Page 33 of Captivating the Countess
Rain would argue, but that would only prove her point, so he waited for his father’s reaction. The old man was capable of feigning illness or health, depending on whether it got him what he wanted or not.
He began to understand Bell’s complaint about his manipulative family. They came by it naturally.
The duke finally nodded. “Fine then. If I can delay dying, Rain will have more time to court you. What would you like me to do?”
“Be a patient and not my father and do as you’re told,” Rain said dryly. “And because there seems to be some question of a bond between the healer and the enhancer, I’d rather participate than watch the experiment.”
With the old man’s compliance, Rain arranged the stage. He had very little confidence that they would accomplish much, but he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t try everything. He’d broken an arm as a youth. He knew how the healing energy felt when his father applied it. Unable to use his arm for sports or any other activity, he’d tried everything to heal himself faster, but he’d been forced to let nature take its course.
Perhaps he should advertise for a woman wise in the healing arts—and have every would-be witch in the kingdom on his doorstep.
“The assumption is that there is a blockage in the digestive system,” Rain explained to Bell once they had the duke settled in his bed, on his back, still wearing his robe. “He is down to eating only foods suitable for infants. I have no evidence of tumors, cancerous or otherwise, although there may be one buried too deep to feel.”
“I could feel them if they were there.” The duke was starting to sound querulous. “Food simply makes me ill.”
“I’ll sedate you if you can’t be quiet. I need Bell to concentrate on me while I focus on you.”
As he’d been taught, Rain pressed his palm over the duke’s abdomen, starting at the top, where the blockage would be more likely, if his understanding of the potential problem was correct.
Bell pressed one of her hands to his. They waited. Rain felt nothing. She added her other hand. Nothing.
They worked their way back and forth, slowly. All the organs appeared to be in their proper places and their proper sizes. Nothing felt different from his prior examination. No heat happened.
Even his father added his own healing hand. Nothing.
They’d failed.
The spirit remained silent.
Rather than lingeringto dine with the duke and his son, Bell took her supper in her room. Drowning in her own disappointment, she nearly cried for Rainford, who had to feel worse. The marquess wasn’t a man accustomed to being denied what he wanted. But the one thing he wanted more than anything else—he couldn’t have. He couldn’t control or manipulate death.
She tried not to think too hard about his suggestion that the spirit had toenterher for the healing to work. The spirit hadn’t been anywhere around when they’d visited the duke.
She didn’t know how to summon a spirit and didn’t want to. And she didn’t want it inhabiting an unborn child, even if her mind wandered a little too far down the path of fornication with the marquess. Rainford’s was not a warm and comforting personality, so it was only her animal lust appealing to her.
Being alone didn’t help. She felt as if the spirit hovered like a malignant being, waiting for an opportunity to pounce.
So she tried to keep her mind occupied by writing to Malcolm libraries for any information they could find on spirits inhabiting people. Then she took the medical tomes back to the library. She now knew more than she had about the causes of fainting, without finding any solution. Medical science simply hadn’t advanced far enough. Perhaps she could experiment with some of the herbs in Winifred’s tome.
Rainford was already in the library, working his way through more medical texts at the table where she usually left the books she’d finished.
They did their best to ignore each other—until doors started slamming in the distance.
Bell closed her eyes in despair. “I think that’s how she means to catch our attention.”
“Or Teddy has insulted another of his inamorata. I believe he’s installed a new one in his studio.” Carrying the book he’d been perusing, the marquess offered his arm. “Shall we see what we can do?”
“How?” she asked in exasperation, taking his arm anyway. “Do I stand on the stairs and yell at the nag? At Teddy? Is she using his emotional outbursts as a means of reaching through the veil?”
“I have no answers. For all I know, my father has figured out how to slam doors with his mind. Once you accept weird abilities, you have to believe anything.”
Rainford’s glance at her reminded her of the previous night, and she shivered. They had to believe she had somehow visited him in his bath while she dreamed, then spoke in the voice of his grandmother. That took a lot of faith and open-mindedness.
“For now, I’m believing in drafts a good carpenter can cure.” He led the way down the long corridor and into the main part of the house.
From here, the sound of fisticuffs could be heard.
“What the...?” Rain walked faster.
