by Kathryn Le Veque, Suzan Tisdale, Eliza Knight, Cynthia Wright, Christi Caldwell, Eva Devon
The waltz drew to a close. There was none of the polite applause. Instead society stared on, blatant in their rudeness.
“Your Grace,” she said softly.
Without a backward glance for her brother, Damian marched through the crowd that parted for him like that fabled sea. He tightened his jaw. Nothing more than returning the lady’s hair combs had brought him here this night. Nothing, at all.
He paused at the top of the staircase and looked back at Theodosia once more. She stared boldly at him. Damian turned and left, knowing he lied to himself.
Chapter Eleven
After a night of braving her family’s fury, which had entailed a blend of Aidan’s furious shouts and Richard’s glares and her father’s chiding words and her mama’s disappointed shakes of the head, sleep had proven elusive. Apparently her family found attempting theft of Damian’s sword one matter, dancing with the enemy an altogether different one.
As she strode through the quiet, empty grounds of Hyde Park, a lone kestrel in flight called an eerie morning song overhead. Theodosia stopped and peered up at the russet bird with his black spotted breast. The bird long a symbol of power and vitality not unlike the gentleman she now planned to meet.
Merely to obtain the cherished items she’d left behind.
She turned back to her maid who trailed along at a slower pace. The young woman yawned into her fingers. “Susan, I just plan to walk along the walking trail,” to the copse of trees just outside Kensington Gardens. “No harm is likely to befall me on a mere walk.” The lone bird circling overhead called out a protest and a chill stole through her. She thrust aside the nonsensical fears and adopted a nonchalant smile.
“Are you certain, my lady? Your parents would never forgive me if I were to abandon you.”
She scoffed. “You are hardly abandoning me. You are allowing me,” and Damian. “A moment of solitude.”
The maid eyed the bench alongside the Serpentine and then exhaustion must have won out over her responsibilities as lady’s maid, for she walked over to the bench at the foot of the river. Before Susan thought through the years of scrapes she’d witnessed her mistress falling into, Theodosia spun around and then hurried off, back toward the copse of trees.
Another eerie cry shattered the quiet and she glared up at the noisy bird. “I’ll not allow you to frighten me,” she mumbled. For the lies and stories told about Damian and his family through the years, she knew in the gentleness of their meetings that he’d not harm her. She slipped past the meticulously tended boxwoods, expertly pruned, and stopped at the entrance, hands upon her hips, as she scanned the area. “If he wanted to harm me, he’d have tossed me into Newgate.”
“Have there been other crimes you’ve been committing that merit you being tossed into Newgate?” a deep, mellifluous baritone drawled from within the gardens and she gasped.
“Y-you startled me.” Her heart thudded wildly as Damian strode forward, attired in his familiar black garments. With his midnight black hair and ice blue eyes, he had the look of darkness and, having come to know him these days, she knew it was an affected effort on the gentleman’s part. And there was something heady in knowing that this man so feared by all, she knew in this special, intimate way.
He continued to study her in that silent, inscrutable manner of his.
She cleared her throat. “I assure you, however, that I do not make it a habit of committing acts of crime.”
Damian lifted a single black eyebrow. “Beyond the theft of the Theodosia?”
Her heart started. The Theodosia. Until this very moment, he’d referred to that revered item in cool, distant terms; a weapon, a sword, but never the Theodosia.
“Beyond that,” she said softly. “You called it the Theodosia.” The words floated as a whisper on the air between them.
With his naked fingers, he stroked her cheek. Oh, God. She’d never really given thought to the necessity of gloves. It was a matter of propriety and properness, but now with his skin against her own, the delicious wickedness that set off a fluttering within her belly that made her forget years of feuding and hunger for years of knowing him and no other. “Isn’t that what it is? Proud, noble, and strong. It is not merely,” he passed a penetrating stare over her face. “A sword. It is so much more.” Her breath caught and she knew by the heated intensity in the blues of his eyes, that he’d ceased to speak of a sword.
Her lashes fluttered and she leaned into his caress. Then he lowered his brow to hers. The rapidness of their breaths blended in an intimate meeting. “I came to return that which belongs to you, and then after that, there will be no more reasons that require us to meet.” There was a hoarse quality to his tone that belied the evenness of his words.
Her heart tugged. “No, there will not be.” She paused, recalling that which had brought them together before now. “The sword.”
“The Theodosia,” he amended, those two words a husky whisper against her lips.
“Y-yes. There is the Theodosia.” As long as that remained in his possession, there would be a need for a meeting. What a hollow, shallow lie.
He brushed his lips against hers in an all too brief meeting and that simple touch burned, until she ached from the inside with a desire for more and pulled away.
Damian fished around the front of his jacket and withdrew the cherished, thistle hair combs. The deep purple amethyst shimmered even in the dim light of dusk.
“Here,” he murmured and placed first one thistle in her hair, and then the other.
And with that, their meeting here was at an end. He took a step back. “Don’t,” her words emerged as a desperate entreaty. He stopped and stared at her. She didn’t want him to leave. Now. Or ever. And it was madness and all things foolhardy, but God help her, she’d gone and fallen in love with him.
Panic climbed up her throat and threatened to choke her. She hardly knew him, but for a handful of meetings. But she knew if he left now and wed his Lady Minerva or any other young lady that a sliver of her soul would die as effectively as if he’d used the Theodosia sword itself and slashed it through her heart.
Thick, dark lashes hooded his eyes. “Do you know what I believe, Theodosia?”
And because she was incapable of words, she gave her head a helpless shake. “I believe you came to me this day for reasons more than these hair combs.” He touched them. “Beautiful though they may be.”
“You don’t want me to leave.” Yes, God he was correct.
She drew in a breath, forgetting years of feuding over matters that now didn’t truly matter. “I don’t want you to leave.” She met his eyes. “I need you to stay.”
* * *
Many people needed something of Damian; his family, the tenants who relied on his estate’s thriving, the servants whose livelihood depended on him. After years of being needed for reasons that had nothing truly to do with him—Theodosia needed him.
I love her.
Damian braced for a swell of panic that should come in having learned that he not only possessed a heart, but that it belonged to the Rayne daughter—but the panic did not come. He, the practical, immobile, Devil Duke had at last discovered a weakness—Theodosia.
Only it didn’t feel like a weakness. The absolute rightness in her, nay, in them, filled him.
“Will you not say anything?” she demanded in the same tone she’d adopted when she’d ordered him to pick the shattered remnants of crystal decanters from his office floor.
In response, he lowered his lips to hers and claimed her mouth, communicating to her with his mouth and the hands he put to the sweet curves of her flesh, that he needed her in ways he’d never needed another.
Their mouths met in a fiery explosion and he caught her to him as she layered herself against his body. Through the thin fabric of her cloak and his coat, she seared him with her heat. He groaned and deepened the kiss, roving his hands over her body. “I have wanted you the moment you stormed my home, Joan of Arc, in your armor.” He rasped against her cheek
and trailing his lips lower, lower, and then he parted her cloak to expose her gown. Desire coursed through him as he took in the swell of her generous décolletage and then he put his lips to her soft skin.
Her head fell back on a moan. “I am fat,” she whispered.
“You are perfect.” That raspy utterance ripped from his throat as he worshiped the cream of her skin. In all the thought he’d put into who would be his duchess, there had always been a faceless woman who fit with all the standard molds of a proper, English wife. She’d be blonde and obedient and the perfect hostess. How had he failed to see he wanted a spirited, passionate woman who’d brave scandal and ruin to restore what she perceived as an injustice committed to rights.
He dipped his tongue between the mounds of her breast and a shuddery cry escaped her lips. Damian caught her to him and lowered her to the ground. “I want you,” he rasped. “I want you in spite of your damned name and that damned sword.”
“Yes,” she moaned. Her fingers brushed his scar and he stiffened. After years of being scorned for that very mark, he pulled back reflexively, but she shot her hands around his neck and pulled him toward her. “You are beautiful, Damian.”
The visage that reflected back at him each morning proved it a lie but he groaned and captured her lips once more, but when she uttered it with that breathy, honest whisper, he could believe her anything.
His fingers found the hem of her gown and tugged it higher. He needed to explore all of her, learn the feel of her, the—
“By God, I will see you dead.”
Christ.
Damian rolled off Theodosia and shielded her with his body, just as her brother crashed into the clearing. An unholy rage lit the other man’s eyes as he took in Theodosia’s inelegantly sprawled frame, her skirts stained in grass and wrinkled. He shoved himself to his feet. “I am certain we can settle this matter with—”
Aidan Rayne shot a hand out, catching Damian in the chin with an impressive right cuff. He grunted and went down. Theodosia cried out and shoved to her feet. Her brother came at him again. Damian rolled out of the way and Rayne’s jab landed ineffectually in the air, and threw him off balance. The gentleman tumbled to the ground. His cheeks blazed red, heightening the rage in his stare. He jabbed a finger in his sister’s direction. “Get to the carriage.”
Theodosia took a step toward Damian and Rayne gnashed his teeth like a fabled dragon of their legends and lore. Damian gave his head a slight shake. He’d not have her witness this exchange with her brother. She hesitated and then hurried from the gardens, shooting one lingering glance over her shoulder.
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 laugh 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 you 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 Richard 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.