With Dreams Only of You

by Kathryn Le Veque, Suzan Tisdale, Eliza Knight, Cynthia Wright, Christi Caldwell, Eva Devon

  “I—” His brother’s words ended abruptly and he widened his eyes. “By God, what in the hell is she doing here?” His shocked question was met with a flurry of whispers that filtered through the ballroom, as all eyes turned to the front of the hall.

  Damian followed the stares and his breath stuck in his chest. He should be outraged at the lady’s insolence. He should have her tossed out on her ear for said insolence in showing her face at a Renshaw betrothal ball. Yet, an odd lightness filled his chest as he took in the sight of her. Gone were the lady’s armor and breastplate and helmet. And yet, for her boldness in the face of Society’s focus, she was as brave as that legendary warrior herself. But for the faintest quiver to those full-lips he’d dreamt of for the past two nights, Lady Theodosia gave no indication that she noted the ton’s cruel focus, the pointing fingers, the sneering faces.

  After all, the esteemed guests who’d received an illustrious invite to the event would never dare insult the host with niceties for the family’s enemy.

  How could one with her spirit and passion be an enemy? The lady walked side by side a woman with vague familiarity. “It is Mother’s Miss Carol Cresswall.” Mother’s Miss Carol, which was a rather clear statement on Gregory’s opinion of taking the woman to wife. His brother gave his head a wry shake. “Though I imagine after this showing by Miss Cresswall and that Rayne woman, our matchmaking mama will not be so very eager to wed me off to the family bold enough to bring the plump enemy within our fold.”

  At those deliberately cruel words, Damian squeezed the stem of his flute so tightly, the thin crystal snapped. A servant rushed forward to clean the remnants of shattered crystal left. An unholy rage blackened his vision and he blinked it back, and when he still wanted to bury his fist in his brother’s face for that insult, he curled his hands into tight balls at his side.

  “Contain your fury,” Gregory admonished, misinterpreting the reason for Damian’s rage.

  “She’s hardly plump.” She was rounded perfection, soft in all the places a woman should be soft, curved in all the places a wise man longed for his woman to be curved.

  Gregory opened and closed his mouth several times. Before his damned irritating and oft too astute brother established there had been a connection between Damian and Theodosia, he looked about for sight of their mother who, even now, was likely aware of the interloper to their family’s affair.

  Theodosia made her way down the staircase, head held high, her gaze fixed just above the heads of the gaping lords and ladies. Then, as though she felt his stare upon her, the lady scanned the crowd. Their gazes collided and, even with the length of the ballroom between them, he detected the spark in her eyes. Was it desire? Passion? Fury? Then, a pink blush stained her cheeks and a primal masculine satisfaction unfurled within his chest.

  Desire.

  “Toss her out.”

  He stiffened as Gregory’s words jerked his attention away from Theodosia. With an easy grin and possessed of a charm since he’d been coaxing sweet pies from Cook in the kitchen, Gregory had long been the affable member of the Renshaw lot. This unrelenting, ruthlessness fixed on Theodosia was not one Damian recognized nor cared for.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” he said stiffly, and then without allowing his brother another word, he started through the crowd. The probing stares of the milling lords and ladies trained on him, Damian directed his attention forward to a single person, more than a foot shorter than himself, and yet how effortlessly his eyes found the top of her midnight tresses.

  The woman at her side, a slender Miss Carol Cresswall, with her golden tresses and pale white skin, may as well have been any other English lady present. The viscount’s sister troubled the flesh of her lower lip, her waxen skin speaking to a greater unease than the brave Theodosia. Only the young lady’s flighty mother, with her cheeks wreathed in a forever smile, seemed hopelessly oblivious to the thick tension radiating about the ballroom.

  The crowd parted, allowing him access to Lady Theodosia Rayne, the merciless lot no doubt cutting their teeth on the prospect of the young woman being publicly shamed. His brother’s urging, coupled with the expectation of his mother and the entire guests assembled warred with this inexplicable desire to see Lady Theodosia once more. Damian stopped before the young woman who’d exercised a spot within his mind for the past few days. Theodosia and the three members of the Cresswall family stared at him with varying reactions. He cared about just one of those reactions.

  Viscountess Fennimore beamed. “Your Grace,” she dropped a deep curtsy. “Thank you ever so much for the gracious invitation. May I present my daughter,” Miss Cresswall dipped a curtsy. “And as you well-know my Herbie.” Damian shifted his attention reluctantly away from Theodosia who’d schooled her features with an ability that would have impressed players at any faro table, to the portly viscount. Damian narrowed his eyes. This was the man Herbie, of whom Theodosia had referred. “Ah, yes, I believe you were so good as to coordinate an introduction between myself and one of our now mutual acquaintances.”

  The viscount yanked at his cravat and darted his gaze about. “U-uh yes. I b-believe that is correct. It is a pleasure, Y-your Grace.” The viscount’s cheeks turned red. Damian shifted his attention to Theodosia and waited.

  A faint, becoming blush bloomed on her cheeks. Ah, for the lady’s unrepentant boldness there was some hesitancy, and yet she should tilt her chin up at that prideful angle.

  “And may I introduce Lady Theodosia Rayne.” The viscountess scratched at her brow. “I do believe your families are acquainted?”

  Not unlike her other child, the lady’s daughter moved a panicked stare about.

  “We are, indeed, Lady Fennimore. Quite well. Lady Theodosia,” he murmured.

  “Your Grace.” The lady hesitated and then sank into a deep curtsy. By the lady’s expression and the collective breath held throughout the ballroom, Theodosia expected him to turn her out, and for her insolence and disregard for the long-standing feud between their respective families, he should very well do just that. Instead he held forth his elbow. “Will you join me in this next set, my lady?”

  Chapter Seven

  As Theodosia placed her fingertips upon Damian’s sleeve, she didn’t know precisely what she’d expected in appearing, sans invite, at the Duke of Devlin’s home once more, this time sans costume. The collective gazes of the leading lords and ladies of polite Society stared on with an almost gleeful anticipation of her being unceremoniously tossed upon her derriere. Regret replaced that excitement as Damian led her onto the dance floor and positioned them at the center of the ballroom. She swallowed hard. If he’d intended to expose her to Society’s shame, he could not pick a more central place in which to do so.

  Theodosia jumped as the orchestra plucked the opening strands of the waltz. The ghost of an ice hard smile played about Damian’s lips. “I am disappointed, Theodosia.”

  She swallowed back the protestation that sprung to her lips at his familiarity of address. “Your Grace?”

  “A Rayne who steals into my home,” he lowered his lips close to her ear, and Theodosia’s breath caught as she recalled his hard, sure touch and the taste of him. “With such brazenness and courage will not now direct your attention to my cravat?”

  Yes, yes she would.

  “Tsk, tsk,” he said when she remained stonily silent. “I daresay you’ve made another misstep, Theodosia.” And a large one at that. Perhaps if she met his deliberate baiting with silence, he’d let the matter rest. “You suspected you might arrive at my brother’s betrothal ball, while I’m otherwise occupied, and find your way to my office. I’d expected more ingenuity, say,” he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “donning a disguise in the midst of a masquerade and fashioning yourself as a modern Joan of Arc—”

  “Oh, do hush,” she chided. She’d not be toyed with the way a cat might paw a poor mouse. Theodosia glanced about at the dance partners twirling past them in a whirl of skirts. “I would have a
ttracted far too much notice arriving in costume than as myself.” Though considering the guests’ reaction to a Raynes presence, that might not prove altogether correct.

  “I was jesting, Theodosia.”

  She blinked. “Oh.” In all the darkest tales told of the Devil Duke none had spoken of a man who teased.

  “I don’t.”

  Theodosia cocked her head.

  “Jest.” A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye.

  Unease stirred within her. This, a man she’d been conditioned to believe was the enemy, possessed an innate ability to know her unspoken thoughts. “You prefer to be thought of as the Devil Duke, do you?” Her gaze unwittingly went to the jagged, white, puckered flesh that marred an otherwise flawless face and she wondered at who’d done this to him. She’d long heard the tales of his scarred face at the knee of her father. Now, pain sluiced through her heart at how shamefully insensitive her family had been to the pain of another. Even if he was a Renshaw.

  “Have you looked your fill?” he growled. And by the sneer upon his lips, it occurred to her that he wanted to inspire fear, and this was merely a protective attempt to prevent himself from being hurt. What a very sad way to go through life.

  “What happened?” It was not morbid curiosity that gave birth to that shamefully improper question, but a genuine desire to know.

  He said nothing for a long while and she believed he intended to ignore that question. Then the harsh planes of his face settled into an indecipherable mask. “Come, Theodosia, surely you’ve heard tales.”

  She caught the inner flesh of her cheek between her teeth, shamed once more by her family’s stories of Damian. They’d spoken of him as though he was a monster and yet he was a wounded gentleman who’d protect himself from hurts. “I don’t want the tales, Damian,” she said and his eyes narrowed at her use of his Christian name. “I’d ask for the truth.”

  “The truth? I was born disfigured, my lady. There is no mythical story of the devil marking me as his own or a disappointed mother who set fire to half of my face.” She winced at that telling her brother Aidan had favored. “I was simply born the devil your family likely spoke of.”

  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 plump, round-cheeked Theodosia had never 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 set 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 now upon her escape this night. For if she left without the relic now, all hope would be lost for the Theodosia broadsword 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 embarr
assingly 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 their 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.