Therefore, looking into his eyes, she nodded and for this, she was rewarded with one of his killer-watt smiles, a smile that told her it was going to be all right.
She drew in a deep, steadying breath as Colin led her down the hall and, instead of turning to the library, where everyone else had gathered, he took her to the Great Hall.
They walked through the big room and Colin stopped her right in the middle.
She’d been there before, of course, she’d just never really looked at it because she was mid-diatribe the last time she’d spent any time there.
It was huge and stunning, right in the middle was an enormous, heavy table made of wood so dark, it was nearly black. Twenty large, ladder-backed chairs surrounded it. In the stone walls, the room had dozens of deep windows with warped panes of glass. Two of the windows were semi-circular, one filled with a sculpted bust on a half column, the other with an immense, antique globe. In the centre of each window were breathtaking stained glass fleur de lis. There were old-fashioned wooden chairs sitting at precise intervals along the walls, almost like sentries standing at attention. There was also a massive mellow-coloured stone staircase built up one wall, a thick, red carpet runner in the centre held to each step by a brass rod. The room was decorated with suits of armour, flags floating from the ceiling beams, pennants dripping from brass rods and crossed swords affixed to walls.
She felt a shiver of apprehension as she stood there, not only because Colin wasn’t speaking a word as she looked around but also because she felt something familiar about this place. Almost like she’d been there before and not when she had her blazing tirade weeks previously.
She noted somewhere in the back of her mind it was now raining, the water streaming down the glass of the windows, the sky dark and threatening.
She did a slow pirouette, mainly because she couldn’t help herself.
“Colin,” she breathed, “it’s love–”
She didn’t finish.
And she didn’t finish because she saw Royce.
In a portrait, hanging on the wall in the Great Hall at Lacybourne.
She took two steps toward it, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Royce,” she whispered as she gazed in shock at the portrait.
She vaguely heard Colin ask, “What did you say?” in a tone that was far more Colin than Royce.
But she wasn’t listening.
It was Royce, stunningly handsome even though he looked fierce, even angry. He was standing in front of a shining black horse with a wild mane, a horse Sibyl knew very well because she’d ridden on his back. She felt her heart squeeze in a mixture of horror and delight.
“My goddess,” she stared, “My goddess, Colin, it’s…” but she stopped again because as she was about to turn to Colin, her eyes fell on the other portrait, the one beside Royce’s.
She gasped and took two steps back.
It was then that thunder rumbled and, seconds later, lightning split the sky.
“Sibyl,” Colin was saying but she interrupted him and took another step away from what she saw.
“That’s…” she raised her arm and pointed a trembling finger at the portrait. A picture that showed exactly what Sibyl saw in her mirror every morning, except with dark hair. It even had Mallory and Bran in it. “That’s me!” she cried and swung confused eyes to Colin who, she saw, was watching her closely. “Why do you have a portrait of me in your house? How? Why?”
“Do you know Royce Morgan?” Colin asked and she heard a thread of accusation in his tone.
“Why do you have a painting of me in your house?” she returned, her voice rising with hysteria. Then she processed what he said, her stomach clenched and she breathed, “Royce Morgan?”
“Yes.” He glanced swiftly at the portraits and then back to Sibyl. “Royce Morgan and his wife, Beatrice, born Beatrice Godwin.”
She felt as if she’d been struck, all her breath went out of her in a whoosh.
Beatrice Godwin.
She stumbled back another step, throwing her arm out for something to steady her and catching one of the ancient chairs around the ancient dining room table that was known to her because she had sat there and eaten a meal.
A meal that happened in her dreams which took place in ancient times when the table was new.
“Beatrice Godwin?” When Sibyl spoke her voice was loud and it was shrill.