Captivating the Countess

by Patricia Rice

  “I shall have to do so, I suppose. If it hadn’t been for Drucilla, Bell might have been on those steps all night or longer. Thank you both. If Sal was in the drawing room, can you send her in to me?”

  “When may we see the duke?” his sister demanded.

  “I’d let you in right now, but then everyone else would ask the same. Can you wait until I have some notion of what I’m dealing with? He really is doing better, and Bell is keeping him entertained, for the moment.”

  His sister didn’t like it, but Delahey led her out, reassuring her that they’d be at the bottom of this matter shortly. Rain wished he felt so confident.

  The problem was—he had to condemn a friend or family member—or one of his staff!—someone they trusted. Unless, of course, he believed a ghost had pushed Bell. Rain stripped off his coat and lifted his weights while he pondered his next move. He really needed Bell to interrogate the servants.

  Teddy barged in before Rain could work off enough steam to deal with him with appropriate composure. He wanted to bounce the brat out and teach him to knock.

  “I want to marry Pamela.” Teddy flung himself down in the chair Delahey had vacated. “How large a settlement can I have if we remove ourselves to London? We’ll need a flat.”

  “You’d rather marry a penniless actress than present yourself on the marriage mart?” Rain gave the weights one more swing before settling into his desk chair. “What brought this on?”

  “She said it’s the only way she’ll stay as my model. She’s a perfect model. She doesn’t sit there like a cardboard cutout but can act any part I need.” Teddy looked petulant. “Name me a wealthy lady who can do that.”

  “Any actress can do that if you pay them. Marry a wealthy lady and you can have a different actress every week. Be sensible for once in your life, Ted. Marriage is forever. Once you remove to London, Lady Pamela will wish to return to the stage. Modeling cannot be as exciting as the theater.”

  “I promised her a theater of her own. I am being sensible. I need an art gallery that brings better prices for my work, and they’re in London. Investors for a theater are in London. If I don’t have to pay a model, I’ll earn more. I’ve thought it all out.”

  Rainford rubbed the crease forming between his eyes. “If you have to pay for a flat instead of living here for free, you’ll go bankrupt in a year. And flats are as likely to have strange spirits to haunt you as country houses. Live in Sommersville and just travel into the city as needed. The place is sitting there empty, draining the coffers.”

  “Pam wants to live in the city.” Teddy frowned and rubbed his hands on his knees. “But Sommersville. . . I know the haunts there. They might add an interesting effect. . .”

  He got up and wandered out. Rainford closed his eyes, picked up a weight, and considered flinging it into the wall.

  While Rain waited for Salina to put in an appearance, Franklin rapped at the study door. “Lord and Lady Ives to see you, my lord.” The butler held out the silver salver bearing a card.

  “Gerard? Gerard is here? What in hell—” Dropping the weight he was lifting, Rainford reached for his coat.

  Bell’s sister arriving could not be a good sign, but he had to admit, having someone not part of the household to lend a hand would be a relief. He thought.

  Iona’s voice was already carrying through the entry hall. Neither of his visitors was likely to wait on ceremony.

  “Watch out, Rainford, she’s worked up a full head of steam!” Gerard’s booming voice carried easily, as did his laughter at his new bride.

  Still struggling into his coat, Rain exited his office and met his guests at the stairs. Gerard Ives wasn’t as tall as Rain but broader, with the usual Ives dark head of hair. His wife was Bell’s twin, although Rain could readily see the difference between quiet Bell and Iona, who tended to buzz busily like the bees she raised.

  “What on earth brought you out in this weather? I thought you’d be on your way to Italy by now.” Rain gestured for them to enter the small drawing room.

  Iona resisted. “Where’s Bell? The aunts telegraphed us of trouble. I want to see my sister.”

  The blasted prescient aunts. . . who had sent Bell here in the first place.

  Alicia popped out of the music room, where she’d no doubt been listening. “I can take you up. She’s entertaining our father while he recuperates. Lord Ives, a pleasure to see you again.” She bounced a curtsy. “You and Rain can have a nice chat—”

  “Capital try, baby sister.” Rain held up his hand. “If I let you in, then I have to let in the entire household. Go back to your piano. I’ll show them up.”

  Alicia stuck her tongue out at him as if she were still five-years old. Lady Ives looked alarmed. Trying to hold himself together when he felt as if he were cracking down the middle, Rain gestured at the stairs. “Lady Craigmore is doing fine. I’ll take you to her.”

  “If you’re not letting anyone in to see her. . . In where? Was there really some sort of trouble?” Gerard didn’t sound overly concerned as he trailed after his wife, who was practically racing up the marble stairway as if she knew where she was going.

  “It depends on whether you believe spirit voices.” Rainford knew the earl was a Malcolm as well as an Ives and not only believed in the family weirdnesses, but had a few of his own. He simply preferred to sound sane when he talked with someone outside his family.

  Lady Ives cried her sister’s name, and the duke’s door flew open. Despite all warnings, Bell ran to greet her sister. The twins hugged and cried and laughed and retreated into the ducal suite, closing the door behind them.

  “Would you care to join them or would you prefer a glass of brandy and a little common sense?” Rain asked politely.

  Gerard snorted in derision. “A hen fest or your fine brandy? Difficult choice.” Knowing his way around the castle, he turned around and headed back to Rain’s study.

  After introducing her twin to the duke, Bell retreated to the elegant bedchamber Rain had ordered her to stay in. “Did the aunts truly telegraph you before I was hurt?”

  Iona took off her hat and shook out her still too-short blond curls, fluffing them with her fingers. “They weren’t specific. They simply said danger, and I made poor Gerard rush us to the train station. You don’t look too injured.”

  “It’s still a ridiculous journey on the basis of very little,” Bell scolded. “And I escaped with little more than bruising, although it could have been worse. I had one of my comatose spells, and apparently an entity declares I was pushed down the stairs. For all I know, the entity did it. We have one who slams doors.”

  “Then we must take you away from here immediately!” Alarmed, Iona refused to sit.

  “And go where?” Bell took a chair. Her bruises ached too much to stand for long. “Do you know of any place that is without spirits? I cannot run from myself.”

  With a sigh of disgruntlement, Iona dropped into the other chair by the fire. “I rather hoped the Ice King would freeze any ghost daring to show itself.”

  Bell gestured for Button to bring them tea. She actually had a use for a personal maid! It seemed rather incredible. She’d prefer to be back at her books, but not while her sister visited.

  “Rainford is not as icy as he seems, I’ll warn you. He’s like your husband in that. They assume the airs society expects of their positions, but underneath. . .”

  Iona’s eyes widened. “He’s a raging fire of passion? I sensed that in Gerard. I must get closer to Rainford. He always seemed simply cold.”

  “I wouldn’t say raging fire.” Amused, Bell accepted her cup from the maid. “The marquess is not mercurial or romantic or easy to anger. He is a physician, after all, and he’s developed this supernaturally calm voice that even woke me when I was comatose. I’d call him more. . . intense.”

  “You’re in love with him!” Iona exclaimed, then silenced as she considered this development.

  “I did not say that,” Bell argued. In love with a man wh
o already had a houseful of ghosts and eccentrics? It seemed unlikely. “I admire him.” Well, she’d gone to bed with him, so perhaps she more than admired him.

  She wasn’t telling her sister that. “But now that you’ve mentioned it. . . Perhaps you can obtain a better sense of the guests than I can. My gift for ghosts is essentially useless, but if you could determine who might want to harm me. . .”

  “Hmmm.” Iona sipped her tea, distracted from her matchmaking. “I’ve never attempted to deliberately determine character or guilt or whatever you’re asking. That’s not a simple matter like smelling happiness or anger. I’m not sure how it would work.”

  “Start with Lady Pamela and Lady Dalrymple. They seem displeased with me. After that, I have no notion of who might wish me ill, and I’ll have to believe I simply stumbled.”

  “Is there any chance that you have learned, or might learn, something from your position that has worried someone? What about Rainford? Could he actually—”

  Bell cut off her twin with a vigorous head shake. “No. Not possible. Aside from the fact that I only keep household books, it’s not in his nature to so much as murder an insect. He’s forceful, but in a quiet way. He’s very much lord of all he surveys. He is of the sort who would find a much more devious means of shutting me up, if needed. Only, his intended ran off with his steward, and he made it easier for them, not harder. He is not cruel or vengeful.”

  “What about the other family members? His heir? Perhaps his heir fears Rainford will marry you and cut off his expectations.” Iona nibbled a crumpet.

  Bell wrinkled her nose. “You can test Teddy, I suppose. He’s an artist and a bit helpless. Rainford’s family is unconventional, but I don’t see any harm in them.”

  A door slammed.

  Bell winced—but she didn’t feel faint.

  Another door slammed. That was quite the outside of enough.

  The ghost wanted to speak—again.

  She was accustomed to sitting still, shutting out spirits, and letting others regulate how much of real life came to her so she would not be set upon by her own head. She’d come to Yates Castle in hopes of taking baby steps away from that cocoon and into the real world. She refused to be pushed into retreat, or to let Iona set up a barrier to protect her. She’d be back in her cocoon if she allowed her fear of the ghost—or anything else—to intimidate her.

  Determined to face her fear, Bell set down her teacup. “Button, will you go up to the nursery and see if Drucilla might join us here?”

  The maid bobbed a curtsy and hurried on her errand.

  Iona regarded her warily. “And Drucilla is whom?”

  “Lady Dalrymple’s very young daughter. She sees ghosts. She’s too young to understand what she sees, but she’s seen the entity slamming doors.” If only Bell had any inkling of how to make this work. . .

  By the time she had explained all that had been happening, Button returned with the five-year old. Drucilla did not seem in the least awed by the duchess’s elegant bedchamber. She merely looked relieved when she saw Bell.

  “The lady is angry again,” the child said a little more confidently than she had in the past.

  “Perhaps she is upset about something. Is your leg hurting from the stairs?” Bell crossed the chamber to pick up the child. She was little more than skin and bones.

  “A little. Why is the lady upset?” Dru settled down in Bell’s lap as if she belonged there.

  “That’s what we need to find out. Lady Ives, this is Drucilla Dalrymple. Dru, you needn’t curtsy to Lady Ives this time, but greet her politely, say Pleased to meet you, my lady.”

  The child buried her face in Bell’s shoulder but obediently repeated the greeting.

  “She’s frightened and in pain,” Iona said, apparently reading the child’s scent.

  “See, that’s the sort of thing you can tell us if you mingle with the guests. I can only surmise. For instance, the doors have stopped slamming. I have to assume our lady ghost is expecting us to reach out to her.” Bell grimaced at the thought. “But I don’t know anything.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything either. I am making assumptions when I call a scent fear. How does one talk with a ghost?”

  “Apparently one holds a séance, I hypnotize myself into unconsciousness, and the ghost moves in. I’m not enamored of the process. I would like to develop a better system.” Bell hugged the child in her lap, who now nibbled a biscuit Button had provided. “Do you only see the lady when she’s slamming doors?”

  “She’s over there now, walking back and forth.” Dru pointed at the unoccupied side of the chamber.

  Iona froze with her teacup half way to her lips.

  Bell tried to see what the child did but couldn’t. “The ghost apparently doesn’t know names. I can’t simply ask who pushed me. I’m not certain what I can do.”

  “She’s coming closer.” Dru crushed closer to Bell in fear.

  “Did the temperature just drop?” Iona glanced around, then tasted her tea. “I think the tea got colder.”

  Bell shivered and held Dru, not knowing how to face an entity she couldn’t see.

  Dru shrieked as an icy hand seemed to fall upon them and the suffocating atmosphere descended.

  Bring them together Bell heard herself say in a voice not her own.

  Iona added her shrieks to Dru’s.

  Twenty-five

  Rain paced his father’s sitting room after the child had been returned to the nursery. “Bring them together. . . What in hell does that mean? Pardon my language,” he added with a weary wave. “Who together? When, why, where. . . ?”

  Bell played a card at the table they’d set up for whist. Rain wanted to ask how she could sit there so calmly when even the family ghosts worried about her. But he thought she used her formidable mind as a barrier between her ghosts and the real world. He should let her build that barrier instead of disturbing her, but he couldn’t do that and protect her too. Not without locking her in an ivory tower, anyway.

  “If I could speak ghost, I would tell you,” she said. “Although if this is your grandmother, one assumes she means bring the family together. I could be wrong.”

  “Put everyone in one room and interrogate them?” Rain was all for that, using cudgels, if necessary. He just didn’t think it would work.

  “Before dinner, I tested everyone in the drawing room.” Iona drew a card from the deck. “If we trust in scents, there’s a good deal of worry and concern, but that could be about His Grace.” She nodded at the duke, who studied his cards and didn’t draw another. “I particularly tested Lady Pamela and Lady Dalrymple, but there isn’t much I can tell you. The actress smells of avarice, but she’s poor and you’re rich, and that’s fairly natural. Lady Dalrymple. . . is a little vacant, like a pretty flower with no scent. The ghost should try to occupy her.”

  “Or maybe an entity has and used her to push Bell,” Gerard suggested.

  In response, Iona slapped a card on the table, expressing her displeasure at the supernatural event that had caused the duke’s salon to turn icy and Bell to speak while still awake.

  Rain wanted to slap more than cards. His frustration level had reached new heights, even for him.

  “My gift for reading objects seems to be only for ancient history.” Gerard recorded points on the scorecard. “I know the journals say it’s possible to read recent events on objects, but so far, I’ve not found that true. Perhaps if a killer threw a rock, I might read his anger on the rock, but we have no weapon.”

  “We’re working on the Roman ruin we’ve found on the estate.” Iona followed her husband’s change of topic. “But even there, we can’t feel much. It’s as if the passion has to be very deep to sink into the stones for us to read.”

  “So I should bring Bell to the drawing room and let people throw stones at her?” Rain gloomily paced the salon.

  “Well, that would bring people together,” Bell said pertly.

  Rain knew better. She was angry benea
th that pleasant smile.

  He desperately wanted to keep her safe with him, but he couldn’t if she was in danger from someone—or something—in his household. “Should I send you back to Wystan with your sister?”

  “Wystan has more ghosts than here, I’m sure. It’s much older.” Bell laid out her winning hand as if she hadn’t a worry in the world. “See, I told you I’m much better at whist than chess.”

  “You’re taking advantage of a sick old man,” the duke grumbled. “I should be given a handicap.”

  Bell hooted inelegantly. “The way you gave me a handicap in chess? Besides, you are looking much better this evening. I think the diet Rain has set for you is helping.”

  And they had Bell’s psychic ability to thank for the duke’s appetite returning. How could Rain possibly pay back all the good she had done? Even if he could persuade her to marry him, he couldn’t drop everything and run off with her. He had a bad feeling she wouldn’t be safe here, with his family and their ghosts.

  Bell pushed from the table and stood. She wore a fairly conservative gold gown, but she appeared a radiant sun to him, and his longing to have his arms around her multiplied. He’d never be able to sleep in her bed as long as she was trapped in the duke’s suite.

  As if she had spent this past hour making a decision, Bell caught his eye and spoke calmly, with only a hint of resignation. “I think the ghost has used every ounce of her strength to manifest, leaving her unable to speak much.”

  Gerard quit shuffling the cards. Iona stopped pouring tea. Rain swallowed hard and refrained from interrupting. Bell so seldom put herself and her gift forward that it seemed imperative to pay attention.

  “I think she wants us to all gather in one place so she can show us who the guilty party is. I may have to give a séance to help her.”

  Rain could see how pale she was at the end of this announcement. “No, let me—”

  She held up her hand. “As far-fetched as it seems, if the motive is as I surmise, you may be the next to be harmed. I cannot live with anyone else being hurt. I have to do this. And we need to prepare the room to catch our suspect.”