“I’m going to break something and it isn’t your heart. It’s that minibus driver’s head!” Sibyl promised dramatically, hanging onto her anger in order not to feel her pain and definitely not to feel the nagging sense of guilt that she’d been the cause of today’s tragedy. Her and her big mouth.
Jemma laughed, giving Sibyl’s shoulder a friendly shove and breaking the intensity of the moment. She then hugged Sibyl, an uncommon action from her reserved friend.
“She’ll be okay,” Jem whispered in her ear.
Sibyl let out a shuddering sigh. “I hope so.”
But she didn’t hope so.
Sibyl would do everything she could to make it so.
The end was nigh for the likes of Meg and Annie’s anguish.
Sibyl would see to it.
Colin drove down the attractive lane that led to Sibyl’s cottage and as he did he saw dotted in the woods sprinkles of late-blooming snowdrops, crocuses and opening daffodils. As he approached the picturesque, rambling, sparkling white cottage, he saw Sibyl’s MG and a Ford Fiesta parked in the widened drive at the front. Without room to park out front, he drove around the house and found a parking spot by the side.
As he got out and walked to the front door, he noted that all the windows had window boxes and they’d already been planted with early spring flowers that tangled with dangling ivy.
Colin was there because of last week but mostly because of last night.
Last week, after sending Tamara away, Colin had ordered an investigation into the woman who called herself Sibyl Godwin.
“I’ll need to go to America if I’m going to find out everything about her,” his investigator, Robert Fitzwilliam, told him. “Obviously, that will significantly increase my expenses.”
“Do it,” was all Colin said. He was happy to pay to find out everything about Sibyl Godwin’s past and personally intended to find out who she was now.
Arriving home early, Colin had sent Tamara home Wednesday afternoon.
Things were very much finished with Tamara Adams, for a variety of reasons.
The idiot woman had attempted to seduce him while Sibyl and Mrs. Byrne were in the house. He could barely think with Beatrice Godwin’s double lying in a bed (stubbornly freezing herself to death) two doors down from his own room, much less bear another woman’s hands on him. Then she’d had the temerity to act affronted when he told her, in no uncertain terms, that he had no interest. Making matters worse, she’d flown into a jealous rage after Sibyl and Mrs. Byrne had both left the next day.
“I heard what you said to her!” Tamara ranted. “You were tempted by her. You said it, right in front of me!”
He’d simply stared at her beautiful face, not so beautiful as it was distorted with rage.
“How dare you!” she screeched when he’d made no response.
“It’s my house, my life, my bed, I choose who I take to it,” Colin replied calmly.
At this point, she’d flown at him in a fury.
That was a big mistake.
He’d pushed her off, ordered her out of his house and walked away.
That, he knew, was the end of Tamara Adams.
Colin would not put up with jealous rages and feminine pouts. With his usual ruthlessness, he made an instant decision. He didn’t care if it took years to find a suitable replacement, Tamara would never have his ring on her finger.
After dealing with Tamara, he started piecing it together what he knew of Sibyl.
The people at The National Trust told him that Mrs. Byrne had been volunteering at Lacybourne for seven years. She was retired, living on a meagre pension and spending some of her days in a lavish manor house. She’d undoubtedly encountered Sibyl somewhere along the line and noted her amazing resemblance to Beatrice Godwin. Doing so, she’d probably talked the younger woman either into a con or conned Sibyl into a meeting with Royce Morgan’s twin.
What they were up to, he couldn’t care less, for they wouldn’t succeed.
However, considering Sibyl’s behaviour last night, he was beginning to doubt she was a con artist, trading on her resemblance to a long dead woman. She seemed genuinely surprised at his reaction to her and stunned by his behaviour.
Though, Colin wouldn’t put anything passed a woman.
His parents were worth money, he had a large trust fund he’d never touched, substantial sums of his own, his business was worth a great deal and then there was Lacybourne. It was filled with priceless antiques, including an enormous Bristol Blue Glass collection and a centuries old accumulation of Wedgewood, all of which Mrs. Byrne knew very well, and, if Sibyl’s deft knowledge of National Trust properties was anything to go by, she did as well.
Beatrice Godwin’s portrait and the story of Royce and Beatrice Morgan had been published often in books and was still often discussed local lore. Without having to think, Colin knew of five books he’d read himself about the doomed, star-crossed lovers. The National Trust volunteers recited the story dozens of times during every visiting day. If Sibyl so desired to see his house, she would likely know its most famous piece of history.
Mrs. Byrne and Miss Godwin could easily be on a con, which made him their target.
Unfortunately for them, he had no interest in being the target but, rather, aiming at one.
And he decided his target would be Sibyl Godwin.
It was either that, or the romantic myth of star-crossed lovers was true. It could, of course (and considering his cynical nature, he did not give a great deal of plausibility to this option), be merely coincidence that this glorious American woman, who just happened to own a fluffy black cat and an enormous mastiff, crossed his path.
Further complicating matters (but likely because he’d met her yet again), Colin had a dream the night before, a dream of her in a blue woollen gown, riding on a horse before him, kissing him in a forest. Her hair was dark in the dream, like Beatrice’s, but Colin knew it was her.
Perhaps it all was just a misunderstanding. Seeing as she was out with the medic the night before, she could either be moving on as it was obvious their attempt with him would be unsuccessful or she honestly was unaware of their strange, historical connection.
If that was the case, he’d apologise to her, he’d charm her and he’d win her. Of that, he had no doubt.
Either way, he had to know.
And he had a plan.
He walked toward her home and noticed that her front door was open.
Then he heard a man shouting, “Don’t you carry any of those heavy boxes!”
As she had company, instead of seeking her out, without hesitation Colin entered her house through the open door.
He felt immediately welcomed (even though he probably was not) at the same time he was instantly transported back in time.
He was standing in a huge, open room. An enormous, circular, dark-wood dining table with lions paw feet and high backed chairs upholstered in deep rusts and buttery yellows was to his left situated by a handsome inglenook fire place. In its centre was an enormous cut-crystal vase filled with yellow roses. The entire room was painted in the same warm, buttery yellow as was in the chairs and a huge, a wrought-iron chandelier hung imposingly over the table with matching sconces affixed to the walls. There was a formidable chest against one wall, intricately, yet crudely, carved. On it were heavy, cut-crystal tumblers and sturdy decanters filled with varying shades of liquid. The decanters held chains around their necks engraved with the name of the liquor that rested inside. There was a massive mirror on one wall, framed in dark wood. There was also the portrait of a woman hanging over the chest, she had a tumble of auburn hair, flashing blue eyes and very deep cleavage. She managed to look both friendly and severe.