The cousins’ eyes met in the mirror, and giggles couldn’t help bubbling up. “I have a feeling I’ll need to accustom myself to the sound of laughter before opening night,” said Delilah.

  “It’ll be a smashing success,” said Juliet, giving her cousin’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “And Scáthach?” asked Delilah. “Are you finding inspiration for her poem?”

  “Somewhat,” said Juliet, releasing Delilah’s hand. Her gaze shifted. She had no intention of revealing that her latest source of inspiration came in the form of one very large, auburn-haired Scotsman.

  Delilah straightened and took a step back, head canted subtly to the side. “With Archie and Amelia married off, it’s just the two of us.”

  Juliet swiveled around on her seat so she could meet Delilah’s gaze directly. “It’s really only ever been the two of us.”

  “But for how much longer, I wonder.”

  The moment grew heavy with an unexpected seriousness. “Surely, you’re not thinking of accepting Oliver Quincy,” said Juliet, seeking to lighten the mood.

  That got a dry laugh out of Delilah. “Hardly,” she said, but it hadn’t been enough to distract her. “Juliet, since our arrival in Scotland, you seem a bit—” Her eyes screwed up to the ceiling as she searched for the correct word. “Altered.”

  “Oh?” Juliet gave a breezy one-shouldered shrug. “I am very much my same self, I can assure you.”

  Delilah looked decidedly unconvinced. “Are you?” Her head canted to the other side. “Really, since the night you were stranded at Rory’s.”

  Juliet resisted the sudden need to swallow. Delilah would catch it. “I can’t imagine why that would be.”

  A lie, of course.

  She could imagine.

  And did.

  Vividly.

  Especially at night.

  In bed.

  A hmm loaded with meaning sounded from Delilah.

  Juliet knew she must change the subject, or Delilah wouldn’t stop until she had the truth pouring from Juliet’s mouth.

  Rory was the only secret she’d ever kept from Delilah—first as an infatuation, now as a lover.

  And the poem for Miss Dalhousie… It lay hot and flat against her skin beneath the silk of her stays.

  That was a secret, too.

  She’d worked on it all through last night until it was complete, not finding her bed until dawn. But it was done. That was the point.

  And soon she and Rory would be done, too.

  She would be giving it to him tonight.

  Delilah opened her mouth, surely to apply additional pressure, for she could be relentless when she sensed a secret. Juliet knew exactly how to head Delilah off. “I’ve noticed,” said Juliet, “you can be a bit altered yourself.”

  Delilah’s brow lifted. “Oh?”

  “When Ravensworth enters a room.”

  Instantly, all the mischief fled Delilah’s face, and anger flashed behind her eyes for the split of a second, replaced the next instant by an uncharacteristic layer of hardness. “You’re usually so sensible, cousin,” she said, distant and utterly unlike herself, “but what rot you’re speaking now. You can complete your toilette without me, I’m sure.”

  With that, Delilah pivoted on one heel and left Juliet alone in the room. She’d scraped a raw nerve within Delilah, but she couldn’t regret it. In fact, she felt relief as to have so thoroughly distracted her cousin.

  Juliet couldn’t talk about Rory.

  Or how he altered her.

  Her hand brushed across her bodice and the poem there.

  A poem to help Rory woo another woman.

  And she only had herself to blame for it.

  But before that, she had a village assembly to attend where she intended to dance her slippers off and forget her troubles for a few hours.

  Wasn’t that what dances were for, anyway?

  Two hours later

  Juliet still fully intended to dance her slippers off at some point in the evening, but first, she needed to break free from Oliver Quincy, who was presently talking the ears off her and any other unfortunate person who happened to amble within listening distance.

  And to make matters worse, Delilah—contrarian to the last—had decided to fully engage with the pompous nodcock. “Why take issue with a traveling Shakespeare company in the area?” asked Delilah.

  Quincy exhaled a long-suffering sigh, his mouth curving in the supercilious smile he’d perfected as his particular artform. One could almost admire it, from afar…from very afar.

  “A traveling troupe of actors”—Quincy uttered the word with particular disdain, and without consideration that the lady he’d been attempting to court these last three years was, in fact, an actress—“is little better than a band of gypsies. Horses and all manner of farm implements will have gone missing by morning. Mark my words.”

  A few of the assembled had gathered around and were nodding in assent. Not Delilah. Her cheeks and eyes contained the bright, sharp glint of irritation held at bay. “The tradition of the traveling theater company is a centuries-old practice,” she said, reasonably. Too reasonably. Juliet didn’t trust Delilah when she was being too reasonable. “It’s as noble a trade as any. Nobler, in fact.”

  “Nobler?” Quincy scoffed and shook his head in mild forbearance. “While it is somewhat charming that you enjoy dabbling in theatrical pursuits, Lady Delilah, how do you figure that?” He gave a corrective shake of the head. “These ideas of yours. A husband could help guide you toward more ladylike modes of thought.”

  Delilah’s fists clenched at her sides. If they’d still been in the nursery, Delilah would’ve already walloped Quincy over the head. And though they’d been out of the nursery for decades, and were ostensibly more civilized, Juliet wasn’t sure a good walloping was too far removed from the realm of possibility.

  Delilah kept her head and unclenched her fists. Juliet could breathe again.

  “’Tis nobler,” continued Delilah, “because a traveling theater company offers anyone with a coin in their pocket—from king to costermonger—a respite from the drudgery and responsibilities of everyday life. To spend an evening with the poetry of Shakespeare… What more could anyone want?”

  Familiar movement caught the edge of Juliet’s eye. She knew before her gaze shifted who she would find.

  At the wide entrance to the main assembly room stood Rory and Ravensworth looking almost too splendid to gaze upon directly, dressed in their finest evening blacks. They wouldn’t have been out of place at a London ball. Here, they certainly stood out, but she suspected that was rather the point. Not to lord it over the local village, but rather as a show of respect. If a duke and a viscount arrived at the assembly looking less than their impeccable best, the villagers might feel slighted, as if they weren’t deemed worthy of the finest from a pair of eligible lords.

  But, oh, how eligible they looked. Just by arriving, they’d suddenly become the sun around which this entire affair revolved. Juliet found herself, subtly stepping back. She would eventually hit wall, where she could observe their effect on the room.

  But it wasn’t to be.

  Rory’s eye caught hers, and he started walking…

  Toward her.

  As if she were somehow lodestone to his magnet.

  How the idea appealed to her.

  As if the pull of her left him no choice but to be here.

  It was only after the two men joined their small grouping that Quincy acknowledged—or even noticed, more like—their presence. He gave them each a passing nod of acknowledgment and continued with his education of Delilah. “But, Lady Delilah, here is where your feminine brain has lost its way. Shakespeare’s plays were performed by men and lads during his day. His work was never intended to be open to the interpretation of the fairer sex.” He shrugged, as if helpless to the facts. “Surely, ’tis best to leave matters your mind couldn’t possibly comprehend to the men. In this way, the balance between the sexes is maintained. Truly, all you need is a firm and dedicated husband to take you in hand, and you’ll find yourself all the happier for it.”

  Juliet’s mouth might’ve gaped fully open before she picked it up off the floor. She considered placing a restraining hand on Delilah’s upper arm before she went for Quincy’s throat. But Delilah simply stared at the man as if he’d suddenly sprouted another head, utterly befuddled.

  Juliet darted a glance toward Ravensworth and Rory, who were watching the proceedings with no small amount of amusement. In fact, Ravensworth snorted. “A firm hand you say, Quincy?”

  “Indeed.”

  “To bend her over one’s knee and deliver a firm smack on the bottom, perhaps?”

  Quincy nodded, judiciously. “As would be her husband’s right.”

  Juliet’s hand jumped to her mouth.

  “In the interest of education?” asked Ravensworth, utterly committed to the absurdity.

  “Of course.”

  Juliet’s gaze shifted and found Rory’s eye. He lifted a single eyebrow. A sudden giggle rose up, and she was powerless against it. Rory’s face lit up in a smile, and he gave a loud guffaw. Juliet found Delilah observing her as if she’d committed a grave betrayal. Still, Delilah must’ve seen the humor in the exchange.

  Perhaps not the part about the Duke of Ravensworth delivering a firm smack to her bottom.

  Juliet coughed and cleared her throat. “Must’ve been something I ate.”

  “That gave you a laughing fit?” asked Quincy, observing her as if she were the silliest woman alive and was, in fact, making his case for him that women were brainless creatures.

  As galling as that was, Juliet had no intention of disabusing him of the notion. “It happens on occasion.”

  She couldn’t allow herself to meet Rory’s gaze again.

  They could now communicate without words.

  That was new.

  She didn’t dislike it.

  The string quartet who had been brought in all the way from Edinburgh—apparently Ravensworth’s generous gift to the village tonight—chose that moment to strike up a waltz. A frisson of excitement sizzled through the air.

  At the very same moment, Ravensworth and Quincy took a step forward, each holding out a white-gloved hand, and opened their mouths to say, “Lady Delilah, if you⁠—”

  But it was Quincy alone who finished the question. “Will do me the honor of this dance?”

  Ravensworth’s mouth snapped shut, looking as if he’d just bitten into an apple and found half a worm.

  Delilah glanced back and forth between the two men, a mean, little smile playing about her mouth. “With each of you being men of such important distinction, how could I possibly choose between you?”

  Ravensworth’s face looked like thunder. Quincy, well, he remained utterly like Quincy. In fact, his chest might’ve puffed out.

  Delilah tapped a contemplative finger to her mouth before stabbing it into the air. “Oh, I have the very answer.”

  Ravensworth had the good sense to look wary. Quincy, possessing not a lick of good sense to begin with, didn’t. A note of hope hung about him. Juliet could almost feel pity for him…if it weren’t for the fact that he was utterly unpitiable.

  “Since you both wish to dance so badly, perhaps you could dance with one another.”

  And with that, Delilah whirled around—she’d ever been fond of a dramatic exit—and marched toward the ladies’ retiring room.

  Ravensworth pivoted and strode away in the opposite direction. Quincy gave his cravat a slight adjustment and made his way toward a group of men who had been particularly vocal about Parliament’s recent passage of the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act and how it would affect farmers.

  Juliet found herself alone with Rory.

  She shifted on her feet, suddenly unsure where to set her gaze. The tops of her slippers seemed the most logical place.

  He cleared his throat, forcing her gaze to lift. “Would you do me the honor of this dance, Miss Windermere?” He held out his hand.

  Juliet understood two facts at once.

  She couldn’t refuse him. Not after Delilah’s little performance. Too many eyes were upon her and making assumptions—likely correct ones.

  But even more… She didn’t want to refuse him.

  She wanted him to take her into his arms and sweep her across gleaming Scottish pine and not stop until the slippers had been danced off her feet.

  She placed her hand in his. Through silk gloves his masculine warmth slid into her.

  She’d never given much thought to the idea of feeling safe in a man’s arms. In truth—and admittedly ungenerous to her own sex—she’d always half-thought the notion silly feminine fiddle-faddle. But when Rory led her the few feet to the dancing floor and placed his other hand on the indent of her waist, she felt secure and sure, like nothing beyond the circle of his arms could touch her.

  He pulled her into the swirl of the waltz already begun, and her heart beat in rhythm to the light movements of her feet. Dancing was as close to flying as she would ever come. Her gaze lifted, and she found him staring down at her, lopsided smile tipping at his mouth. “You love to dance, Miss Windermere.”

  “I do, Lord Kilmuir.”

  “How is it we’ve never danced before now?”

  “Simple,” she said. “You never asked.”

  A line formed between his eyebrows. “Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing you at any dances.”

  “I was there. But you wouldn’t have noticed me.”

  “Why is that?”

  She laughed, the buoyant sound chorusing gaily with the laughter from the other waltzing couples. “Because I have a particular ability to blend into a wall when I so choose.”

  “No longer,” he rumbled, a smile on his mouth, a seriousness in his eyes. He gathered her closer than was strictly proper and bent his head so his lips touched her ear. “You’ll never be invisible to me, Juliet.”

  How his words, hot and humid against her skin, blazed an arrow of longing straight through her, to places only he had ever touched—in her body…in her soul.

  She was helpless against such words.

  She’d been infatuated with this man for nigh on a decade, but she understood now those had been a girl’s feelings that only saw surfaces. This last week, she’d seen so much more of the man below his appealing surface. What she felt now ran deeper.

  These feelings were a woman’s.

  “You’ll never be invisible to me, Juliet.”

  Until this very moment, she’d been utterly unaware they were words she needed to hear.

  They were as fresh droplets of rain upon parched earth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Juliet released a sigh against Rory’s neck, sending goose bumps cascading down his spine.

  It was hard to escape the feeling that he was running out of time with her.

  And it wasn’t through his body that he would achieve his desired end.

  He needed the words.

  But for now he had the dance as they moved in step, the music of the strings a bright accompaniment to the music in his heart.

  He had Miss Juliet Windermere in his arms.

  He had Miss Juliet Windermere sighing into his neck.

  He had Miss Juliet Windermere gazing up at him with those eyes the clear green of emeralds as if he were the only man on Earth.

  As if she were the only woman for him.

  “You are magnificent.”

  Those had been her words to him yesterday.

  No one had ever said anything like that to him—or likely, believed it of him—not even himself.

  Not until Juliet.

  She believed him capable…magnificent.

  And if she could believe it of him, he could be it.

  It struck him that from the beginning they’d gone about the business of coming to know one another backwards. He knew the feel of every line and curve of her body. He knew precisely where to touch her—where to lick her…where to nibble her—to send her pupils flaring and legs trembling with naked desire. He knew how to bring her to the edge of release and tumble with her over it.

  But he hadn’t known this. How she felt in his arms as she moved with the music of a waltz.

  To touch her in this formal way, open to the eyes of an entire village, was new.

  “There is so much I don’t know about you, Miss Windermere,” he found himself saying, a mild panic striking through him.

  A secret smile lit about her mouth. “But so much you do.”

  The music was winding to an end, and a sense of urgency took Rory over. Soon—within seconds—he would no longer have an excuse to touch her.

  And that wouldn’t do.

  “Come with me,” he said. He hoped he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt.

  “Where?”

  “There’s a place I want to show you.”

  A hard light passed behind her eyes. “Is it a place Miss Dalhousie⁠—”

  He wasn’t about to let her finish the question. “A place you will love.”

  The stubborn set of her jaw was at odds with the battle in her eyes, as if her mind were telling her to refuse him, but her curiosity wasn’t allowing her.

  He searched for the correct combination of words, and of a sudden, he knew exactly what they were. “Another place we can dance.”

  A heartbeat later, she nodded. Curiosity had won the day.

  He had won the day.

  The waltz chose that moment to end with a sweeping flourish of strings. Rory held onto Juliet’s hand as he rushed her off the dancing floor before anyone could take note and through the doors that opened onto the terrace. Their fingers twined, they stepped onto a path that led through a small stand of oaks. In silence and trust, she followed as they cleared the woods and began a short ascent up a rocky sheep scramble, their only light that of a gibbous moon and winking stars in the crystalline sky.

  They came to halt at the top, the vastness of the nightscape all around them. “What am I looking at?” she asked, her voice thick with awe.

  “Our fairy glen.”

 

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