Page 171 of Dukes for Dessert

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said stiffly, and then without allowing his brother another word, he started through the crowd. The probing stares of the milling lords and ladies trained on him, Damian directed his attention forward to a single person, more than a foot shorter than himself, and yet how effortlessly his eyes found the top of her midnight tresses.

The woman at her side, a slender Miss Carol Cresswall, with her golden tresses and pale white skin, may as well have been any other English lady present. The viscount’s sister troubled the flesh of her lower lip, her waxen skin speaking to a greater unease than the brave Theodosia. Only the young lady’s flighty mother, with her cheeks wreathed in a forever smile, seemed hopelessly oblivious to the thick tension radiating about the ballroom.

The crowd parted, allowing him access to Lady Theodosia Rayne, the merciless lot no doubt cutting their teeth on the prospect of the young woman being publicly shamed. His brother’s urging, coupled with the expectation of his mother and the entire guests assembled warred with this inexplicable desire to see Lady Theodosia once more. Damian stopped before the young woman who’d exercised a spot within his mind for the past few days. Theodosia and the three members of the Cresswall family stared at him with varying reactions. He cared about just one of those reactions.

Viscountess Fennimore beamed. “Your Grace,” she dropped a deep curtsy. “Thank you ever so much for the gracious invitation. May I present my daughter,” Miss Cresswall dipped a curtsy. “And as you well-know my Herbie.” Damian shifted his attention reluctantly away from Theodosia who’d schooled her features with an ability that would have impressed players at any faro table, to the portly viscount. Damian narrowed his eyes. This was the man Herbie, of whom Theodosia had referred. “Ah, yes, I believe you were so good as to coordinate an introduction between myself and one of our now mutual acquaintances.”

The viscount yanked at his cravat and darted his gaze about. “U-uh yes. I b-believe that is correct. It is a pleasure, Y-your Grace.” The viscount’s cheeks turned red. Damian shifted his attention to Theodosia and waited.

A faint, becoming blush bloomed on her cheeks. Ah, for the lady’s unrepentant boldness there was some hesitancy, and yet she should tilt her chin up at that prideful angle.

“And may I introduce Lady Theodosia Rayne.” The viscountess scratched at her brow. “I do believe your families are acquainted?”

Not unlike her other child, the lady’s daughter moved a panicked stare about.

“We are, indeed, Lady Fennimore. Quite well. Lady Theodosia,” he murmured.

“Your Grace.” The lady hesitated and then sank into a deep curtsy. By the lady’s expression and the collective breath held throughout the ballroom, Theodosia expected him to turn her out, and for her insolence and disregard for the long-standing feud between their respective families, he should very well do just that. Instead, he held forth his elbow. “Will you join me in this next set, my lady?”

7

As Theodosia placed her fingertips upon Damian’s sleeve, she didn’t know precisely what she’d expected in appearing, sans invite, at the Duke of Devlin’s home once more, this time sans costume. The collective gazes of the leading lords and ladies of Polite Society stared on with an almost gleeful anticipation of her being unceremoniously tossed upon her derriere. Regret replaced that excitement as Damian led her onto the dance floor and positioned them at the center of the ballroom. She swallowed hard. If he’d intended to expose her to Society’s shame, he could not pick a more central place in which to do so.

Theodosia jumped as the orchestra plucked the opening strands of the waltz. The ghost of an ice hard smile played about Damian’s lips. “I am disappointed, Theodosia.”

She swallowed back the protestation that sprung to her lips at his familiarity of address. “Your Grace?”

“A Rayne who steals into my home,” he lowered his lips close to her ear, and Theodosia’s breath caught as she recalled his hard, sure touch and the taste of him. “With such brazenness and courage will not now direct your attention to my cravat?”

Yes, yes she would.

“Tsk, tsk,” he said when she remained stonily silent. “I daresay you’ve made another misstep, Theodosia.” And a large one at that. Perhaps if she met his deliberate baiting with silence, he’d let the matter rest. “You suspected you might arrive at my brother’s betrothal ball, while I’m otherwise occupied, and find your way to my office. I’d expected more ingenuity, say,” he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “donning a disguise in the midst of a masquerade and fashioning yourself as a modern Joan of Arc—”

“Oh, do hush,” she chided. She’d not be toyed with the way a cat might paw a poor mouse. Theodosia glanced about at the dance partners twirling past them in a whirl of skirts. “I would have attracted far too much notice arriving in costume than as myself.” Though considering the guests’ reaction to a Raynes presence, that might not prove altogether correct.

“I was jesting, Theodosia.”

She blinked. “Oh.” In all the darkest tales told of the Devil Duke none had spoken of a man who teased.

“I don’t.”

Theodosia cocked her head.

“Jest.” A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye.

Unease stirred within her. This, a man she’d been conditioned to believe was the enemy, possessed an innate ability to know her unspoken thoughts. “You prefer to be thought of as the Devil Duke, do you?” Her gaze unwittingly went to the jagged, white, puckered flesh that marred an otherwise flawless face and she wondered at who’d done this to him. She’d long heard the tales of his scarred face at the knee of her father. Now, pain sluiced through her heart at how shamefully insensitive her family had been to the pain of another. Even if he was a Renshaw.

“Have you looked your fill?” he growled. And by the sneer upon his lips, it occurred to her that he wanted to inspire fear, and this was merely a protective attempt to prevent himself from being hurt. What a very sad way to go through life.

“What happened?” It was not morbid curiosity that gave birth to that shamefully improper question, but a genuine desire to know.

He said nothing for a long while and she believed he intended to ignore that question. Then the harsh planes of his face settled into an indecipherable mask. “Come, Theodosia, surely you’ve heard tales.”

She caught the inner flesh of her cheek between her teeth, shamed once more by her family’s stories of Damian. They’d spoken of him as though he was a monster and yet he was a wounded gentleman who’d protect himself from hurts. “I don’t want the tales, Damian,” she said and his eyes narrowed at her use of his Christian name. “I’d ask for the truth.”

“The truth? I was born disfigured, my lady. There is no mythical story of the devil marking me as his own or a disappointed mother who set fire to half of my face.” She winced at that telling her brother Aidan had favored. “I was simply born the devil your family likely spoke of.”

When she’d made her Come Out three Seasons earlier, she’d been mocked by the sea of Incomparables; flawless English beauties with their golden perfection and trim figures. They’d been everything that plump, round-cheeked Theodosia never had been. How odd to have believed herself so very different than the Duke of Devlin only to find, in many ways, they were more alike. “The mark upon your face does not define you, Damian. It is the person you are inside.” And for all the reports she’d read of him and his family, she’d also read the reports that spoke of his devotion to his family and unfailing commitment to their happiness. Unlike Theodosia, who, but for her lost and very likely dead brother Lucas, had siblings so wholly focused on their own happiness.