Claire leaned into Sibyl and kissed both her cheeks. Then she grabbed Sibyl’s hands, squeezed them tightly and announced, what sounded genuinely, “I’m so glad to meet you!” Her eyes wandered Sibyl’s face and, if Sibyl hadn’t totally lost her mind, she could swear she saw tears shimmering in Claire’s eyes. Then Claire suddenly broke away. “Is this your family? Hi!” she repeated. “I’m Colin’s sister.”
Scarlett, for some reason, burst out laughing.
Sibyl glared at her sister.
“Drinks!” Mike boomed again, cottoning on quickly to the weird overall mood. “Don’t worry, Clairy Berry, I’ll get them.”
Sibyl was coping with Colin’s father’s familiar endearment to his daughter, just like they were a normal, adoring family, which was something she never expected in a million years that Colin would have (what she expected he would have, she had no idea, she’d never considered it, she’d never thought she’d be have the opportunity to meet them much less have drinks and dinner with them, with her family also in attendance, no less), when she heard, “Hello Sibyl dear.”
She jumped, whirled and stared as Mrs. Byrne melted out of the woodwork and came toward her.
“What are you doing here?” Sibyl rushed to the other woman, and, once there, pressed her lips to the still smooth skin on her cheek, thrilled beyond belief that she had an ally in the room even though she couldn’t imagine why Mrs. Byrne was there, not to mention, even Mrs. Byrne didn’t know what Sibyl was to Colin.
“Why, Colin asked me to come. Wasn’t that kind?”
Kind? Mrs. Byrne thought Colin was kind?
And Colin had asked her to come?
The last time he’d had Mrs. Byrne and Sibyl in this room, he’d roared at them both like a raving lunatic.
It was then Sibyl knew that she was currently residing in an alternate universe.
Heart racing, Sibyl turned woodenly from Mrs. Byrne to take in the scene. She watched as Mike poured drinks, Phoebe fingered the material of Mags’s skirt admiringly, Scarlett and Claire were giggling, actually giggling, like high school chums reunited when they’d known each other all of five minutes and Bertie was staring with rapt admiration at some crossed swords and a chest plate from a set of armour that was affixed to the wall.
“Mrs. Byrne, do you know what’s going on here?” under her breath, Sibyl asked the other woman.
“Just have faith, have strength and trust Colin,” came what Sibyl considered her mentally unhinged reply. “Our Colin knows what he’s doing.”
Our Colin?
Sibyl’s eyes rounded and then Mike was standing close, pressing a drink in her hand. He hadn’t even asked what she wanted but one look at the tall, thin glass with a maraschino cherry sitting on the top told her what it was. She sniffed it anyway and smelled the lime cordial.
It was chock full of ice.
She felt a shimmer she didn’t comprehend go down her spine.
Something was happening, something she didn’t understand, something she feared but also something that her crazy mind and crazier heart told her just might be hopeful.
“Mrs. Byrne,” she whispered to the other woman as Mike moved away but before Mrs. Byrne could answer Phoebe was speaking.
“Albert, Marguerite, how would you feel about a tour of the house before dinner?”
Scarlett and Sibyl were, pointedly, not invited which, Sibyl thought, was pointedly peculiar.
At that moment, Sibyl decided to give up attempting to understand what on earth was going on and walked to the comfortable, inviting couch that had been the centre point of the scene that was her last nightmare at Lacybourne. She decided it as well as any was a good place for her to spend her time experiencing this latest one. She told herself it was only a few hours, just a few, short hours. Whatever was happening, she could cope. She’d been through worse, she told herself, she’d get through this.
“Please call us Mags and Bertie, everyone else does,” Mags invited as she hooked her arm through Phoebe’s and they turned to the door.
Bertie didn’t reply, he was speechless with excitement at getting a tour. The older people went off, leaving the four women together but, again, Mike firmly closed the doors to the Great Hall behind him after they’d gone through.
“Sibyl, are you okay? You look a bit pale.” Her sister, the soon-to-be-fully-practising neurologist, pointed out the not-so-medically obvious.
Before Sibyl could answer, Claire noted, “Scarlett, I don’t think you’ve met Mrs. Byrne.”
Then the four women wiled away the minutes, all but Sibyl joining in easy conversation while Sibyl tried to decide why, on earth, Colin had arranged this hideous tableau.
And what she decided eradicated that hope she’d felt earlier.