“Don’t I know it?”
She might’ve blushed, but he couldn’t be sure as she took a seat on the saffron damask chaise longue. He remained standing at the window, propping a shoulder against the frame.
Her head canted with curiosity. “How did you come by the key to this room?”
“Mrs. Rush.”
“The housekeeper gave you the key?” she asked, incredulous.
“Well, I happen to know where she keeps the keys to all the rooms, and she finds the dimple in my left cheek charming.” He shrugged.
“The one when you half smile.”
“Aye.” He gave her just the smile. “She won’t notice the key has taken a walk for an hour or so.”
Juliet worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “Is there a reason you’ve brought me to this particular study? You couldn’t have known it was my favorite.”
In fact, he’d brought her to this room for two reasons. It was in the least used wing of the manor and…
It had a comfortable chaise longue.
“Perhaps,” she continued, “you brought me here because it’s also Miss Dalhousie’s favorite room and you thought it would provide me inspiration?”
Rory snorted. She was toying with him, surely. But he could see from the seriousness in her eyes that she wasn’t.
“Erm, perhaps,” was the best response he could give that wasn’t an outright lie.
Juliet’s gaze narrowed skeptically. “I’ve been writing the poem.”
Ah, this was better. “And how is Scáthach faring today?”
Juliet shook her head. “Not that poem. The other one. The one for Miss Dalhousie.”
Oh.
“The one I’m writing to woo her.”
He shifted against the wall. “Of course.”
“I took quite a bit of inspiration from the last place you showed me.”
Rory’s eyebrows gathered in a bunch. “The inside of my bedroom?”
A beat of time laden with the events that had transpired between them in his bedroom two nights ago loped past.
“The waterfall,” she said, at last.
Of course.
“Which does bring me to a point of curiosity,” she continued. “I’ve never seen Miss Dalhousie leave the indoors, except to take a carriage ride. She seems quite content to be within doors. All the time.”
Rory had no interest in—or intention of—discussing Miss Dalhousie. It wasn’t for that purpose that he’d brought Juliet to this room. But he couldn’t very well tell her as much.
Not with his words, at least.
He shrugged off his morning coat and tossed it toward the nearest chair.
A little frown pulled at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes followed as he unbuttoned his dove-gray waistcoat. “What, precisely, are you doing?” she asked, a pettish note to the question.