Zoey couldn’t claim that she and Ben had been close friends. But it was impossible not to feel some degree of mourning after thedeath of one of the five other people she had shared a house with for the past year.
During term time, at least. Zoey usually spent all the holidays in Cornwall. Although this year, it had been a relief to escape the stilted atmosphere of Tregarthen House to take the train to Scotland for Hogmanay.
Ben’s death had been a tragic end to that holiday, and returning to the house in London had felt just as oppressive, which was why Zoey had decided to come to Cornwall, if only for a day or so before uni started again.
“Come,” was the abrupt, and predictable, response seconds after Zoey had knocked on the study door. Knocked and waited, because she knew Edgar did not appreciate people bursting into his study without an invitation.
The study smelled of the familiar pipe tobacco and leather. The former was because Edgar Wallis allowed himself precisely three pipefuls of the sweet-smelling tobacco every day. The latter because the chair behind the imposing desk and the couch in front of the window were both upholstered with a dark brown leather, which Mrs. Chenoweth made sure was dusted with a soft cloth and appropriately conditioned every few months to keep the leather supple. Leather-bound books also lined three of the walls, with a huge bay window dominating the fourth one.
“Goodness, it’s dark in here,” Zoey exclaimed, noting the only light in the gloom of the room came from the green desk lamp as she hurriedly crossed the room to roll up the blind covering the window. It immediately let in the soft gray light from outside.
She turned to face the man behind the desk. A man, despite the fact that he was sitting, she knew to be a couple of inches shortof six feet tall. He had light brown hair turning to gray at his temples, and faded blue eyes behind the glasses he wore.
At the moment, he was looking up and over them at her. “Good God, Zoey, is there a color of the rainbow you aren’t wearing today?” He closed the small book he had been reading and slipped it into one of the side pockets of his tweed jacket.
There was nohow wonderful to see you, what a lovely surpriseorI wasn’t expecting you, is there a problemor possiblyyou’re looking very pale, my dear, is there something wrong, or even just theis there something wrongwould have done!
But, raw as her emotions might currently be, Zoey knew she was being silly to expect any other reaction from the man in front of her.
Edgar Wallis didn’t do ‘concern.’ He only dealt in facts, and the fact was, Zoey hadn’t let him know she would be coming down today. Nor had she chosen to wear the more traditional clothing she usually did when visiting Tregarthen House.
But shewasvery pale. She dared anyone who had very recently witnessed the heartache and shock of the death of someone as young as Ben not to be.
As for the colorful clothing she had on, after those few days of wearing the most somber clothing she had taken with her to Scotland, out of respect toward Ben’s grieving family, Zoey had been wearing the most colorful clothing she possessed since returning to London a week ago.
Today, she had chosen to wear violet-colored dungarees with yellow daisies and green leaves on the bib, with a bright orange sweater beneath, along with blue high-top Converse. All colors which clashed abominably with her red hair.
“It’s lovely to see you too, Uncle Edgar! But if we’re being pedantic”—which she knew Edgar invariably was—“then I believe I’m missing indigo from the rainbow spectrum,” she added brightly as she bent slightly and he allowed her to kiss him on one of his thin cheeks.
CHAPTER TWO
Hunter,having moved to stand outside the window of the study where Wallis and his visitor were talking, now wanted nothing more than to gather Zoey up in his arms, breathe in her alluring scent before shifting into his dragon, and fly them both back to his beloved Scottish Highlands.
Once there, he would introduce her to his brothers and Belle, before taking Zoey through to the caverns in the mountain at the back of their Highland home.
It was where the three brothers kept their treasure hoards, and although she didn’t know it, Zoey had just become the absolute center of Hunter’s universe and the pinnacle ofhistreasure.
He mightwishto do that, but he hadn’t lived to be twelve hundred years old by acting without due regard for the consequences of his actions, to his brothers as well as himself. And shifting into a dragon before abducting a then terrified young woman would not go unnoticed.
He would ensure Zoey didn’t remain terrified for long, of course. But even so, Hunter believed it might take a little time toencourage her into seeing him as the true life mate he now knew her to be for him.
Besides, Zoey’s connection to Edgar Wallis was cause for concern. Very much so. Because Hunter was certain that Wallis was responsible for not only stealing a revealing journal from Ben McGregor, but also for the young man’s death.
The three brothers had survived living all these centuries because they always acted with caution. To do anything else now, even though Hunter knew Zoey was his true mate, would put them all in danger.
From his position standing to one side of the bay window of Wallis’s study, Hunter’s sensitive hearing allowed him to overhear the conversation taking place inside the room.
Which was how he had now learned that Rainbow Girl, as he had already dubbed the young woman in his mind before the butler revealed her name as being Zoey, was Edgar Wallis’s niece.
Which didn’t make any sense because he knew Wallis was an only child.
So who or what was Zoey, really?
Mine, his dragon purred.
Oh, Hunter had absolutely no doubt, and nor did his dragon, that Zoey was his true mate. Their nostrils were still filled with her mating scent of Lily of the Valley.
Hunter’s body also thrummed with a primal need to take and mate her, just as his dragon was eager to shift and show her his full magnificence.
