He snapped the case shut, stood and rounded the desk to her. He then wrapped his hand gently around the back of her head and, bending low (because she was quite petite), he kissed her forehead like a loving older brother.
And then he went back around his desk, grabbed his suit jacket off the back of his chair and he walked out of his office.
And Mandy thought, watching him go, that no matter what everyone else said, Colin Morgan really was a good man.
* * * * *
Nearly five hundred years earlier, at exactly ten to five in the evening, while Royce and Beatrice danced at their wedding feast, the dark soul sharpened the blade of a knife against a whetstone.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Royce watched Beatrice’s smiling face as she beamed at her father and mother (then mock-scowled at her younger sister) as he whirled her in a dance.
She had done the change again this morning, turning into a different person, yet the same. He could not put his finger on how he knew she was not her, she just was not. She had done it before dozens of times but this time instead of being oddly not the same, she was both not the same and completely terrified. For him, for them and because of tonight.
One second she was so afraid, she was nearly in tears, the next second she was confused and blushing at standing before him in her dressing gown, having no idea how she got from her bed to the Hall, standing in his arms.
Something was amiss and, as usual when he felt something was amiss, Royce Morgan was on his guard.
* * * * *
It should be noted at this juncture, there was some pretty hefty magic flying back and forth across nearly five hundred years.
The good kind.
And the bad.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Proposal
As instructed, at five thirty, Colin met Rick in the Great Hall.
“What’s happening?” Colin asked, throwing his suit jacket over a four hundred and fifty year old chair with a dry, preserved oak leaf sitting in its seat, The National Trust’s indication that tourists were not permitted to sit there.
“They’re barbequing sticks with vegetables on them. No meat, just vegetables. Vegetable sticks. On the barbeque. Who does that?” Rick answered, completely at a loss.
Colin speared Rick with at glance. “I was referring to the imminent threat on my girlfriend’s life,” he drawled.
“Oh right. That.” Rick said with a jerk of his chin. “No activity. We’ve got a bloke doing the perimeter just in the woods beyond the cleared grounds and garden. Got another bloke patrolling in the wood, another at the gatehouse. I’ve got the house. Someone’s relieving me at eight.”
Colin nodded.
Rick kept speaking. “Your alarm men started yesterday. As you instructed me, I instructed them to install the warning light and panic button first. They did that yesterday and tested it today. All is a go. Left side of the bed, like you asked. That is, left side when you’re lying in it.”
“Good,” Colin muttered.
Then he turned to go and change his clothes so he could join his guests at the impromptu vegetable barbeque but Rick stalled him by continuing. “Mr. Morgan, you should know, what I said earlier…” He stopped, searching for the right words. “Any other time and I’d think your bird was…” He stopped again then shrugged. “Whatever, she’s a little mad but she’s all right.”
Colin nodded again, indicating he held no ill-will against Rick’s unsuitable but understandable statement about Sibyl earlier.
He then went to his bedroom to check the work of the alarm company. While there, he changed into jeans and a grey, lightweight, v-necked sweater and walked down to the Great Hall. He heard laughter and the drone of happy, relaxed conversation drifting in from outside. He found it strange that he’d lived at Lacybourne for over a year and that was the first he’d ever heard those sounds in the house.
Because of that, before he joined his guests, with curiosity, he went to one of the two semi-circular windows on the outer wall and looked into the terraced garden.
At the paved area close to the house, chairs and tables had been set up. Kyle was manning the barbeque and his daughter Jemma stood beside him, holding a basting brush. Meg, Mrs. Griffith and Annie were all seated together with Mags and just watching them, Colin could not tell which ones were talking and which ones were listening as all their mouths were moving. Mrs. Griffith had Bran curled in her lap and Mallory was lying at her feet. His mother, Tina and Marian were in another group of chairs and Tina was relating some story that made the other two women smile.
Colin’s eyes searched for Sibyl and found her, two terraces up, racing in a patch of lawn with Flower, three younger boys and Jemma’s two children. They were kicking a football in a rag tag game of soccer.