Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sephie stayed upstairs only long enough to ensure that her parents knew that their ordeal really was over and they were safe now.
Because she had absolute confidence in Ranulf and his brothers to ensure that it was.
“I wanted to kill that bastard with my bare hands,” Sephie’s father burst out vehemently, his fists clenched.
“But instead, I had no choice but to remain tied to that damned chair and watch as he dragged my wife away to lock her in the cellar and then later hit my daughter.” He was sitting on the bed, his arm about his wife’s shoulders, his gaze fierce as he looked at the bruise on Sephie’s cheeks and her slightly swollen lip.
“He hit you too. And I’m fine.” She gave her father a reassuring smile. “Really,” she comforted warmly when her parents both continued to look concerned.
Her mother gave a shudder. “I was so relieved when he brought me up from the cellar so that I could be with the two of you. But then the nightmare became even more dire when he started setting dynamite around the place. I really thought he was going to blow the inn up and kill us all.”
Sephie sat on the other side of her mother and gave both her parents a hug. “I think we all thought that for a while.” The sheer terror of living through those hours of constantly feeling in danger would take a long time to get over. If they ever did.
Her father nodded. “I believe he would have done exactly that if the Drake brothers hadn’t stepped in and saved us.”
Sephie had no intention of telling her parents that the situation wouldn’t have occurred at all if Edgar Wallis hadn’t convinced himself that the Drake brothers knew something about the existence of dragons, and because they did, they were hiding dragon treasure from him.
She was still having difficulty making sense of that one herself!
But, as she still had no explanation as to why she saw a castle and her parents saw a large house, she wasn’t going to question that too deeply right now.
The only thing that mattered to her was that her parents were safe, she was safe, and that none of the Drake family had been hurt during their rescue.
But she was still determined that the first thing Ranulf would do was share everything with her.
Until, that was, when, on her way back to the kitchen, she’d glanced into a room that in medieval times would have been the Great Hall—it probably still was, because Sephie could definitely envisage the Drake brothers sitting at the long table beside a fire that would be lit in the huge fireplace, a pack of salivating Scottish deerhounds waiting for them to throw the bones once the men had stripped the meat off them—and saw something almost as unreal as being held prisoner for hours by a madman.
“What is it?” Ranulf demanded as he rushed into the room.
“Sephie?” Having obviously seen for himself that Sephie wasn’t being attacked by a group of marauding invaders—her imagination really was running riot today, but was that so surprising after the last sixteen hours?
—Ranulf came to an abrupt halt just inside the Great Hall.
Sephie turned from where she had been staring fixedly at one of the long, carved panels along one wall.
Similar ones covered the length of the other three rough stone walls.
“I have never seen any of these specific and beautifully carved panels by this carver anywhere else before.” And considering, until now, she had believed she’d seen all of the cataloged works by this particular master carver, that was surprising.
Ranulf’s head tilted. “You recognize the carver?”
“I do,” she confirmed, smiling slightly.
“His work is unmistakable. I’ve studied all of them.
The wooden frescoes, the furniture, the animals, wild and domesticated, and mythological creatures too.
I can’t seem to stop studying them, even though his work isn’t part of the curriculum for my degree in European artists,” she admitted ruefully.
His brows rose. “Why not?”
Her gaze returned, as if magnetized, to the magnificent carvings of a battle.
She had no idea which one, or if the scene was taken purely from the carver’s imagination.
“Because I opted to study artists rather than artisans. I discovered his work quite by accident, after I saw one of them in a gallery while I was looking at some paintings by European artists. From the moment I first saw one of his carvings, I became obsessed. Everything he does is so intricate, as if each piece is carved with love.” Her fingers hovered above but didn’t quite touch the panel.
“This is just magnificent. So lifelike, it’s as if each of the figures could step down from the panel and appear in front of us! ”
* * *
That was because Ranulf and his brothers had been involved in ensuring the correct side won in many battles over the centuries.
And the reason the carvings looked as if they had been made with love was because they had been. A thousand years was a long time to be alive without having something to distract him.
When Ranulf first started carving eight hundred years ago, he began with furniture. Until then, apart from those pieces in palaces and the homes of the very wealthy, furniture had been of the rough-and-ready kind.
Ranulf and his brothers were all big, and dragons, and dragons didn’t do discomfort. Hence, over time, Ranulf had carved every piece of furniture in the castle, including the four-poster beds in their bedrooms.
“All is well, brother?” Lachlan prompted through their link.
“Perfect,” Ranulf assured.
“Then we will retire for the night. But you have only to call, and we will come.”
“Thank your mates from me. I could not have saved both Sephie and her parents without your help.”
Hunter joined in the conversation. “We’re family.”
“Good night and thank you, my brothers,” Ranulf told them sincerely.
“I’ve studied or actually seen all of this carver’s work since that first one,” Sephie continued, unaware of the brothers’ mental conversation because she was so engrossed in the intricate panels.
“I’ve only seen photographs of the majority of them, because most are kept in private collections and only put on display during special exhibitions.
” Her grimace indicated what she thought of that practice.
“That is a pity,” Ranulf agreed mildly.
“But you can actually see a couple of his works in The National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert, and the Tate Modern, and several other galleries around the world,” Sephie told him.
“I haven’t been able to see any of the ones out of England yet, but I live in hope that I will one day,” she added wistfully as she continued to stare at the carved panels on the roughly hewn walls.
“These are absolutely magnificent!” She turned to look at him.
“They must have cost you a fortune to buy.”
Ranulf had carved each panel, inch by precious inch. A labor of love, each panel carefully depicting a period in the Drake brothers’ history. It was his way of honoring and remembering the many centuries they had all been alive and together.
“I can’t stop looking at them,” Sephie continued to admire as she moved on to the next panel.
She sounded as awed as Zoey had when she had first seen the carvings and then realized that Ranulf was the one who had carved them.
Zoey had also told him about the vast number of books published over the years on his carvings. Of the mystery surrounding just who the carver could be.
Sephie had just admitted to studying those same books. Had told him that she had become obsessed with the carvings after seeing the first one. That despite it not being a direct part of her studies, she had continued to study and love them.
Could Sephie possibly have seen and recognized something in the carvings that appealed to her because they had originated from the man who was destined to be her future mate?
Ranulf sincerely hoped that was the case. “Sephie—”
“Is everything all right down there?”
A step out into the huge entrance hall showed Ranulf that Sephie’s father was now standing at the top of the stone staircase.
The man’s hair was tousled, and he was wearing a different pair of striped pajamas that Ranulf was pretty sure had never belonged to him or any of his brothers. God knows where Belle and Zoey had found them.
“My wife said she thought she heard Sephie call out,” he said.
Sephie joined Ranulf in the doorway. Close enough that he could smell her unique strawberry scent. “I saw a spider.”
The frown cleared from her father’s brow. “That would do it. You’ve always hated the little buggers,” he murmured affectionately. “No doubt Ranulf dealt with it for you,” he added with a warm glance in his direction.
“He did,” Sephie said as she linked her arm through Ranulf’s. “Go back to bed, Dad, and you and Mum try to get a good night’s sleep, hm?”
He nodded. “We will. It was…an ordeal, but we both feel safe here.”
“I feel safe here too,” Sephie told Ranulf softly once her father had returned to the guest bedroom.
Ranulf turned to look at her. Emotion swelled in his chest at how her steady blue gaze met his unflinchingly, her pink hair perfectly framing the beauty of her face. “You do?” He still answered her cautiously.
“I do,” she confirmed huskily. “But I’m still going to need you to give me answers to a lot of questions.”
“I will,” he promised.
“When?”
“Now, if you want me to.”
She arched her brows. “I noticed there was no comment made earlier about a bedroom having been prepared for me?”
Ranulf had noticed that too. “I think Belle and Zoey assumed you would be sharing my suite with me.”
Her eyes widened. “Considering we only really met today, that’s a big assumption for them to have made.”
Perhaps to Sephie, but Ranulf had been aware of and sought her out at every opportunity after first catching the scent of strawberries on the breeze some weeks ago.