Page 163 of Dukes for Dessert

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…

The heel of her slipper caught the edge of the bottle. Her breath caught as it rolled, rolled sideways along the mahogany piece and then, as if in slow motion, tumbled over the edge where it exploded into a thousand shards of crystal. Amber droplets sprayed the floor, splattered her breeches. She blanched and looked to the door bracing for some servants to charge through the door, jab their fingers at her, and yell “Thief”, calling for the constable.

When no discoverers appeared, she breathed again. She continued moving inch by agonizing inch right, onward toward the symbol that had come to represent the reason of her family’s great misfortune, and her hopes for happiness. Theo stilled under the powerful weapon and, for a moment, even the crushing fear of heights to have dogged her all these years slipped away.

Breath suspended, she reached up on the tip of her toes and brushed her finger along the metal hilt. She didn’t know what she expected. A flash of shining light illuminated by the heavens raining down upon the sword? The ancient whispers of the secrets contained within its metal contours breathed into existence.

Not this…this…coldness. She cocked her head, studying it. Then, what had she expected of an ancient Roman gladius? Well, it mattered not what it elicited upon touch, it mattered what it elicited by its presence in her life.

With that, she reached her fingers for the hilt and then closed around the piece. She pulled.

Nothing.

She pulled again and merely served to dislodge a black curl sending it tumbling over her eye. Had the Devil Duke’s ancestor’s anchored the dratted thing to this spot since his family had purchased it from Ormond and committed that great theft, hundreds of years ago?

Theo yanked once more and then it loosed free from its spot with such alacrity, she staggered under the enormous weight of the weapon and the suddenness of the movement. She shrieked, her heart dropping into her stomach and released her hold upon the powerful sword. I’m going to die here, in the Devil’s lair. Theo flung her arms open to keep from toppling to the floor.

Her efforts proved futile. Theo grunted as she sailed over the edge of the sideboard. In her ignoble fall, she took with her a number of decanters and tumblers and landed hard upon the floor, amidst a sea of shattering glass and liquid. She rolled out of the way just as the Theodosia sword came down where her right foot had been. Pain radiated up her hip and sent agony racing up her spine and down her legs.

This is not worth dying for.

Stiff with pain, she shoved herself to her feet, shattered crystal cracking under her slippers. “I am not going to die.” Be thrown into Newgate as a thief, yes. Die. No. She leaned over the weapon, eyeing it a moment.

All the pain and the horrifying terror that she’d be discovered were replaced by the growing sense of victory. She had done it. She, the most unsuspecting of all the Rayne siblings. One brother who’d been lost in battle. Literally, lost. No one had any idea where he’d gone. One brother who spent the better part of his days and nights mourning the loss of a woman, betrothed to one of their enemies. And then, she prone to trouble and mishaps had managed…this!

With a grin, she bent to retrieve the Theodosia sword. Her smile withered and she winced from the soreness of her recent fall. Hilt in hand she straightened and staggered backwards, dragging the gladius with her. “Oomph.” She scraped the giant blade along the immaculate hardwood floor.

Or the once immaculate hardwood floor. Theo paused, halting her retreat. By God, the sword was bloody heavy. By the legend, what did you expect? A child’s toy? “Certainly not this,” she mumbled. It was after all, a gladius. But again, it was a gladius unlike any other.

She took a moment to study the mess she’d made. The damning evidence shattered about the room. The entire collection of spirits upon the Devil’s sideboard. Another black curl tumbled over her brow. With her free hand, she brushed it back, tucking it behind her ear.

Herbie was to meet her in the corridor, and even if she somehow managed to drag it from this room undetected, she’d wager the sword and her family’s safe, happy future that the young viscount wouldn’t be able to hoist the weapon.