Lacybourne Manor Read Online Free PDF

in
the room somewhere, why?”
    “Because that damned dog of
yours would probably make any murderous scoundrel a cup of tea if
he had opposable thumbs. The cat would scratch his eyes out.”
    Sibyl couldn’t help but laugh
because this was true.
    “I love you, Mom.”
    “ I love you too, baby.
Get some sleep, go out on the prowl this weekend and find yourself
a blessed man, for goddess’s sake. No woman should endure a year
long dry spell.”
    “Thanks for the advice, Mom,”
Sibyl uttered the expression of gratitude but her tone said very
clearly she didn’t mean it.
    Mags, as usual, ignored her
daughter’s tone. “I’m serious, Sibyl. Even if it is only sex, or
companionship, everyone needs it.” Sibyl remained silent at Mags’s
tender urging. Mags sighed and then said, “See you soon, my darling
girl. It’ll be April before you know it.”
    Finally.
    The thought of seeing her
parents in April did make Sibyl feel happy and relaxed.
    “I hope so.” Again, Sibyl’s
tone said exactly how she felt.
    After hanging up the
phone, Sibyl left the shutters open. She lay in bed thinking of the
dream, or more to the point, the man in the dream. He was immensely
handsome, dark and… well, hot . His touch set her on fire,
it was fevered and insistent and nearly worshipful. Until she was
ripped from the bed, his presence seemed the only thing in the
universe. There was nothing else but him, his hands, his mouth, his
body. He was her very essence (except a male), her other part, her
completion.
    Mallory broke into her thoughts
by lumbering onto the high bed and settling in squeezing poor Bran
and Sibyl to the edge leaving them hanging on for dear life.
Somehow, even in this awkward but familiar position, she was
finally able to allow her mind to calm enough to go to sleep.
    Even if she did do so with the
image of the handsome, hard-jawed, dark-haired man burned on the
backs of her eyelids.
     
     

Chapter Three
    Reunion
     
    “ Oh for the love of the
goddess, get out of the car, will you?”
    Sibyl was addressing her
dog and cat, who both, somehow, managed to fit themselves into her
old, red MG convertible.
    Sibyl didn’t know how she’d
managed to get herself in this terrible snag nor did she know how
she managed consistently to find herself in a variety of terrible
snags, something which happened with disturbing frequency.
    Her day had not gone well. It
was a busy day which included Bingo Afternoon at the Pensioners
Club of the Day Centre and try outs for the kids’ Annual Talent
Show in the Community Hall. Sibyl was responsible for running all
the myriad community programmes put on in the Centre and Hall. The
Day Centre and Community Hall comprised (along with a vast kitchen,
several small offices, some storage rooms, a stage and narrow
backstage area) an enormous, but dilapidated old building on a
Council Estate in a deprived area of Weston-super-Mare, a small,
seaside city in the West Country.
    Early afternoon, after a
two-course lunch had been served to the pensioners and many of them
had gone home on the minibus the Council provided the estate, Sibyl
had pulled back the sliding doors and exited the smoky Day Centre.
She heard the Bingo call, “One, one, eleven, legs eleven,” sounding
behind her coming from Marianne, the Bingo caller’s, hoarse,
cigarette-clogged throat.
    Sibyl entered the vast
Community Hall, sliding the doors shut behind her to see Jemma, her
dearest friend in England, sitting in an old, beat up plastic chair
and staring in horrified fascination at the stage. Sibyl glanced
toward the stage to see what held Jemma’s attention only to witness
four very young girls dressed in alarmingly alluring outfits far
older than their tender years, gyrating their hips and lip-syncing
to a popular song.
    Sibyl dragged a chair over to
her friend and sat down to watch as the children carried out their
inappropriately suggestive performance.
    The song ended and both Jemma
and Sibyl sat in stunned