“You were laughing,” Scarlett also sat with them and Colin looked up to see Sibyl drop to her knees beside him. She awarded him a flush-faced grin and then, to his deep satisfaction, she didn’t hesitate a moment before she settled on her back with her head on his outstretched thigh, her hair falling haphazardly all over his lap.
“You must allow us our private little joke,” Bertie murmured.
“About us girls? I don’t think so,” Scarlett parried.
“Enough Scarlett,” Bertie warned.
Sibyl shifted onto her side but didn’t lift her head.
“You were joking about us?” she asked her father.
“You joke about men all the time,” Bertie defended. Colin noted his tone was far less strict with his first born.
“That’s true, men, as a whole, are our private little joke,” Scarlett confirmed cynically.
“Scarlett! Be good.” It was Mags’s turn to chastise her daughter but it was clear she didn’t mean it and this was made clear by her blue eyes dancing wickedly.
Sibyl moved again to her back and caught Colin’s eye. “You aren’t my joke,” she assured him, her eyes dancing but not like her mother’s, her eyes weren’t wicked but warm and sweet.
“Colin isn’t anybody’s joke,” Scarlett declared, for the first time giving Colin an indication of her blessing and she collapsed on her side and popped a grape in her mouth.
“With practice, you’ll learn to ignore her,” Sibyl confided to him and froze her sister with a glance.
Colin leaned back on an elbow. He had Sibyl’s head on his leg, her hair spread across his lap, the sun was shining on them and she’d just indicated he’d be around long enough to learn to ignore her sister. He’d long since been ignoring Scarlett as well as the envious looks he was getting from most of the men in the vicinity, and had, for longer than he could remember, perfected the art of ignoring the looks from the women.
Colin couldn’t call up even a hint of irritation because at that precise moment, all was right in Colin Morgan’s world.
They went to Brightrose shortly after, Colin driving the lot of them and their picnic paraphernalia in the BMW as they’d walked to the seafront. While Mags cooked dinner, Bertie, Scarlett, Sibyl and Colin spent the rest of the afternoon playing Trivial Pursuit.
Colin lost, soundly. Bertie knew everything about everything. Scarlett, a neurologist, also had an amazing knowledge of entertainment and sport. Sibyl’s subjects were history, art and literature and geography. The whole game, Bran spent tucked in Sibyl’s lap while Mallory lay by Colin, his head, when he was given the option, resting on Colin’s feet.
Mags stepped out of the kitchen and announced that dinner would be ready in five minutes. At her announcement, Sibyl gave a panicked cry, dropped her cat and sped into the kitchen. After a great clamour, Mags came out of the kitchen again and announced with a grin that dinner would be in twenty-five minutes.
Colin made Bertie and himself a gin and tonic and they settled on the couches while Scarlett went to help in the kitchen.
“Sibyl says you have the dreams, just like she does,” Bertie noted.
Colin had confided in Sibyl that he, too, was dreaming of Royce and Beatrice. This was confided in an effort to soften their eventual discussion about her time with Royce in the chalet. A discussion Colin still fully intended to have but only after she was more comfortable with him and in their relationship.
“Yes,” he answered.
Bertie leaned forward excitedly. “What’s it like, being back there, being in that time?”
Colin regarded his soon-to-be-father-in-law, a medieval history professor who undoubtedly thought this of extraordinary interest, and answered honestly, “It isn’t like anything. I don’t pay attention to it. I only pay attention to Beatrice. My dreams aren’t like Sibyl’s, she’s participating, Royce knows there’s a difference in Beatrice when she’s with him. I’ve always known who I was when in the dream, why I’m there, because I knew where I was, who she was. I just experience it.”
“Does it feel like a memory?” Bertie asked.
Colin thought about it and had been thinking about it a great deal lately, mainly because of how Sibyl described her own dreams. She’d hinted that Royce had recognised her, knew who she was that afternoon in the chalet. This lent an added, unknown dimension to their meeting in the present time and, possibly, their kiss, a thought Colin did not particularly relish.
“It’s too vivid to be just a dream, so yes, it must be a memory.”
“Superb,” Bertie muttered.
“Dinner in five minutes!” Scarlett called from the kitchen door.
Mags set a bowl of what looked to be tofu, black beans and barley liberally mixed with onions and parsley, an enormous salad and a bowl of spiced cous cous on the table. Sibyl slid a pair of succulent chicken br**sts, rice pilaf and steamed broccoli in front of Colin and he realised what caused the delay in dinner. Sibyl had prepared a non-vegetarian option specifically for him.
No one uttered a word about this considerate gesture likely because they were used to such gestures from Sibyl.