Only For His Lady

by Christi Caldwell

  “Oh, come, you know what I mean.” Yes, those rapid, too many blinks that had made her a deplorable liar as a child.

  Did you steal your brother’s biscuit? Blinkblinkblink.

  Did you cut up your brother’s shirt and stitch a gown for your pug? Blinkblinkblink.

  Did you—

  Carol caught her hand. She passed her gaze over her face. “You’ve…we’ve, worked through all the details.”

  Theodosia looked after Herbie and the butler…of course wildly—blinking. “I’ll not be discovered,” she said, not sure if she sought to convince herself or Carol.

  “You’ll be in and then you’ll be gone.” The driver had, of course, been instructed to wait at the opposite end of the street for Lady Theodosia and Carol. Her faithful friend would forego the evening’s fun for her.

  “It shall go perfectly smoothly.” She shifted her weapon to her other hand.

  Carol took her by the other and pulled her down after Herbie, who stood in wait beside the butler, a pained expression revealed even through the black domino he’d donned as…a king’s jester. It really was the perfect costume for the ever-worrying Herbie.

  At last, they reached the ballroom and Theo became an interloper from the enemy family, hidden by a mask and some armor and a carefully conceived plan. And as she slipped into the ballroom alongside Carol and Herbie, gay laughter and the thrum of the orchestra blared loud, nearly deafening in its exuberance.

  For a moment, she allowed herself, who’d been far too serious for far too long with her hopelessly unfortunate family to forget that she’d snuck in uninvited, to steal the host’s ancient weapon.

  Er…her family’s ancient weapon. For the promise she’d made Herbie to steal her sword and be on her way, she’d allow herself but a small moment to enjoy the evening’s festivities. Purely to avoid attracting notice is all.

  Yes, that was it.

  “You said you were leaving,” Herbie hissed.

  “Do hush.” She nudged him with her elbow. “You’ve injured my feelings.”

  He frowned. “It wasn’t my intention.”

  She’d merely been teasing him. She knew he wasn’t trying to be unkind, but rather feared the duplicitous role he’d agreed to. “Do not worry, I’ll slip out and then you’ll…”

  “Yes, yes, I know my role.” Sweat dotted his high forehead. Obviously, the fear of being discovered stealing something from the Devil Duke was a far more egregious offense than agreeing to secret her into the duke’s home. All entirely accurate.

  “I shall meet you in the foyer,” Carol said from the side of her mouth.

  Everyone knew his or her respective roles.

  “Now, go,” she ordered brother and sister. It wouldn’t do for them to be discovered speaking or together…but for the end…when she was triumphant in her plan.

  Herbie sprinted off, entirely too eager, by her thinking, to be free of her.

  “That one gives me doubts,” Carol whispered hurriedly and then without another word, disappeared into the crowd.

  Theo hesitated and surveyed the crowded room. She shifted her armor, wishing Joan of Arc had managed to fight a battle in something at least less sweltering. Then, gossamer or satin or silk provided little protection against an enemy’s blade.

  The orchestra concluded a lively country reel and the room erupted into a blaring cheer. An involuntary grin pulled at her lips and, for a moment, she forgot what brought her here. Forgot that her brother Richard had taken to overindulging in spirits after his heart had been broken and forgot that another brother had gone missing after fighting Boney’s forces.

  For in this moment, if even for just a bit, it felt nice to simply be any other young lady lost in the merriment of the evening. On the heel of that was the tug of guilt. Even if all her efforts here this evening were for her family…all they would know is that she’d entered the Devil’s lair.

  Theo eyed the door. She really should be after the broadsword, now. In fact, she should have begun her search as soon as she’d arrived. And yet…she lingered in the corner of the ballroom, on the fringe, unnoticed by all.

  Which was best. It was far safer this way. Yes, it was best if she remained as invisible as possible. Anything else would be calamitous.

  Chapter Two

  He’d noted her the moment she walked in the room.

  And Damian, the Duke of Devlin, made it a point to not notice anyone. A duke who noted the appearance of young ladies often found himself inevitably trapped, tricked, or seduced into more with those young ladies.

  He peered over the heads of the couples now filing onto the dance floor for a tedious quadrille. At three inches past six feet, his height proved rather advantageous in this moment of studying the young woman.

  The young lady alternated her gaze between the dance floor and the door, and even through the silver helmet she’d donned, the damned piece obscuring the color of her eyes, he saw the pull of longing.

  Only, he couldn’t determine whether she one, wanted to dance, two, wanted to leave, or three, made eyes at a lover and pointed the nameless gentleman to the exit, an idea he found not at all palatable.

  Damian preferred the first. Because in her armor-clad frame and too tight breeches that clung to generously abundant hips and buttocks, it would be quite a shame to see her leave. Not without knowing who the diminutive, if plump, warrior, in fact, was.

  Someone took up position at his side. He silently cursed at the sudden and both untimely and unwelcome appearance of his younger brother, Gregory. “You can, at least, try to appear as though you’re enjoying yourself.”

  “I am not enjoying myself,” Damian said coolly, from the side of his mouth, to his most bothersome sibling.

  Gregory grinned widely and Damian forced his stare away from the stranger in her armor. He held out a glass of champagne. “Ah, yes, but now you are in disguise and you shan’t have all those ladies fawning over you if you’re your usual boorish, ugly self.”

  “I have little interest in having anyone fawn over me.”

  His brother gave a mock shudder. “Egads, have a care what you say, man.” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Should Mother hear you so disinterested in your Minerva she’ll have a fit of the vapors.”

  Clearly not enjoying the evening’s festivities as he ought, Gregory opted to stay at his side and continue to make a nuisance of himself. “Though, I daresay I can never understand your appeal to the ladies. You’re deuced ugly.” There was the scar. “And you’ve a foul temper.” Which was more a product of devoting more attention to the title duke and the responsibilities that went with it, since he’d inherited the title and tasks charged him at age eighteen. But more importantly he had a dukedom, and that mattered to young ladies. And old ladies. Really, all women it often seemed.

  “Shouldn’t you be off doing whatever it is you do at these events?” So he could attend the business of studying the plump warrioress across the hall.

  “Dance,” his brother said with a wink. “You dance at these events.”

  Damian ignored Gregory’s baiting in favor of studying the plump warrioress who now skirted the edge of his ballroom, with her back pressed against the plastered walls. He narrowed his eyes. Whatever was the chit doing?

  “Though I daresay I’ve not seen you dance with anyone but your betrothed.”

  The expectation had been there since he’d been a young boy of twelve and she’d been a proper, English girl of five. There’d been the talk with his father about the connection between their two great, ducal lines. However, “She is not my betrothed,” he muttered. She would be, or his father would turn in his grave.

  His brother snorted. “Do not allow Mother or your Lady Minerva to hear you say as much.”

  “Yes, that much is true,” he admitted. His mother would dissolve into a fit of vapors if he hinted at not offering for the Lady Minerva Quigley. Stunning, blonde, and with a sultry set of blue eyes for one just on her second Season, he supposed th
ere could be any number of worse candidates for his future duchess than the daughter of his late father’s closest friend, a fellow duke. He thought of the creeper. “Though there is no formal arrangement,” he felt inclined to point out. For himself?

  Another snort escaped Gregory. “And most assuredly do not let Mother hear you say that.”

  The dancers parted, allowing him an unfiltered view of the lady warrior creeping along his wall like a growing vine of ivy. From across the room, their eyes locked. Where everyone was a Greek goddess or ruffled shepherdess, she, even in her bid to not stand out—stood out. Through the lady’s visor, he detected the rapid one-two-three blink of her eyes, and then she jerked her attention away…and continued her creeping. What was the lady doing in his ballroom, attempting to blend her form to the plaster of his walls?

  Gregory cursed, jerking Damian’s attention away from the mysterious young woman. He followed his brother’s stare.

  “Mother,” they said in unison.

  Even with the first spare to the heir, Charles, very nearly wed, their mother would not be happy until her remaining children were properly wed. More precisely—Damian. She bore down on them with an intentness in her hard, ice blue stare.

  Gregory groaned. “She has the look.”

  “Yes, yes she does.” They all knew the one. The look that said, even with the costumed ball, she planned on matchmaking, and as she’d already settled on Lady Minerva for Damian, this matchmaking likely involved the youngest Renshaw brother.

  “Go.”

  Gregory’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “You’re being magnanimous? You’re never magnanimous.”

  Mother was nearly upon them. “Unless, you’d care to meet the young woman she’s selected…”

  His brother spun on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.

  “Wherever did Gregory take himself off to?”

  Damian glanced from the corner of his eye. “Mother.” Unbidden, he looked for the lady plastering herself against his wall. He scanned the ballroom for the glint of metal, but it was as though she’d at last managed to merge herself with the wall and disappear from sight. Gone. Damian set aside the fleeting intrigue. With the exception of the members of his family, he didn’t make it his business to wonder after anyone or worry about them, and a lady likely meeting a lover certainly held little appeal.

  “Blast, I was trying to coordinate an introduction between him and Miss Carol Cresswall, the Viscount Fennimore’s sister.” She jerked her chin toward a shepherdess. “Regardless,” she said on a wave. “Minerva has arrived.”

  “Has she?” he asked in clipped tones. He found this annual masquerade quite tedious. In fact, he found balls, soirees, trips to the theatre, all of it tedious.

  “Must you act as though you find your own ball tedious?”

  “It’s hardly my ball,” he drawled. In truth, none of it interested him. Nothing, really interested him. There were the responsibilities to see to: his three brothers, one particularly trouble-seeking and an oft-displeased mama. The armor-clad warrior, however, had interested him.

  He turned to go.

  “Are you leaving?” she squawked.

  Damian paused. “I’ve put in my requisite appearance, Mother.” He tugged out his watch fob and consulted the timepiece. “Good evening.” He spun on his heel and left the indignant duchess gape-mouthed.

  He marched through the crowd, glad to put the boisterous cheer behind him and enjoy the quiet calm of his office.

  *

  Theo stole down the corridor. Her thin-soled, booted feet were noiseless against the blood red carpet. Perfect shade for the Devil Duke. She wrinkled her nose. After all, it was likely red because he’d used her family’s ancient weapon and slayed his foes, of which he had many. He must. Granted he was a duke, but by the reports, he was a scarred, foul-tempered beast. She paused at the end of the hall and looked left and right. With the corridors empty of servants and couples stealing away from the festivities, Theodosia then darted across the intersecting hall and came to an abrupt stop.

  Then tiptoeing past, one, two, three, and four doors indicated by Herbie, she paused. Before her courage deserted her, she shoved the door open and slipped inside. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the dimly lit space. Theo closed the door quietly behind her with a click that sounded like a shot in the silence.

  Her heart hammered, the steady beat of her pulse deafening in her ears. So this was the Devil’s lair. She scanned the massive space, wrinkling her nose. Or was it the Devil’s den?

  Den. Lair. He probably had both. As did the Duke of Devlin.

  She gave her head a clearing shake. “Focus, Theodosia,” she muttered to herself and did a slow circle about, searching for the broadsword. Nay, her family’s broadsword.

  She took in the broad, immaculate, mahogany desk. “Likely because he doesn’t actually see to any real work,” she whispered to herself. A man whose family stole from others and built their successes off those same people he’d trampled upon would likely turn his responsibilities over to hardworking stewards and barristers.

  A gold framed painting hung over the fireplace mantel caught her notice. Drawn to the glimmer in the dark, she wandered close. Tilting her head back she stared at the tragic image captured upon the canvas. A chill coursed along her spine. There was nothing romantic or beautiful in the image. A warrior in full armor with his head bowed while a massive weapon was brought down, forever frozen with the edge of steel one sliver away from the end.

  What an awful way to be memorialized in time. In spite of herself, she hugged her arms to herself, and her own armor clanged noisily. The shiver of apprehension spread out, filling every corner of her being at the similarity between her and this unknown figure forever a brush-stroke away from death. The implications of her being here at last fully registering. Even as her family knew their rightful ownership of the weapon, the Devil Duke, and the rest of the world, would not see it that way.

  Her family wielded little power and influence where Devlin and his kin were concerned.

  “The sword, the sword,” she reminded herself, giving her head a shake as she returned to her purpose in stealing into the duke’s home. She scanned his office for a hint of metal.

  What if Herbie had been incorrect? What if—

  Her breath caught.

  The Theodosia sword. With her heart suspended in her breast, she stood transfixed. She’d only heard the legend, but had never before glimpsed the legendary weapon possessed by the great Rayne ancestors many years before. Her namesake. Drawn to it, her feet, of their own volition, carried her across the hardwood floor. Theodosia set down her sword quietly and then removed her helmet. She placed the headpiece beside the fake weapon and paused at the foot of the sideboard. With her heart thumping wildly, she stared up at the massive weapon.

  Even in the darkened room, there was an almost mystical quality to the sword. The night shadows reflected off the shimmering, hard steel and glinted in the night.

  This was the Theodosia Gladius.

  The loss of this is what had brought great strife to her family. The recent history had the weapon stolen and sold by Captain Tobias Ormond, a great shipping rival to her great ancestors. As the rightful owners, when the sword had been in her family’s possession, it had brought great happiness. Since being stolen and sold by Ormond to the Duke of Devlin’s devilish ancestors, her family’s fortune had deteriorated. Eagerness replaced all earlier reservations. It built steadily in her chest and threatened to spill past her lips on a giddy giggle.

  But she didn’t giggle.

  She was a blinker and a talker. But she’d never been one of those giggling ladies.

  A giggle fought past her lips. She slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the damning sound and stared up at the Theodosia sword once again. Then her mirth faded. She stitched her eyebrows into a single line. However was she to wrestle that massive weapon from its position upon the duke’s wall. She looked about for the time somewhere in this sweeping
office and found it under the grim, massacre painting.

  Herbie would be here soon. He’d pledged to meet her in the corridor in twenty-three minutes after their arrival, with a loyal friend who owed him a debt. The specific time chosen by Theo, that was no mere coincidence. Twenty-three…the number of words etched upon that legendary weapon.

  Still, she’d little time to waste this evening.

  Theo eyed the sword a moment and then captured her chin between thumb and forefinger studying it. Nearly eight feet up on the wall, she couldn’t simply reach it with her fingers. Certainly not with her mere five feet and barely one inch of height. She searched around for…She widened her eyes and before her courage deserted her, hoisted herself up onto the duke’s sideboard, grunting as she struggled up with her heavy costume.

  Her heart thundered and a haze of fear momentarily clouded her vision. “Do not be silly, Theodosia Tonie Phillipa,” she demanded under her breath, pressing her palms to the wall, as the dizzying spell nearly overtook her. Since she’d been a small girl who’d tumbled from an oak tree, she’d had no business climbing. She’d had a deuced, awful fear of heights. Which defied logic. She forced her eyes open and stole a downward glance at the…“Bloody hell,” she gritted out past her teeth, as the room swayed once more.

  It really made little sense. She was not even four feet from the floor and yet…she may as well have been forty feet up. “Focus, Theodosia Tonie Phillipa.” Taking one more deep breath, she inched to the right. Her foot knocked into a crystal decanter and the bottle teetered left, right. Her breath caught as it rocked and then tipped onto its side. It hovered at the edge of the sideboard.

  She braced for it to roll off the edge and shatter, but the decanter lay upon its side frozen. Splendid! She’d long ago learned to look for the messages contained within the stars of life. Theo continued tiptoeing along the massive, mahogany sideboard. She stepped over the bottle. This was one of those messages that assured her that what she did was right, and would be all r…