by Lauren Royal
Still motionless on the swing, she turned her head to look at him. “You’re good with your niece. And Rowan.”
He felt totally inept with them, but he didn’t want to argue. “Perhaps that’s because I never grew up myself,” he suggested instead. “My family would tell you that.”
“You’ve said something like that before,” she recalled, looking flushed and flustered and beautiful, her eyes large and liquid behind her lenses. The spectacles had slipped down her nose, and she pushed them back up. “What are they like, your family?”
“Loud,” he answered with a grin. “I have a twin sister, Kendra, and two older brothers, Jason and Colin. All married. Among the three of them, they have seven children already, and I suspect more to come. Jewel is the oldest.”
“No wonder you’re good with children, then.”
He shook his head. “It’s not like that. I’ve played with them, of course, and when I’m not in London, I live with Jason and his family at Cainewood. Two boys, he and Cait have. But before now, I’d never taken care of my nephews or nieces.” They all had nursemaids to see to that. “I’ve never taken care of anyone before.”
He'd been the baby of the family. Everyone had always taken care of him.
“Well, you’re doing a proper job.” She shifted to look over at Jewel, who was shrieking with laughter as she soared through the air beside Rowan.
His niece looked happy. Perhaps Violet was right, and he wasn’t doing such a bad job after all.
“And your parents?” she asked, turning back. “What are they like?”
“Dead.”
“Faith,” she muttered, her face going white. “I’m so sor—”
“No need to be sorry.” He turned the book over in his hands. “I was all of one year old when they died at Worcester, fighting for King Charles. I don’t even remember them. My oldest brother more or less raised me, with the help of the exiled court. It was an interesting life.”
Her fingers trailed up and down the ropes. “And a rough life, I’d wager.”
He shrugged. “Not for me. Our parents sold most everything to help finance the war, but I was too young to worry about where my next meal would come from. Someone else always took care of that. The court moved from Paris, to Brussels, to Bruges and back…the world was my playground. I suppose things were tight, but a child doesn’t need much.”
When she met his gaze, the expression in them made something twist in his gut. “A child needs love,” she said softly.
Soft or not, he heard a challenge in her voice.
“I had love.” Uncomfortable under that gaze, he looked at the sun shining off the river instead. “From my sister and two older brothers. I never wanted for anything.”
A short silence stretched between them before he finally looked back. One of her stockinged feet reached for the grass and pushed off. “And after you returned to England?” she asked, swaying back and forth.
How to sum up the last decade in a few short sentences? Why did he care that she understood his past? “By the time Charles regained the throne, Jason and Colin were nearly of age. Cromwell had stolen their childhoods, and both of them had too many responsibilities to attend formal schooling. I should never have owned land—being a younger son—but as thanks for our parents’ service to the crown, Charles granted all of us titles and estates…and as soon as I could, I left mine behind and went off to university.”
“How old were you then?”
“Seventeen. And spoiled rotten.”
He’d never thought of it that way before, but it was true. Between term times during his six years at Oxford, and after completing his studies earlier this year, he’d returned to live with Jason. He’d never had to fend for himself. Never worried for anyone else. Never even had to chase a girl, since he’d always had Tabitha waiting in London.
He gave a rueful smile. “I’ve led a charmed life, haven’t I?“
“I’m sure you haven’t,” she said quickly, and he remembered how things had ended with Tabitha. That part of his life wouldn’t fall under the definition of charmed…but already, he realized, it didn’t seem to hurt anymore. And it certainly didn’t matter.
Odd, that.
Leaning back, Violet stuck her legs out straight and stared at her stockinged feet. “Nothing is that simple.”
But it had been. It had always been simple for him.
They fell quiet, and he smiled at the quaint picture she made on the swing, shoeless and wearing his spectacles. He’d never talked with a girl like he talked with Violet Ashcroft—never met one who seemed interested in discussing much beyond fashion and gossip. Never talked with anyone who made him reveal parts of himself he hadn’t even known.
“What was your childhood like?” he asked.
“Boring in comparison.” Still looking down, she turned her toes this way and that. “Grandpapa sent money for the cause, but he never went off to fight. He put family before the monarchy. We never went into exile, either. I’ve never been outside of Britain.”
“But he did support King Charles?”
She looked up. “Oh, yes. Of course he did. My family was never anything but Royalist.”
“I’m surprised Trentingham wasn’t attacked by Cromwell’s forces, then. Cainewood was.” And had the cannonball marks to prove it.
“They confiscated Trentingham and occupied it, but we weren’t there. Grandpapa had a secondary title and property that went along with it. Tremayne Castle, very near Wales. Not helpful for the Roundheads strategically, and I suspect too far away for them to bother with.” She glanced over at the children. “Rowan is Viscount Tremayne now.”
“So your family stayed there for all the years of the war?”
“And after. All through the Commonwealth, until the Restoration. Besides having an odd penchant for studying languages, Grandpapa was a stickler for safety.” She pushed off again, gliding up and then down, slowing immediately when she did nothing to sustain the momentum. “My parents were wed at Tremayne, and I was born there. As were Rose and Lily. I was six before I ever laid eyes on Trentingham.”
“Six?” he said, surprised. “How old are you now?”
“Almost eighteen.”
From the tone of her voice one would guess she thought eighteen was a doddering old maid. But he’d thought she was older. Not that she looked older, but Tabitha was twenty-one, yet Violet seemed so much more mature.
“I’m twenty-three,” he told her.
“I figured that,” she said, “when I heard you were one year old during the Battle of Worcester.”
“Unlike Rowan, you’re good at mathematics.” He smiled, thinking she was good at a lot of things. “Does your family sometimes live at Tremayne Castle now?”
“Not anymore. We retreated there to wait out the Great Plague—Rowan was born there during that time. But then Grandpapa died, and we haven’t been back since.” Seeming deep in thought, she gazed out over the Thames, swaying gently to and fro in the swing. “The castle was only ever half built. Mum says it’s too far from London, and Father prefers Trentingham’s gardens. It’s a quiet sort of place, Tremayne…” She met his gaze again with a smile. “See, I told you my childhood was boring.”
To his great embarrassment, his stomach growled. Loudly.
“Oh!” she said. “It’s been at least two hours since you said you were starving! Before we even bought the books!”
“I haven’t perished.” He stood and handed her the shoes. “But I wouldn’t mind wandering over and taking a table.”
While she put them on, he went to fetch the children.
“Not yet!” Jewel yelled, swinging higher. “Another minute!”
“Two minutes!” Rowan countered.
“Three!”
“Five!”
“Ten!”
“Ten,” Ford agreed, giving Jewel one final push. “But only because it’s your birthday, mind you.”
Violet followed Ford to an empty table. As she slid onto the bench,
she kept a vigilant eye on the two young ones, who faced away as they soared over the scenic river.
“Relax,” he told her. “They’ll be safe. If they fail to join us, they can eat their portions on the barge on our way home. And the two of us can dine in peace.”
A nice thought, Violet decided. Even more nice after he went inside to order a light dinner, then returned to sit beside her.
He couldn’t actually have feelings for her…could he? Everything she knew about men told her no—but then again, she didn’t know much about them at all. And his actions seemed to paint a different picture. It was confusing, to say the least. Especially when her hands drifted up to her face and she remembered her unsightly spectacles. For a while there, she’d forgotten all about them.
“No one’s staring,” he said gently. He lowered her hands and laced his fingers with one of them. It felt intimate, and her heart gave a stutter. “You look fine, Violet. You look lovely.”
Through the lenses, he appeared sincere. She surveyed the few patrons seated at the other tables. The buzz of their conversation sounded pleasant to her ears, and he was right: no one was staring.
Besides Ford, no one was looking at her at all.
His gaze dropped to the book, his face brightening at the sight. “I still cannot believe I may have found Secrets of the Emerald Tablet.”
“I’m so happy for you.”
“It might not be the right book,” he reminded her, although she suspected he was actually reminding himself. He squeezed her hand. “But I thank you for sharing my excitement.”
“It’s contagious,” she told him. Her fingers tingled every place they touched his; she’d never realized her hand was so sensitive.
A serving maid came out and put two tankards on the table, along with a pewter platter piled with fat slices of cream toast. She set down two empty plates, and Ford dropped Violet’s hand to take one of them.
Her spectacles seemed to be fogging. She pulled them off, wiped them on her skirt, and put them back on. “Thank you for sharing your dream,” she said, lifting a tankard. A bracing swallow of ale seemed just the thing. “I very much hope it comes true.”
“It would be incredible, wouldn’t it?” He also sipped, regarding her over his tankard’s rim. “And what are your dreams, Violet?”
“You’d laugh.” She’d never told anyone outside her own family. Ever. Avoiding his eyes, she busied herself sprinkling sweet brown sugar on a slice of the egg-battered bread.
“I won’t laugh. I promise.” He sprinkled extra cinnamon on his. “Tell me,” he said, cutting a piece.
“Well, one day…” As a delaying tactic, she swallowed a bite of cream toast, then washed it down with some ale.
“Yes?” he prompted, looking amused.
“I’d like to publish a philosophy book,” she blurted out. “Not now, of course, but when I’m older. I still have much to learn first.”
“A lady authoring a philosophy tome.” Chewing, he considered. “It’s an ambitious dream.”
He was listening, and he wasn’t laughing. “I would publish it under a man’s name. Otherwise no one would read it.”
“Do you think so?”
“I know so.” She sipped, then rushed on. “I have an inheritance coming, you see, enough to print and distribute the book far and wide.”
He finished his slice and took another. “What is it you’re so burning to say?”
“I don’t know yet.” Perhaps that sounded rather foolish, but it felt so good to finally tell someone—someone who really listened. “I’m still learning, still changing my opinions. But I believe these things are important. Ideas can change the world. And…I dream of leaving my mark.”
“So do I.”
“But with science, am I right?” Ford was different, like her. She’d never expected to meet anybody like her. “You want to leave your mark with science. Science can change the world, too.”
“Exactly.”
He smiled, reaching to touch the back of her hand. She thrilled at the contact—until he opened his mouth again.
“I reckon it’s a rare fellow who’d let his wife’s fortune go to such a project.”
His words cut her to the core.
She’d thought he understood.
Disappointment swamped her short-lived giddiness. He was poking fun at her. Raising her tankard to hide her flaming face, she ordered herself to shrug it off. She focused on Rowan and Jewel still swinging in the distance, their lighthearted laughter floating to her on the breeze. Of course he would think like that, she reasoned—she should expect nothing else.
Ford was different, but not as different as she’d hoped. Men that different simply didn’t exist.
With a sigh, she lowered the tankard. “I realize most gentlemen marry for money.” And Ford would be no exception, especially given his obvious lack of the same. “But as far as I’m concerned, that isn’t a good reason to shackle oneself for life.”
She watched him rake his fingers through his hair. “That’s not what I said—”
“I knew what you were thinking.”
“Did you?“ he murmured, lifting his own tankard. A series of emotions crossed his face, but Violet couldn’t make them out. He took a slow sip of ale. ”Are you never planning to marry, then?”
Perhaps she’d dreamed of it for a minute—one brief, insensible minute. “My family isn’t a conventional one.”
“Question Convention.”
“Yes. I feel no compulsion to lead a typical woman’s life.”
He just gazed at her for a while. A long while, while she tried and failed to figure out what he was thinking.
“No,” he said at last, and paused for another sip. “Nobody would ever call Violet Ashcroft typical.”
That hurt, but she only stiffened her spine. “I’m aware of my eccentricities, my lord. And I realize they are the reason no man would want me except for my inheritance.”
He bristled. “Criminy, is it that much money?”
She couldn’t tell whether he was sarcastic or serious, and she didn’t get a chance to find out. Because in the next moment, two voices rang out from the riverbank.
“I dare you!”
“I dare you!”
And a moment after that, Jewel and Rowan flew from their swings into the water.
TWENTY-TWO
VIOLET JUMPED up from where they were eating. “The children!”
Splashes and screams followed.
Icy fear gripped Ford’s heart. Boots and all, he made a running dive into the river.
But the splashes were playful ones—on Rowan’s part, at least. And if Jewel’s shrieks weren’t exactly in fun, they weren’t pleas for rescue, either. It was obvious both children knew how to swim.
The shock of cold water helped Ford regain his wits as he gathered Jewel and Rowan to him, one in each arm. He should have given his niece more credit, he thought wryly. She was much too clever to leap to her death. And if she was less than pleased with the outcome of her prank, perhaps it would be a lesson learned.
Moments later he’d hauled them ashore, no harm done. But by the time they were back on the barge and sailing for home, Violet was on the verge of hysterics.
“We shouldn’t have left them!” she wailed, wringing her hands. Ford had never seen anybody wring their hands. Not in real life. He’d thought people only wrung their hands in plays.
And they hadn’t left the children—they’d been watching them the entire time. He’d been there within seconds, he reminded himself, struggling to hold on to logic in the face of hysteria. There had never been any real risk of drowning.
So why was his pulse still beating double-time?
He drew a deep breath. ”All’s well that ends well,” he told Violet philosophically, wondering if a philosopher had actually said that. But if she knew, she was in no state to inform him.
Jewel was equally hysterical. “There were fish in there!” Her entire body shuddered, and not from the wet and cold.
“Fish! Slimy fish!”
Rowan was hysterically laughing at Jewel, and Ford…well, if he hadn’t felt a need to act as the lone voice of reason, he’d have been hysterical along with the rest of them.
“Of course there were fish,” Rowan crowed between snorts. “You goose,” he added with undisguised glee.
Ford suspected he’d been waiting to call Jewel a goose since she’d called him one on the swings. Pouring water from one of his boots, he rather sympathized with the boy.
Women. Ford would never understand them. For a moment back at the inn, he’d thought he had finally made sense of Violet. He’d seen that she was driven by a deep-rooted ambition not unlike his own. That warm flash of connection had felt so surprising and welcome, he’d made an offhand jest about men and marriage—just a silly jest! But it seemed to have shocked her, or angered her. Or both.
Criminy, why did women have to take everything so seriously?
As they neared Trentingham’s dock, he sighed and tipped his second boot. Water ran out, along with a tiny sliver of silver.
“Another fish!” Jewel screamed.
Rowan snickered.
Violet moaned.
And Ford knew he wasn’t going to get an answer to his question.
TWENTY-THREE
THE NEXT DAY, Ford paced Trentingham’s library. He still had no idea where he stood with Violet following that confusing, interrupted conversation. He’d tried to talk to her before departing yesterday, but here at the Manor there always seemed to be a sister or two around.
Turning the old book in his hands, he sighed, thinking she’d probably already forgotten their discussion, anyhow. Why would Violet be dwelling on it, as he was? The exchange could have no particular significance to her. And her family had let him in the house, so apparently they didn’t hold him responsible for upsetting their daughter—not to mention for the young heir’s soaking. That was a good sign.
After all, he’d hate to think Jewel might lose her playmate.
“Lord Lakefield?” Jarring him out of his thoughts, Rose sauntered into the room with Violet, fluttering her fifteen-year-old lashes. “My sister said you wanted to see me?”
