by Lauren Royal
“I’ll go meet him at the door,” Rose said. “Wait here, so you can make an entrance.” With a swish of her blood-red skirts, she swept out of the room.
“An entrance, Violet,” Lily repeated, giggling. “An entrance!”
An entrance. Contemplating her youngest, most innocent sister, Violet’s heart jumped into her throat as it suddenly dawned on her that she would soon be alone with Ford. Really alone, not just sort of alone for a minute while the children’s backs were turned.
She could hardly believe Mum had condoned it. More than condoned it—pushed it, in fact. But of course that was only because Mum knew how much she wanted to attend a Royal Society function.
Mum would never expect anything untoward to happen. Not to Violet. Plain Violet. Violet, who would just as soon remain invisible.
If only Mum knew that Ford had already kissed her. Four times.
Four glorious times.
As she’d done hundreds of times already, Violet couldn’t help but replay those kisses now in her memory. And even though she hadn’t eaten any salty or spicy food today—hadn’t eaten much of anything, as a matter of fact—she felt insuperability rearing its unwelcome head.
Well, she wouldn’t worry about it this night. She could sort that out tomorrow. Tonight she would simply enjoy herself.
Rose barged back in. “He’s waiting, Violet. I think you should keep him waiting a little bit longer.”
“No.” She wasn’t calculating like her sister. “I’m ready.” As ready as she’d ever be.
Although the Ashcrofts’ town house in St. James’s Square wasn’t nearly as massive as Trentingham, it was richly decorated and boasted a grand marble staircase. Violet’s new red-heeled shoes clicked as she walked down it.
When Ford glanced up, his jaw went slack. “You look…” he trailed off, apparently at a loss for words.
“Different?” she supplied, gliding to a stop in front of him.
“Um…yes.” As that incredible blue gaze raked her from head to toe, a grin slowly spread on his face. “And beautiful.”
It had taken him too long to add that last bit, and she wouldn’t have believed it, in any case. But it was nice to hear, even if it was only a polite fib. For just this night, she would pretend it was true. She’d never expected to hear a compliment like that from a gentleman.
And most especially from such a magnificent-looking one. Judging from his normal attire, she’d suspected Ford enjoyed dressing up a bit. She hadn’t been wrong. His brilliant blue suit made his eyes seem even bluer. Lace dripped from the cuffs. A diamond pin winked from the folds of a snow-white cravat. The buttons on his velvet surcoat looked to be of real gold, and when he swept off his wide-brimmed hat to make her a solemn bow, a jeweled hatband sparkled in the light of the entry’s chandelier.
Thank goodness Mum had loaned her the Trentingham diamonds, or she’d have felt like a pauper standing beside him.
“Shall we?” he asked.
From out of nowhere, it seemed, her mother appeared and kissed her on the cheek. “Have a lovely time, dear. You won’t be back too late?”
“I won’t, Mum.” Violet took Ford’s arm.
When he handed her into the carriage and then lowered himself beside her, her heart skittered.
They were alone. She was alone with the viscount.
He closed the door, and she immediately leapt for the opposite bench.
The carriage lurched forward as she settled in her new seat, busily arranging her skirts. “I…feel ill when I sit backwards.”
“Do you, indeed?” Though she couldn’t bring herself to look at him, his tone made it clear he wasn’t fooled.
He moved to sit beside her.
Violet’s whole body tensed. ”Thank you for inviting me,” she said to her lap.
“The pleasure is mine.” He dipped his head, forcing her to meet his gaze. Seeing her expression, he laughed. ”I won’t bite. I won’t even try to kiss you, I promise.”
He didn’t, and after a moment she relaxed. They rode for a spell in companionable silence, bouncing over uneven cobblestones and in and out of ruts.
Until a particularly large rut threw him sideways into her. He righted himself promptly, apologizing for squashing her, but somehow his arm had made its way around her shoulders.
“You smell good,” he murmured.
“So do you,” she replied shyly. He did, though. There was that hint of patchouli soap again, tonight overlaid by another scent—something unfamiliar and exotic. She wondered if her mother could identify it and make her a bottle, so she could inhale it and remember this evening.
As the carriage tottered through the streets, his fingers traced shivery lines up and down her arm and over the back of her neck. Her flesh prickled, and she felt warm all over.
In fact, her body seemed to be growing more and more heated.
“Oh my,” she whispered.
Oh, no, she thought.
“Do you want me to stop?” His breath tickled her ear. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
She didn’t tell him to stop.
The carriage’s wheels bumped over the cobblestones, the springs squeaked through the traffic-clogged streets, and her breathlessness—short breathings, Aristotle’s Master-piece had called that—sounded louder than all of it.
She wanted him to kiss her. More than anything.
Insuperably.
But as she began to lean toward him, the carriage door was jerked open.
They had arrived.
THIRTY-THREE
VIOLET HAD always thought of scientific men as sober and staid, but there was an air of giddy excitement at Gresham College tonight.
Catching Ford’s gaze lingering on her bodice as they made their way through the narrow gatehouse off Bishopsgate Street, she folded her arms over her chest. She’d never appeared in public in such a daring gown, and it made her nervous, despite Ford’s equally showy attire. Perhaps a man could dress himself in the latest fashions and still be taken seriously, but would she be seen as frivolous and superficial?
“This was once the home of Sir Thomas Gresham,” Ford said as proudly as if the mansion belonged to him. “Founder of the college.”
Hand in hand—hers tingling—they crossed a simple courtyard toward the house, Violet’s knees feeling embarrassingly shaky. She tried her best to relax and concentrate on what he was telling her. After all, this was a place she’d always wanted to visit.
“When did the college open?” she asked.
“At the end of the last century, following Gresham’s death and that of his wife. He had no living heirs, you see, so he gifted his home to the people of London. He wished to make scholarship available free to every adult citizen.” Pushing open a heavy oak door, he guided her into a large chamber that looked medieval. “Here is the Reading Hall, where the lectures are given.”
“Oh, I wish I knew Latin so I could attend them.” Beneath a lofty scissor-beam ceiling painted in dazzling hues of red and gold, rows of wooden benches faced a lectern, behind which rose an exquisite oriel window. “What a heavenly place to learn.”
“I imagine when the Greshams lived here, this would have been their great hall.” Ford walked her through the soaring chamber, their footsteps echoing on the well-worn stone floor. “The college’s seven professors have lodgings here at Gresham and are each required to give one public lecture a week.”
Whom might she meet here tonight? Breathless with anticipation, she peeked into some adjoining rooms, a bit disappointed when she found them unoccupied. “It just looks like a big, old house.”
“It was, remember. But you will see in a moment that although his family lived here for years, and his widow afterwards, Gresham had a college in mind when he built it.”
Another small courtyard lay outside the Reading Hall, leading to an arched passage that opened into a massive, grassy square with colonnaded buildings on all four sides.
“See?” Ford said. “It’s essentially a college
quadrangle.”
Flaming torches bathed the space in a warm glow. Musicians were tuning up in one corner. Talking animatedly in small groups, guests dressed in every color of the rainbow crowded the enclosure, their chatter filling the air.
She was here. Finally, she was here. A serving maid handed her a goblet of canary, and she sipped the sweet wine, turning in a slow circle, imagining how the area might look in the daytime. Peaceful and meditative. Shut off from the hubbub of London by the buildings all around.
“I can picture it quiet,” she said, “students leisurely crossing the grass, or perhaps hurrying if they’re late.”
“Can you picture it paved over and crammed with shopping stalls?”
She looked down at the fresh green grass beneath her feet. “Was it?”
“Until recently. After the Great Fire, the whole administration of the City moved into the buildings, and the tenants of the Royal Exchange set up here in the quadrangle until it was rebuilt. A hundred small shops.”
People strolled by, men alone and some couples, nodding acknowledgments without interrupting their conversation. She and Ford seemed to be among the youngest attendees. ”How long has the Royal Society been meeting here?” she asked.
“Since 1660, save during the past seven years. We were incorporated under Royal charter in 1662. On the fifteenth of July. So something good happened that particular St. Swithin’s Day,” he mused. “It must not have rained.”
She shot him a sidelong glance. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind.” A private smile curved his lips as he began walking her around the perimeter, pointing out all the professors’ lodgings. There were professors of music, physics, geometry, divinity, rhetoric, astronomy, and law—and by the time she heard about all of them, she was dizzy with new information.
Or maybe dizzy with something else. It was like a fairytale, being here in this place, among these extraordinary people…with Ford.
“Do you like to dance?” he suddenly asked. The musicians had begun to play. A lilting tune wafted over the quadrangle. A temporary floor of wood had been constructed over a patch of the new grass.
Although she’d had lessons along with her sisters, Violet had never danced much. At the balls her family had managed to drag her to, she’d always done her best to fade into the background—so much so that Rose had taken to calling her a wallflower, claiming she clung to the walls like Father’s flowering vines.
But this was a magical night—a night that called for her to rise above her normal fears. In her whole life, she might never see a night like this again, and she was determined to make the most of it.
“I cannot claim to have much experience,” she heard herself saying. “But I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.”
Immediately she thought about taking back the words, but clamped her lips tight. Handing their goblets to a passing servant, Ford led her closer to the music.
The tune ended and another began. A minuet. Taking her by both hands, he swept her onto the makeshift dance floor.
She knew the steps, and for the first time, her vision sharp through her spectacles, she didn’t worry about tripping. His dancing was precise if not precisely graceful, exactly as she would have pictured. She was watching him, smiling to herself, when she suddenly realized her own feet were keeping pace.
Perhaps dancing wasn’t so tiresome, after all—when one happened to be dancing with the best-looking member of the Royal Society.
Cool night air breezed over her skin. She met his eyes, and her cheeks flushed at the intensity of his gaze. She wondered what he was thinking. Here beneath the stars, he seemed different, in his element. Not that he was reserved in any circumstances, but she’d expect a man of science to be more like her, preferring solitude to social occasions. Which just went to show how little she could trust her preconceived notions.
He took her hand again as they turned, and she found herself enjoying this particular social occasion more than she’d thought possible. For once, she had no desire to hide out, no wish to stay safely at home.
They rose on their toes, and he pulled her closer. Closer than the dance required, close enough to make butterflies flutter in her stomach. To make the Master-piece’s words flash in her mind.
Pushing those thoughts away, she broke eye contact, needing a moment to compose herself.
The dance floor had become crowded. Gentlemen outnumbered ladies by double or more, and the wooden platform was surrounded by clusters of them absorbed in conversation. Violet caught more than a few glances aimed her way. She suspected people were wondering what she was doing here with Ford.
Or wondering about her spectacles. Did they look odd with her formal gown and hairstyle? A niggling thread of insecurity invaded her dreamy, perfect evening, lodging itself in her stomach.
No sooner had she and Ford made their way off the dance floor than they found themselves besieged by curious men. Instinctively, Violet crossed her arms over her chest again.
“Trentingham’s eldest, are you not?” One of the gentlemen offered her a courtly bow. “I’m pleased to meet you,” he added. “Christopher Wren.”
She struggled to keep her face neutral. Christopher Wren! Mathematician, scientist, architect…the man personally chosen by the king to rebuild all of the City’s churches that had burned in the Great Fire. She was surprised to find him no taller than she.
And she was surprised that he knew who she was. She’d thought she’d been invisible to society, hidden away on her family’s estate.
“Violet Ashcroft.” She bobbed a curtsy. “I’m glad to make your acquaintance.”
“Are those a new sort of spectacles?” he asked without further preliminaries. Not at all the imposing personality she’d pictured, he seemed cheerful and open. She guessed him at around forty years of age. “May I see them?” Before she gave permission, he reached out eagerly.
She slipped the spectacles off and handed them to him. “Lord Lakefield made them for me.”
“I’m not surprised.” Mr. Wren turned them in his hands, then raised them to his own lively brown eyes and blinked. “Do they help you to see?”
“Very much. They’ve changed my life.”
Mr. Wren nodded thoughtfully, his wavy brown periwig moving along with his head. Beneath a patrician nose, his mouth curved pleasantly, as though he smiled often.
He turned to Ford. “This frame to hold them on the face, it’s brilliant. Why didn’t I think of it myself?”
Ford laughed. “You’ve thought of plenty. Give another man a turn.”
Another face peered over Mr. Wren’s shoulder. “What have you there?”
“Spectacles,” he replied. “Designed by Lakefield here, with a clever frame to hold them on the face.” Leaning forward, he gently slid the eyeglasses back on Violet.
“Lovely,” the newcomer said. “Both the spectacles and the lady.” A few years younger than Mr. Wren, the man topped him by but a couple of inches. His physique somehow looked crooked, his face twisted and much less than beautiful. But his large, pale head was crowned with a wig of dark brown curls so delicate they made Violet envious.
“Robert Hooke,” Ford introduced him. “May I present Lady Violet Ashcroft?”
“I’ve read your book Micrographia,” Violet gushed, overwhelmed to find herself encountering yet another great name. “It’s marvelous.”
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” Mr. Hooke’s gray eyes smiled along with his thin mouth, but in contrast to Mr. Wren’s, his face crinkled in a way that suggested he rarely grinned. “The gardener’s eldest, are you not?”
“Is my father’s hobby so well known, then?” she wondered aloud.
“Legendary.” Mr. Hooke shifted his awkward form. “Charming man, though,” he added after a moment.
Ford touched Violet’s arm. ”Mr. Hooke is Gresham’s Professor of Geometry,” he told her. “He lives here, right under that new observatory they’re building.” He indicated a corner of the quadrangl
e, where a small, square tower poked up from the roofline, surrounded by scaffolding.
“Convenient,” Mr. Hooke said. “If I fall down stumbling drunk, I’m close to my bed.”
They all laughed.
“How go the plans for St. Paul’s?” Ford asked.
The two older men exchanged a glance, the kind shared by friends with secrets between them. Odd to think that such a cheerful person and a curmudgeonly one would be close.
“I’m working on a model,” Mr. Wren said carefully.
Hooke let out a snort. “Twelve carpenters are working on it, and he’s sunk five hundred pounds into it already. We can only pray the king likes it and the clergy give their approval.”
“Approval for what?” someone asked in a voice with an Irish lilt. And before she knew it, Violet was introduced to Robert Boyle, a tall, thin man who also wanted a look at her spectacles.
No sooner had he finished exclaiming over them than another fellow walked up. Mr. Boyle handed him the lenses, and without them on her face, all Violet could tell about the newcomer was he was short and a bit stout.
“They belong to you, my lady?” he asked after examining them closely. He returned them with a bow. “Isaac Newton, at your service.”
“Lady Violet Ashcroft,” Ford introduced her. “The Earl of Trentingham’s daughter.”
“Ah, of course.”
With the spectacles safely back in place, Mr. Newton looked to have five or so years on Ford. Under a broad forehead, his brown eyes were set in a sharp-featured face with a square lower jaw. He was handsome despite the prematurely gray hair peeking out from beneath his wig.
“We’re pleased you remembered to attend,” Mr. Boyle teased him.
Everyone but Violet laughed, and her expression must have shown her confusion. “Mr. Newton is known to be a bit absentminded,” Ford explained.
“That is an understatement of the greatest magnitude,” Mr. Hooke said, eliciting more laughter. “He once entertained me for supper and went off to fetch more wine. An hour later I found him in his study, working out a geometrical problem. He’d completely forgotten I was there.”
