Captivating the Countess

by Patricia Rice

  “That was the child screaming?” Estelle asked worriedly. “If you think Bell is all right, I’ll see to her.” Steady and reliable, his next oldest sister marched off.

  “Estelle will see to Dru. She’s good with children,” he murmured to Bell, carrying her over to the settee. He thought she nodded.

  “What do you think the spirit meant?” Alicia demanded impatiently. “What does it mean, his voice heals? Whose voice? How?”

  Lowering Bell to the settee, Rain turned and caught Victoria’s eye. “Go to Father, please. See if he’s still awake and reassure him that all is well. Tell him we’ll see him in the morning.”

  As the eldest, Vicky understood his unspoken command better. She caught Alicia’s shoulder and gestured at Salina. “Bell needs quiet now. Let’s leave her be. We can discuss this elsewhere.”

  “Where’s her maid?” Alicia asked, refusing to go quietly. “Bell needs a maid to look after her.”

  To everyone’s surprise, Bell raised her head and rubbed at her temple with confusion. “I told Button to wait on the guests first. I don’t need help.”

  When Alicia would rush across the room to ask more questions, Victoria prevented her. “Not now. Go to Father, and let Sal and I go to our families.” She all but shoved their youngest sister out the door.

  As soon as the panel closed after them, Rain took the place beside Bell and pulled her into his lap. “I simply need to hold you and know you’re breathing.”

  She snuggled against him without argument. “Did I drool and twitch?” she asked with resignation. “Did I make a perfect spectacle of myself?”

  “You fell asleep in a beautiful bundle of golden curls and frightened me half to death.” Rain tried not to convey his utter terror that they had somehow managed to kill her before he’d had time to know her better.

  “You’re a smooth liar.” She sighed and started to straighten.

  Rain began unbuttoning her prim bodice instead. “I should loosen that corset. You were not breathing properly, and your heartbeat did not seem regular.”

  “Very smooth liar,” she muttered as her bodice opened.

  “That’s because I’m not lying. I’m trained to observe, even when I’m having a heart attack.” But his interest now was not that of a physician. She had that part right. Her breasts swelled nicely above her chemise and the short corset. She was breathing normally now. Maybe if he surprised her. . .

  She gasped when he unfastened the corset and ran his hand beneath her chemise to her aroused nipple. Her heart rate increased pleasingly, so he didn’t stop.

  “What did the ghost say? Did she say we should do this? How will that help your father?” She didn’t shove him away, as she ought, but let him cup the heavy grapefruit of her bare breast.

  Knowing she wanted this as much as he did allowed Rain to proceed slowly despite his raging desire. He was confident that she’d not felt these sensations before, and he wanted her to enjoy the experience, to trust him. “The ghost was her usual insensible self. I think she is too old to remember names and is reacting more than thinking.”

  He hadn’t given it any thought until this second, but it sounded right. His elderly patients often forgot names and, sometimes, even why they were in his office. They just reacted to pain or discomfort and ended up where they knew to find relief.

  “But what did she say?” She fiddled with his cravat, attempting to loosen it.

  “The same as she’s said before, only this time, she insists someone has a healing voice and someone should enhance it. You need to attract younger spirits.” He helped her unknot the tie and unfasten his shirt studs.

  He was hard and ready to take her. He was terrified she would run away if he did. He’d learned his lesson—not every woman wanted him in her bed.

  She slipped her hand inside his shirt, found his nipple, and pinched—hard. “You are trying not to hope, aren’t you?”

  That did it. She’d offered a challenge. He accepted.

  Lifting her easily, Rain stood and carried her into the bedroom.

  Bell knew she should resist, but her resistance was nil this evening. She wanted this man as she never had any other. She wanted to know she wasn’t an oddity who could never have a normal life. She wanted. . . so very, very much. How much longer must she go on never knowing what real life was about?

  He was right. She’d been letting her fear of fainting and spirits control her life. If she ever wanted to live, that had to stop. She felt safe with this man holding her as if she were a precious gem. . . A hank of platinum-colored hair fell over his furrowed brow and his gray eyes smoldered with an intensity that burned straight through her.

  So she let him lay her on the bed and undress her. She could pretend Rainford was being a conscientious physician, except she tugged at his clothes while he unfastened hers. Once she had his shirt open, she ran her hand over his rock-hard abdomen and marveled at the ridges there. Did most men feel like this? She didn’t think so.

  “You must spend a great deal of time beating up your punching bags,” she marveled as he impatiently cast aside his hampering attire.

  The furrows on his brow relaxed and he actually smiled. He loosened his waistband before lying down beside her and kissing her bare breasts. “I lead a very boring life. It’s either beat up bags and lift weights or become a rake, and I don’t have the time for the latter.”

  “And you’re too well bred to tup the maids or keep a mistress in the same house with your sisters and your father.” That was as much a reminder as a comment.

  “I will marry you as soon as you say the word. I do not consider you a mistress. As you have rightfully demonstrated, you are a countess and do not need me.” Propped on powerful arms that bulged with muscles she hadn’t known existed, he leaned over and tasted her nipples.

  Bell knew she should argue about her suitability for marriage, but she couldn’t think coherently while her body was on fire. Fervently, she returned his kisses and caresses, losing herself in sensation. Somehow, her skirt and petticoat fell away. Rainford might not keep mistresses at home, but he was experienced in divesting ladies of their garments.

  Had she consented to this? She thought she had, because she was exploring below Rainford’s waist, trying to understand what she’d seen in her vision of his bath. That was apparently all the permission he required.

  It didn’t appear to matter what was proper or what she should do. This man knew far more than she did, and he didn’t seem to object to anything she tried. So she explored and responded with the wild abandon of an animal. When his long fingers stroked her through the opening in her drawers, she bit his hard shoulder and drew blood. He growled in her ear, then nibbled the lobe. She nearly shook with need.

  He obliged by caressing her where she ached the most—a physician’s healing hand, she tried to think of it. But when she came apart beneath his expertise, he caught her cries with his mouth and drank deeply, leaving her even more breathless.

  An instant later, her drawers ended up with her skirts and his trousers, and she finally had her wish. His maleness poised at her entrance, and she could touch him.

  Rainford groaned and let her test him. She had hardly begun to explore when he licked her nipple again, impatiently pulled her legs around him, and drove inside.

  Bell opened like a flower, taking him in, crying out when he breached a barrier, and then meeting him thrust for thrust. It seemed imperative to move, to keep up with him, to take this strong man inside of her and wring him dry.

  Only when her womb opened and Rain pumped his seed with a force that caused both of them to quake did she have a vague grasp of what they had done.

  She’d given the nagging witch what she’d wanted.

  Rain was accustomed to climbing out of bed, pulling on his clothes, and leaving after sex. It had ever been a physical release, much as beating up a punching bag was. He’d never been the lovelorn type to moon over a female.

  But lying here mindless now, with Bell’s war
m breath and soft curves easing his urge to solve problems, he lacked the desire to leave Bell’s side. Unlike other women, she didn’t want to talk as he rolled off of her, even though he knew he’d taken her virginity. He’d meant to do so. He’d assigned her this room with every intention of making her his, in whatever way she would have him. But somehow, in staking his claim, he’d left a piece of himself in her care.

  They had a thousand things they should say to each other, which were probably better said when dressed and sitting over a breakfast table. He should leave. But when she merely curled against his side and fell asleep, he followed suit.

  Much later, when he woke in the early morning hours, Rain still didn’t know whether to apologize. Neither of them had pulled the draperies, and a gray light found its way across the covers. Bell cuddled next to him like a warm blanket, her hand across his abdomen. He knew she was awake, but he wouldn’t harm her by using her for his morning arousal.

  “Don’t leave.” He finally spoke his worst fear, not even knowing he feared her loss until he said it. “I will marry you or not, as you wish, but please do not leave.”

  She kissed his chest, a gentle flutter against his skin. “So very romantic. I like that about you. Now go, before Button decides to make this the first day of her employment with me.”

  “We need to talk,” he said with all the authority in him. “About the ghost, about last night, about the future. And I wish we had the privacy of sharing my chamber without everyone watching our every move.”

  “I know, but first, we must visit your father. The only healers here are you and him. One of you must have what the witch wants.” She spoke as if she held something back.

  Rain wanted to question, but he was too relieved that she understood his priorities. “I’m not a healer. Voices cannot heal. But I agree, we need to tell him what she said.”

  Rain leaned over and worshipped at her breasts just long enough to know he could arouse her again. Then he kissed her swollen lips and rolled from the bed.

  “I hope you’ll let me share your bath someday.” He nodded at the bathing room with the cast iron tub and running water. “But I don’t want to press my luck today. After yesterday’s drama, I suspect we’ll have guests lining up to escape.”

  She pushed up on her elbows and frankly studied him as he yanked his drawers on over his tumescence. “I think I’ll enjoy the bath idea. I had no notion I was a wanton woman until you came along.”

  Damn, but that had him hard all over again. Rain pulled up his trousers and leaned over to kiss her. “A wanton woman would not have come to me untouched. I want to respect whatever forces allowed me to be your first.”

  And there it was, the hint that it might have been metaphysical, driven by a nagging hag. He knew what he’d wanted for some time. But Isobel. . . had been persuaded and not by him.

  “Curiosity?” she suggested. “See, I can be as romantical as you.”

  They both knew better. She hadn’t been curious until he and his ghostly nag came along, but Rain kissed her and hurriedly finished dressing. His valet would gossip. It wouldn’t take long for the gossip to spread to his sisters’ maids. And his sisters knew he’d been here last night. Bell didn’t deserve that kind of speculation. His instinct was to protect.

  He need to throw the entire company out of the house so he could have Bell to himself for a while.

  For the sake of Bell’s reputation, he slipped down to the duke’s suite and let his father’s servants find him in last night’s rumpled clothes, sleeping in one of the sitting room chairs.

  That should keep gossip to a minimum for a while longer.

  Nineteen

  Grateful she had told Button she didn’t need the maid’s services until after the guests departed, Bell stripped the stained sheet from the bed and rinsed it out in the tub. The luxury of having her own tub. . . She could never go back to Craigmore if she became so spoiled as to expect hot baths at any time.

  Unable to resist, she filled the tub with hot water and bathing salts and leeched away any aches from the evening’s exertions.

  Fear over what she and Rain may have done had her stepping out and hurriedly drying off rather than dreaming of repeating their performance. Was she even now carrying Rain’s child? One possibly inhabited by the spirit of his grandmother? If the chandeliers quit swaying and doors quit slamming. . .

  She’d never wanted to experience chaos, but she prayed for a slamming door now.

  She hung the sheet over the tub to dry and locked her bedchamber door. Then she returned to her original room in the main residence and threw back the covers as if she’d slept there. She had decisions to make and didn’t wish to be forced into them. She had spent much of her existence helpless, but now that she was free, she meant to take charge of her future.

  She dressed in her usual dark office gown, marking her as paid staff and not one of the guests. She’d dressed like this even at Craigmore. It was simpler to go from kitchen to field to village wearing few petticoats and dark colors. She might be a countess with her own estate, but she would never be an idle lady trapped in corsets and crinolines.

  Thinking of Lady Phoebe in her split skirts, feathered hat, and riding a penny-farthing all over Edinburgh, Bell smiled as she descended to breakfast. Malcolms were known for eccentricity. Rainford’s family managed a form of unconventional decorum.

  The lush tropical plants, the odd pets, and the need to explore séances and astrology were outcroppings of family talents. The duke’s family simply had no need to explain their weird abilities.

  She stopped to tell Mrs. Franklin that she wouldn’t need a maid in her suite yet. She didn’t want to cause additional trouble until the guests were gone. The housekeeper nodded and bustled on.

  Rainford wasn’t in the breakfast room when she entered, but it was obvious gossip of the séance had gone around. Everyone wanted a word of hope. She could offer them nothing and refused to be an object of speculation, so she didn’t join in.

  The slam of trunks hitting the marble stairs had everyone anxiously glancing up, but no chandeliers swayed, no doors slammed. The conversation turned to the weather and the train schedule. Unless Alicia summoned more excitement, it appeared Rainford was correct, their guests were escaping the madhouse.

  Lady Pamela arrived on Teddy’s arm. Bell had thought the actress had agreed to act in the play to attract one of Rain’s titled, wealthy guests, but perhaps she’d misunderstood the lady’s need to be seen. Or the play last night had been such a fiasco, that the actress hadn’t received the offers she’d wanted.

  That was an unworthy thought. Bell finished her toast, said her farewells to the guests preparing to leave, and returned upstairs to see if the duke was ready for visitors.

  She ran into Rain coming from that direction. He’d taken time to dress properly in his usual stiff collar and tailored suit, the very picture of a titled, wealthy gentleman—except his features were rigid with determination and his gaze, steely.

  Instead of being intimidated, she enjoyed the view. Daringly, she took his arm when he approached. “How is your father?”

  He unbent slightly to crush her hand in place as if seeking reassurance. “Eager to pretend I can heal him. Are you ready to try once more? I despise raising hopes, but sometimes, hope eases pain and allows patients to live a little longer.”

  She heard the despair behind his resolve. “I’ll admit that using your voice seems a peculiar means of healing, but if hope helps, then perhaps soothing voices do, too. We can only try.”

  With a bleak bow, Rainford led her into the ducal suite as if this were a funeral march.

  The duke’s manservant greeted them with anticipation, so he’d heard about last night’s séance. His Grace sat up against his pillows, looking paler and more like a silver-haired skeleton than ever. His breakfast tray hadn’t been touched.

  But his eyes were bright and clear as he watched them enter. “I’ve studied all the Malcolm journals on healing, and not onc
e has anyone mentioned the power of voice. We do, however, have family members who can command with their voices. Or entice, like sirens.” He appeared amused at the idea.

  Rainford grimaced. “I should sing the evil spirits away?”

  “Is that any different than a laying on of hands as they do in some primitive religions?” Bell asked. “Just because we can’t see spirits, doesn’t mean they don’t exist or respond to different energies. So let us keep open minds.”

  “I’m not singing.” Rainford gestured for his father to lie down in his bed. “I am not convinced that the ghost even means me. Perhaps she meant Father to use his voice.”

  “My mother didn’t live to know the names of my children, so she doesn’t know yours,” the duke reminded them. “If she’d meant me, she’d have said so.”

  Bell let the men quibble while she concentrated on her sister’s explanation of how Iona enhanced her husband’s gift by bonding.

  This time, Bell thought she and the marquess might be bonded, if the marital sense of the word counted.

  As a physician, Rain knew women could be healers, nurses, and midwives. He was still reluctant to expose a countess to a patient or his father to a lady. But if Bell could attend a séance and be possessed by his grandmother, he had to accept that she wouldn’t quake at seeing a duke in his nightshirt.

  Still, he felt the last thing from composed as he stripped back the bedcovers. The father he remembered had once been as broad and strong as Rain, but these days, he had shrunk to half that size. Rain could feel every rib as he poked and prodded, testing for sore places.

  The duke placed his own hands over the upper part of his abdomen. “The chronic indigestion and the inability to digest solid food indicates the involvement of stomach or duodenum. I’ve read everything in the books. Very little seems to apply.”

  Rain knew all that. He also knew his father had suffered a severe blow to that area from a carriage accident a few years ago and that he’d always been a picky eater because of the embarrassing results of chronic indigestion. But the emaciation was definitely caused by not eating enough to keep a bird alive these last years.