Page 173 of Dukes for Dessert

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 her 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.

“I will not tarry,” she pledged. There was still the matter of the huge task of wresting that item from its place upon Damian’s office wall, but now she’d be prepared for the sheer weight of the item. “I know where I am off to, this time.” And though she could not verify the safety of his floor this evening, she could, at the very least, clear off his sideboard in anticipation of the mishap two evenings prior. “Please, Herbie.”

The beleaguered viscount swiped a hand over his face. She beamed at him and then gave her friend a look.

On cue, Carol took her brother by the arm. “Come along, Herbie” she said and steered him down the corridor, toward the boisterous din of the ballroom. Theodosia waited a moment and then, heart pounding wildly, raced along the darkened halls. A single, lit sconce cast shadows upon the white, plaster walls, darkly ominous, rousing tales of the dark legend around the very item she now fought to reclaim. Theodosia turned left at the end of the corridor and easily found her way to Damian’s office. With one fluid movement, she pressed the handle and slipped inside the darkened room belonging to the Duke of Devlin.

She pulled the door closed behind her and this time turned the lock.

The man who’d kissed her.

The man who’d occupied every corner of her thoughts since their first meeting.

The man who—

“Theodosia Rayne. We meet once more.”

She shrieked and peered into the darkened shadows and struggled to bring the black clad figure in the corner of the room into focus. Theodosia swallowed hard. The man who was here. Now. Damian stood in the corner, the broadsword held effortlessly within his hands and with his command of the weapon, he may as well have been one of their legendary ancestors plucked from time and cast into this moment. Blinkblinkblink.

Well, of all the rotted luck.

* * *

He’d known the lady but a handful of days and yet had become so attuned to those subtle nuances of her body’s movement. Even with the shroud of darkness, he detected the rapid one-two-three blink of her hopelessly wide eyes.

Weapon in hand, Damian strode forward. Theodosia’s gaze lingered on the sword and he paused. There was such a desperate hungering within those soulful, blue irises. She eyed the metal relic the way she might a favored lover and, bloody hell, if he did not envy the damned, cold piece of metal just then. She held almost reverent fingers out and then drew them back. “I did not truly have time to appreciate it the last time I…”

“The last time you stole into my home and attempted to steal it?”

She either failed to hear or note the wry humor in his words. Instead, she remained fixed on the Theodosia sword. All these years, the ancient war weapon had hung upon his father’s office wall and with that duke’s passing, Damian’s. Never before had he truly noted the weapon or reflected on the history of the artifact. Rather, it had represented a piece the Rayne line had for centuries scrabbled for. Now, taking in the awe etched in the heart-shaped planes of Theodosia’s face, he viewed the sword with new eyes.

“Here,” he said gruffly.

“What—?”

Damian positioned himself behind her, drawing her close to his chest. The audible inhalation of her breath exploded into the quiet of the room. Or was that his own? He positioned the weapon within her fingers and placed his over hers and together with their fingers interlocked upon the piece that had come to represent a lifetime of loathing between their families, he guided their hands up.

“You would romanticize a weapon that has killed?”

“I will see in it the wonder it has brought to those fortunate to possess it.”

Damian drew their arms in slow, arcing strokes and, while they together played out the feudal dance practiced with this very weapon, he reflected on this woman who’d stolen into his home.

Had her life been so full of strife that she should hang her very hopes upon this ancient metal? His stomach tightened and just then, it mattered naught that she was a Rayne or he a Renshaw. He wanted her to know happiness. Which was nonsensical. Damian had long put the interests and happiness of his own family before all else, and yet this woman who’d boldly asked questions as to his marred face, who’d not stared on him with horror while feigning interest for the title he possessed, her happiness mattered.

“They say the rightful owner of the Theodosia will know great fortune,” she said, her voice faintly breathless from their exertions.

“What fortunes do you crave?” he whispered against her ear, bringing their arms back in another slashing stroke. “Wealth, great power—”

She angled her head back around. “Happiness.”

His chest rose and fell with his efforts. With this maddening desire he held for this woman? Damian pulled the sword free of her grasp and tossed it to the floor where it clattered, the metal striking hard wood deafening in the quiet. She eyed the forgotten sword a moment and then looked to him with his own passion reflected in her eyes.

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