When she’d made her Come Out three Seasons earlier, she’d been mocked by the sea of Incomparables; flawless English beauties with their golden perfection and trim figures. They’d been everything that plump, round-cheeked Theodosia never had been. How odd to have believed herself so very different than the Duke of Devlin only to find, in many ways, they were more alike. “The mark upon your face does not define you, Damian. It is the person you are inside.” And for all the reports she’d read of him and his family, she’d also read the reports that spoke of his devotion to his family and unfailing commitment to their happiness. Unlike Theodosia, who, but for her lost and very likely dead brother Lucas, had siblings so wholly focused on their own happiness.
The muscles of his forearm tensed under her grip, tautening the fabric of his midnight black evening coat. “So you’ve come to steal my sword,” he murmured, in which she believed was a bid to shift the conversation to matters he felt more comfortable with. Or perhaps, more in control of.
She shook her head. “No.” Theodosia winked at him. “I’ve come to retrieve my family’s broadsword.”
“What can be so very important that you’d risk your neck and reputation by attending my brother’s betrothal ball with no invite, all for that scrap of metal?”
Had he not felt the weight of that ancient weapon? The Theodosia broadsword was no more a scrap than the Queen’s Crown was a pasty bauble.
“If you have to ask, Damian, then you are undeserving of its ownership.”
The waltz drew to a close and she tamped down her disappointment, which was an almost physical force. He sketched a stiff bow. “Theodosia.”
“Your Grace,” she responded, and sketched a curtsy.
Damian settled his gaze on a point beyond her shoulder and she followed his hard, cold stare to the cluster of Renshaws, who stood side by side by side by side, all three of them and Richard’s Miss Roberts. Her skin pricked with heated embarrassment at the varying degrees of vitriol dripping from their gazes.
“I am not going to acquire the weapon tonight.” It wasn’t a question, more a statement of fact she was just bringing herself around to.
“No, you are not,” Damian said. He held an arm out and she allowed him to lead her from the dance floor.
All of a sudden, she became aware of the continued stares and whispers circulating about the ballroom. No doubt, about the brazen, plump Lady Theodosia, who had about as much hope of sneaking into any ballroom as one of the Cook’s livestock beating a path through the very space. Guilt and shame pricked her conscience in an unexpected blend, as she became aware of her scandalous presence and how very wrong it had been to ruin Lord Charles Renshaw’s betrothal ball—even if he was the miserable blighter who’d stolen her own brother’s true love.
“You are quiet.” Damian made that observation as he guided her back to Herbie and Carol, who, with each step taken by the duke, turned a shade paler.
Yes, well, it wasn’t every day that she was so humbled by her singular focus on her own family’s happiness, so very much that she’d sacrifice another family’s.
“Are you even now plotting your theft?” There was a faint trace of amusement that belied all the rumors she’d believed true about this man.
“I am plotting my escape,” she said under her breath, feigning nonchalance. Only, with each half-smile and teasing word he shattered the previous misconceptions she’d carried of him as the merciless, ruthless beast with a face marred by the devil’s flame. And she didn’t like it. For if she’d been so very wrong about Damian thus far, what else had she been wrong about?
They drew to a stop before Carol and Herbie. Poor Herbie, always hopelessly fearful when presented with the towering, menacing form of the Duke of Devlin, backed up a step.
Damian sketched a deep bow. As he made to take his leave, panic set her heart pounding. “Your Grace.” Her thoughts should be upon her escape this night. For if she left without the relic now, all hope would be lost for the Theodosia Sword until next year’s masquerade. And yet, he was all she could think of. For after these two stolen moments, she’d never again see the duke. Why did her heart tug with regret?
He gave her a long, lingering look.
She was a Rayne and he, well, he would forever be a Renshaw. “I am sorry for having caused a disruption this night.”
At the very least, he should be so gentlemanly as to contradict her words. Alas, he inclined his head and beat a hasty retreat. “Herbie,” she said quietly to the trembling viscount. “Will you permit me the use of your carriage so I can return home?” Without the ancient weapon and without again knowing the pleasure of being in Damian’s arms. Herbie inclined his head. “O-of course.” Did he have to sound so very relieved that she would be taking her leave? Did no one desire her company? She stared after him as he lumbered off, letting out a startled gasp as someone gripped her wrist.
“What did he say to you?” Carol whispered. “Did he order you from his property?”
“No. He…” Was perfectly gentlemanly and teasing and more, he’d shared that very intimate piece about himself and only left her aching to know some of the other pieces about the purported dark lord.
“He, what?” Carol prodded.
“He…” She slid her gaze out onto the ballroom floor, unable to expose her tumultuous emotions before the still staring guests, even if it was to her only friend in the world. Then she found him with her stare.
“What is it?” she dimly registered Carol’s concerned question.
Unable to formulate a proper response, Theodosia instead blatantly stared at Damian comfortably ensconced within the fold of his perfectly happy, not at all broken family, alongside the gloriously golden Lady Minerva. The Incomparable, purported to be the future Duchess of Devlin, shot a stare over her shoulder. The trim and not at all embarrassingly curved young woman peered down the length of her regal nose at Theodosia and then turned back and said something to Damian. He stiffened and then as one, he and his Incomparable stared back at Theodosia and there was just so much blasted staring, by Damian, his future betrothed, the guests, Carol, that a suffocating panic began to overwhelm Theodosia’s senses. “It is nothing.” She managed to squeeze out a smile for her friend’s benefit.
Nor could there or would there ever be anything.
Herbie returned, his florid cheeks glistened with perspiration from his exertions. And he yanked forth a stark, white kerchief and dabbed at his sweating brow.
With that practical realization, Theodosia fled for Herbie’s carriage. It would do to remember the only reasons she’d entered this bloody lair in the first place.
Chapter Eight
She’d intended to leave. After all, she’d sent Herbie to call for the carriage.
“Absolutely not,” he moaned, the words coming out more an entreaty than a command to Theodosia’s stated intentions of staying.
“Oh, do hush,” his sister said from the side of her mouth as they made their way back to the duke’s townhouse.
Somewhere between the cold and calculated Renshaw gathering at the edge of the ballroom and the long trek to the carriage, Theodosia had recognized the sheer madness in abandoning her plans for the ancient weapon still hanging in Damian’s office. She tightened her mouth. She may now see him as Damian and not the Devil Duke, and she may know the origins of that mark upon his face, and she may very well know (and forever remember) the feel of his lips on hers, but by God she’d not forsake her family’s happiness for any of those reasons.
“I will not tarry,” she pledged. There was still the matter of the huge task of wresting that item from its place upon Damian’s office wall, but now she’d be prepared for the sheer weight of the item. “I know where I am off to, this time.” And though she could not verify the safety of his floor this evening, she could, at the very least, clear off his sideboard in anticipation of the mishap two evenings prior. “Please, Herbie.”
The beleaguered viscount swiped a hand over his face. She beamed at him a
nd then gave her friend a look.
On cue, Carol took her brother by the arm. “Come along, Herbie” she said and steered him down the corridor, toward the boisterous din of the ballroom. Theodosia waited a moment and then, heart pounding wildly, raced along the darkened halls. A single, lit sconce cast shadows upon the white, plaster walls, darkly ominous, rousing tales of the dark legend around the very item she now fought to reclaim. Theodosia turned left at the end of the corridor and easily found her way to Damian’s office. With one fluid movement, she pressed the handle and slipped inside the darkened room belonging to the Duke of Devlin.
She pulled the door closed behind her and this time turned the lock.
The man who’d kissed her.
The man who’d occupied every corner of her thoughts since their first meeting.
The man who—
“Theodosia Rayne. We meet once more.”
She shrieked and peered into the darkened shadows and struggled to bring the black clad figure in the corner of the room into focus. Theodosia swallowed hard. The man who was here. Now. Damian stood in the corner, the broadsword held effortlessly within his hands and with his command of the weapon, he may as well have been one of their legendary ancestors plucked from time and cast into this moment. Blinkblinkblink.
Well, of all the rotted luck.
*
He’d known the lady but a handful of days and yet had become so attuned to those subtle nuances of her body’s movement. Even with the shroud of darkness, he detected the rapid one-two-three blink of her hopelessly wide eyes.
Weapon in hand, Damian strode forward. Theodosia’s gaze lingered on the sword and he paused. There was such a desperate hungering within those soulful, blue irises. She eyed the metal relic the way she might a favored lover and, bloody hell, if he did not envy the damned, cold piece of metal just then. She held almost reverent fingers out and then drew them back. “I did not truly have time to appreciate it the last time I…”
“The last time you stole into my home and attempted to steal it?”
She either failed to hear or note the wry humor in his words. Instead, she remained fixed on the Theodosia sword. All these years, the ancient war weapon had hung upon his father’s office wall and with that duke’s passing, Damian’s. Never before had he truly noted the weapon or reflected on the history of the artifact. Rather, it had represented a piece the Rayne line had for centuries scrabbled for. Now, taking in the awe etched in the heart-shaped planes of Theodosia’s face, he viewed the sword with new eyes.
“Here,” he said gruffly.
“What—?”
Damian positioned himself behind her, drawing her close to his chest. The audible inhalation of her breath exploded into the quiet of the room. Or was that his own? He positioned the weapon within her fingers and placed his over hers and together with their fingers interlocked upon the piece that had come to represent a lifetime of loathing between their families, he guided their hands up.
“You would romanticize a weapon that has killed?”
“I will see in it the wonder it has brought to those fortunate to possess it.”
Damian drew their arms in slow, arcing strokes and, while they together played out the feudal dance practiced with this very weapon, he reflected on this woman who’d stolen into his home.
Had her life been so full of strife that she should hang her very hopes upon this ancient metal? His stomach tightened and just then, it mattered naught that she was a Rayne or he a Renshaw. He wanted her to know happiness. Which was nonsensical. Damian had long put the interests and happiness of his own family before all else, and yet this woman who’d boldly asked questions as to his marred face, who’d not stared on him with horror while feigning interest for the title he possessed, her happiness mattered.
“They say the rightful owner of the Theodosia will know great fortune,” she said, her voice faintly breathless from their exertions.
“What fortunes do you crave?” he whispered against her ear, bringing their arms back in another slashing stroke. “Wealth, great power—”
She angled her head back around. “Happiness.”
His chest rose and fell with his efforts. With this maddening desire he held for this woman? Damian pulled the sword free of her grasp and tossed it to the floor where it clattered, the metal striking hard wood deafening in the quiet. She eyed the forgotten sword a moment and then looked to him with his own passion reflected in her eyes.
Damian cupped his hand about her neck and drew her close. “You didn’t come here for the sword this evening,” he whispered against her lips. “Did you?”
Her silence stood as confirmation to his suspicions. The moment he’d seen her fleeing the ballroom, he’d known as much. “And I didn’t come here to stop your attempts at theft, Theodosia.”
“Then why—?”
“I came for you.” She opened her mouth and before she could ask questions for which he did not have answers to, he took her lips under his, their mouths melded in a fiery explosion of two persons, sworn enemies by nothing more than birthright alone. He ran his hands down the curves of her body, caressing her flared hips and rounded waist, and moving higher to mold his hand to the generous flesh of her breast. As glorious as she’d been in her metal armor, the feel of her with just the slip of satin between them was the type of temptation a man would trade his soul for.
Theodosia dropped her head back on a panting moan and he continued to plunder her mouth, meeting her passion for passion. He drew back and she cried out, as though agonized at that parting, but he shifted his attentions lower, trailing his lips down her cheek, and pausing at the delicate shell of her ear. Damian drew the flesh between his teeth and sucked until soft, gasping sighs escaped her lips.
“Damian,” she whispered, stroking her fingers along his jaw.
He stiffened as she caressed the heinous mark of his birth and then she leaned up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against the scarring. His eyes slid closed of their own volition as her gentle worshiping tossed his well-ordered world into tumult.
“Damian?” His mother’s quiet question cut into the quiet.
The door handle jiggled.
The haze of passion lifted and he silently cursed, looking to the door and then down at Theodosia’s wide, blinking eyes as she tried to sort through the sudden interruption. “Dam—” He covered her mouth with his once more, effectively silencing her.
The door handle rattled once more. “Damian, are you in there?”
“Yes, I am attending to matters of business,” which was not altogether untrue. It had been very pleasant and quite enjoyable business with the lady in his arms. The now waxen, horrified lady in his arms. He searched the room, recalling back to his youth. The lessons of propriety and cool rigidity had been drilled into him so long that he only faintly recalled games of hiding and seeking.
Fortunately, Theodosia appeared to have retained more of a youthful spirit, or had become adept at subterfuge, for she sprinted over to his desk and sank to the floor. The rustle of skirts as she crawled on hands and knees both deafening and damning.
“Damian?” his mother called once more, impatience underscoring that one word question.
He feigned a loud cough to disguise Theodosia’s gown as she disappeared under the protective sanctuary. Yanking on the lapels of his coat, he strode across the room, turned the lock, and then opened the door just as his mother raised her hand to rap once more.
“Mother,” he greeted, motioning her inside.
She eyed him with a dubious stare and then entered with a regal bearing to rival the Queen. His mother paused and passed an astute, assessing stare over the room. “Where did you disappear to?”
He closed the door and as he didn’t believe “my office” would be met with a favorable response, he merely perpetrated the earlier lie he’d called out. “I had business to attend.”
“Now,” she said, incredulity dripped from her tone. “During your brother’s betrothal ball.” Her g
aze lingered upon the sword.
He followed her stare. “Ducal responsibilities do not stop because of balls and soirees.” It was the safe, proper response meant to deter his mother from any further questioning.
She folded her arms across her chest. “How very interesting it is to hear you speak of ducal responsibilities, Damian, when there is still the matter of your unwed state—”
“Ah, yes but Charles will be wed.”
His mother arched an eyebrow. “But he is not the duke.” In a whir of skirts, she marched over to the broadsword and toed the ancient piece with the tip of her slipper.
He cast a glance over at his desk, grateful for the wood barrier that prevented Theodosia from witnessing this affront. If she could see that disrespect at his mother’s gesture, she’d likely fly across the room and do battle with said sword.
“And you, Damian,” He snapped his attention back to his mother. “Were dancing with a Rayne.”
Oh, bloody hell. This was certainly not a conversation to be had with a Rayne hidden from sight, within these very walls. And so there was no question there, he remained stoically silent.
“Which begs the question, why were you dancing with that woman?” She began to pace and launched into a diatribe, effectively saving Damian from responding. “The audacity of that shameful creature, entering this home with no invitation. Though it is no wonder, with her family’s reprehensible lineage.” While also significantly complicating the matter.
A sound, a cross between a growl and hiss came from somewhere in the vicinity of his desk. He coughed into his hand. “There was no harm in her attending—”
“No harm!” His mother froze mid-step and jabbed a finger in his direction. “I expected you to have her escorted from the room and unceremoniously tossed out.”
“I would never do that.”
“Yes,” his mother nodded. “Yes, you would. You’ve proven yourself to be ruthless and commanding,” she spoke those words as though she approved of a son who was reviled and feared by all.
Only For His Lady Page 6