Colin watched as she settled back into her seat contentedly.
Half an hour later, he pulled into Lacybourne only to see his mother’s blue Audi.
“What in bloody hell?” he muttered under his breath.
The change in speed coming off the motorway and manoeuvring of roundabouts had caused Sibyl to awaken but all the while, she kept a still sleepy silence.
Now she spoke.
“Who’s that?” she asked, her voice husky with sleep.
“My mother,” Colin answered impatiently.
“What’s she doing here?” The sweet sound of sleep was quickly leaving her voice and suspicion was edging in.
“I, um, might have called her,” Mags said hesitantly from the back.
Colin again swore under his breath.
Sibyl’s head snapped around to scowl at her mother.
“Why on the goddess’s green earth would you do a fool thing like that?” she cried, her sleepy voice a distant memory.
Colin parked in the garage as mother and daughter squared off.
“Colin was shot with a tranquilliser dart!” Mags defended herself. “She’s his mother. I thought she had the right to know!”
“Don’t you think Colin should be the judge of that?” Sibyl returned angrily and if she hadn’t been so adorably peeved on his behalf, he might have kissed her for defending him.
Before Sibyl’s temper could explode in a car that was much too small for the force of it, Colin broke in, “It’s done. There’s no sense arguing about it now.”
Colin felt a bit more of Bertie’s lifetime of pain when both pairs of angry eyes moved to him and both women’s mouths opened to blast him with their wrath when he smoothly continued, “If anyone has the right to be upset it’s me and I’m not so that’s the end of it.”
Both mouths snapped shut and Mags’s face instantly settled happily while Sibyl’s suffused with mutiny.
“We’ll talk about this later,” she warned her mother as she alighted from the car.
“Okay,” Mags agreed, unaffected by the threat and walked to the house.
Colin surreptitiously glanced down the lane, didn’t see any sign of Tamara or her car and he put his hand in the back pocket of his jeans to grab his mobile.
Sibyl stopped, waiting for him to walk to the house with her.
“Go in, sweetheart, I need to make a call,” he directed her gently. “Tell Mum I’ll be in in a few minutes.”
She looked at him closely then turned and, with no small amount of absorption, he watched her generous h*ps sway as she walked to the house.
Then he called Robert Fitzwilliam.
“Look into Tamara Adams. She’s been following us the entire day, all the way to Heathrow and back,” Colin ordered.
“Got it. You still need Rick tomorrow?” Robert asked about the bodyguard Colin had engaged to watch Sibyl and now her mother and, much more recently, his mother.
“Yes,” Colin answered.
“Fine, he’ll be at your house at seven.”
Colin flipped his mobile shut, not looking forward to the upcoming conversation with Sibyl about her future bodyguard.