Sarah’s gaze remained fixed on Hugh St. Owen. She still held him at arms length in an almost vice-like grip. Hugh eventually shrugged off Sarah’s hold on him.
“You’d better tell me what exactly has been going on,” he said at length.
They all sat down on the large twin bed. Sarah and Byron St. Owen related the story of that evening. Sarah told Hugh St. Owen about her discoveries in the hotel museum earlier in the afternoon. She showed Hugh the note, evidently sent from Vivien. The young man read it in earnest.
Hugh St. Owen looked up at them.
“Sarah, you are in great danger here,” he said. “ I want you to change rooms immediately. Byron, you will stay here, and I will share the bed tonight. Sarah, you take Byron’s room.”
Sarah looked startled at this turn of events and began to protest.
“It’s no use, Sarah. I won’t here any objections,” said Hugh St. Owen, “We are all in great danger. If anything happens Byron and I can take care of it.”
Sarah gave a shudder of fear as she thought of the terrible things Vivien and David St. Owen were probably capable of doing.
Sarah nodded and grabbed her small traveling case. Byron gave her his key and Hugh accompanied Sarah down the hall to Byron’s hotel bedroom.
Sarah was not surprised to see that the layout of the room was very similar to her original room. Sarah glanced out of the window and noticed that there was a night of full stars shining back at her.
“Oh, Hugh, look. The mist has finally cleared and what a beautiful clear night we have.”
Hugh St. Owen walked over to the window and leaned out.
“You’re right, Sarah. It really is lovely. And quite warm too.”
“Is it safe to take a stroll?” said Sarah.
Hugh St. Owen answered by taking Sarah in his arms. She looked up into his liquid brown eyes and felt her heart beat faster. Hugh bent down and kissed Sarah lightly on the cheek.
“Do you really want to, darling?” he answered.
Sarah started. Then she smiled. She could never recall his calling her “darling” before.
Sarah nodded, and the couple walked slowly to the door and down the spiral staircase to the hotel front door.
Many of the hotel guests watched open-mouthed as Sarah and Hugh St. Owen walked out into the night. Sarah smiled and secretly acknowledged the stares. It was one thing to walk up the stairs with one beautiful young man. It was quite another to walk back down again with yet a different beautiful young man on her arm some time later. And this time all she was wearing was her negligee, and only one of the green scarves around her shoulders for added warmth.
The two young lovers decided not to stray too far from the bright lights of the Anglesey Pines Hotel. You could never tell if the crazy duo would launch an attack out of the blue.
Sarah espied a garden seat near to the front door of the hotel. The couple sat down and breathed in the pure oxygen of the warm spring air.
“I can’t believe the weather here in North Wales is so changeable, Hugh,” said Sarah. “Earlier today the weather was like winter. Now it feels almost like a warm, summer night.”
Hugh St. Owen shrugged his broad shoulders and looked at Sarah.
“That’s how it is around here, Sarah,” he said. “Its like Vivien and David. You can never tell what you are going to experience with them next.”
“But what can I do?” said Sarah. She put her hand on Hugh’s thigh. “They want to use me as a midsummer sacrifice to satisfy some weird, demonic urge, Hugh. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Sarah shook her head in quiet disbelief.
The young man gently took Sarah in his husky arms and drew her to him.
“Don’t be afraid, Sarah,” he said, “We’ll get through this somehow. In fact, I think that we can lay a trap for Vivien, and put her out of action forever.”
Hugh St. Owen drew Sarah to him once again. And once again Sarah felt the heat and excitement of desire as the sexy young man kissed her tenderly on her full moist mouth. His hands found their way, slipping under the sheer silk of the thin negligee. Soon, magic fingers began to caress Sarah’s ample breasts. At once Sarah felt her nipples harden. She felt them standing to attention. Her blood raced and her heart beat even more wildly.
“Oh, Hugh,” she murmured, enflamed with desire.
“Let’s go to your room, Sarah,” said Hugh in a breathless whisper. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”
Sarah looked up into a beautiful masculine face filled with longing. Longing for her.
“Oh, Hugh,” she cried. “Yes, yes. Now. Let it be now.”
Hugh St. Owen got to his feet and Sarah could see the rise of his manhood straining beneath his brown woolen suit. Before she could react, Sarah was swept off her feet and Hugh St. Owen was barreling through the front door of the hotel and up the spiral staircase carrying Sarah in his arms. Sarah glanced quickly down the stairs. The hour was getting late and there were not many hotel guests around. Sarah smiled a sigh of relief. She did not want to be labeled the resident whore, she thought to herself.
Hugh St. Owen raced up to the door of the bedroom she had switched with Byron St. Owen. Held there in her lover’s arms she could see that the door was ajar.
Hugh pushed through the narrow gap, burst in to the room and stopped suddenly. There was a long pause. Sarah looked at Hugh St. Owen’s face. It was ashen pale. Slowly, gently, Sarah felt herself put down on the carpet in a standing position. She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She turned to look at where the young man was staring, dreading what she might see.
There, lying on the bed, was the outstretched figure of the young Byron St. Owen. To Sarah, his long, blond hair framed a face that was as pale as alabaster. His eyes were shut. He was motionless.
Hugh St. Owen bounded over to the bed and felt his pulse.
“He’s unconscious, Hugh,” Sarah said in a hesitant voice.
There was another pause.
Sarah looked at Hugh St. Owen. His brown, liquid eyes were full of tears. He shook his head.
“No, Sarah, he’s dead.”
Sarah’s lovely green eyes widened with horror.
“I can’t feel a pulse,” he continued.
“You must be mistaken, Hugh,” she said, “I’m almost sure I can see him breathing.”
In answer, Hugh St. Owen raised the head of his younger brother and showed her the ugly red and blue bruises on the dead man’s neck. He shook his head.
“Sarah, look. He…he was strangled.”
The young man further exposed the neck of Byron St. John for Sarah to see. She peered closer at the ugly red and blue marks on the younger brother’s neck and recoiled in disgust and shock.
The young man buried his face in his dead brother’s face. He started to weep uncontrollably.
Sarah drew in her breath sharply.
“But who - ”
“My crazy brother, David, of course. Vivien probably told him to do it.”
Sarah started.
“Then they really have both gone off the deep end,” she said.
Sarah started to walk over to her stricken lover.
“No, no, Sarah, stay away,” Hugh St. Owen cautioned, wiping the tears from his eyes..
“But what can I do to help?” Sarah asked.
“Inform the hotel management – and call the police,” he answered, “But don’t tell them of our suspicions. I’ve a feeling we’re not finished with them yet.”
Sarah nodded in agreement, too shocked to say another word. She then turned and rushed out of the room and down the spiral staircase and headed for the front desk. In doing so she nearly collided with the hotel night manager.
“Excuse me Miss,” he said in a worried voice, “Is something the matter?”
Sarah grabbed his arm and told him to fetch the police at once. The night manager wanted a few more details, and as soon as the word murder was uttered, it seemed to Sarah that the news seemed to sweep through the hotel like wildfire, even though the hour was drawing late.
Very soon there was the sign of police sirens and an ambulance screeching to a halt outside the front door of the hotel.
“Let us through, please.” It seemed to Sarah as if the ambulance driver and paramedics were shouldering their way through the hotel foyer and up the stairs within seconds.
Sarah looked up the stairs. She watched as the body of Byron St. Owen was brought down on a stretcher. The young woman could not help but notice that they had not covered up the face. Hugh St. Owen came tottering down the stairs, dizzy, shocked and disheveled just a few moments later.
Sarah hurried into his arms. She could hardly believe that the start to such a romantic evening had ended so horribly.
Hugh St. Owen looked hard into Sarah’s eyes.
“They think he’s alive, Sarah. They think they can revive him. He has the start of a pulse. They are going to try everything…” The young man buried himself in Sarah’s arms, weeping silently. Sarah could feel her lover’s tears soaking slowly into her bare arms.

“I thought he was dead,” he said in muffled tones, still clinging to Sarah.
Sarah started to walk slowly to the front door with Hugh St. Owen still buried in her arms. She felt a little embarrassed as she felt some of the hotel guests were looking at them with a mixture of pity and indignation. The British were not known for showing their feeling like this in public.
Hugh St. Owen straightened up and they walked shakily through the front door and into the night air outside the hotel once again.
They watched stunned as the stretcher was put into the ambulance.
Then they sat down on the same unoccupied seat where they had sat earlier that evening.  Some of the lights from the hotel still lighted the area, as more lights were switched on because of the present excitement.
Sarah couldn’t help but feel a pang of anger and disappointment, when she contrasted the happiness of that earlier hour with the horror and misery of now.
“I knew we shouldn’t have left Byron alone,” said Hugh St. Owen.
He gazed with tear-stained eyes at Sarah in the semi-darkness.
Before Sarah had a chance to reply, a policeman walked up to them and asked Hugh St. Owen if he would like a lift to the hospital so that he could be there with Byron St. Owen.
Hugh St. Owen nodded.
“Come on, Sarah,” he said, “Let’s get going.”
Sarah looked at the young man.
“Hugh…” she began.
Hugh St. Owen gazed at her with saddened eyes.
“Oh, Sarah, how thoughtless of me,” he said, “You must be exhausted after all you’ve been through.”
Sarah’s heart filled with warmth and an inner glow as she basked in her young lover’s compassionate remark.
“No, Hugh, I’ll come right now if you need me,” she said. Sarah patted the young man’s arm and let out a huge yawn.
She put her hand up to her mouth.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Hugh. I must be a bit tired after all,” she said.
“Will you be all right staying here?” he asked. “I need to get to the hospital to be with Byron.”
“I’ll be fine, Hugh, honestly,” Sarah said, “I’ll be along presently. I’ll get a taxi to the hospital. I just need some air right now.”
Hugh St. John grabbed Sarah in his arms and gave her a passionate kiss while the policeman patiently waited.
Sarah’s heart immediately quickened it’s beat.
Hugh St. John released her and arose.
“I’ll be along soon, Hugh,” Sarah said.
The young man gave her a wan smile and followed the policeman to a waiting car. Sarah waved as Hugh got into the police car, and in a moment it was gone.
Sarah sat down again on the garden seat lost in thought.
Gradually, as time passed, the lights of the hotel were extinguished one by one. Soon, there was hardly any light left at all to see by.
Sarah still sat there all alone, lost in thought
Why did David St. Owen, crazy though he might be, want to kill his younger brother Byron? Obviously Vivien de Gallois-Llewellyn  had a huge influence over the deranged young man. But still, Sarah could not figure out exactly why Vivien was so bent on destroying the family she had married into.
Sarah sat there pondering. She began to shiver. It was getting chilly again. The apparent signs of a cold sea mist were in the air. Sarah decided to get up and go back to the hotel. She could freshen up before leaving for the hospital.
Sarah arose to leave.
Abruptly a hand pushed at her shoulder and slammed her down. Sarah struggled to get up, but a hand clamped itself around her face. Suddenly a handkerchief was pushed up to her nose and mouth. Sarah could smell the acrid odor of chloroform and her whole body struggled against it. But all to no avail. She wasn’t strong enough to resist. She was held down in a vice-like grip. Sarah felt herself fading away.
Before she lost consciousness her very last thought was “Not again!”
Then everything went black.

What was happening to Sarah? Was she once again caught in the clutches of the crazy David Llewellyn and her wicked stepmother, Vivien de Gallois-Llewellyn? Where was she being taken this time? Would the sexy, Hugh St. Owen find out what has happened to Sarah? And would Byron St. Owen survive the vicious attack on his life by his deranged brother? See the next exciting installment in Chapter 23 of Sarah Llewellyn and the Druid’s Curse!
 

Read Chapter 23:  A TERRIFYING NIGHT AND DREADFUL DISCOVERY
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