the prodigal sister,” she announced and Sibyl felt the desperate desire to run screaming as far away as she could get in her strappy heels which, she had to admit, would not have been very far and she wondered, somewhat distractedly, what happened to her vow never again to wear high heels and she re-vowed to learn her damned lesson.
Instead, she and her family were swept into the Great Hall, swept in and through, with somewhat alarming speed, into the library. Bertie was desperately craning his neck to have a look around but Mike was crowding him strangely and practically pushing him forward.
“Drinks!” Mike boomed once he’d slammed the doors firmly shut to the Great Hall behind them, his tone sounding strangely slightly desperate. “We need drinks.”
“I’ll get them, Dad.”
Sibyl halted with a jerk several feet into the library when she heard these words.
Phoebe Morgan’s younger, stunning, equal stood in front of them smiling a warm, vivacious smile and also wearing a lovely, little black dress (it seemed Mags would be the only little-black-dress-less female of the evening).
“Hi! I’m Claire,” she introduced herself coming, without even a moment’s delay, right to Sibyl. “We talked on the phone?”
At this reminder (not that she needed one), Sibyl nodded, feeling she’d left the land of the real, normal and sane and had been rocketed, kicking and screaming, into some other, frightening, bizarre world where she did not, at all, wish to be.
What was Colin thinking?
His parents, her parents, his sister, her sister. Why on earth was he engineering a meeting of their two families? What would motivate him to introduce his family to the woman with whom he paid to have sex and who he would, in a little more than four months from now, likely leave without looking back?
Claire leaned into Sibyl and kissed both her cheeks. Then she grabbed Sibyl’s hands, squeezed them tightly and announced, what sounded genuinely, “I’m so glad to meet you!” Her eyes wandered Sibyl’s face and, if Sibyl hadn’t totally lost her mind, she could swear she saw tears shimmering in Claire’s eyes. Then Claire suddenly broke away. “Is this your family? Hi!” she repeated. “I’m Colin’s sister.”
Scarlett, for some reason, burst out laughing.
Sibyl glared at her sister.
“Drinks!” Mike boomed again, cottoning on quickly to the weird overall mood. “Don’t worry, Clairy Berry, I’ll get them.”
Sibyl was coping with Colin’s father’s familiar endearment to his daughter, just like they were a normal, adoring family, which was something she never expected in a million years that Colin would have (what she expected he would have, she had no idea, she’d never considered it, she’d never thought she’d be have the opportunity to meet them much less have drinks and dinner with them, with her family also in attendance, no less), when she heard, “Hello Sibyl dear.”
She jumped, whirled and stared as Mrs. Byrne melted out of the woodwork and came toward her.
“What are you doing here?” Sibyl rushed to the other woman, and, once there, pressed her lips to the still smooth ski
“Why, Colin asked me to come. Wasn’t that kind?”
Kind? Mrs. Byrne thought Colin was kind?
And Colin had asked her to come?
The last time he’d had Mrs. Byrne and Sibyl in this room, he’d roared at them both like a raving lunatic.
It was then Sibyl knew that she was currently residing in an alternate universe.
Heart racing, Sibyl turned woodenly from Mrs. Byrne to take in the scene. She watched as Mike poured drinks, Phoebe fingered the material of Mags’s skirt admiringly, Scarlett and Claire were giggling, actually giggling, like high school chums reunited when they’d known each other all of five minutes and Bertie was staring with rapt admiration at some crossed swords and a chest plate from a set of armour that was affixed to the wall.
“Mrs. Byrne, do you know what’s going on here?” under her breath, Sibyl asked the other woman.
“Just have faith, have strength and trust Colin,” came what Sibyl considered her mentally unhinged reply. “Our Colin knows what he’s doing.”
Our Colin?
Sibyl’s eyes rounded and then Mike was standing close, pressing a drink in her hand. He hadn’t even asked what she wanted but one look at the tall, thin glass with a maraschino cherry sitting on the top told her what it was. She sniffed it anyway and smelled the lime cordial.
It was chock full of ice.
She felt a shimmer she didn’t comprehend go down her spine.
Something was happening, something she didn’t understand, something she feared but also something that her crazy mind and crazier heart told her just might be hopeful.
“Mrs. Byrne,” she whispered to the other woman as Mike moved away but before Mrs. Byrne could answer Phoebe was speaking.
“Albert, Marguerite, how would you feel about a tour of the house before dinner?”
Scarlett and Sibyl were, pointedly, not invited which, Sibyl thought, was pointedly peculiar.
At that moment, Sibyl decided to give up attempting to understand what on earth was going on and walked to the comfortable, inviting couch that had been the centre point of the scene that was her last nightmare at Lacybourne. She decided it as well as any was a good place for her to spend her time experiencing this latest one. She told herself it was only a few hours, just a few, short hours. Whatever was happening, she could cope. She’d been through worse, she told herself, she’d get through this.
“Please call us Mags and Bertie, everyone else does,” Mags invited as she hooked her arm through Phoebe’s and they turned to the door.
Bertie didn’t reply, he was speechless with excitement at getting a tour. The older people went off, leaving the four women together but, again, Mike firmly closed the doors to the Great Hall behind him after they’d gone through.
“Sibyl, are you okay? You look a bit pale.” Her sister, the soon-to-be-fully-practising neurologist, pointed out the not-so-medically obvious.
Before Sibyl could answer, Claire noted, “Scarlett, I don’t think you’ve met Mrs. Byrne.”
Then the four women wiled away the minutes, all but Sibyl joining in easy conversation while Sibyl tried to decide why, on earth, Colin had arranged this hideous tableau.
And what she decided eradicated that hope she’d felt earlier.
For, she decided, she had been right about their first encounter.
He had to hate her. Whatever reason there was for him to hate her, she knew there could be no other reason for him to do this to her. This whole thing was simply… well, she’d never been the paid sexual plaything for a man but she couldn’t imagine it was de rigueur to invite her family to meet his parents (and sister). In fact she was pretty certain it was the exact opposite. He’d spent weeks lulling her into a false sense of security and now he was going in for the kill.
“Sibyl, you aren’t saying a word,” Claire noted, her blue eyes looking concerned. “Are you quite all right?”
“No,” Sibyl stood, her heart was fluttering in a funny way that felt almost like pain and she replied honestly, “No, I don’t think I’m all right.”
All three women stood with her, glancing at each other with concerned eyes and Sibyl felt a great wave of nausea building inside her. She was no longer seething, no longer angry, she was humiliated and defeated.
“Sibyl,” Mrs. Byrne said, her voice full of weight, urgency and a meaning Sibyl did not understand. Sibyl heard their parents coming back into the room as Mrs. Byrne went on. “Did you hear what I said to you earlier? Did you understand me?”
Sibyl wasn’t listening. She was staring at her parents.
It looked like her mother had been crying but they were joyous tears and there was a smile, a smile the like she’d never seen on Mags’s face and Sibyl had seen many smiles on Mags’s face.
It was a smile that made Mags’s face illuminate with happiness.
For his part, Bertie looked stunned and pleased as punch, as if Mike had told him there was an ancient archaeological ruin in the backyard that no one had ever touched and it was all his.
“What’s going on?” Scarlett asked, clearly also noting the buoyant looks on their parents’ faces.
“A word in the Hall, Scarlett,” Bertie had recovered first and promptly commanded his younger daughter in a tone he rarely used but both girls had obeyed for a lifetime.
Scarlett followed her father out of the room.
Sibyl stood stock-still.
“What’s going on?” Sibyl repeated her sister’s question.
Mags walked to her daughter, her eyes shining with a beautiful light that, for some reason, made Sibyl feel even more frightened and sick. Mags grabbed Sibyl’s hand and squeezed.
“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” she whispered to her mother and Mags simply leaned in, looked into her daughter’s eyes with her own still bright with tears then she turned her head and kissed her Sibyl on the cheek.
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.
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.
Chapter Seventeen
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.”