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. “Preciselywhat?”
“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 offtheir 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 currentlyactingin 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?
