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 tolickher…where tonibbleher—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 knownthis. 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 placeyouwill 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.
Hehad 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.”