Lacybourne Manor by Kristen Ashley Read Free Book Online Page A

she had never done in her entire life.
    She fainted.
    Unfortunately, when she did so,
her head smashed rather painfully against a jagged rock.
     
     

Chapter Four
    Misunderstanding
     
    “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.
    Colin didn’t look at Tamara, he
continued to stare at the woman on the couch.
    All the years he’d waited and
now here she was.
    And she was blonde.
    And suddenly and very
strangely, he felt his body react, every muscle tightening
instantaneously as he continued to drink in the sight of her. His
gut clenched and his heart felt clutched in an iron fist.
    “Colin?” Tamara called, her
hand lightly touching his tense