Page 32 of Captivating the Countess
His father’s curiosity was as strong as his own. Rainford suppressed his anger before speaking. “Lady Craigmore is waiting outside now. She wants to know more about your mother.” He saw the surprise on his father’s lined visage but the wily old man simply gestured for him to bring in his guest.
With a degree of trepidation, Rain returned for Bell. “Perhaps the midwife’s recipes are helping. He seems to be feeling better. Estelle has told him about your vision in the ballroom and he’s curious. Are you prepared to explain?”
“That I hallucinate?” she asked with wary humor. “Or do I play normal?”
“Be yourself,” he ordered. “If we’re doing this, we have to be honest with each other.”
He hadn’t realized how important that was until now. For most people, Rain played a part, just as she did. Society expected them to be stiff and formal to the extent that he was expected to call a wife Lady Rainford.
But he was a physician and couldn’t tolerate society’s hypocrisy in pretending men and women didn’t have mentionable body parts. He despised the notion of someday losing all identity to become just His Grace or Duke. He couldn’t treat patients like that. His family had never required that level of formality, but they were known eccentrics.
So he’d always dreaded marrying a lady he barely knew who would expect that formality. But now that he’d met Bell, he realized it didn’thaveto be that way. Only he didn’t have time for searching for another improper female outside his exalted circles.
Despite her obvious trepidation, the quiet countess nodded, gripped his arm, and didn’t hesitate to follow him through the bedchamber to his father’s private parlor. Others might dismiss her as a vaporish female, but she had courage.
She dipped a curtsy and waited for his father to speak first.
“You have Norse blood as well, don’t you?” The duke surprised them both.
“My family is from Inverness. One assumes through the ages of Nordic occupation, they mixed with the locals.” A hint of humor laced her voice. “You think that is why your mother speaks to me? We have some common denominator?”
“I know nothing of spirits.” He waved a frail hand dismissively. “Sit. Rain, quit hovering. Find a chair.”
Rain assisted the countess to the chair by the fire and carried over a desk chair to place between them. “Can you tell us more about my grandmother? Did she have... What is it that Lady Phoebe calls us? Psychic? It sounds better than weird. Other abilities?”
“Psychic—from the Greek? Of the soul, spirit, and mind?” The duke nodded. “Good word. You’ll understand that my mother died when Teddy’s father was born, when I was only twelve. She wasn’t a Malcolm, didn’t have our traditions, and left no journal.”
“You must have some memory of her.” Rain tried not to sound frustrated.
“She occasionally helped my father in the clinic. She spent more time in the nursery with my younger sisters than most mothers do, I believe. But I was sent off to school when I was eight. My impressions are from holidays at home. Earlier than that—those are hazy.” The duke puckered up his forehead in thought. “She did not strike me as a particularly spiritual woman. She tended to be blunt and pragmatic.”
Bell laughed a little, glanced at Rain for permission to speak, and added her piece. “If it is your mother speaking to me, she is extremely blunt and pragmatic. Conversation is not simple with someone who has been dead for fifty years or so, and asking questions does not seem to be possible. But if I’m understanding, she may have had some healing ability of her own?”
“Huh, hadn’t thought of that.” The duke looked from Bell to Rain. “What is it you’re thinking?”
Bell stepped in before Rain had to explain the impossible. “If you wish to believe I am possessed by the spirit of your mother—and I can certainly understand your doubts—she seems to be saying I must help Lord Rainford in healing you. It is the only interpretation I can make.”
“My interpretation is that the spirit knows how it is done and wishes to occupy Bell to do so. I do not wholly approve.” There, he’d said it. He could almost feel Bell bristle with objection.
“Hmph.” The duke studied them. “I have tried to train you in how to do the things I learned from my father. He never mentioned a need for assistance.”
“Did he sometimes hold your hand as you did with me—to show how the energy feels?” Rain kept his voice neutral. He’d never felt a healing heat, with or without his father’s aid.
The duke puzzled over that a moment. “I suppose he did, when I was younger. We were seldom in the same place at the same time, mind you. I was in school and training. It was just a natural part of the examination to use our hands. The few times we worked together, he’d show me how to feel a tumor or close a wound or help a bone knit.”
“But it could be that he knew how to useyourhealing energy as he had his wife’s,” Bell said with excitement.
Rain wasn’t as enthused. “But I exhibit no healing ability and neither do you,” he reminded her.
“But I may have Iona’senhancingability. Perhaps I should work with the duke first, since he does have a gift?” She sounded as confused as he felt.
“Physician, heal thyself?” His father chuckled. “And you think I haven’t tried? Rain is simply trying to avoid marriage.”
Ha, here’s where he thwarted the old man. “Not so. I have asked the countess, but she has some notion that she’s useless. If we can prove that she can, indeed, aid in healing, then I may talk her into it.”
“Well played, both of you.” His father gestured his approval. “So, how much better must I be before you’ll both accept you’re good together?”
“Oh, we’re not good together,” Bell assured him. “Your son is too determined to have his own way. His way isn’t my way, so we argue. As an employee, I can obey his orders or leave. I do have my own estate, after all. Marriage would reduce me to his subject and ruin that freedom. But I do wish to help, if I can. I would do anything to have my own mother back, so I understand.”
