Juliet squeezed her hand. “You can do anything, Davina. I’m convinced of it.”
“Mine are simply accomplishments that anyone can be taught. They don’t originate from true desire. That has never come to me.”
True desire.
At that moment, on stage, Rory stumbled into view, laboring beneath an object attached to his back. Except it was no object, but rather James Dalhousie attempting to wrestle Rory to the ground.
Miss Dalhousie lifted a hand to her mouth and stifled a giggle. “I’d heard that James was taking his acting duties rather too far.”
All the stage and audience went uncomfortably silent—save James’ grunts of exertion—as everyone watched, mesmerized, the spectacle of a lad of seventeen years and eight stone attempting to bring down a man of thirty-two years and fifteen stone. It defied all logic and good sense, and yet, as she watched, Juliet felt certainty swell alongside the befuddlement inside her.
True desire.
That man allowing himself to be awkwardly wrestled to the stage boards by a lad half his age and size—risking showing everyone precisely what a Scotsman wore beneath his kilt—was her true desire personified.
“I’m madly in love with you, Juliet.”
When he, at last, allowed James to pin him to the boards and lay in faux defeat as the lad released an unseemly roar of triumph, a realization walloped Juliet over the head.
Love was war.
And Rory, the nicest, most decent man she’d ever known, had been fighting all this time.
For her.
“You’re not exactly the most approachable lass.”
He wasn’t wrong.
In truth, he’d done everything to win her—even if he did have her labor over a poem for another woman.
The time had arrived…
For her surrender.
And what a sweet defeat it would be, for it would win her heart’s desire. Yet…
She must fight, too.
To be worthy of him.
What was that nonsense that she never intended to marry?
Of course she did.
She fully intended to marry Rory.
Urgency filled her. It was only when she started to take a step toward the stage that she noticed her hand still holding the wind chimes. “Davina,” she began, handing over the instrument, “you must visit Delilah in London soon. She’ll be happy to teach you how to break a few rules, and she’ll be glad for your company after—” Her mouth snapped shut.
“After?” Davina prodded, a knowing smile in her fathomless eyes.
After I run off with that man presently being pinned to the ground by a youth half his age and size.
But she couldn’t very well say that.
Besides, the twinkle in Davina’s eye suggested she’d intuited as much.
Juliet cleared her throat. “After, erm, Easter.” It was as good a time as any, and honestly her interest in the matter had altogether deserted her.