Marian turned to Colin and gave in to Sibyl’s plea. “Thank you, Mr. Morgan, that would be very kind.”
Colin looked at Sibyl, his car was a two seater and she’d have to wait until he returned from this errand.
“Go to the restaurant,” he ordered curtly, “I’ll be back for you in ten minutes.”
Without a word in protest, she nodded and then gracefully stood. She helped Mrs. Byrne to the car and Colin waited to get in himself while he watched Sibyl, again with great care, her head swinging from side to side as she scanned the road, cross the street. He didn’t get into the car until he saw the restaurant door close safely behind her.
As he drove off, Marian Byrne gave him quick directions and then asked, “Are you quite all right, Mr. Morgan?”
He lied gruffly, “I’m fine.”
“That was a nasty scare,” she noted on a trembling sigh. “Drivers these days. So impatient. You must promise me you’ll be most careful.”
He nodded.
“I take it things with you and Sibyl are on a much better footing now?” she asked, her voice tentative and polite, she knew it was none of her business.
“That depends on how you look at it,” he replied honestly at the same time not giving her very much information.
“Well, Mr. Morgan, considering my tenure at your house and what I know of its history, I look at any time you spend with that delightful girl to be a very, very good thing, if you understand my meaning.”
His eyes slid to her briefly then back to the road.
“So you admit to arranging our meeting?” he enquired bluntly.
“Of course!” she confessed, her voice losing its tremble and becoming more cheerful. “I thought you’d figured that out on the night.”
“I did,” he told her then demanded, even though he thought he knew, “What was Sibyl’s part in it?”
“Oh, she has no idea.” Her tone was very cheerful now but her words rocked Colin to his core. “What I find most amusing is that she spent an entire night at Lacybourne, even had her little, shall we call it an ‘episode’?” She laughed softly to herself, finding this all very amusing, something which grated on Colin’s nerves. “Right underneath the portraits and never once spared them a glance. Have you told her yet?”
He hesitated.
“About Royce and Beatrice,” she prompted.
“No.”
“Oh my,” Mrs. Byrne sighed. “Are you going to tell her?”
“I don’t know.” And, at this news, he didn’t not only not know if he was going to tell Sibyl about Royce and Beatrice, he didn’t know why he didn’t know if he was going to tell her or why, if she was not in partnership with Mrs. Byrne, why Sibyl had taken the money and lastly, and most annoyingly, he realised he didn’t know much of anything.
And he didn’t like that either.
“Well, I won’t say a word,” she surprised him by assuring him and he surprised himself by believing her. “I’ll leave it in your hands.” Then she murmured, “It’s right here,” and motioned to an elegant, well-kept house on Victoria Road. “Thank you, Mr. Morgan, you’ve been very kind. No,” she said when he started to alight, “I’m quite fine, get back to Sibyl, she seems a bit shaken.”
For some reason, he did as he was told (though he waited for the elderly lady to make her way up her walk, enter her house and the light in the front room to come on) and, five minutes later, he pulled up at the restaurant, leaving the car to collect Sibyl who had seen him arrive and was walking from the restaurant to the car. He opened her door and made sure she was safely inside before he went to his side and they took off.
They didn’t speak a word the entire way to her home but he noticed she was clasping her hands together so intensely he could see the whiteness of her skin by the dash lights.
He hadn’t given her the time to lock the door to the cottage so when they arrived she turned the latch, shoved it open and pushed inside. Instead of taking her coat off, she grabbed the dog’s lead. Mallory came lurching excitedly into the room before she’d cleared the lead from the peg.
“I have to take Mallory for a walk,” she explained to Colin, her voice soft and still a bit shaky.
“I’ll go with you,” Colin replied, his voice hard, his mind preoccupied with their near-death experience and what it might mean. Or if it meant anything at all and was just an accident.
Her head jerked up to look at him and then it tilted while she studied him. He noticed her eyes were more sherry than green.
Colin didn’t know what to make of that.
She nodded, clipped the lead on Mallory’s collar and they walked out into the night.
And as they walked, Colin noted that Mallory didn’t seem like a dog who didn’t like his walks. He seemed thrilled to be outside, smelling every blade of grass, and, as they made it down the secluded drive and turned onto the pavement, every car tire, post and inch of pavement he traversed. He was so excited Colin noticed that Sibyl was having trouble controlling the lead.
“Give it to me,” Colin ordered and then didn’t wait for her to act, he took it from her hands.
“I don’t understand. This is how he behaves during his morning walks sometimes. He never likes the evening walks. He just does his business as quickly as he can and we go home,” she explained.
As if realising they were talking about him, Mallory stopped. The dog looked down the length of his enormous body at them both and Colin could see that Mallory’s mouth was hanging open in what looked like a version of a canine smile. A long sliver of drool slid off his lip and plopped on the pavement.
“We’re going home,” Colin told the dog and Mallory, just as happy with this idea as he was with the walk, immediately turned around and headed back to the house.
“Utterly bizarre,” Sibyl muttered under her breath.
Colin did not reply.
Mallory decided on the pillar of a streetlamp and took care of his business on the way home and the three of them walked down her dark lane in silence (except for Mallory’s excited panting). Sibyl pushed open her door when they arrived and, once inside, Colin unhooked the dog’s lead and hung it on the peg while Sibyl took off her trench coat.
Without a word, his mind occupied with both the events of the evening (including the near-miss with the car and his strange conversation with Mrs. Byrne) and his continued anger at Sibyl, Colin walked up the stairs and straight to her bedroom. He was shrugging off his suit jacket when she arrived in the room.