“What important point did Oliver Quincy nearly make?” she asked.
“One about women.”
“Doubtful,” she said with absolute, dismissive finality.
“And men,” continued Rory.
He was making a hash of this attempt at deeper intimacy. Perhaps he should just kiss her. Perhaps it was simply that he was better at convincing bodies to be his than at convincing hearts and souls.
“And what insight does Oliver Quincyalmosthave about women and men?”
“That women need protection.”
Finally, he’d veered back on course.
Juliet scoffed. “I realize that I shall sound like the most spoiled lady in all the world when I say this, but I have never once in my life feltlike I needed protection. Such is the privilege of my rank, wealth, and family situation.”
Family situation.Something about that phrasing struck Rory.
But he couldn’t let his point rest yet. “Not even from a man like?—”
Her eyebrows crinkled together. “I hope you’re not considering finishing that sentence with the name Oliver Quincy.”
“Me.”
“You?” she asked. Her eyebrows released and shot toward the night sky.
“It does occur to me, yes.”
“I could never want or need protection from you.”
The way she spoke those words with such earnestness and sincerity sent a feeling skittering through him. Yet…
Family situation.He now understood why the phrase stuck. “Your parents would’ve protected you.”
She blinked, and the moment transformed. Gone was the disdain and humor, and in its stead was sincerity and openness. He stepped into that opening. “Do you ever miss them?”
She set her gaze upon the fairy glen, head tilted, pensive. “It’s not them, precisely, that I miss. I never knew my parents. Rather I have these ideas of them.”
He reclined back onto his elbows, hoping the relaxed position would invite more confidences. “How so?”
“After they perished in the carriage accident, I came to live with my aunt, uncle, and cousins when I was barely toddling on two legs. My first strong memories aren’t of my mother, but of Delilah.” A wistful smile softened about her mouth. “She and I never left one another’s sight for at least ten years. But I do have other early memories—faint ones—like memories that are echoes of other memories. I have a memory of my mother smiling at me, but I also have a portrait of her smiling and it’s the same smile, so I don’t know if the smile I recall was one given to me or a trick of my mind.”
Rory didn’t hesitate. “It’s her smiling at you thatyou remember, Juliet. I’m sure of it.”
He wasn’t certain who needed it to be so more—her or him. He didn’t like to see the supremely confident Juliet Windermere doubt herself.
“In some ways,” she continued, “I’m very much like my Windermere cousins. But in others, I’m not. And, sometimes, I’ll find myself wondering if the ways I’munlike them are the ways I’m like Mama and Papa. I’ll never know.”
The words Juliet was speaking to him were words she’d never told another living soul, he sensed. They were feelings that lived in her heart.
That she’d voiced them to him was a gift—one he wasn’t about to take lightly.
She didn’t think she needed a man to protect her in the world—and maybe she was right.
But he did know what sort of man shedidneed.
One to confide in.
