Page 28 of Captivating the Countess
“I’d rather join you.” At her look of shock, Rainford smiled that lingering smile that made her heart beat a little too fast. “I thought I’d try to startle you into fainting so I could carry you away.”
She laughed and left him in Alicia’s hands when the dance ended.
After the lastdance had faded into memory, Rainford checked on the duke again on his way back to his own chambers. His father slept. The footmen sitting with him shook his head, indicating no change. Lady Craigmore’s nagging hag might lurk like the specter of death, as she claimed, but his father’s condition remained the same.
In his rooms, Rain ordered his valet to draw a bath. It had been a damned long day. He didn’t have it in him to tackle weights or bags to work off his frustration. He hoped a hot soak might empty his skull sufficiently to allow him to sleep.
He climbed into the steaming water and let the heat penetrate. He just needed to pry the memory of the countess’s lithe curves from every cell of his body. He’d had more than ample time to admire the way her golden eyes flashed, her pert nose wrinkled, and her wicked tongue lashed—and occasionally purred. Sitting at the dinner table with a lioness might keep him entertained.
At least her head wasn’t empty. It was haunted, apparently.
Picking up the soap and washing, he almost chuckled as he recalled the way the lady refused to accept anything less than honesty. Once he quit placating her, she listened.
And then let him lead her in the dance, even when he held her inappropriately close enough to feel her breasts pressed into him. He could almost imagine her legs next to his. The supple sway of her hips aroused him just imagining—
He almost dropped his soap when he thought he saw her peering at him through the steam rising from the kettle on the fire.
Rain rubbed his eyes, but the wavering image didn’t change. He squinted to better see the—apparition? His sisters would call it a spirit body, a projection of the soul...
Alarm pounded his pulse. He never saw spirits. That had to be steam and his own weariness conjuring... a vision of the countess in her virginal white night dress?
Even his tired mind wouldn’t imagine his tantalizing steward in virginal linen. If he was asleep and dreaming, his brain had a lot to account for.
The specter shimmered there, looking vaguely bewildered. Rain soaped his chest. The image’s eyes appeared to widen. Damn, if he was dreaming, he would wake up in dire need of relief. But the vision was so real, he sank lower in the tub, as if she could actually see his arousal.
She was transparent.This wasn’t real. His mind must be reacting to stress and months without sexual release. But the image seemed so—riveted and appalled at the same time, that he could almost believe that was her reaction to his nudity.
He was losing his frigging mind if he believed that. He stood and reached for his robe. His jutting arousal wilted when the image grew pale and vanished at sight of him.
Had she fainted? Was she dead and a frightened ghost? Was his brain deteriorating as his father’s body was?
Rain couldn’t sleep without reassuring himself that the countess was alive and well. He pulled on his robe and a pair of drawers against the evening drafts, then donned slippers. He had a master key if necessary.
Wide awake now, he stalked down his private wing toward the more public guest rooms where he’d installed his steward. If she stayed, he should offer her the cottage Davis had enjoyed. Rainford realized he’d been selfish in wanting her here, where she was at his beck and call. Maybe not entirely selfish—the lady shouldn’t be abandoned to an empty house. She needed company, if only to prevent her from getting lost inside her head.
Half terrified of what he might find, Rain knocked quietly at her door. No reply. He knocked a little louder. Nothing. Panic dug in its claws.
If she was sleeping, and he was the one having hallucinations, he would simply back out again. With that resolution, he applied the key to the lock.
She’d let the bed curtains down to keep out drafts. Rain crossed the carpet and pulled one back.
In the glow of the small oil lamp on the bed table, the countess tossed restlessly. Her short blond curls fell loose about her face, and her linen gown revealed every tempting curve.
She was alive. He should back away—
Her eyes opened, and she beckoned with a shapely, bare arm. “You came! Thank you.”
And with that, she sat up and caught his robe until Rain had to kneel one knee on the bed to prevent indecency. Which didn’t matter a moment later when she kissed his chest just short of his collarbone and pushed the robe aside.
He didn’t know what was happening here, but he disliked saying no to a beautiful woman.
Eleven
Bell surrenderedto the delicious dream. She had never understood that the male form could be so stunning... and tempting. She’d only seen Rainford in strangling collars and cravats and layers of wool and linen. It was easy to read disapproval in his angelic countenance when he was so stern and formal.
But in his bath... He was all luscious human male.
She had no idea how she’d come to dream of him in his bath. Thinking wasn’t part of the dream state. Now, in her head, he was magically here with her, and she let her dream self do those things she’d never consciously think. Having that big male body close had to be every woman’s dream.
