Page 176 of Dukes for Dessert

He brushed his knuckles along her jaw and forced her gaze up to his. “I am not betrothed.”

“But you will be.” His mother had been very clear on that particular point.

“Yes, I daresay one day I shall be betrothed. But it will not be to the Lady Minerva.”

“It won’t?” She hated the almost hopeful note to her question.

“It won’t. My mother certainly expects as much, but it will not be her.”

The fact that it was not Lady Minerva and was, in fact, another did little to ease the agonized tightening in her chest, sentiments that felt a good deal like jealousy. She groaned. She’d come to care for Damian, enemy to her family, feared Duke of Devlin.

“Are you all right?” he questioned, ceasing mid-stroke.

“It is my head,” she lied. “I hit it twice.” A lie that she’d add a bit of plausibility to. “What—”

“Shh,” he whispered, drawing her against him. With his long, powerful fingers, he withdrew the jewel-encrusted combs woven in her hair. Her breath caught at the intimacy of the act. No one but nursemaids and lady’s maids had dared touch her hair, and never in this manner. He loosened the gold combs and pulled them free one at a time. She detected his intent focus upon the amethyst. “They are thistles,” she said softly. “The legend holds that Eryx uncovered the sword at the mile marker between England and Scotland.” He turned the combs over in his hands. “To woo his love he came to her bearing the sword and a bouquet of thistles. And…” Her words trailed off as he gently set the combs down upon his desk and drew her close once more. With deft fingers, he probed for that knot. Her lids fluttered wildly as he gently massaged her scalp in a soothing rhythm.

“What became of your Eryx and his love?”

There was a cynical twist to his question that contradicted the tenderness of his touch.

“They were happy and in love. I cannot imagine a better end to any story than that.”

“And you would wed for love?”

She leaned into his touch. Wed for love? After two Seasons, and a rapidly concluding third, she’d rather despaired of wedding at all. There had been little interest shown her, nor would she have a gentleman court her for reasons that had to do with wealth and status and familial connections.

Which only served to remind her of the chasm between them.

And the status and familial connections that would inevitably bind Damian to his Lady Minerva.

“I haven’t given much thought to the person I’ll wed,” she gave him that truth.

That it were you… Theodosia stiffened as that traitorous thought slid into her consciousness. She stepped backwards and her buttocks bumped the surface of his mahogany desk, but she ignored the pain that radiated up along her spine, as panic set her heart into a too fast rhythm. “I must leave,” she managed to squeeze those words past dry lips. “It would be ruinous for us to be discovered.” He’d be forced into a union with her and she didn’t doubt the honorable, respectable duke would do that which was honorable.

Or that she’d want him to. Oh, God.

“Yes, it would.” Yet, he made no move to leave.

Knowing with each passing moment she spent in his company that he slowly and surely overrode her defenses and robbed her of reason, Theodosia spun about and sprinted to the door.

Perhaps it was a sign that Damian recognized the folly in these stolen interludes with a Rayne, for he allowed her to flee.

* * *

Damian stared at the open door Theodosia had stolen through and with this flight there was an air of finality. Just as there had been no reason for their meetings to this point, now there was even less so—and more, an impossibility of any such meetings. There would be no more masquerades and no more betrothal balls until, at the very earliest, next Season, and so he and Theodosia would continue moving along their own separate paths, belonging to different parts of the same world.

Pressure squeezed hard about his chest and, with a curse, he stomped over and retrieved the item that had brought Theodosia into his life rattling his defenses. A bitter laugh escaped him as he fixed his gaze on the hard to make out etchings upon the sword. How very ironic that the object to bring them together shared the name of the lady herself.

Faint footsteps sounded in the hall and he glanced up. “Theo—”

His youngest brother, James, stood framed in the entrance. At nineteen, he was just out of university and still bore traces of a young man who delighted in causing havoc for their mother which invariably meant havoc for Damian.

“James,” he greeted. At the suspicious glint in his brother’s eyes, a guilty flush burned his neck.

“Were you expecting another?”

Hoping for. “What do you want?”