“Whatever is he doing here?” her mother whispered, wringing her hands together as their family made their way to the opposite corner of the ballroom—far, far away from Damian.
Not for the first time in her life, Theodosia damned her height that prevented her from seeing, she went up on tiptoes…well, anything.
“Stop gaping,” her brother ordered.
“I’m not gaping.” She’d need to be able to actually see the man to gape. If he were visible, however, she’d certainly be gaping. After having known his kiss and the power of his arms and the smile on his lips, it really was quite impossible to not gape at the commanding duke.
Apparently her mother lamented her own height as well. “Dear, I asked you what he is doing?” she said once more to her husband.
Bushy grey brows knitted into a single line and then her father’s eyes widened slowly until those bushy grey eyebrows met his hairline. “By God, the devil is coming this way.”
Theodosia’s heart leapt. Oh, dear.
Damian accepted the invite to Lady McNamara’s ball simply for the reason to coordinate a meeting with the Rayne lady and see her amethyst thistle combs restored to the lady’s care.
Except, the woman who’d long been nothing more than a Rayne lady had shifted and morphed into this new, captivating, and spirited woman—Theodosia. A woman who didn’t glance away from his marred face or gawk in fascinated horror. So as the crowd parted, in eager anticipation of this public exchange, he acknowledged her thistle combs had not brought him here.
It had been her.
He came to a stop before them. His gaze fixed on Theodosia. The heightened color on her cheeks and the smile hovering on her lips did not foretell a young woman who wished him to the devil. He slid his stare over to the lady’s stunned, silent kin.
The Earl of Lavery opened and closed his mouth, like a trout tossed ashore. “What—”
“I’ve come to request the next set, my lady.” Damian directed his request to Theodosia.
Her lips parted on a moue of surprise.
“What in hell are you thinking?” the gentleman with dark hair and brown eyes bore the faintest resemblance to Theodosia. By his total lack of control, he ventured this was, in fact, the youngest Rayne son. “You dare present yourself…”
Theodosia placed a hand on her brother’s forearm and murmured something. He merely shrugged free of her touch. “With the devil’s mark stamped upon your—oomph,” he glowered at Theodosia who’d effectively ended those words with a sharp jab of her elbow.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace. Forgive him.”
That apology made on behalf of her brother brought shocked gasps from the trio of Raynes.
No one had ever defended Damian before. Largely because, as the heir and then holder of a dukedom, he really needn’t require defending. Some strange, indefinable emotion squeezed at his chest that this slip of a young woman should brave her family’s wrath to protect him.
“You can go to the devil,” the earl barked, bringing shocked gasps from nearby lords and ladies.
Damian ignored the mottled, portly gentleman and instead fixed his gaze upon Theodosia, as he became painfully aware of his hand held out to the lady, while polite Society looked on. The stretched moment of indecision, punctuated by the strums of the orchestra’s waltz. Then, with a small smile, she slipped her hand in his and the tension eased from his chest.
Ignoring the black curse spat by Theodosia’s brother, Damian guided her onto the dance floor and positioned his hand about her waist.
“You are here,” she blurted, as they launched into the one-two-three step of the haunting waltz.
“Do you believe I’m merely an apparition sent from the bowels of hell, my lady?” he asked in clipped tones.
She pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “Do not be silly, Damian.” Had the lady just called him silly? No one in the course of his twenty-nine years had dared disparage him. “Do you take me as one who is afraid of you?” No, when most quaked in his presence or reviled him in the manner her family did, she smiled and boldly challenged him. “Because I’m not,” she confirmed. “For the rule long followed by our families—”
“The rule?”
“Come, Damian,” she scoffed. “A Rayne does not attend the same event as a Renshaw. We know that and the lesson was likely ingrained into you since you were a mere boy being schooled as future duke.”
Yes, the lady was unerringly correct in her supposition. He trained his gaze on the crown of her dark tresses. Butterfly combs adorned her hair, the sapphire and ruby gems glittered under the glow of the chandelier, beautiful and yet, incomplete. Lavender thistle. The reason he’d come. Or was it….?
“Damian?” she prodded, pulling him to the moment.
“In the wake of your,” flight. “Departure, my lady, you left behind your hair combs.” Hair combs he’d gently disentangled from her hair. His fingers twitched in remembrance of the luxuriant silkiness of her curled tresses.
Some of the light dimmed in her eyes. “Oh.” His stomach tightened at the disappointment reflected on the precious planes of her face.
Ah God, he could not lie to her. He tightened his grip about her waist, angling her body closer to his, ignoring that her family, Society, honed in on each subtle move they made. “And I wanted to see you.”
Her lips parted. Blinkblinkblink. His heart tugged at the endearing little shocked gesture that was only hers. “Why?”
That question proved far more dangerous. Or, at the very least, the possible answers did. The truth was because she’d captivated him. Inspired him with her resolve and strength, and more, the romance of her spirit that saw an old weapon and saw old tales of legend and love.
Instead of responding, he turned his own question on her. “Why do you not fear me?”
“You’re just a man, Damian.”
For the entire twenty-nine years of his life, his identity and name had been nothing more than a title to his parents, siblings, servants, and polite Society. Until now. There was something gripping, potent and powerful in being seen as simply a man.
A commotion sounded in the hall and he glanced over her shoulder through the figure cutting an angry path through the assembled dancers. Whirling couples strove to circle away from Aidan Rayne. Damian bit back a curse and applied a gentle pressure to her waist, bringing her gaze up. “Will you meet me at Hyde Park, just on the edge of Kensington Gardens, before the sun rises? I will return your hair combs.”
She nodded once, just as Aidan settled a hand upon his shoulder.
A collective gasp went up and the dancing lords and ladies strained to see the impending confrontation. Damian stiffened but remained with his hold upon Theodosia.
“Aidan,” she whispered, an unexpected steel underlined the admonition.
“Release my sister,” he bit out, ignoring his sister.
An urge to knock the insolent gentleman upon his arse filled Damian, all the while knowing that was the very reaction the man likely sought. With a deliberate slowness, Damian hesitated, appreciating the curve of her waist. Then his gaze connected with Theodosia’s. The anxiety that bled through the irises of her eyes ended any effort to bait her brother. He relinquished her. “My lady,” he said and dropped a bow.
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 brea
st 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.”
Only For His Lady (The Theodosia Sword Book 1) Page 8
