Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Ten minutes earlier
Rory poked his head around the curtain and gave the audience a quick scan. It wasn’t until he squinted that he found Juliet standing against the back wall in the farthest reaches of the receiving hall, holding a…
Was that a wind chime in her hand?
And who was that standing beside her?
His stomach lurched. He might’ve groaned, too.
Miss Dalhousie.
The former object of his affection conversing with the woman he was determined to spend the rest of his life with.
That might not result in a positive outcome for him.
A throat cleared behind him. He turned to find Ravensworth giving his tatty, old kilt an amused up-and-down. Rory wouldn’t be living this night down for a good long while, the duke’s single lifted eyebrow said.
“Rory,” said Ravensworth.
“Sebastian,” Rory returned.
The amusement faded from Ravensworth’s eyes, replaced with a purposeful glint. Rory knew that look. His friend had something to say.
At last, he said it. “Are you planning to do right by her?”
Rory didn’t need to ask who her was. He supposed it had become obvious. “If she lets me.”
That was the truth.
Ravensworth snorted. “Windermeres.”
Indeed, Windermeres.
Ravensworth grew deadly serious. “Convince her.”
Rory nodded and took a step, determined to do exactly that. A staying hand wrapped around his upper arm. “You’re not thinking of going to her, are you?” said Ravensworth.
That was exactly what Rory was thinking.
She had to know they were perfect for each other.
“Didn’t you just say—”
“Best to wait for a Windermere to come to you,” said Ravensworth, his eye on the stage.
Rory followed the line of his gaze. Ah. “Like you’ve been waiting for a certain Windermere?”
Ravensworth flashed him an irritated glance.
Delilah was certainly a glory both on and off the stage—the sort to be flame to Ravensworth’s moth. The man had an insatiable appetite for art, beauty, and talent, particularly when combined in one female form. And for all her wildness, Lady Delilah Windermere was all those things.
It was none of Rory’s concern, of course, but he wished Ravensworth the best of luck.
He would need it.
A voice sounded behind them. “What is it we’re looking at?”
Rory and Ravensworth turned in unison to find Oliver Quincy. A moment later the man answered himself. “Ah, the beauteous Lady Delilah.”
Ravensworth’s jaw clenched. Rory couldn’t help an amused snort.
“You know,” continued Quincy, impervious to the tension building around him, as ever. “I’m beginning to think she won’t be accepting my standing proposal of marriage.”
Ravensworth pinned the man with an incredulous glare. “Wasn’t that proposal made three years ago?”
“Precisely,” said Quincy, rocking onto his toes, self-satisfied.
Rory supposed he would ask the question that couldn’t remain unasked. “Precisely what?”
“After all that kerfuffle and scandal she caused at Eton, I would still have her.”
A dumbfounded beat of time skated past.
Quincy wasn’t finished yet. “It takes some ladies longer than others to know what’s good for them.”
Another beat of silence descended betwixt the three men as it occurred to two of them those might’ve been the first sensible words ever to emerge from Oliver Quincy’s mouth—though perhaps not in the way he intended.
“Right,” said Ravensworth. “I’ll be joining our hosts in the audience.” He directed a parting nod toward Rory and a lifted eyebrow at Quincy.
“Psst,” Rory heard from the curtain on stage left. Delilah was waving wildly, beckoning him forward onto the stage, where James Dalhousie waited, a pugnacious set to his jaw and a mean glint in his eye.
The time had arrived for the wrestling scene.
Best to get on with it.
Rory strode forward, and the lad ran at him full tilt and immediately attached himself to his back. While the audience thought they were watching actors play their roles, Dalhousie clearly felt differently as his arms tightened around Rory’s neck and squeezed.
Rory had expected something like this.
As he allowed Dalhousie to “wrestle” him—males of teen years could be oddly fragile beings, for all their emerging muscles—Rory kept half an eye fixed on Juliet. She and Miss Dalhousie continued their talk. Clearly, the two women had much to get off their chests.
Then from his one good eye that wasn’t presently pinned to the stage boards, he watched Juliet do something unexpected. She handed Miss Dalhousie her wind chimes and took a step.
A step up the center aisle…
His heart kicked up into a sprint.
A step toward him.
“That’ll be enough,” he muttered up to Dalhousie.
“I don’t sense your spirit has yet broken, Kilmuir,” the lad said through gritted teeth.
“If you’ll recall, we’re currently acting in a play.” Rory couldn’t help noting the curious, disbelieving silence that had descended on the receiving hall as Dalhousie gave his all. “Ye’ll not be breaking my spirit today, lad.”
“I’ll say when it’s over.”
Enough was enough.
Dalhousie glued to his back, Rory pushed to all fours, and then shook off the lad as easily as water flew off Clootie’s back.
The confounded spell that had descended on the room at the sight of James Dalhousie wrestling Lord Kilmuir to the ground lifted, and the actors on stage snapped to and remembered their role, which was to escort a vanquished Charles the Wrestler off the stage.
Except in this version of the play, Rory was going nowhere, for Juliet now stood at the front of the stage and was staring up at him. “What ho!” she cried out as she clambered up onto the boards.
What was Juliet about, anyway?
Delilah was clearly wondering the same as she stared at her cousin, mouth agape, a storm building on her face, even as she tried to stay in character. “Who is this that has wandered into our fair woods?”
Juliet swiveled and proclaimed, “I am called Juliet.”
It struck Rory that though Juliet excelled in the creation of words, that same level of talent didn’t extend to her acting skills.
In short, she was a terrible actress.
Delilah looked tempted to drag her cousin off the stage. “I believe you’ve wandered in from an entirely different play, Juliet.”
“Oh?” Juliet put her hand to her forehead and dramatically scanned the stage and audience. “O Macbeth, Macbeth, wherefore art thou Macbeth?” she proclaimed.
Delilah groaned. The other actors looked confused. Out in the audience, Mr. and Mrs. Dalhousie looked bewildered. Miss Dalhousie looked to be stifling a giggle behind her hand. Ravensworth leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, as if settling in for a night’s entertainment.
And Rory… Well, he found himself taking a step forward, a feeling of protectiveness surging within him. If Juliet was here to make a fool of herself, then she wouldn’t be alone.
She would never be alone.
“’Tis your Macbeth, fair Juliet,” he said.
Delilah threw frustrated hands into the air and lowered herself to a seat, legs crossed in front of her.
She leaned back onto her elbows and watched, clearly resigned to the fact that she’d lost all control.
The moment no longer belonged to the actors reciting lines, but to him and Juliet—playing none other than themselves, speaking the words writ upon their hearts.
Juliet stared out at him, vulnerable in a way he’d never seen before. What she was doing right now, being the center of attention, couldn’t have been comfortable for her. But then, he was finding the course of true love wasn’t exactly a comfortable business.
Or something like that.
Shakespeare said it better.
She rubbed her lips together, then opened her mouth.
Then closed it. Then opened it again, decided.
“The essence of something is the most difficult thing to describe, because the essence is the truth that lay at its very core—at its heart. Take love, for instance. It isn’t a tangible object that can be held in a hand, and yet it can be held in a heart.
It contains substance and solidity”—she pressed her palm to her chest—“here.” She inhaled deeply, as if bracing herself.
“I love you, my Rory. Not the you I beheld with girlish eyes, but the you I’ve experienced with my woman’s heart—and body. ”
The audience’s scandalized gasp sailed up to the rafters.
Rory didn’t hesitate.
He reached for her hand and led them to the front edge of the stage.
He hopped the short foot to the floor and turned, holding her tight as she descended.
All eyes following them, rapt, he led her down the center aisle and to the front door, which Rivers had already opened, ever the butler to anticipate the needs of Dalhousie Manor’s guests.
In silence, Rory led Juliet down the wide, stone staircase and across the gravel drive before stepping onto the green lawn that led toward the ha-ha.
He’d formed an idea about speaking his heart beneath the stars, but this was Scotland in spring, and no two consecutive nights would have stars.
Instead, the sky hung low with a thick blanket of clouds heavy with unfallen rain.
Still, he kept walking until they were beyond view of the house. The windows would surely have eyes.
Only then, with the song of night sung by crickets and warblers for company, Rory pulled Juliet to a stop. Inches separated them as they stood facing one another. He opened his mouth to speak first, and shut it. He’d said so much last night—all that was within his heart, in fact.
Tonight was Juliet’s turn.
Her eyes bright with all that yet lay unspoken, she said, “I thought about writing you a poem.”
“I would be honored.”
He’d thought it was only the female sex who experienced skipped beats of the heart. But he’d just been proven wrong.
“But I didn’t.”
“Oh.”
“Because my mind would take over and try to perfect what’s in my heart if I commit it to pen and paper.
And I don’t want that. What is here”—she pressed her palm to her chest—“and here”—she pressed her other palm to his chest—“isn’t in need of perfecting, for it’s the poetry writ upon my heart by yours. ”
He nodded.
“I tend to think about matters too much,” she continued.
“I’m always searching for the perfect words.
But with you, Rory, none of that is necessary.
With you, I’m allowed simply to feel—in my body and in my heart.
My mind has naught to do with you and me.
With you, I can simply be.” Uncertainty entered her eyes.
“But in truth, I don’t understand what benefit you get out of the bargain. ”
Though they weren’t standing in a grove of olive trees in the sun-drenched Tuscan countryside, but rather in a sodden stand of oaks, Rory spoke the words he should’ve said two years ago. “You look like someone.”
Juliet’s eyebrows drew together. “And who is that?” she asked, wary.
“Like the woman I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Oh, Rory.”
“You, Miss Windermere, are beautiful and intelligent and talented and wickedly funny—and wicked other places, too. You listen to me. You take me seriously. Many don’t.”
“They should,” she said, near ferocious.
“See? There.”
“What?”
He chuckled and tucked his thumb beneath her chin, tipping her head back. “You have a bit of the she-wolf about you. That bodes well.”
“For what?”
“Life in the Scottish Highlands.”
He had yet more to say—and a question to ask.
“I love you, my bonny lass.” His hand slid around to cradle the nape of her neck, drawing her toward him. “Will you consent to be my bride and spend all the rest of your days with me?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes watery with unshed tears.
“How do you feel about a small wedding?”
“Of two?”
“Three,” he said. “We’ll need the smithy.”
“Perfect,” she said, the Windermere daring streak running through her emerald eyes, and then she surrendered to his kiss.
Life would never be boring with his wild Windermere bride.
And Rory wouldn’t have it any other way.