“You’re not going to leave,” he returned.
“My parents will not sue,” she felt the need to add.
“You’re still not going to leave,” he retorted.
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Byrne said.
“You’re staying too,” the lord of the manor stated.
“I thought that,” Mrs. Byrne noted resignedly. She grabbed Sibyl’s hand and patted it kindly. “I’ll look after you.”
Sibyl turned her eyes to the older woman and she saw the woman staring at her with a bizarre intensity.
“I want to go home, Mrs. Byrne,” Sibyl told her, her tone fervent.
“Don’t worry, my dear. We’ll all have a good rest and we’ll sort it out in the morning.”
“Not likely.” This, of course, was noted by the tall, impossibly handsome but utterly mad man who owned this (from what she could tell from the one room she’d actually seen) beautiful home.
Sibyl turned beseeching eyes to the kindly paramedic, thinking maybe even Mrs. Byrne had only a tentative hold on reality.
“I just want to go home,” she informed who she hoped would be her saviour.
He seemed to hesitate, clearly reading the mood in the room, when a radio squawked.
“Got another one,” his colleague said, pulling the radio from his leg.
“Sorry,” the kindly paramedic muttered. “Call me tomorrow, my name is Steve. Let me know how you’re getting on.” Then he winked (definitely flirtatiously which, of course, was nice and all but didn’t do her any good at the present moment and further was a bit inappropriate), pressed a card in her hand and followed his colleague out the door.
Sibyl looked from the small, dark woman who was staring at her with polar icecaps as eyes. Then she moved her eyes to Mrs. Byrne who was smiling at her… could she believe it... encouragingly.
Then finally to her dream man, who was looking like he couldn’t decide whether to beat her to a bloody pulp or carry her up to his bedroom for something else altogether.
And that was no joke; honestly, she could read that right in his eyes.
That last thought made her breath flood out of her in a rush and she glared at him with mutinous eyes.
If she couldn’t find a way to escape, Sibyl thought hysterically, it was going to be a long night.
Chapter Five
Tempted
It was the longest night in Sibyl’s life.
Once the paramedics left, Mr. Morgan, the raving lunatic who most definitely needed psychiatric counselling or at the very least, anger management classes, left her and Mrs. Byrne alone. He took the unnamed Ice Queen with him.
The Polar Sorceress came back shortly after with an ice pack and handed it rather ungraciously to Mrs. Byrne, completely avoiding looking at Sibyl at all.
Then she left again.
After Sibyl attempted to talk Mrs. Byrne into making a break for it (that maniac couldn’t actually imprison them in his medieval manor house, for goodness sakes), Mrs. Byrne explained the misunderstanding and how she felt that it was a good idea to let tempers cool and talk about everything in the morning.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Morgan can be a somewhat, er… difficult man,” she admitted.
Indeed, Sibyl thought but did not say nor did she bring up the fact that just the evening before Mrs. Byrne painted an entirely different picture of the man of the house.
And “difficult” she felt, was not exactly the word she would use.