Kristen Ashley - Lacybourne Manor

She was about to order him out, when, to her astonishment, Bran, who hated the car and anywhere Sibyl might take him in it, darted into the car and curled up on the driver’s side floor.

Any effort she made to pull out the recalcitrant dog met with loud, angry “woofs” and the cat sunk his claws into the carpet and would simply not let go.

“Okay!” she gave up with ill grace after what she considered a valiant struggle. “You’ll come with me, but you have to be good. I’m already outside of visiting hours as it is. Whoever owns Lacybourne Manor does not want a big mutt and a crazy feline traipsing around his graceful estate.”

Mallory was beside himself with glee at this turn of events and drooled happily on the car’s battered upholstery. Bran shifted to the floor of the passenger side while Sibyl forced the reluctant car to do what it was told, all the while muttering dire threats and foul curses at her animals.

Luckily, with only five minutes to get there, it took only ten minutes to arrive. She didn’t want to disappoint the strangely intense Mrs. Byrne (who had shared her name after Sibyl had shared her own). The woman had gone out of her way to arrange this tour and, as was her style, Sibyl didn’t want to disappoint her.

Unluckily, when she arrived in Clevedon proper the wind had whipped up and a fierce thunderstorm had rolled in.

By the time she made it through the gate of Lacybourne, lightning was flashing through the sky and her dratted dog and damned cat were practically jumping out of their skins.

“This is not a good idea,” she told the animals. “I’m just going to have to tell Mrs. Byrne that I have you in the car and thank her…” she stopped, realising she was talking to her pets.

She gave a brief thought to the idea that maybe she should listen to her mother, maybe she did need a man. She had been reduced to talking to her animals as if they could not only understand but respond.

She halted the car in the drive just before a small copse of trees. She fully intended to explain the situation to the older woman, thank the owner (if he was there) and get her pets home. She opened her door to get out and the moment she cleared the frame, Bran flashed out of the driver’s side door and Mallory, very inelegantly, trundled out right behind him.

“Bran! Mallory! Get back here!” she shouted and as the wind whipped her hair around her face her animals disappeared into the night. She pulled her hair back angrily with her hand, narrowing her eyes to peer through the darkness. “Damn it, you crazy beasts!” she yelled, “Get your behinds back in this car!”

Many of the lights were lit in Lacybourne upon her arrival and there were several cars in the drive. Sibyl noted with a bit of panic and rising despair that now even more lights were coming on in the house.

“When I catch you fiends, I’m going to tan your hides. Bran! Mallory!” she shouted.

She reached the very centre of the copse of trees when out of nowhere Bran shot toward her, leaping gracefully into her arms. Mallory, much less gracefully, hurtled out of the darkness, skidding to a halt at her side. The big dog sat down beside her like he often wiled away his hours, relaxing calmly at her side, the wind whipping at him, the lightning tearing through the skies.

She put her hand on top of the dog’s head in order to slide it down to his neck and find his collar when she heard…

“What in bloody hell?”

She lifted her head and at that very moment, lightning arced down behind her, the longest flash of lightning she’d ever endured in her life. Not just a scant second but entire, long, breathless moments.

And holding Bran in one arm, her other hand resting on Mallory’s head and the wind whipping her hair while a faltering smile (and, for Sibyl, even a faltering smile came out as dazzling, much to her parents’ dismay) formed on her lips, she saw, illuminated in the lightning right in front of her, the tall, handsome form of the murdered lover from her dream.

There he was, right before her, not four feet away, in real life.

The man of her dreams.

It was then that Sibyl Jezebel Godwin did something she had never done in her entire life.

She fainted.

Unfortunately, when she did so, her head smashed rather painfully against a jagged rock.

“Call the doctor!”

Colin shouted this order to Tamara and Mrs. Byrne who were both crowding around him while he carried into the house the unconscious, unbelievable woman he’d encountered outside moments ago.

The very vision of Beatrice Godwin.

Except blonde.

Like the woman in his dream.

Not only were Tamara and Mrs. Byrne crowding him but an enormous, beige beast with a black face and black floppy ears was following closely at his heels, barking ferociously and a fluffy, black cat was darting in and out of his legs, nearly tripping him.

“Oh my goodness! What happened?” Mrs. Byrne queried, her voice filled with concern.

“Call the damned doctor!” Colin answered, striding swiftly through the Great Hall and into the library, carrying his burden.

Tamara peeled off the scene hopefully to phone a medic. Mrs. Byrne stayed with him as he carefully deposited the woman onto the leather of a burgundy couch in the library and she leaned forward to arrange the woman’s long legs in a comfortable position.

Then she looked at the woman.

“She’s bleeding!” Mrs. Byrne exclaimed.

“Get a towel, the bathroom –” Colin started to explain but Mrs. Byrne was already rushing towards the bathroom (rather agilely for a woman of her age). He realised with a delayed reaction that in her role as a volunteer at Lacybourne, she probably knew the house better than he.

The dog was still barking and the cat had leapt up to walk daintily the length of the woman’s body.

“Quiet!” he ordered the dog and, to his surprise, the dog ceased barking immediately and sat down in a slouch where most of his body reclined against the side of his couch. He then inclined his neck forward and licked Colin’s hand. Not quite finished, he turned his massive head and sniffed his mistress’s hair before sloppily licking the entire side of her face with one long lash of his exorbitantly wet, enormous tongue.

“Down,” Colin commanded and the dog settled onto the floor and, with a loud groan, rested his head on his front paws.

Colin had laid her on her back and now, gently, he leaned forward and pulled the soft, heavy hair away from her face.

Then he saw her, as he’d seen her outside, except now she wasn’t exactly mimicking the pose from the portrait.

Beatrice’s double, right here in Lacybourne Manor.

She was the woman in his dream.

Albeit, without a slit throat but with a bleeding head wound.

“Good Christ,” he muttered, his body frozen, his eyes staring into her pale, familiar face, his mind unable to process anything but the incredible vision of her.

The cat had decided to settle smack in the middle of her chest, curling into himself and licking one of his paws.

Colin stared at her as finally Colin’s mind again started working and he thought of Mrs. Byrne arriving not ten minutes ago to explain that she had, because of her extreme age and faltering memory, forgotten to call the American to tell her not to arrive for her tour.

Then they’d all heard the frustrated, shouting woman’s voice rising above the storm outside.

Then Colin had gone out to investigate.

Then in the unbelievably long flash of lightning, he’d seen her standing amongst the trees in a perfect rendition of the pose of Beatrice Godwin.

“I’ve called 999, they’re sending someone straight away,” Tamara said as she rushed into the room.