She didn’t know what to make of that.
“Nothing,” she muttered and continued writing on the labels.
He came forward and kissed her shoulder in a gesture so intimate Sibyl had to steel herself against it.
Maybe, she thought, there were residual Royce-waves floating through him. This was not Colin, nothing like him.
This was not arm’s length.
This was real, heady, wonderful, couple-like stuff.
Maybe he felt guilty about hurting her. That had to be it.
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
She nodded, wanting to be alone to think about all of this.
At the same time wanting to throw herself at him, beg him to spend the night and make love to her. Not have sex with her but make love to her.
“Sibyl.”
Her body jolted at his voice then she turned her head to him. The look on his face was now definitely the Colin she knew.
“I’ll take a good-bye kiss now.”
Definitely the Colin she knew.
She moved forward and gave him what he demanded.
Regardless of the fact that when she first met him he behaved like a deranged madman then he had charmed her and she thought he was her dream man then he’d bought her body, and she thought she hated him – despite all that, despite how she knew it was very, very dangerous – she was beginning to have feelings for him. Strong, wonderful, scary feelings that were no good for her at all.
And because of that, when she kissed him, she pressed her body to his and pulled him to her by wrapping her arms around his sides and pressing hands between his shoulder blades. Then she went up on her toes and kissed him with all the strong, wonderful, scariness she felt. She opened her lips under his and slid her tongue in to taste his beautiful mouth and when she did, his arms swept around her, pulling her deeper into him and, at the touch of her tongue against his, he took over her good-bye kiss.
It wasn’t Royce’s beautiful kiss, but it was a good-bye-for-now kiss that she would never, ever forget.
As she stood, shaken and trembling from the kiss, watching him walk with his masculine grace back through her garden, she heard his mobile ring again.
* * * * *
Marian saw Colin walking toward his car and would have been alarmed at his much-earlier-than-usual exit had she not seen the look on his face.
Colin Morgan looked quite content with the world.
He got in his Mercedes and deftly manoeuvred down the lane.
Marian was about to follow when she saw something out of the corner of her eye.
Marian was hiding in the wood outside Sibyl’s house.
And so was someone else.
She stared, looking closely at the place where she saw the movement and she stood stock-still.
It would not do for them to see her.
Minutes passed but she saw nothing else.
An evil shiver slid through Marian’s body because she knew she was in the presence of the dark soul that, in this time, crossed the lovers’ stars.
She had been planning to follow Colin but she decided it was best to spend a little bit more time watching over Sibyl.
Just to be certain everything was all right.
Chapter Thirteen
Realisation
Colin Morgan had made up his mind about Sibyl Godwin.
And when Colin made up his mind, that was that.
For the last two weeks, she resolutely kept herself guarded and distant from him.
She was not wheedling her way into his life. She was not using her rather considerable feminine wiles to force some avowal of feeling from him. She made no demands, never dissolved in tears, didn’t ask to go back to Lacybourne and never mentioned Beatrice or Royce.
She had her own life, her own interests, her own business and a job somewhere for which she obviously felt a great deal of passion.
She was not, he decided, a scheming bitch like all the other women of his acquaintance.
She was just… Sibyl.
Colin had no idea why she needed fifty thousand pounds but he knew she had not spent it on herself.
She had not bought a new car (which she definitely needed, how she could lecture him on fuel economy and drive her petrol-guzzling wreck, he could not fathom, though she referred to her MG as “recycling”).
She was not surrounded by bags of new clothes. She didn’t wear expensive jewels. She always dressed well (albeit often endearingly bohemian) but she clearly did not have expensive tastes.
She didn’t drink too much and he’d spent enough time with her to know she didn’t take drugs. She was a resolute vegetarian and the first morning she’d presented him with a breakfast bowl filled with a hideous concoction of organic Wheatabix mixed with yogurt, honey and strawberries, he’d known she was likely not the type to start drinking or taking drugs.
Her home was well-presented, well-kept and sound and she needed nothing to fill it and did nothing to it. He’d seen an open credit card statement and utility bill and shamelessly looked at them, both were paid up fully and current.
It seemed her only extravagance was that she always kept expensive fresh flowers on her dining room table this, he thought (correctly) was an unconscious show of love to her father, but as lovely as they were, she was not spending fifty thousand pounds on them.
She was definitely fit and energetic, except in the mornings when she was quite hilariously moody, and he couldn’t see that she had any ailment which needed treatment.
He had no idea what she did with her days but he knew she worked somewhere, somewhere that meant a great deal to her. He’d discovered last night that she had her own small business and the fact that she was still working meant she hadn’t taken the money so she could quit and spend her days shopping or doing whatever it was that women who didn’t work did with their time.
It could be she’d taken the money to invest in the business, though it seemed a relatively small operation from what he could see, considering it was run out of a chalet in her back garden.
With a temper like hers, he could imagine she’d gotten herself into some kind of trouble with someone but he couldn’t imagine how or with whom.
Whatever she needed the money for, it was likely not for her.
This all made Colin believe there was a reason Sibyl Godwin had come into his life.
And, even if she was an excellent actress hiding a deceitful, larcenous heart, (although this option, day-to-day, was seeming less and less viable) she was still the vision of Beatrice Godwin, she was still extraordinary in bed, she was always surprising him (speaking French, looking, while eating chocolate mousse, (nearly) like she did when she reached orgasm) and he was still going to have her for as long as he wished no matter what it took.