She’d left someone out.
And she was a worse liar than her daughter.
“Put my mother on the phone,” Colin ordered.
“Phoebe?”
He ground his teeth.
Then through them, he remarked, “Yes, Phoebe does happen to be my mother.”
“I can’t imagine why you’d want to talk to Phoebe,” she declared with sham innocence.
“Put her on the phone.”
“I think she needs a bathroom break,” Mags stalled.
“Put her on the phone.”
There was a pause and then a grumbled, “Oh, all right.”
Then there was another rustle and he heard, “It’s your son,” and then more in the background as the phone was passed, “You’re right, Billie, he is ruthless.”
Colin again gritted his teeth.
“Hello Colin,” his mother greeted him. “How’s your day?” Before he could answer, she nervously continued, “We’re in the library because Rick thinks one of the reporters could be a murderer in disguise. It’s like he wasn’t even there yesterday and doesn’t know we have the all clear. He’s instructed us not to stand by the windows and…”
He cut her off, his patience at an end, “Mum, did you talk to the reporters yesterday?”
“Why, yes. I do believe I had a word,” she said lightly, too lightly.
“Don’t do that again,” he commanded.
“Colin, you shouldn’t talk to your mother that way,” she courageously scolded, looking into the eye of the tiger and thinking he was a pussycat. “There is certainly no reason why your extraordinary story shouldn’t be told. It’s beautiful and I’m so happy for you, I want the world to know it. True love reigns…”
“We aren’t out of danger, the person who ordered the man to hold a knife to Sibyl’s throat is still out there. We don’t need to be goading them with stories of true love, exposing our defences or making them think our defences are down so they’ll act before we’ve caught them. I’m asking you, don’t do it again.”
She was silent.
Then she said a shaky, “Okay.”
“I don’t want Sibyl to know that she’s not out of danger.”
“You have to…”
“Don’t say a word. I’ll speak to her when I get home.”
She was again silent.
Then she let out a breathy, “Okay.”
“There will be someone there to clear the reporters within half an hour and they will remain there to watch the house. If Sibyl sees them, make something up but carry on as normal.”
“Oh…kay.” This was even shakier.
“Give the phone to Rick.”
She didn’t hand the phone to Rick. Instead she asked nonsensically, “Colin, are you, I mean, are they… and are you?”
But Colin understood her. “Nothing is going to happen to Sibyl or me,” and when he said this his voice was far quieter and definitely gentler.
Hers was no less tremulous. “Okay.”
“I’m asking her to marry me,” Colin found himself saying, simply for the sake of giving his mother a happy thought instead of leaving her with images of possible murder and despair.
There was silence again and then, “Okay,” and this time he heard tears in her voice.
“Don’t tell her that either.”
A sharp gasp then, “I wouldn’t dream of…”
“Put Rick on the phone.”
“Colin?”
“Yes?”
“I’m so proud of you, my darling. You’re a good man.”
He’d heard that before recently from Sibyl and he feared his carefully cultivated reputation as a ruthless bastard was soon to be in tatters.
She gave the phone to Rick and Colin related the current situation and gave him his instructions. Then Colin rang off, called Robert and ordered men to oust the reporters and watch the house.
Then the clock hands approaching noon, with an immense effort of will, he set all of his current situation aside and set about making back some of the money he was losing in this travesty.
At a quarter to four, Rick phoned and without preamble announced, “She’s having a barbeque.”
Colin couldn’t believe his ears. “What did you say?”
“I should have confiscated her mobile,” Rick muttered under his breath. “I thought she might need it in case of emergency. I should have –”
“Tell me what’s happening,” Colin demanded.
Rick didn’t delay. “Ten minutes ago, a minibus loaded with old people and kids drove up and unloaded. They all carried in a mass of grocery bags and even a charcoal grill and now they’re in your back garden preparing for a goddamned barbeque.”
“Is the team there?”
“Yes.”
Colin took in a steadying breath and ordered, “Just watch them.”
“Mr. Morgan, I know this’ll get me sacked but I got to tell you that your girlfriend is the most annoy…”
Colin felt Rick’s pain, acutely but he interrupted him before he said something Colin could not ignore. “I know.”
Then Colin again rang off from Rick and went back to work.
At ten to five, displaying an amazing swiftness he’d never have expected when a woman was shopping and had a great deal of money to spend, Mandy came back to his office.
She set a small, glossy, burgundy bag with expensively corded handles in the middle of his blotter and stood back with her hands clenched in front of her.
When he just stared at it, she jumped forward and grabbed the bag, upended it and then carefully, even reverently, placed a small, burgundy, velvet box in front of him. Then she resumed her position of hand clenching.
He opened the box. Then he stared at the ring.
And it was perfect.
He looked his secretary directly in the eyes. “Well done, Mandy. I knew you could do it.”
Mandy beamed.
And then Colin did something that he did not know and likely would never know (or even understand), assured his secretary’s employ for the next twenty years.
He snapped the case shut, stood and rounded the desk to her. He then wrapped his hand gently around the back of her head and, bending low (because she was quite petite), he kissed her forehead like a loving older brother.
And then he went back around his desk, grabbed his suit jacket off the back of his chair and he walked out of his office.
And Mandy thought, watching him go, that no matter what everyone else said, Colin Morgan really was a good man.
Nearly five hundred years earlier, at exactly ten to five in the evening, while Royce and Beatrice danced at their wedding feast, the dark soul sharpened the blade of a knife against a whetstone.
Meanwhile, Royce watched Beatrice’s smiling face as she beamed at her father and mother (then mock-scowled at her younger sister) as he whirled her in a dance.
She had done the change again this morning, turning into a different person, yet the same. He could not put his finger on how he knew she was not her, she just was not. She had done it before dozens of times but this time instead of being oddly not the same, she was both not the same and completely terrified. For him, for them and because of tonight.
One second she was so afraid, she was nearly in tears, the next second she was confused and blushing at standing before him in her dressing gown, having no idea how she got from her bed to the Hall, standing in his arms.
Something was amiss and, as usual when he felt something was amiss, Royce Morgan was on his guard.
It should be noted at this juncture, there was some pretty hefty magic flying back and forth across nearly five hundred years.