Lacybourne Manor by Kristen Ashley Read Free Book Online

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