Page 182 of Dukes for Dessert

“You did not realize?”

He told himself not to ask, to turn on his heel, and ignore that baiting question. “Realize, what?” he bit out.

Theodosia’s brother wiped tears of mirth from his cheeks. “Why, this was all part of her plan to obtain the Theodosia.” He flicked a condescending gaze over Damian. “I must admit I’m proud of my sister’s resourcefulness. I never thought she could so flawlessly pull off such a scheme. She assured me with your hideous face, you’d be so starved for any woman’s attentions that you’d cede anything to that creature—your heart, and in my sister’s case, the Theodosia.”

Damian sucked in a breath. The sound drowned out by the other man’s amused chuckle. In a move practiced since he’d been old enough to take his first steps, he angled his body away and shielded the mark upon his skin. “Lies.” Did that ragged whisper belong to him?

Rayne’s lips turned up in a slow, merciless smile. “I think you know the truth. How could anyone ever love you?”

With that, Rayne left, and in his wake all that remained was the cracking of Damian’s useless heart.

12

“Where have you been?”

Damian strode through the doors of his townhouse and marched past his waiting mother.

“Mother,” he said coolly, wanting the privacy of his office, a bottle of brandy and his own humbled, broken-hearted self for company.

Apparently, his mother had altogether different plans for him. She fell into step beside him. “I have not seen you since last evening.” Which had been deliberate on his part. “And I am forced to learn in the scandal pages,” she brandished said page and waved it about, “that you danced with that, that Rayne.”

He gritted his teeth at the mention of the Rayne and the reminder of Theodosia and their meeting and her bloody brother’s words. A growl climbed up his throat and he lengthened his stride.

His mother rushed to keep pace. “Must you walk this quickly, Damian?”

“Yes.” Damian didn’t break stride but sailed into his office. His mother followed behind. He kicked the door closed with the heel of his boot.

Eyes wide, his mother said, “Damian, what is this undignified behavior?”

To demonstrate just how undignified he was, he crossed to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of brandy.

“Brandy at this hour?”

He held the glass up in salute and then took a long, slow swallow.

Red splotches of color slapped her cheeks. “I’d know about this fascination with Lady Theodosia Rayne.”

“I am not fascinated with her,” he said coolly. I love her. Altogether different. With a black curse that sent his mother’s brow up, he took another long swallow of his drink. For surely with her very duchess-like logic she’d have an apoplexy at the idea of her son, the emotionless beast driven by honor and obligations to the Devlin line, admitting to having fallen victim to that weakening emotion. And with a Rayne, no less.

“That is good.” His mother pursed her lips and ran a stare over his face. “However, surely you see how Lady Minerva and the ton will view your dancing with the lady, not once, but twice. We do not attend the same functions as those people.”

“Why?”

She blinked at him and shook her head slowly as though he spoke a foreign language.

“Why do we not attend the same functions?” He’d merely honored the history of their feuding families. He’d not fully thought through the truth that he and Theodosia and her angry, bitter brothers were a product of another man’s doing.

“There is a history, between us,” she sputtered. “Surely you are not forgetting hundreds of years of feuding.”

It was hard to forget something you’d never been witness to. He swirled the contents of his glass and carried it over to the window. His mother launched into a familiar lesson on the dangers presented by the Raynes. Through it, he stared at the Theodosia sword reflected in the crystal pane. That ancient weapon revered by the young lady, so much so that she’d risk ruin and the threat of Newgate. Would she also sacrifice her honor and lure him, as her brother had professed? A vise squeezed about his heart. From the moment Rayne had stormed off and left Damian staring blankly after him, all he’d known was his own shattered heart, a heart he’d not even known he’d possessed. That organ had merely served the obligatory role of sustaining life so he might see to his responsibilities and the care of his family. Until Theodosia. He shifted his gaze to the streets below.

“…They have told horrible rumors through the years, accusing us of theft and treachery…” his mother’s words periodically filtered through his thoughts, but he shoved them aside, fixed on Theodosia.

With the rapid one-two-three blink of her lids and the raw honesty in her eyes, she was not a woman capable of duplicity. He knocked his head against the windowpane. Surely he’d not been so very wrong. For if he was, it would destroy him.

“…And the matter of your brother and his Miss Roberts…and…” Those thoughts on Miss Roberts and Charles trailed off as Damian strode across the room, back to the sideboard. An unbidden smile tugged his lips in a grin as he recalled the other decanters shattered upon his floor. In one smooth movement, he pulled himself onto the mahogany surface and sidestepped the crystal decanters.

A shocked gasp rang from his mother’s lips. “Have you gone mad?”