Damian stared after her.
Which proved the height of folly. He grunted as Rayne charged forward, head bent and barreled into his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. “You bastard,” he hissed. The gentleman landed an ineffectual blow. Rage made him lax. “I would challenge you to a duel and laugh over your dead body if the damned world wouldn’t discover what you’ve done here.”
Years of training alongside Gentleman Jackson himself had prepared Damian for far stronger, more worthy opponents than this barely twenty-something year old man. He cuffed him in the chin once and Rayne toppled to the ground with a grunt. Damian schooled his features and took a step away from Theodosia’s brother. He didn’t begrudge the other man his deserved rage. If he’d had a sister and that sister had been on the ground with her skirts drawn up and her shapely legs exposed to the spring air, he’d have taken that fiend apart with his bare hands.
Damian came to his feet and stood over him and spoke in the cool, ducal tones he’d practiced as a youth. “You are deserved of your outrage. However, I intend to wed her.” If she’d have him.
I don’t want you to leave. I need you to stay… She would say yes. Her kiss, her caress, her words all said as much.
Silence met his pronouncement. Then a sharp bark of laughter escaped the other man. He laughed so hard tears trailed down his cheeks. “Oh, this is rich. You’ve gone and fallen in love with her.”
A mottled flush climbed his neck and he fisted his hands at his side at an overwhelming urge to knock the mocking Rayne upon his arse once more.
“You did not realize?”
He told himself not to ask, to turn on his heel, and ignore that baiting question. “Realize, what?” he bit out.
Theodosia’s brother wiped tears of mirth from his cheeks. “Why, this was all part of her plan to obtain the Theodosia.” He flicked a condescending gaze over Damian. “I must admit I’m proud of my sister’s resourcefulness. I never thought she could so flawlessly pull off such a scheme. She assured me with your hideous face, you’d be so starved for any woman’s attentions that you’d cede anything to that creature—your heart, and in my sister’s case, the Theodosia.”
Damian sucked in a breath. The sound drowned out by the other man’s amused chuckle. In a move practiced since he’d been old enough to take his first steps, he angled his body away and shielded the mark upon his skin. “Lies.” Did that ragged whisper belong to him?
Rayne’s lips turned up in a slow, merciless smile. “I think you know the truth. How could anyone ever love you?”
With that, Rayne left, and in his wake all that remained was the cracking of Damian’s useless heart.
Chapter Twelve
“Where have you been?”
Damian strode through the doors of his townhouse and marched past his waiting mother.
“Mother,” he said coolly, wanting the privacy of his office, a bottle of brandy and his own humbled, broken-hearted self for company.
Apparently, his mother had altogether different plans for him. She fell into step beside him. “I have not seen you since last evening.” Which had been deliberate on his part. “And I am forced to learn in the scandal pages,” she brandished said page and waved it about, “that you danced with that, that Rayne.”
He gritted his teeth at the mention of the Rayne and the reminder of Theodosia and their meeting and her bloody brother’s words. A growl climbed up his throat and he lengthened his stride.
His mother rushed to keep pace. “Must you walk this quickly, Damian?”
“Yes.” Damian didn’t break stride but sailed into his office. His mother followed behind. He kicked the door closed with the heel of his boot.
Eyes wide, his mother said, “Damian, what is this undignified behavior?”
To demonstrate just how undignified he was, he crossed to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of brandy.
“Brandy at this hour?”
He held the glass up in salute and then took a long, slow swallow.
Red splotches of color slapped her cheeks. “I’d know about this fascination with Lady Theodosia Rayne.”
“I am not fascinated with her,” he said coolly. I love her. Altogether different. With a black curse that sent his mother’s brow up, he took another long swallow of his drink. For surely with her very duchess-like logic she’d have an apoplexy at the idea of her son, the emotionless beast driven by honor and obligations to the Devlin line, admitting to having fallen victim to that weakening emotion. And with a Rayne, no less.
“That is good.” His mother pursed her lips and ran a stare over his face. “However, surely you see how Lady Minerva and the ton will view your dancing with the lady, not once, but twice. We do not attend the same functions as those people.”
“Why?”
She blinked at him and shook her head slowly as though he spoke a foreign language.
“Why do we not attend the same functions?” He’d merely honored the history of their feuding families. He’d not fully thought through the truth that he and Theodosia and her angry, bitter brothers were a product of another man’s doing.
“There is a history, between us,” she sputtered. “Surely you are not forgetting hundreds of years of feuding.”
It was hard to forget something you’d never been witness to. He swirled the contents of his glass and carried it over to the window. His mother launched into a familiar lesson on the dangers presented by the Raynes. Through it, he stared at the Theodosia sword reflected in the crystal pane. That ancient weapon revered by the young lady, so much so that she’d risk ruin and the threat of Newgate. Would she also sacrifice her honor and lure him, as her brother had professed? A vise squeezed about his heart. From the moment Rayne had stormed off and left Damian staring blankly after him, all he’d known was his own shattered heart, a heart he’d not even known he’d possessed. That organ had merely served the obligatory role of sustaining life so he might see to his responsibilities and the care of his family. Until Theodosia. He shifted his gaze to the streets below.
“…They have told horrible rumors through the years, accusing us of theft and treachery…” his mother’s words periodically filtered through his thoughts, but he shoved them aside, fixed on Theodosia.
With the rapid one-two-three blink of her lids and the raw honesty in her eyes, she was not a woman capable of duplicity. He knocked his head against the windowpane. Surely he’d not been so very wrong. For if he was, it would destroy him.
“…And the matter of your brother and his Miss Roberts…and…” Those thoughts on Miss Roberts and Charles trailed off as Damian strode across the room, back to the sideboard. An unbidden smile tugged his lips in a grin as he recalled the other decanters shattered upon his floor. In one smooth movement, he pulled himself onto the mahogany surface and sidestepped the crystal decanters.
A shocked gasp rang from his mother’s lips. “Have you gone mad?”
“Yes,” he replied and reached up to wrest the powerful weapon from the wall. A spark of heat shot along his hand and radiated up his arm as his flesh connected with the ancient steel. He leapt from the sideboard and, with weapon in hand, made his way for the door.
“What are you doing, Damian?” his mother cried. The rustle of satin skirts indicated she’d moved. Then with an unladylike decorum he’d never before observed, she sprinted over to the door and blocked his retreat.
“I am returning the Theodosia sword.”
“The what?” she eyed him as though prepared to have the cart called for Bedlam.
Damian held the weapon up for her inspection.
“The Theodosia? To call it such diminishes our family’s rightful claim. It is a gladius. An ancient gladius, and…”
“And it belongs to her.” If that is what had brought her into his life, and everything to come after their meeting were lies constructed on pretense, that fealty should be rewarded with the piece that had earned that loyalty.
She flung her hands up. “Belongs to—” A chok
ed gasp burst from her lips and she clasped her neck. “You are returning it to the Rayne woman?”
Yet the seeds of doubt planted by Rayne had since withered under all Damian had come to know about Theodosia. Theodosia would have her sword and Damian would have the truth.
His mother’s wishes and the feud be damned.
*
“What madness possessed you?”
Blinkblinkblink. Theodosia sat perched on the ivory upholstered sofa in the Ivory Parlor, blinking up at her mother. And father. And each of her brothers.
That particular “what madness possessed you” belonged to her mother—this time. With four sets of very displeased stares trained on her, she wet her lips. Lips Damian had kissed and explored with his own.
“She is blushing again,” Aidan spat. He glowered. “And after her shameful display with the Devil this morn, I know precisely why she is blushing.”
“Hush,” their mother scolded. She shot a concerned glance over at the door. “If someone hears you she will be ruined.” A mournful cry escaped her and she buried her face into her hands. “By a Renshaw.”
“It looked a good deal worse than it was,” she offered with false cheer and a blatant lie.
“Where is your loyalty,” Aidan spat and came to a stop, towering over her.
She folded her hands and placed them on her lap. Studying the interlocked digits, she remained resolute in her silence.
“What of Richard?” Aidan continued, relentless in his rage.
“Damian did not bring Richard’s sadness to him.”
Silence met her quietly spoken words. The tick tock of the ormolu clock resonated in the parlor.
Then Aidan let out a thunderous bellow and she flinched. Through their eldest brother’s stoic silence, Richard gave no outward reaction to her words. The ensuing situation may as well have belonged to another family than his own. “He is a monster.”
Her patience snapped and she shot to her feet. “On what basis do you judge him?” she cried. “All of you,” she passed a condemning stare about the room, allowing it to linger on each of her family members. Not even a week ago, she was just as resolute in her loathing for all members of the Renshaw family. She gave her head a sad, slow shake, despising herself for being so very blinded to the truth. “Do you not see, the history between our families, it is not Da—the Duke’s doings,” she amended at the narrowing of her father’s eyes. “He is not the monster you…” Shame clogged her throat, making words difficult. “He is not the monster we have taken him for.” He is a man who’d been hurt and shamed for the mark of his birth and through that had established his strength and courage to face that scorn. In doing so, he’d masked his hurts…but Theodosia, he’d let in… And God help her, she didn’t want to get out. “Richard,” she said, turning to her once sensible, now brokenhearted brother. “Damian is not to blame for your Miss Roberts. Nor is his brother.” A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye. “Miss Roberts is to blame.” She held her palms up in supplication. “Surely you’d not have her as her heart belongs to another?”
“It matters not what you say here. You’ll not sway us to that bastard’s favor. He’ll not have you anyway.”
Theodosia swung her gaze to Aidan. Her heart pounded as a sudden unease traversed a path along her spine. “What are you on about?”
A cruel, ugly laugh filled the room. “I merely enlightened the Devil as to your true motives.”
Aidan’s words came as though down a long hall and she struggled to muddle through the dirtied water of his words. “What did you do?” she asked, her voice hoarse. A harsh, ugly grin turned his lips and she flew across the room, her hands outstretched, and took him by the lapels of his jacket. “What did you tell him?” she cried, giving him a hard shake.
“I told him the truth.”
What was the truth? She didn’t think Aidan had ever known a truth in his life, so mired as he’d been in fables and legends. Just as you were. Oh God. Nausea roiled in her belly and she shook him again. “What truth?” she implored.
“That you’d never wed a scarred beast and merely sought the return of the—”
Theodosia shot her palm out and cracked it across Aidan’s cheek. The sickening sound of flesh meeting flesh filled the room. Only the stark, white imprint of her hand upon his face gave her little discomfort. She staggered away from him and folded her arms across her chest. “What has happened to you?” she whispered. Her pale mother glanced down as though shamed. Good. They should all be ashamed. Theodosia included. “What has happened to all of you?” she asked, her voice rising in volume. For years they’d hung the circumstances of their family upon that cool, inanimate object fought over and about through time. Silence was her only reply. The history they’d found pride in had destroyed them all. How very close she’d been to being destroyed and eaten by those dark, cold emotions. “I am ashamed to call myself a Rayne.”
“That is enough,” her father said, the quiet of his tone more powerful than had he boomed with fury. “Leave us,” he commanded his son. “You are to stay, Theo,” he said not taking his eyes from her.
She fisted the fabric of her skirts. She’d rather walk the muddied, cobbled stones through London’s Seven Dials than have this discussion with her father. Alone. Her brother’s fury she could well handle. She’d braved Aidan’s explosive fits of tempers since he’d been a boy. Her father’s somber disapproval, she could do without.
After a long moment, Richard came to his feet and looked to Aidan. He glared at Theodosia and then all that remained of her living siblings started for the door.
Footsteps sounded in the hall and a quiet rap on the door froze the members of the room. Another knock sounded.
“Enter,” her father called out at last.
The butler, Watson, who’d been with their family since Theodosia had been in leading strings opened the door. “The Duke of Devlin,” he announced and stepped aside to allow Damian entry.
Hope sprung to life in her chest.
Damian.
He stepped into the room with long, slow strides better reserved for a predator hunting his prey.
Then she registered the weapon carried in his hands and her heart started at her family’s silence to his unexpected arrival at last made sense. The legendary Theodosia Gladius only spoken of amongst their family had never before been viewed or touched, but had instead existed as the stories told them as children. Until now. Now it became real.
“Your daughter attempted to steal my sword.” Damian’s gaze lingered on her, his ice blue eyes, conveying nothing. “She entered my home, not once, but twice with the express purpose of stealing it.”
A spasm of pain wracked her heart and, coward that she was, she wanted to look away. But for every ill word that could be uttered about her, coward was not one of them. What a fool she’d been. How had she ever believed this cold piece of metal mattered so very much?
Her father opened and closed his mouth several times, but said nothing.
“Do you know what I realized, Lavery?” Damian asked, not sparing so much as a glance for her brothers as he strolled past and then stopped before her father.
“We don’t give a damn what you realized,” Aidan exclaimed.
Their father gave his son a quelling look and the younger man looked away shamefaced. “What was it you realized, Devlin?” he barked, in a clear attempt to try and regain some mastery over this meeting.
“I came to find that I don’t give a damn about this weapon. I’m not the rightful owner.” He may as well have declared a treasonous plan to overthrow the king for as shocked as her gape-mouthed family was. “But neither are you the rightful owner, Lavery.”
Color splotched her father’s cheeks and he opened his mouth to speak.
Damian presented him his shoulder in a deliberate attempt to silence her father and turned to her. “I realized the gladius belongs to you.”
She cast a glance about for this rightful owner he spoke of and jumped at the cool, smooth
metal pressed against her hand. Theodosia and Damian stood, their hands united upon the gladius. “You see, Theodosia, you would sacrifice all for it, when men such as me disrespect it by hanging it upon the wall and not considering the ancient story surrounding it. Your brothers and family,” he shifted his gaze about the room to her family members. “They will see an item and long for its return merely to wrest control back, but you, your hope was not for wealth, power, and control, but for happiness. Just as the original owner found hope and love at the edge of this blade.” His mellifluous baritone washed over her, seducing her with the beauty in his words.
“I thought you did not believe in the history of the sword.” She tightened her grip upon the hilt and he shifted his hand over hers.
Damian held her gaze. “In spite of the ancestors who came before who believed the weapon cursed, unless it was in the rightful owner’s true hands, you knew different. It can open the heart to love.” Her throat worked. Damian shifted his attention to her still silent father. “The true fortune that comes to the rightful owner is love and hope. Theodosia believes in the power of the sword and that reason is more honorable than the aspirations of wealth and power dreamed up by both of our families.”
Tears flooded her vision and his beloved visage blurred before her. “I don’t want the sword.”
A collective cry went up about the room at this latest betrayal. The list was growing with a remarkable speed.
“The Theodosia,” Damian corrected, stroking his thumb over her hand. “It is yours.”
I don’t want this cold, hard metal. I want you. She captured her lower lip between her teeth and bit down hard. “What my brother said,” her voice caught on a shuddery sob at those hateful, hurtful words Aidan had leveled at him. “They weren’t true. I—”
Damian touched a finger to her lips. “I know that.” A tear slid down her cheek and he caught it with the pad of his thumb. “If your daughter will have me, I intend to marry her,” he spoke with the firm, unyielding tone of a man accustomed to being obeyed.
Only For His Lady Page 9