by Lauren Royal
“’Night, Lakefield,” one of the men called facetiously. “Sweet dreams.”
Ford pulled back with a groan, snatching his hands from Violet’s posterior. “’Night, Hartwell,” he mumbled. His labored breath seemed to echo in the tunnel as he waited for the intruders to clear the other end.
When Ford and Violet were alone again, he smiled at her, a rather dazed smile that made her heart lurch. He leaned close, angling his head. His lips trailed her forehead, her cheek, her throat. In the sensitive area afforded him by her scandalous neckline, he nibbled and kissed, his tongue tracing a shivery line to her cleavage. Her hands clenched his shoulders; she sagged back against the wall—
And three more men stumbled into the tunnel.
“’Night, Lakefield,” they called in drunken unison.
“Let’s line up for the carriage,” Ford said with a sigh. “At least there we’ll be able to find some privacy.”
THIRTY-FIVE
VIOLET RODE IN a carriage, crossing London on roads so impossibly smooth it felt as though she floated. The sidelight illuminated a crimson velvet interior, rich, plush, decadent. And upon this upholstery she reclined…while Ford kissed her senseless.
Knock-knock-knock.
A soft moan escaped her lips, half passion, half annoyance. Some very rude person was rapping on the carriage door.
Knock-knock-knock!
“Don’t answer,” she whispered to Ford. To be sure he complied, she threaded her fingers through his hair and held his mouth captive to hers. He responded with a violent passion, his lips devouring…
Knock-knock-knock!
With a growl born of frustration, she bolted upright, wrenched unwillingly from the dream. Her eyes popped open, but everything looked pitch black.
“Who is it?” she forced through gritted teeth.
Knock-knock-KNOCK!
“Who is it?” She swung her legs off the bed and pushed open the hangings, reaching for the floor with her bare feet. Feeling blindly for her spectacles, she managed to locate them and shove them on, but of course they didn’t help. Black was black.
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!
“Who is it?” she yelled, padding toward her door and fumbling in the darkness for the latch. When her fingers finally closed on it, she jerked it open.
It didn’t open very far.
Bang! Like a gunshot, the noise came across the corridor, accompanied by a feminine shriek. Then the latch was yanked from Violet’s hand, as—
SLAM! her own door flew closed.
Her frustration mounting, she opened it again.
Bang!
SLAM!
Bang!
SLAM!
She paused for a moment, shaking the last dregs of sleep from her head. After drawing a deep breath, she gingerly opened her door again, just a crack.
And heard the sound of a young boy’s giggles.
“Rowan!” she admonished, but her own laughter bubbled up, neutralizing the sternness she’d intended.
Her hand was still on the latch, and something pulled on the door, though it didn’t slam this time. A steady pull.
“Rowan?” Rose’s voice called.
From down the corridor came the sound of another door opening, then Lily’s sleepy voice. “What’s all this noise?” she said through a yawn.
“I got you!” Rowan crowed. “I got you both. It worked!”
“What worked?” Violet asked suspiciously. A soft flare of light illuminated the corridor as someone—Lily, she guessed—approached with a candle.
“Rowan, I cannot believe what you did!” Lily exclaimed. Instead of disapproval, admiration tinged her voice. “You clever boy!”
“What?” Rose snapped, apparently still trapped behind her door and as mystified as Violet. “What did he do?”
Lily’s laughter echoed in the corridor. “Wait a minute.” Violet heard the small clink of the silver candlestick landing on a table, then a rustling, scratching sound as Lily did something with her door.
A moment later, it opened wide. “He t-tied your doors together with r-rope,” Lily said, the words tumbling out between giggles. “So you were slamming each other’s open and shut.”
Directly across the corridor, Rose opened her now-free door and glowered at their brother. “You’re lucky you didn’t wake Mum.”
Rowan shrugged. “Mum’s room is too far away in this house. Besides, she’d find it funny, don’t you think?”
“I ought to murder you, you rapscallion.”
His little chest puffed out proudly. “I had to knock forever to wake you. But it was worth it. Jewel said it would work. Too bad she wasn’t here to see it.”
Violet’s heart squeezed at the melancholy look that stole across his face. “You miss her, don’t you?”
“I do. And I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.” A sheen of tears brightened his eyes. “I didn’t think I’d like a girl, but she’s not like any girl I ever knew. She’s more like a boy.”
Violet suspected pretty Jewel wouldn’t remind him of a boy a few years down the road. “You’ll see her again, I’m sure. And in the meantime, don’t forget we’re going home tomorrow, and Benjamin should be home by now, too.”
“Benjamin!” Benjamin and he had grown up together, close as two neighbors could be. With a boy’s short attention span, Rowan forgot Jewel immediately. “I’m going to sleep now, so tomorrow will come faster.” And with that, he took off down the corridor, to his own room across from Lily’s.
“What a rude awakening,” Rose said.
Violet sighed. “He yanked me from the most wondrous dream.”
“Did he?” Lily picked up the candle and swept past Violet into her room, Rose right on her heels. She lit Violet’s bedside candle from her own and set them both on the night table. “What was your dream about?”
When Violet didn’t answer immediately, her sisters exchanged a look, then sat in unison on the edge of her bed. “Tell us,” Rose said.
Violet’s cheeks flushed hot. She shut the door, cocooning the three girls together. “It was nothing, really.”
Rose crossed her arms. “You said it was wondrous.”
“Oh, all right.” She dragged the stool over from her dressing table and sat facing them, setting her hands on her knees. “We were coming home—”
“We?” Lily interrupted.
“Ford and myself. From the Royal Society reception.”
“How did that go?” Rose asked. “I tried to stay up to hear, but you returned home so late—”
“Hush,” Lily said. “The dream first.”
With all this squabbling, the dream was fading fast. In an effort to recover the mood, Violet shut her eyes. “We were riding home in his carriage, but it seemed to be floating—”
“Floating,” Rose echoed, and though Violet’s lids were closed, she could swear she saw her sister’s head nod knowingly. “Floating in a dream is supposed to be carnal in nature.”
“Rose!” Violet’s eyes flew open. “You are only seventeen. You’re not supposed to think about that.”
“Oh, rubbish. Father and Mum have been hanging all over each other since the day I was born. And you’re the one who showed me that book. Aristotle’s Master-piece.”
“I didn’t show it to you. You barged in on me reading it.”
Rose raised a brow. “Let’s read it some more.”
“Not now,” Lily said, giving Rose a little shove. “I want to hear the rest of the dream.”
“All right.” Violet swallowed and rubbed her suddenly damp palms against her night rail-clad knees. “Ford’s carriage is rather ancient, as you know, but instead of the hard leather, the interior was all plush red velvet. And I was leaning back against it, and he was kissing me—”
A romantic sigh came from Lily. “Did he kiss you really?”
“He already kissed her,” Rose said. “In the library.”
Lily turned on the bed to face her. “That doesn’t count. You described it to me in deta
il, and it was a quick kiss, not a real kiss.” She shifted back to Violet. “Did he give you a real kiss in the carriage?”
“Well,” Violet hedged. “Not then. Not on the way home. Lord and Lady Ailesbury begged a ride home, and since they only live around the corner, we had no time alone together.”
“But after you dropped them off?” Rose pressed.
“The street out front is very rutted, you know—the springs in that old carriage might as well be nonexistent.”
“But he tried.” Rose’s gaze was much too piercing for Violet’s comfort. “Or he kissed you earlier, didn’t he? At the ball. Or later, when he saw you to the door.”
Violet looked away.
“Or both!” Rose concluded. “I knew it!”
Lily laid a graceful hand on the white cotton that covered her chest. “Goodness.” A theatrical sigh escaped her lips. “How did it feel?”
“I never said he kissed me.”
Her two very different sisters fixed her with matching, demanding glares. Rose spoke for both. “Let’s hear it, Violet.”
“Oh, all right.” Violet crossed her legs and leaned forward conspiratorially. “It was very nice.”
“Nice?” Rose folded her arms.
“It was more than nice. It was wonderful.” Warming to her subject, Violet’s voice gentled. “The most amazing feeling. It made my knees weak, and my head seem to spin, and when he touched his tongue to—”
“Violet!” her sisters interrupted together.
Even Rose looked scandalized.
“Well, you did ask.” Violet swallowed hard, wondering how she could have shared such a thing.
“Gemini.” Rose fanned herself with a hand. “I must find someone to kiss. Tomorrow.”
Violet reached out and caught her wrist. “No, you won’t. You must care for someone before you kiss him.”
Lily’s eyes softened to a hazy blue. “Oh, Violet, that’s so romantic.”
That was taking things a bit too far. “It’s over now. We’re going home tomorrow, and he’s staying here to meet with his solicitor. And even after he returns to Lakefield, Jewel has gone home, so there’s no longer any reason for me to visit.”
“But you care for him. You just said as much. And since he kissed you, he’ll be asking you to wed him, will he not?”
“It doesn’t work like that, Lily. Men don’t put such store behind a kiss. The Master-piece says a woman is truly more moist than a man.”
Lily frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not sure. But he won’t be asking me to marry him.”
“But if he did?” Rose pressed. “That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?”
“No,” Violet said flatly. “If he’s making a show of courting me, you can be certain it’s because of my inheritance. And I won’t marry for anything less than true love.”
“But Violet.” Concern filled Lily’s earnest gaze. “You must care. Or you wouldn’t have kissed him. You said a woman must care for a man before she—”
“I’m not looking for one-sided love, Lily. If I cannot have a love like Mum’s, then I’d rather live life on my own.” She turned to Rose. “And you can stop worrying—I don’t care if you marry before me. I don’t care if I marry at all.” And because that suddenly wasn’t true, she made a big show of yawning. “It’s very late. I have much to tell you both about the ball, and especially Mr. Locke, but it will have to wait until morning.”
Lily rose and kissed her softly on the cheek. “I would love to hear it all, Violet.”
Rose’s kiss wasn’t nearly as sweet. “I don’t care about Mr. Locke,” she said, “but you should marry Lord Lakefield.”
Long after her sisters had left, Violet lay awake, her mind and heart in turmoil.
THIRTY-SIX
LAKEFIELD HOUSE was quiet. Too quiet.
Hilda and Harry knew better than to disturb Ford when he was working, but Jewel had never quite mastered that bit of etiquette. Now Ford found his gaze straying toward the door, waiting for his niece to burst through, a grin on her heart-shaped face and a ribbon clenched in her fist.
Or an insect. One never quite knew what to expect from Lady Jewel.
But the one thing he hadn’t expected was to feel this sudden loneliness. Emptiness. Bloody hell, he missed her.
Ford Chase missed a child.
Whoever would have thought? Mere weeks ago he’d been sure that having a family was the last item on his list of priorities. Though he’d known he’d have children eventually, he’d never really envisioned them in his life. But now, instead of finishing his watch, he found himself daydreaming. A girl and a boy, like Jewel and Rowan. And a mother for them, of course.
Violet would be perfect.
Gears fell from his hands as that thought took root in his brain. He dropped to his knees to reach one that rolled beneath his workbench, then bumped his head as he came back up.
Rubbing where it hurt, he sat on the floor to analyze when and how he had fallen in love with Violet Ashcroft.
He’d always thought he wanted someone like Tabitha. Effervescent, confident, sophisticated, a lady whose looks stopped men in the street. Violet was none of those things. But she listened to his ideas and challenged him with her own.
He’d never imagined a woman like Violet existed.
Perhaps it was logical, after all, for a man like him to find himself attracted to a lady with Violet’s odd qualities.
But it was illogical for him to pursue the matter. He couldn’t ask for Violet’s hand when his estate and finances were in such sad shape. The meeting with his solicitor had not gone well. There were bills to be paid and no funds to settle them.
The man had presented two options. One, turn Lakefield into a working estate and see that it prospered. Two, sell the damned place. Only a small portion of the land was entailed. Selling the rest—including the house—would raise enough money to support Ford for years to come, allowing him to pursue his scientific interests.
As a third son, Ford should never have had a title, and while he enjoyed that part of it well enough, he wasn’t cut out to be a landowner. True, he’d assisted his brother Jason with Cainewood’s never-ending responsibilities—he knew the ins and outs of running an estate. But that wasn’t the life he wanted.
Working the land, caring for tenants, collecting rents. It was all so tedious and nonproductive. At the end of a typical peer’s life, one’s legacy was naught but more of the same passed down to an heir. Nothing new to contribute to knowledge and mankind.
His life had always been in London with his experiments and the Royal Society.
But now his heart was here.
Agitated, he rose to his feet and tossed the gear into the mess on the table. What did it matter where his heart was? Regardless of how much Violet’s parents might seem to like him personally, they were unlikely to bless their daughter’s marriage to an impoverished viscount. Under normal circumstances, the fact that Violet came with a sizable inheritance as well as a dowry might mitigate the situation, but nothing about Violet was normal. Knowing her feelings about men marrying for money, he was sure he’d have a hell of a time convincing her he wasn’t after her fortune.
He closed his eyes and rubbed them. It was hopeless. He might as well put her out of his mind. And he knew just how to go about that, too.
For once he was happy that he seemed unable to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.
He wanted to invent a watch with two hands. That was why he had come to Lakefield in the first place. Without Jewel to distract him, he ought to be able to achieve his goal at last.
It was a good thing he’d taken time to analyze the situation, because these lofty romantic aspirations had nothing to do with his life. Nothing to do with his plans.
He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and got to work.
THIRTY-SEVEN
THE ASHCROFT girls rushed into the summerhouse and shut the door behind them. “Now,” Rose said, “where d
id we leave off?”
Violet sat in their now customary spot with her sisters on either side. She opened the book, flipping pages. “We were reading about what should be eaten to induce erection.”
Lily’s hands went to her cheeks. “I cannot believe we’re reading this.”
“You can leave,” Rose said pointedly.
Lily didn’t.
Having found the correct passage, Violet cleared her throat. “‘The desire of coition, which fires the imagination with unusual fancies, may soon inflame the appetite. Eat such meats as are of good juice, that nourish well, making the body lively and full of sap, to cause erection, as hens eggs, pheasants, wood-cocks, young pigeons, partridges, capons, almonds—’”
“Almonds aren’t meat,” Lily interrupted.
“Hush.” Rose leaned across Violet, narrowing her eyes at their hapless younger sister. “Do you want to learn what to feed your husband or not?”
“Go on,” Lily said with a sigh.
“All right, then.” Violet resumed reading. “‘Almonds, pine-nuts, raisins, currants, all strong wines, especially those made of the grapes of Italy. But erection is chiefly caused by parsnips, artichokes, asparagus…’”
She paused, thinking of a plate piled high with asparagus in a piazza twinkling with lights. And later in the passage, when Ford had pressed against her, and she’d felt—
Faith, the Master-piece was right.
“Violet.” Looking concerned, Lily touched her hand. “Why did you stop?”
Violet blinked. “No reason,” she said, her cheeks burning. “Sometimes my mind just wanders.”
“Let me read instead.” Rose grabbed for the book.
Violet held tight. “No.” To focus better on the words, she slipped off her spectacles and set them on her lap. “‘Asparagus, candied ginger—’”
“Enough with the food,” Rose said. “We will never remember this long list, anyway. What comes after that?”
Violet turned to the next chapter and read the title. “‘Of the Genitals of Women.’”
