Only For His Lady (The Theodora Sword #1)(9)

“What?” She was a fearless, unrepentant thing.

He jerked his chin at her costume. “And what are you supposed to be?”

“A shepherdess.”

He passed a dubious stare over the lady.

She grinned. “I’m merely teasing.” She waved a particularly jagged piece about and he leaned away from the lethal shard, not entirely sure the lady thief didn’t also intend murder that night. “I’m Joan of Arc.”

Of course she was. Except, unlike that honorable, gallant defender, this one was, well, dishonorable. “You have me intrigued,” he said on an icy whisper.

She stilled and picked her head up, with but a handbreadth of space between them. “I do?” And close as they were, he detected the trace of rosemary and sage that clung to her, as though she’d danced through a garden before infiltrating his home.

Damian paused and captured a black curl that had tumbled over her brow. He tucked it behind her ear and the lady’s breath caught. “I gather you’re stealing the sword.”

“Broadsword.”

He looked at her askance.

“I’m stealing the broadsword.” She frowned. “Well, I am not stealing it.”

He’d learned long ago to live life in absolutes. Either she was or she wasn’t. There was no shade of in between. “Aren’t you?” What would the lady call her sneaking into a man’s office and filching a family artifact from his wall?

She bristled with indignation. “I suspect Herbie didn’t take time to explain the situation to you, which is very like him. He was not at all comfortable with this rescue.”

Rescue?

She glanced about, searching for interlopers, seeming to forget he’d turned the lock. “The Devil Duke stole it.” Her soft whisper floated up to his ears.

“I beg your pardon?” he barked. Damian didn’t give a jot about the legend and lore around the sword. He did, on the other hand, care a good deal about her casting aspersions on his family’s actions.

The lady was either too cracked in the head to detect outrage, or was something of a lackwit, for she failed to show any hint of nervousness. Then, any person who’d steal into his home, all to abscond with his personal property was likely a combination of the two. She nodded emphatically. “Precisely. Stole it. Nicked it.” Purchased it for a significant sum. “Made off with it.” Had it turned over to his care by that Ormond fellow. She paused. “Or his vile ancestors did, anyway.” She looked to the sword, her expression serious, and then raised her eyes to his once more and firmed her jaw. “It is my family’s sword.”

By God. It could not be. One of them wouldn’t have the audacity to dare enter his home and yet the lady’s knowledge of the history and interest in that weapon made sense. “What is your name?” he demanded. Because only one other family had maintained a claim, an erroneous claim to the revered artifact. And this plump, dark-haired siren was not—

“Theodosia,” she pointed to the sword. “And that, sir, is the Theodosia sword.”

Well, Lucifer’s army. It would seem she was.

A Rayne.



The laconic, not at all smiling, mostly scowling gentleman certainly didn’t seem the type Herbie would keep company with. And certainly not the type of gentleman the shy, always-nervous, young viscount would best in a wager. Oh, she wasn’t judging the viscount unfairly. She’d sat across from Herbie in a game of whist and faro on a number of scores to know his exact abilities. Yet this man exuded a primal vitality not reserved for the mere mortals of the world such as Herbie, and all others she’d known.

More than a foot taller than she, the powerful stranger’s muscle-hewn frame bespoke power and strength. Even through the black mask obscuring the stranger’s face, Theo appreciated the hard, chiseled planes of his cheeks. She detected the glint of intelligence in the gentleman’s ice blue eyes and was left to wonder as to what the gentleman would look like with the disguise removed.

“You’re quite serious, aren’t you?” she asked, returning her attention to the much cleaner, still sloppy floor.

“Yes.”

“Do you ever smile?”

At his silence, Theodosia picked her head up.

“No,” he said coolly and then returned to picking up the pieces of the Devil’s brandy decanter.

“Hmm.” It really wasn’t her business whether the stranger sent by Herbie was smiling or serious or seriously smiling. It mattered that she’d secured the sword, made quite the mess in her wake, and now cleaned said mess. That is what mattered, and yet, unbidden, she lifted her gaze to him once more—hopelessly intrigued.

It was the masquerade and the thrill of excitement from being here, on the cusp of discovery that accounted for this unexpected interest in….Herbie’s friend. Herbie’s friend, who was, as of now, absent a name.

“Do you have a name?”

“Of course I have a name,” he gritted out.

Theodosia pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “Of course you do—”

“Then why did you ask?”

Humph. Well, he was the surly sort-indeed. Then, she eyed him contemplatively. Considering he now braved the Devil’s displeasure and Newgate to help her, a stranger, retrieve her family’s sword spoke volumes of the man. It also occurred to her the anxiety he himself must be feeling. After all, the Theodosia sword was nothing to him, and yet everything to her. “Forgive me, you must fear the Devil, as well.”