Lacybourne Manor by Kristen Ashley Page A

angry and
fierce, three times in a row.
    Colin ignored him but the woman
turned to the animal and commanded, “Mallory, be quiet!”
    The dog stopped barking but the
name of her pet being uttered was just too much.
    The same name as the dead
Royce Morgan’s legendary steed.
    “Priceless,” he hissed, the
ferocity back in his voice.
    Her eyes jerked to his, the
depth of green was now a hard, glittering emerald.
    “If you need my license, it’s
in my bag, which is in my car, which is –”
    Colin didn’t listen to another
word.
    He turned on his heel and left
the room, heading straight to her car.
    * * * * *
    “I need to go home.” Sibyl
looked at Mrs. Byrne, who seemed the only sane person in the room.
“There’s been a terrible mistake and furthermore, that man is a
raving lunatic.”
    There was a low, indistinct
noise made by the other woman in the room and Sibyl looked into the
cool blue eyes of the stunning woman who was standing five feet
away from her. The woman looked amused by this debacle.
    Amused.
    There was absolutely nothing
funny about one damned minute of what had just occurred.
    Not… one… thing.
    She couldn’t stay in this
madhouse a second longer.
    It was the man from her
dream, come alive, breathing, walking, talking, shouting .
    And he was stark raving
mad.
    She couldn’t believe it.
    It was just her luck. The
moment she found who she thought was the man of her dreams, her one
true love, the man she’d been waiting her for entire life, he was
screaming maniac.
    Sibyl started to stand in order
to escape when Mrs. Byrne pressed her back with surprising
strength.
    “There’s medical assistance
coming, you’ve had a nasty bang on the head, you need to rest.”
    “Rest?” Sibyl asked, her voice
dripping with incredulity. “I’m sorry but I’m going home.”
    They heard the sirens when the
crazy man from her dream strode angrily back into the room. He was
holding her sleek, red leather handbag (a Christmas gift from her
sister) and he fairly threw it at her when he arrived at their
deranged quartet (quintet, if you counted Mallory).
    “Your license,” he gritted out
through clenched teeth.
    She had no idea why he needed
her license. She’d never shown her license while viewing a National
Trust or English Heritage site and she’d seen dozens of them.
    Feeling she’d never been so
humiliated in her whole life, noting that Mrs. Byrne was moving to
her other side to wipe a drip of blood that Sibyl could feel
sliding down her face, she tore through her bag and pulled out her
wallet. The other woman had disappeared.
    She found her license and
tossed it to him. He caught it without any effort and she wished
(unusually waspishly) that he’d fumbled it.
    He stared at it then lifted his
angry clay-coloured eyes to hers.
    “Where’s your passport?” he
demanded.
    “You have got to be kidding,”
she breathed.
    She could not believe her
ears.
    She just wanted to see his
house; it was a heritage estate for goddess’s sake, not the
Pentagon. It hardly required two forms of identification.
    “She’s right here. She’s hit
her head.” The other woman was walking into the room leading two
men in green jumpsuits and the men approached Sibyl, carrying
medical boxes.
    Sibyl felt like the cavalry had
just arrived.
    “What’s happened here, then?”
one man asked in a kindly tone and it took everything Sibyl had not
to burst into tears.
    She would not let
the tall, good-looking madman see her cry. She didn’t care if he
was the man in her dream, he was not a dream man by any stretch of
the imagination.
    “I fell, outside, hit my head,”
Sibyl explained.
    “What were you doing outside in
this storm?” the paramedic asked, gently touching her head.
    She turned imploringly towards
him. “My dog… it doesn’t matter. I need to go home.”
    “What year is it?” he
enquired.
    She lifted her eyes to the
ceiling, praying for patience and counting to ten. She knew this
drill, her sister was in