Page 63 of Captivating the Countess
He could swear she was whisperingHelp me, help me.
Rain’s heart dropped to his slippers. He’d seen her like this once before—when she’d been in bed dreaming. Was this part of her dream?
Unable to tell the others what he was seeing without sounding as hysterical as the child, Rain swept Drucilla up and handed her over to Estelle. “Lady C, Lady Craigmore. I’ll check on her.”
He used a calm voice he did not feel to send the weeping child back to bed.
And then he set off for Bell’s suite in the north wing.
Carrying his lamp high, he took the route she would most likely take had she stopped at the nursery for any reason. He noted the unlit sconce, but his light revealed nothing out of the ordinary. He might take this floor to the far end and the servants stairs, but the slamming doors and unlit sconce had raised his hackles.
He started down, praying to find Bell in her chamber, dreaming.
At the sight of her crumpled and unconscious on the landing, Rain roared his anguish.
When he kneeled down beside her, a voice that wasn’t hers spoke through her lips.She was pushed.
Twenty-three
Heart ripping from his chest,arms filled with his lifeless burden, Rain shoved open a door of the ducal suite. Estelle rushed over in a flurry of exclamations.
“Rain, you can’t take her in there. That’s mother’s chamber,” she whispered worriedly.
“Andgrandmother’s.” With Bell’s beautiful eyes closed and her wicked intelligence silent, Rain operated on sheer terror and instinct. Elbowing his sister aside, he gestured for his father’s valet to yank back the covers of a bed that hadn’t been used in decades. “Right now, our grandmother seems to be occupying Bell.”
Estelle exclaimed some more and hurried to place herself between him and his patient so she might undo Bell’s clothing. “Why does she not wake?”
If he were to believe a spirit voice, becausesomeone had pushed Bell down the stairs.Or startled her into fainting, which would have the same effect. He had to protect her. “She fell down the stairs. She has a weak heart,” he heard himself saying instead. “And if I must nurse two patients, I want them near each other.”
That shut up his sister. It wouldn’t shut up all the other flapping tongues gathering outside the door, awakened by the child’s screams and his own resounding fury.
Rain was so far beyond furious that he feared melting all his brain cells. The cold chill down his spine probably negated the fury heating his skull. If he thought in nonsense terms, maybe he could survive searching Bell’s delicate frame for internal injuries.
She breathed. After a careful inspection on the stairs, he hadn’t found any broken bones, although that was a miracle given the angle he’d found her at. Her etheric projection, or whatever one called it, hadn’t followed him from the nursery as far as he knew. He hoped the child’s silence meant that hysterical vision wasn’t still hovering upstairs.
His grandmother’s harsh voice had spoken only those few words. He was shattering inside trying to decide how to handle this. Why would anyone push Bell?
Bell did not wake to tell him. Could her soul really leave her body while she lived?
Estelle efficiently pushed everyone from the room, ordering someone to fetch the countess’s maid and another to bring tea. Rain had no idea who would drink tea at midnight. He’d prefer brandy. But if it removed everyone from the room, he didn’t care if they ordered horse manure.
He unfastened the remainder of Bell’s hooks in a professional manner, not in the white hot heat of lust. He untied her corset and gestured for the valet to bring him his medical bag. With a stethoscope, Rain verified the stutter in her heart rhythm that he’d suspected. But she’d been living with this all her life. It might cause her to faint, but it shouldn’t cause unconsciousness.
Bell’s maid arrived, anxiously wringing her hands.
“Help me undress her.” He gestured at the valet. “Go back to my father. Don’t let anyone in but me. Take the tray from Estelle when she arrives.”
She was pushed.
How much did he trust a ghost?
Despite Button’s shocked objections, Rain helped her undress her mistress, leaving on chemise and drawers for decency. Bell’s courageous spirit didn’t waken.
This was what she feared—unconsciousness, her mind open and empty, allowing the haunts to enter her—or apparently, for her spirit to depart her body. And Bell was the only one who could tell him how to fix it.
The tea arrived. Now that suspicion ran rampant in his panicked mind, he didn’t dare feed anything prepared by others to her even if she woke. How much could he tell that to Bell’s new maid?
Why Bell?What had Bell ever done to anyone that they might want to harm her? It made no sense. He must be mad to listen to ghosts.
