Captivating the Countess

by Patricia Rice

  Rain considered throttling her out of her complacence, but he propped his hip against his desk as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Will you explain why you’re here, please?”

  Long lashes swept upward as she cocked her head to consider him. “The ladies at the School of Malcolms said you were in need of a house steward. My estate needs income more than it needs me. The Earl of Ives assured me yours would be a suitable position. He was most eager to help you out. If we are wrong and have been presumptuous, I’ll be gone on the morrow.”

  Rain understood all the twisty connections here, and he might have been grateful—had his steward gone missing before she left home. “You traveled all the way from Edinburgh to York as a favor to Ives?”

  “No, not really.” She continued to study him with those disturbing eyes. “Perhaps you might tell me if the position is open so I know how to respond?”

  “I’d like to know how you knew my steward would disappear before he actually did,” he countered.

  “Oh. I feared it might be something like that.” She set her cup aside. “My apologies. I did not mean to disturb you with the ladies’ prescience. Even I did not know.”

  The ladies’ prescience, of course. He was not directly related to the women running the school, but they were Malcolms, like his father’s family. One never knew if they were privy to undercurrents of gossip that escaped normal people, or if they really saw things others didn’t. How could he counter that declaration?

  He gestured for silence while he thought. Amazingly, his guest held her tongue. Recalling the peace he’d sensed when she first entered the house, he considered her quiet presence now. Even though his sisters were still singing and apparently adding a violin to the medley, the countess emanated a composure that allowed him to think.

  Lifting his new hand barbell up and down to calm his churning thoughts, he explained. “Araminta never tried to fit in here, even though she knew this was my home. Admittedly, it’s little better than an insane asylum. I had hoped my sisters might befriend her, but their attempts only bewildered her.”

  He’d known all this, but he’d been assured every woman longed to be a wealthy, titled lady. As far as he was concerned, women were from another planet, so he’d accepted the platitude. Nothing in his experience had changed his mind, until now. He tried to sort out what he’d done wrong.

  “I assume she’s young?” the countess asked without judgment.

  “Just twenty, but old enough to appear sensible.” And produce numerous heirs who would keep Teddy from ever inheriting. He didn’t see a reason to explain this. He wasn’t sure why he was saying anything at all except that he needed a sensible head to balance his senseless frustration. He’d pound his punching bag before he lashed out and hurt anyone.

  The countess set down her empty cup. “The young are always more impetuous and passionate than rational. I assume she has a dowry, and the gentleman she ran off with is older and lacking funds?”

  Rainford grunted an acknowledgement. “Aye, blame the man, of course. The maternal side of my family is not wealthy, so you’re correct on that count. John has no other means of support except ours, so Araminta’s dowry might be a temptation. Except my father paid for his education. We offered him the position of steward so he could gain experience. He was grateful and performed his task well. He had a good position here. He didn’t need her dowry. Araminta must have turned his head. Women can do that to a man.”

  He had never been foolish enough to fall for a pretty face, but Rain had watched it often enough to understand how it happened. A coy laugh, flirtatious smiles, a wink. . . and a man lost all his brains.

  He hadn’t thought Araminta that type. She’d certainly never attempted those ploys with him.

  “Oh, yes, of course, blame the lonely, young woman ignored by her host, left to her own devices in a strange house, grateful for any attention.” Although her tone was devoid of emotion, the sarcasm was clear. “If your cousin and your intended mean anything to you at all, I do hope you will see them settled comfortably somewhere. It will be good for your soul. If you will call a maid to lead me to Mrs. Malcolm, I’ll try not to interfere anymore. And I’ll be on my way in the morning.”

  She rose, but Rain blocked her exit. She was slight, but taller than he expected, reaching his shoulder when she stood straight and confronted him. She might look modest, frail, and ladylike, but those were daggers in her glare.

  “You blame me for this debacle?” he asked in surprise.

  “I do not think blame is the appropriate reaction.” Her tone was as tart as her expression. “Concern for the distraught woman upstairs, for the young couple facing enormous hardship. . . Those are worthy responses. I cannot help you with either of them. I have come at a bad time, and I will trouble you no more.”

  “You came for John’s position before he’d even left it. That is strange timing but not exactly bad. No matter what I choose to do about the runaways, I cannot trust him enough to allow him to return to my employ. I need someone to go over his books to be certain he has not run off with the staff’s wages, if nothing else. Are you capable of doing that?”

  “I have a reference from Calder Castle.” Her manner was still brittle. “I have spent the better part of my life handling accounts for my estate. Your books are larger, no doubt, but no different otherwise. I can do the task, but I do not want it. Your household does not meet my requirements.”

  His household did not meet her requirements? Castle Yates was known as the most luxurious, most modern estate in the kingdom. And this snippet of an impoverished countess disdained it?

  A female—possibly an unstable, ill one—as steward. She was right, of course. He should let her go. But Rain was a desperate man. Desperate men did desperate things—

  As if in warning, doors slammed again, the monkeys shrieked, and the opera singer shattered glass.

  He stepped aside and pulled the bell rope. “You’re hired. Name your terms.”

  Did she want to be hired? Wincing at the operatic scales drifting down from a distant upper story, Bell followed a maid up the marble stairs to the room she’d been assigned, next to Winifred, she hoped. She really needed to talk to someone who understood. Her desire to flee this chaos was great—but the marquess had said she could name her terms.

  To someone who had never had much control of her life, the temptation was formidable. She could ask for peace. And for her own maid. A place of her own—

  And use of the enormous library Iona had told her about.

  Unpinning her hat, taking off her gloves, Bell admired the pretty blue chamber. A thick Turkish carpet in muted blues, gold, and red hushed the click of her shoes. Gold and blue striped draperies covered large mullioned windows that looked out over the immense park surrounding the castle. A poster bed draped in ruffled gold damask promised a soft mattress and plenty of protection against winter drafts.

  Was this the room one gave a steward? She assumed not.

  What sounded like breaking glass in the distance rattled the spirits even more, although her heavy chamber door muted the worst of the caterwauling. The operatic cries bounced off hard surfaces, enhanced by two stories of echoes and a voice apparently designed to reach the back row of a noisy theater.

  A child’s abrupt cry almost startled her into a faint. Clutching the door knob, Bell steadied herself and counted backward to keep out the spirit voices. The cry stopped.

  Taking a deep breath to halt her trembling, Bell knocked on a connecting door. To her relief, Winifred’s cheery voice greeted her. She entered a chamber in colors almost the reverse of hers, with the gold dominating and the blue as accents.

  “I’ve been hired,” she said flatly. “I can name my terms.”

  Winifred nodded and gestured at a chair. “He needs you. It’s obvious.”

  “Not to me. He has an enormous staff. I wager his housekeeper knows how to keep his accounts as well as I can.” With a sigh, Bell settled in the chair and poured tea from the po
t on the small table.

  “And?” Winifred raised her graying eyebrows.

  “And the place is such a tumult that they’ve thinned the veil beyond my ability to prevent spirits from crossing.” Bell finally admitted what had been bothering her ever since she’d entered this beautiful house. “I so wanted this to be a place of peace and harmony. Iona says one entire wing is devoted to every new book that is published in the kingdom. I’ve perused all the appropriate Malcolm journals in Calder and Wystan and have yet to find a solution to my fainting. I was hoping perhaps a medical journal. . .”

  “The duke is a healer. The marquess is said to be one. They are both physicians and Malcolms. They will understand.”

  “I have a feeling they have enough problems of their own. I don’t wish to burden them with mine.”

  Winifred frowned over her teacup. “The maid gossips. She said Rainford’s intended has run off with one of the staff. Was that the cause of the distraught spirit you sensed?”

  “That was the lady’s mother, not a spirit. Do you know anything of them? I didn’t even catch a name. Are they wealthy? Titled? Why, after all these years, did the marquess settle on a flighty young miss?”

  “The Honorable Araminta Rutledge, second daughter of Baron Rutledge, very old family, wealthy enough, although not to the duke’s level.” Winifred nodded knowingly. “It’s not a spectacular match, but Rainford has no need to marry wealth or title. Since he does not seem an unintelligent man, one assumes he looked for character.”

  “As well as age and looks,” Bell added cynically. “She is only twenty.”

  With her graying hair pulled back in a simple chignon, Winifred appeared the part of wise sage that she was. “Rainford is a Malcolm. Unless he marries an Ives, his chances of producing a son are slim. The current duke only had the one son and quite a few daughters. His younger brother only had one son. The pattern dates back a century or longer, one or two sons and no more. The Rutledges are related to the Ives in some manner, so her ability to produce heirs may have been a deciding factor.”

  One of the reasons Bell’s title came down through the female line was her Malcolm heritage. She understood the dilemma—Malcolms produced girls. “And the current duke is dying, so there must be extra pressure on the marquess to marry. No wonder the place is practically bursting with tension. The question becomes, do I stay or not? I certainly don’t wish to add to their burden, but naming my own terms is a temptation.”

  “You said a spirit asked you to save the duke. I have no idea how that is possible, but I don’t think you can leave until you learn more.” Winifred finished her tea and looked sad. “I wish I could stay to help.”

  “No, your son is ill. He needs you. I have many people to call on, if need be. Your son has only you. You’re hardly leaving me in a dangerous situation! Compared to Craigmore, Castle Yates is heaven on earth.”

  “Methinks she doth protest too much.” Winifred smiled and stayed seated while Bell rose. “But you’re correct. You shouldn’t come to harm here. I do hope you’ll find someone to travel with you if you decide to leave. Fainting on a train cannot be healthy for a woman alone.”

  “I’ll ask for enough salary to hire a travel companion,” Bell promised. “But for now, I have need to shut up that wailing human banshee agitating the spirits.”

  “That’s not the task of a steward, dear,” Winifred reminded her, smiling faintly.

  “That’s the task of anyone concerned about the poor patient confined to bed and forced to listen. I cannot imagine why anyone allows it to continue.” She headed for the door.

  “And here I thought you were supposed to be the quiet, bookish twin.”

  Bell stifled a small laugh. “I’m only quiet because Iona is so vocal. I know how to speak for myself. My main concern is avoiding breaking my neck on the stairs if the noise startles me into the vapors.”

  “You mustn’t let fear control you.” Her companion frowned in concern.

  “Fear leads to caution, which in my case, is a good thing. It prevents me from being as rash as Iona.” Bell slipped back into her chamber before Winifred could warn her that living in fear wasn’t much of a life. She knew that. She simply had no choice.

  Save my son rang in her head as she checked her reflection. Brushing and pinning the dyed ends of her too-short hair into a tighter knot, she was relieved that her normal golden-brown color was almost back. She shook the wrinkles from her travel gown, wondering if she was expected down to dinner. She had no maid to press her one decent evening dress.

  She could demand a maid as part of the terms of her agreement.

  She had to learn to live her life as a normal person and not let it be controlled by the spirits of people long gone. Occasionally, though, her life and a spirit’s request intersected. Perhaps she should heed the frantic ghost’s call.

  The wide corridor outside her chamber seemed to sprawl half a mile in both directions. The marble stairs did not continue upward past the suites situated at the first landing. But at each end of the hall were spiral staircases, where the corridors connected with more wings. Following the agitated spirits and a now-muted argument above, she turned left from her chamber. Grimly clutching the stair rail, she ascended to the next floor. The treads spiraled up another level, but the voices seemed close.

  A woman’s sudden outburst of fury rattled the rafters. More doors slammed. Bell studied this upper corridor where the rooms appeared to be smaller, judging by the frequency of the doors on her right. On her left, the wall held a gallery of oil paintings, mostly darkened old things of ancestors, with the occasional bust or statue to break up the effect.

  “You never listen!” an operatic female cried from behind one of the panels. “We belong in London! We could be glorious together!”

  Bell couldn’t interpret the male rumble that replied. Whatever he said was apparently not what the woman wished to hear. She screeched in high C, shaking the sconces on the wall—possibly the reason the art displayed was stone and not delicate porcelain.

  A door on her right slammed open and a tall, voluptuous woman with blue-black hair emerged in a towering rage, flinging curses over her shoulder. In her fury, she almost stumbled over Bell, who waited patiently to be noticed.

  “What are you doing here?” the woman demanded, righting herself with a distinctly ruffled-feather fluff of her fashionable taffeta skirt—in black, of course. “He has no appointments today.”

  “I’m merely here to request the simple human decency of peace and quiet. The duke is ill and should not be disturbed by this level of drama.” Bell was accustomed to the authority of her small estate and did not shy from it. Still, she knew this was an overstepping of boundaries.

  But the spirit battering to enter her head quieted, as if waiting for a response.

  A big, burly, auburn-bearded man appeared in the open doorway, a paintbrush in hand. “Carla only speaks diva. We didn’t mean to disturb the duke. Carla, you can go away now. London is calling.”

  Ruby red lips parted but before a noise could emerge, a door slammed, and Bell held up her hand. “You are ripping a hole in the veil with your voice. Can you not tell you’ve disturbed the spirits? Doors do not slam of their own accord.”

  Both diva and bearded man stared at her, wide-eyed. Oh well, if she named her own terms, then accepting her weirdness must be one of them.

  “You are a spiritualist?” the diva finally asked, in an almost normal timbre.

  “I do not hold séances, if that’s what you ask. But this house is inhabited by many spirits who would normally coexist quietly with the living. Except they tend to hover if someone is dying, and they are as affected by disharmony as the rest of us are. You would do everyone a favor if you would keep your disagreements to a low roar.”

  “Who the devil are you?” The bearded man leaned against the door jamb, appearing amused. “Did Rain bring you in to natter everyone into behaving?”

  “I brought myself. The spirit’s cries for help
reached me all the way in Edinburgh, that is how much you’re disturbing the afterworld. Perhaps you should do what the lady asks and go to London.” Bell only exaggerated a little. She didn’t think this smug pair would listen otherwise.

  “See, I am right! We must go to London. Your loved ones beyond the veil say so.” The diva glared at the painter.

  Burly man shook his head negatively. “Not leaving. I’m designing an architectural masterpiece that will bring the world to our door once I have the funds. I’ll not hasten my ducal uncle’s demise, but I’ll be here when he departs this mortal coil. So shut up, Carla. I refuse to be blamed if he dies during one of your operatic dirges.”

  He held up his hand the instant the diva opened her mouth. Glaring, she flounced away.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.” He held out his hand. “I’m Theodore Winchester, Junior, Rainford’s heir. And you are?”

  “The Countess of Craigmore and Rainford’s new steward.” Not accepting his paint-splattered hand, she curtsied and walked away, her mission accomplished.

  She almost heard the spirits sighing in relief. One might have been sniggering, but she refused to notice.

  She had done it now, accepted a position in a house filled with more turmoil than anything her small estate had ever produced, even during her stepfather’s drunken rages.

  Four

  Relieved by the miracle of silence briefly descending on the old halls, Rain made case notes in one of his medical journals pertaining to an interesting patient.

  A commotion on the stairs, followed by the piercing tones of Teddy’s current mistress, dispelled any illusion of peace. He winced as a trunk hit marble and the voice reached levels that could rattle chandeliers.

  Groaning in frustration at a knock on his door, but already distracted, he gave permission for entry. Curiosity was a terrible thing.