Chapter 4 #2
Delilah strode up the center aisle, a rose in one hand and a peony in the other. She looked determined to ignore Ravensworth as she asked her cousin, “Which do you prefer for the arbor?”
It was Ravensworth who answered. “I think roses particularly suit you.”
Delilah inhaled sharply, as if bracing herself for a deeply unpleasant thirty seconds, and faced Ravensworth. She couldn’t ignore him forever. “And why is that?”
A sardonic smile curled along one side of his mouth. “They have thorns.”
“Peonies it is,” said Delilah.
Ravensworth swept his arm around. “What’s all this, anyway?” Before anyone could reply, he answered his own question. “A play.” He snorted. “Of course.”
Delilah crossed her arms over her chest, and her jaw clenched. She wouldn’t be answering. That was apparent.
“It is, indeed, a play,” replied Miss Windermere.
“And what play would that be?” asked Ravensworth.
“As You Like It.”
His smile widened. “Two cousins venturing into the forest to make a bit of mischief,” he said. “Sounds like two cousins I know.”
“How long will you be staying at Dalhousie Manor, Your Grace?” asked Miss Windermere.
“Oh, I’d say a week or so.”
A look settled on Miss Windermere’s face—like the cat who had got the cream. “We could use some help in making up the number of players. Perhaps Ravensworth would like to take a role?”
All the color drained from Delilah’s face.
Rory saw that poetry wasn’t Miss Windermere’s only skill. That ability might just be rivaled by her ability to wind her cousin up.
“If Ravensworth stays,” said Delilah, “we’ll need to change the play.”
“To The Taming of the Shrew, perhaps?” asked Ravensworth.
“I’m thinking Julius Caesar.”
“Quite a few stabbings in that one, if memory serves.”
“Precisely.”
Ravensworth snorted.
“Have we settled on an Orlando yet?” asked Miss Windermere.
Masterful, that question. For Rosalind was the lead of the play, and Orlando was her lover.
“Ravensworth cannot be Orlando,” said Lady Delilah, decided.
“Why not?” asked Ravensworth.
“Because I am Orlando.”
They all four turned to find James Dalhousie standing with his hands on his hips, chest puffed out like a lizard who wanted to make himself look more menacing to his enemies. Someday, the lad would make a formidable man. Today wasn’t that day.
Ravensworth squinted. “Has your first chin hair even sprouted?”
“That’s correct,” Delilah said quickly. “James has already been given the role of Orlando.” One couldn’t help but notice the air of relief hanging about her. She cast a dismissive glance toward Ravensworth. “You can be Duke Frederick.”
A frown formed about his mouth. “The villain?”
Delilah shrugged, clearly pleased with herself for having finally got a point on the board. “If the doublet fits.”
Rory cleared his throat. This would be a good time to quell the sniping between Delilah and Ravensworth. He pointed toward the stage. “I see everything is in place.” That was him relieved of carpentry duties.
Miss Windermere met his eye. She saw what he’d done, and approved. He wasn’t sure why the notion made his body heat up a few degrees.
“Our gracious hosts already had a dais for our use,” she said. “It was simply a matter of getting the stage into place and constructing a frame for it.”
“Juliet—” began Delilah.
How had Rory never noticed what a lovely name Juliet was? Or that it perfectly fit Miss Windermere?
“Roses or peonies?” Delilah finished. It was clear the only opinion that mattered was her cousin’s. These two had ever been so.
Yet something more Rory found himself liking about Miss Windermere. While she might tease and wind her cousin up, there was no question where her loyalties lay.
“Peonies,” said Miss Windermere—Juliet.
Delilah let the rose drop to the table. “Will you arrange a section of the garland like usual?”
Rory followed the direction of the cousins’ gazes and settled on the length of greenery twined around the top beam of the stage frame. His eyebrows creased together. “How exactly is Miss Windermere supposed to arrange the garland?” he found himself asking.
Delilah stared at him as if he were the dullest block of wood. “With a ladder, of course.”
“It’s a good twelve feet high,” he pointed out. Someone had to be the voice of reason with the Windermeres.
Miss Windermere shrugged. “Nothing I haven’t done before.”
“I…I…” Rory found himself saying. “Forbid it,” he didn’t say.
Three sets of curious eyes landed on him. Delilah’s brow had lifted. Ravensworth’s eyes had narrowed. And a little frown was pulling at the corners of Miss Windermere’s mouth, as if she’d intuited the completion of his unfinished lordly command.
“I…I shall lend my assistance,” he stated. He didn’t ask.
“You mustn’t worry, Rory,” said Delilah. “Juliet has a talent for flower arranging and general greenery placement.”
As if artfully arranged flowers were any concern of his.
Truly, the Windermere genius lay in utterly ignoring a point when it didn’t suit their ends.
Miss Windermere plucked the peony from Delilah’s hand and strode toward the stage. She was a tall woman, with long legs beneath those white muslin skirts. When she walked decisively fast, she strode.
He rather liked that about her, too.
He found himself following slowly, feeling in no small part a fool, his eye never wavering from her as she directed a middle Dalhousie lad—Ned, this one was called—to place a ladder at the center of the stage by leaning it against the upper frame.
She grabbed a handful of white peonies from the wicker basket at the base of the ladder.
A feeling churned inside Rory’s stomach. He didn’t much like where this was headed. For if his hunch was correct, Miss Windermere intended to—
Peony stems tucked into the pink sash at her waist, freeing up her hands, she placed one hand, then the other, onto the ladder and began climbing. No one seemed to take notice or be particularly bothered, least of all the lady herself.
Add fearless to Miss Windermere’s vast intelligence and massive talent.
In combination with her good looks, she might be the perfect woman.
Now, where had that thought come from?
Rory found himself standing at the base of the ladder. “Should you be going up quite so high?” he called up.
She glanced down. “How else am I to place the flowers?”
One could hardly challenge the logic of the question, but… “Do you have to be the one placing the flowers?”
She tossed him an irritated glance. “Yes.” A beat. “If you’re going to insist on standing there, you can make yourself useful.”
“How’s that?” he asked. Neck craned, he grabbed the base of the ladder with both hands. She’d climbed up to the second highest rung.
Also, there was the matter of her skirts.
Namely, it would take hardly a shift of the eye to see up them.
He wouldn’t…
He couldn’t.
A cold sweat sheened his skin.
If he were to ever see up her skirts, it would be by permission.
Hers.
Definitely not at the behest of the cockstand that was beginning to form inside his trousers.
He must think about something—anything—so as not to make an even bigger fool of himself than he was already.
“Grab the basket of peonies,” she said. “I’d like to arrange a three-foot section to get an idea of how many we’ll need on performance night.”
He wanted to tell her no in no uncertain terms, but he also wanted to be involved. For it was very clear that if he didn’t do as she asked then she would simply ask someone else. A spare Dalhousie lad would happily volunteer, no doubt. And Rory needed to be close in case—when—something happened.
In silence, they worked together as Rory handed up one peony after another, Miss Windermere taking them. It was with no small amount of relief that he handed her the final flower. All she had to do was stick it in the garland and descend.
But with the final peony, Miss Windermere miscalculated and stretched her arm a hair too far, her weight tipping left and making the ladder wobble to one side. Luckily, Rory had just returned both hands to the ladder and was able to tighten his grip and steady it.
A nervous, little laugh escaped Miss Windermere. No small amount of relief in that laugh.
Unluckily, she overcompensated to the right and tilted off-balance entirely, tumbling off the ladder and falling—
Into arms Rory only just got into cradling position in the nick of time.
He was no small man, but his knees nearly buckled beneath him when the full force of her weight hit. Though tall and willowy, Miss Windermere didn’t lack substance.
Warm body snugged against him, face inches from his, he met her direct emerald gaze. His lungs forgot how to breathe and his heart forgot how to beat and the Earth might’ve forgot how to turn on its axis.
Her hair had come loose from its knot at the base of her neck and now spilled over her shoulders in waves of black silk, releasing a scent of sage and jasmine. Miss Windermere’s scent, he now knew.
What intriguing intimacies she’d unwittingly shared with him—the scent of her…the feel of her.
He’d been holding her for a few ticks of time too long.
But he didn’t seem to know how to stop, for she felt…right…in his arms.
Then Delilah was there, and he was releasing Miss Windermere.
Physically.
The memory of her wouldn’t be so easily surrendered.
He found himself talking, his voice a gruff approximation of itself. “Shall I collect you here on the morrow for our, erm, wander-about? Ten of the clock?”
“Or,” she began, “perhaps it would be easier for your morning duties if I meet you at Baile ìm around midday tea?”
He nodded. That was most considerate of her.
Delilah’s eyebrows crinkled so deeply on her forehead, they might’ve left a permanent indentation. “Wander-about? What wander-about?”
“Kilmuir has volunteered to show me places similar to those Scáthach would’ve experienced,” Miss Windermere lied, cool.
“Did he?” This from Ravensworth, who was watching the proceedings with entirely too much knowing in his eyes.
But the man didn’t know anything, and Rory intended to keep it that way.
Whatever was happening between him and Miss Windermere…
He felt oddly protective of it.
And he had a feeling it wouldn’t bear up against too much scrutiny.
It was time to leave. But he had one more thing to say to Miss Windermere. “You’ll not be placing any more flowers today, correct?”
She drew herself up to her full height. “As it happens, I shall not.”
He nodded. “I’m off.”
“I’ll take that as my cue, as well,” said Ravensworth.
Both men pivoted on their respective heels and didn’t speak again until they were outside beneath a sky just beginning to accept the idea that it would have to turn into night eventually.
“Where are we going?” asked Ravensworth. The man might rub some people up the wrong way with his dukely imperative, but those people didn’t know him for the friend Rory knew him to be. Sebastian was loyal and protective, almost to a fault.
“To find the nearest loch to jump into.”
A laugh rumbled at his side. “Can’t think of a better idea.”
Leaving Dalhousie Manor, Rory knew three things more than he had when he’d entered.
He knew the scent of Miss Windermere.
He knew the feel of her.
And he knew that even the frigid waters of a Scottish loch in April wouldn’t be enough to wash the scent and feel of her off his skin.