Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sephie instinctively liked and felt comfortable in the company of Belle and Zoey, Ranulf having introduced her to the other two women the moment she entered the warmth of the old-fashioned kitchen at Drake House.
She would forever be grateful to them for having taken such good care of her mother and father.
Belle seemed a little shy, but her glances toward Lachlan were full of love and heat. Zoey was louder and brighter, in nature as well as her clothes, the latter multicolored. But her love for Hunter shone from inside that big personality.
Zoey had also confirmed that the man now being held prisoner in the dungeons beneath them was definitely Edgar Wallis.
Zoey said she should know, because Wallis had been her guardian.
Sephie’s parents had let out cries of joy the moment she entered the kitchen unharmed, the two of them standing up to hug her. They had finished eating the stew and were now seated comfortably beside the warmth of the huge kitchen range.
Ranulf’s brothers, Lachlan and Hunter Drake, were much harder to read than their partners, despite the impulsive hug Sephie had given them after hugging her exhausted and tearful parents.
Both men were very handsome in the same austere way Ranulf was.
But just being in the same room with all of them, she once again sensed a restraint and power beneath their surface politeness.
She had sensed this same aura with all three brothers when she first saw them at Ben’s funeral after the New Year.
It was as if, as with Ranulf, there was something else beneath these two men’s tough veneer just waiting to break free. Something that was even more lethal than the threat presented by their already tall and muscular frames.
Nonsensical thoughts, of course, but Sephie could hardly be blamed for having a flight of fancy after the surreal day she’d just lived through.
There were definitely a few things she needed Ranulf to explain, though.
The main one being that, when they were in the church, Ranulf had seemed, had implied, that he had been waiting for some sort of signal.
A signal that Sephie had been totally unaware of. Because there hadn’t been one, and yet Ranulf had still known exactly when it was safe to make his move to stop Wallis.
But all that could wait to be answered later.
In truth, she could hardly believe that the danger was truly over.
The situation had appeared bleak, insurmountably so, after they had watched Wallis taking his time setting up the dynamite. Sephie had been slightly numb, mentally and physically, by the time he pushed her outside to walk in front of him on the snowy pathway from the inn to the church.
Sephie had felt some hope when she entered the church and saw by the candlelight that Ranulf was waiting for them, as he’d said he would be. But then the reality of the situation had surged back with the force of a blow that knocked all the air from her body.
For all that he was so tall and powerfully built, Ranulf had still only been one man pitted against a lunatic who was holding the device that could blow the inn to nothing but rubble. With her parents buried beneath it.
She knew she’d never be able to live with herself if she survived this situation and her parents didn’t. She doubted her parents would be happy either if the situation had been resolved with Sephie dead.
Instead, they had all survived, and Edgar Wallis was safely locked away in one of the dungeons beneath the castle.
Speaking of which…
She stood next to the range, absorbing some of its heat as she spoke to her parents. “Pretty impressive place, isn’t it?”
Her mother nodded. “I’ve always liked these old manses.”
Sephie sensed Ranulf tensing as he stood talking softly with his brothers across the kitchen. As if he could hear her conversation, which, considering the distance between them and the way Sephie had deliberately lowered her voice, he really shouldn’t be able to do.
“Do you like the Scottish manses too?” she asked her father.
“It’s a lovely old house,” he agreed.
A house, and not the castle that Sephie saw and had always seen.
“Perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm would like to go up to their bedroom now?” Belle prompted as she looked inquiringly at Sephie’s parents.
“Please call us Tim and Silvia,” her mother invited warmly. “And we couldn’t possibly impose on your hospitality any more than we already have. We should go back to the inn.” She gave an involuntary shiver even saying it.
“We insist you stay here,” Lachlan decreed in a voice that brooked no argument.
“For the moment, we would prefer you remain here with us.” He softened his voice and words slightly, as if he realized he had sounded too harsh.
“One of us will go down to the inn in the morning to tidy up and check that it’s warm enough for you to return.
There’s really no reason for you to go back there until tomorrow. ”
Sephie’s father frowned. “I thought you said you had dealt with the…with the danger of the dynamite.” He obviously had difficulty even saying the word, let alone contemplating the damage it could have done if it had been allowed to explode.
“Do you think there’s still some danger in us returning to the inn tonight? ”
“Not at all,” Hunter assured smoothly. “But it would be better if you had a good night’s sleep and returned there tomorrow. Everything always looks better in the light of day, I’ve always found.” He smiled.
Of the three brothers, Hunter was definitely the most charming. Lachlan was the most authoritative. Ranulf was…a man who hid his emotions deeper than anyone Sephie had met before him.
Except when it came to her. With her, he was…
Sephie gave him a glance from beneath her lashes, because the word that instantly sprang to mind in connection to him had been everything.
As far as she was concerned, Ranulf was everything.
He was there for her, and for the people she loved. Not only that, he was the sexiest man she had ever met, and his kisses had completely swept her off her feet!
“If you’re sure we aren’t being a burden…?” Her mother still hesitated about accepting the invitation. “I really feel as if we’ve imposed on you enough for one day.” She frowned. “The three of you put yourselves in danger to rescue us.”
“They were just showing off,” Zoey dismissed with a teasing smile in the brothers’ direction.
“Besides, we’ve already lit a fire in one of the guest bedrooms and aired the bed, and there’s plenty of hot water for you to take a shower.
We’ve also put some bottled water and clean night clothes in there for you both,” she added kindly.
“You’ve all been so wonderful to us.” Sephie’s mother reached out to squeeze Belle’s arm in gratitude, tears glistening in her eyes. “I hate to think what would have happened to us all if that dreadful man had carried out his plan.”
“We were Wallis’s targets. He should never have involved any of you,” the gruff Lachlan cut in apologetically.
Sephie’s father shook his head. “I have no idea what that even means, but I think I should warn you that the man is probably insane.” He leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Kidnapping us and hitting Sephie was bad enough…” He paused as a soft growl emanated from Ranulf.
When the growling stopped, he continued, albeit after giving Ranulf a wary glance.
As if he wasn’t quite sure of what he thought he had heard.
“Putting sticks of dynamite in the inn was really out there, but the man was muttering about dragons and treasure when Sephie was outside talking with Ranulf this afternoon.”
“Totally insane,” Lachlan agreed.
But he didn’t, Sephie noted, scoff or reject the notion of dragons or their reputed treasure hoard.
Whatever the truth was, it was obvious that the Drake brothers had become the target of the attention of a madman.
“Did any of you call the police and report what had happened?” Sephie’s father now prompted.
“I’m afraid that with the amount of snow that’s been falling all day and this evening, the roads into the village are currently impassable,” Hunter excused.
Again, Sephie noticed that he hadn’t actually confirmed or denied that the police had been informed of the situation, only explained that the snow-covered roads would make it impossible for them to drive here even if they had been told.
She turned to find Ranulf watching her with those enigmatic green eyes. There were no flames dancing in their depths at the moment, silver or gold, but the intensity of his complete focus on her was almost enough to set Sephie on fire.
There was no denying her attraction to this man—kissing him earlier had easily confirmed that.
She had never felt as aroused as she had for those few minutes when Ranulf’s lips claimed hers and he had lifted her and held her so easily in his arms, her legs wrapped about his waist revealing his arousal to her.
But, apart from knowing she enjoyed his kisses, Ranulf was still mostly an enigma to her.
An enigma she was falling more and more in love with by the second!
His brothers were included in that enigma.
But she did know that the three of them lived in a castle, no matter what other people might perceive it as being. Including her parents.
Which was slightly weird, but did absolutely nothing to negate or lessen her complete trust in Ranulf.
Wallis, the man they now all considered to be insane, had also told Ranulf he was only interested in taking “as much treasure as I can load aboard a helicopter.”
Sephie couldn’t stop thinking about this so-called treasure and its connection to dragons. A creature that most people in the twenty-first century accepted as being mythical.