by Lauren Royal
A combination sex manual and advice to midwives, Aristotle’s Master-piece first appeared in the late 1600s and by the turn of the century was a veritable bestseller—likely to be found in any newlywed couple’s home. All of the words Violet and Ford read were actual passages from the book. Reflecting the attitudes of the time, this book presented sex as an act of pleasure without sin or guilt. In later years, of course, society became much more strait-laced about such matters, yet the Master-piece saw countless reprintings up until about 1900.
As usual, the homes I used in this story were based on real ones that you can visit. Though I moved it to the Thames, Lakefield House was loosely modeled on Snowshill Manor in Gloucestershire. Snowshill was owned by Winchcombe Abbey from the year 821 until the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century, when, with the dissolution of the monasteries, it passed to the Crown. Thereafter it had many owners and tenants until 1919, when a man named Charles Paget Wade returned from the First World War and found it for sale. The house was derelict, the garden an overgrown jumble of weeds, including—of course!—a sundial. Wade bought Snowshill and restored it, removing the plaster ceilings, moving partitions back to their original places, unblocking fireplaces, and fitting Tudor paneling to many of the rooms to recapture the original atmosphere. He scorned the use of electricity and modern conveniences, so the house appears today much as it would have during Ford’s time. Wade never lived in the house, instead using it to showcase his amazing collection of everyday and curious objects, literally thousands of items including musical instruments, clocks, toys, bicycles, weavers’ and spinners’ tools, and Japanese armor. The home is now owned by the National Trust and open April through October to view the house and collection.
Trentingham Manor was inspired by another National Trust property, The Vyne in Hampshire (which I also relocated to sit on the banks of the Thames). Built in the early 16th century for Lord Sandys, Henry VIII’s Lord Chamberlain, the house acquired a classical portico in the mid-17th century (the first of its kind in England) and contains a grand Palladian staircase, a wealth of old paneling and fine furniture, and a fascinating Tudor chapel with Renaissance glass. The Vyne and its extensive gardens are also open for visits April through October.
I hope you enjoyed Violet! For a chance to revisit Ford and Violet, look for the next book in my Chase Family Series, Lily. Please read on for an excerpt as well as more bonus material!
Always,
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LAUREN’S NEXT BOOK IS…
Lily
Book Six of the
Chase Family Series
Lily Ashcroft is far and away the most conventional member of her eccentric family. Though she fell for dashing Oxford professor Lord Randal Nesbitt at the tender age of sixteen, she buried her feelings in deference to society’s expectation that her older sisters marry first. Four years later, her sister Rose has now set her sights on Rand—and though it breaks her heart, what else can Lily do but help her beloved sister land the man of her dreams?
What no one considers are Rand’s feelings on the matter. He’s been nursing a secret affection for sweet, compassionate Lily ever since their first meeting. But Rose is just as beautiful and shares his academic interests. Now he finds himself caught between two lovely sisters—the one he’s expected to wed and the one who’s captured his heart…
Read an excerpt…
Trentingham Manor, the South of England
August 1677
HE’D FORGOTTEN about her.
Well, maybe he hadn’t quite forgotten about her, but he’d certainly put her out of his mind.
Well, maybe he hadn’t quite put her out of his mind, but he’d known she was only sixteen. And sixteen was too young, so, being the sort of man he was—an honorable one, or so he liked to think—he’d made a conscious decision not to pursue her.
For the four long years since their last meeting, whenever thoughts of Lily Ashcroft had sneaked into Lord Randal Nesbitt’s head, he’d reminded himself she was only sixteen.
But now, Rand realized with a start, she must be twenty.
Focused as Rand was, the priest’s voice, reciting the baptism service, barely penetrated his thoughts. Nor did the wiggling month-old child in Rand’s arms. Instead of looking at the altar, he gazed at Lily standing beside him in her family’s oak-paneled chapel, her sister’s other twin baby held close.
Twenty. A lovely dark-haired, blue-eyed twenty. A marriageable twenty.
In all of Rand’s twenty-eight years, he’d never really considered marriage, so the notion was jarring.
“Having now,” the priest continued, “in the name of these children, made these promises, wilt thou also on thy part take heed that these children learn the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and all other things which a Christian ought to know and believe to his soul’s health?”
“I will, by God’s help,” Lily replied softly. Gently, gazing down at the babe in her arms.
Rand was unsurprised. In four years she had changed, of course. But her gentleness, that innate sweetness, hadn’t changed. Couldn’t have changed. It was what made her Lily.
Ford Chase, Rand’s friend—and father of the children in question—elbowed him in the ribs.
“Hmm?” Startled, Rand looked down to the lad he was holding, its bald little head patterned with colors made by sun streaming through the chapel’s stained-glass windows. Ford’s child, he thought, surprised by a rush of tenderness. Rand’s godchild…or at least the tiny babe and his twin sister would be his godchildren once they managed to get through this interminable service.
“I will,” he answered, echoing Lily’s words and vaguely wondering what he’d just agreed to.
“By God’s help,” the priest prompted.
“By God’s help.”
God help him get through this ritual. Mass, and then a lesson, and now this ceremony at the font—Rand felt like he’d been standing on his feet forever. Delivering a two-hour lecture at Oxford wasn’t nearly this exhausting. He feared his knees were locked permanently.
He wanted this to be over. He wanted to talk to Lily. Never mind that she’d barely noticed him. He’d arrived at the last minute and had no chance to greet her before this rigmarole all began.
The priest turned a page in his Book of Common Prayer. “Wilt thou take heed that these children, so soon as sufficiently instructed, be brought to the bishop to be confirmed by him?”
“I will.” Rand and Lily said the words together this time. Their voices, he thought, sounded good together.
“Name these children.”
The child squirmed in Rand’s arms, choosing then to begin wailing. “Marcus Cicero Chase,” Rand bellowed over the cries.
“Rebecca Ashcroft Chase,” Lily said more softly and with a smile, even though the girl’s cry had joined her twin brother’s, seeming to fill the chapel all the way up to its sculpted Tudor ceiling.
Whoever would have thought such small infants could make such a huge racket?
The priest rushed to finish, scooping water into his hand. It trickled through his fingers, running in rivulets down the backs of the two babies’ heads and landing on the colorful glazed tile floor. “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” He muttered some more words and made crosses on the children’s foreheads. “Amen.”
Amen. It was over. Well-wishers crowded close. Still holding his squalling godson, Rand t
urned to Lily.
She was gone.
How could she have disappeared so quickly? Using his height to advantage, he peered over heads. But she’d vanished.
Nearby, Ford held tiny Rebecca and was chatting with an older man. Lily’s father, if Rand remembered right. Or rather, Ford was shouting at the man, since the Earl of Trentingham was hard of hearing.
Marveling that his tall, masculine friend looked so comfortable holding an infant, Rand shifted little Marc uneasily. Rebecca had stopped crying, apparently content in Ford’s arms, but in Rand’s arms, her twin brother still howled.
Glancing around for help, Rand was relieved to see Ford’s wife, Violet, moving close. When she reached for her son, Rand gave her a grateful smile. But then he found himself oddly reluctant to hand Marc over. The babe might be loud, but he smelled sweet and had a pleasant, warm weight.
When Violet took him, Marc quieted immediately. Resisting the urge to run his fingers over that fuzzy little head, Rand leaned a hand on one of the intricate carved oak stalls. “I assume you chose his name, Marcus Cicero, for the philosopher.”
Violet bounced the lad in her arms, her brown curls bouncing along with him. She looked more motherly than Rand usually pictured her. Did children change people so much? “It was only fair,” she said. “Ford had the naming of our firstborn.”
“Nicky? Ah, Nicolas Copernicus,” Rand remembered. “Well, I suppose it’s a better name than Galileo Galilei.”
“Ford’s other scientific hero?” She laughed, her brown eyes sparkling with humor behind the spectacles Ford had made for her. “Even he wouldn’t saddle a good English child with Galileo for a name.”
“And Rebecca? Who is she named after?”
“No one. I just like it. And there’s never been a major female philosopher.”
“Yet,” Rand added, knowing Violet hoped to publish a philosophy book of her own someday.
“Yet,” she confirmed with a nod, clearly appreciating his support. She touched her husband’s arm, claiming his attention. “We’d best be heading home,” she said when he turned, “or our guests will arrive there before us.”
When Ford smiled at her, Violet’s return smile transformed her face. Perhaps she wasn’t as beautiful as her sisters, Lily and Rose, but she was attractive in her own, unique way, and it had nothing to do with the magnificent purple gown she’d donned for the baptism.
Moreover, it was obvious she made Ford happy. A sort of happiness that glowed from his eyes whenever he looked at her. A sort of happiness neither Rand nor Ford had dreamed of back in the days they attended university together.
It was frightening how much the man had changed.
Ford still held his new daughter, her tiny fist tangled in his long brown hair. Unable to resist this time, Rand skimmed his fingers over Rebecca’s dark curls. “So soft,” he murmured.
Violet nodded. “All babies are soft.”
“I haven’t touched a baby since I was a very small child myself.”
“Really?” She looked surprised to hear that. “Well, someday you’ll have children of your own.”
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “My favorite truism is ‘never say never.’ But God willing, should it happen, it won’t be too soon.”
Her laugh tinkled through the nearly empty chapel. “We really must be going.”
“Come along, Rand,” Ford said. “I want to show you the water closet I built. It’s much better than the ones imported from France.”
A smile curved Rand’s lips as he followed them out the door. It seemed his friend hadn’t changed that much, after all.
“WHAT?” LILY laughed as her friend Judith Carrington pulled her toward a carriage. “What’s so important you couldn’t wait until we got to Violet’s house to tell me? So important you made me almost drop my niece, not to mention nearly dislocated my arm dragging me out of there?”
Before climbing inside, Lily waved at her parents and sister Rose, lest they think she’d abandoned them. Hers was a handsome family, she thought suddenly. Her father, Joseph, was tall and trim, his eyes a deep green, his real hair still as jet-black as the periwig he wore for his grandchildren’s baptism. Mum and Rose were both dark-haired and statuesque. They looked elegant in their best satin gowns, Chrystabel’s a gleaming gold and Rose’s a rich, shimmering blue.
Looking at them, one would never guess they were so eccentric.
Her mother waved back distractedly, holding her two-year-old grandson, Nicky, as she busily ushered guests out the door to their waiting transportation.
Feeling Judith’s hand on her back, Lily laughed again and lifted her peach silk skirts to duck inside the carriage. “What?” she repeated.
“Oh, just this.” Even though they weren’t ready to leave, Judith pulled the door shut. Then she settled herself with a flounce. “I’m betrothed.”
“Betrothed?” Lily blinked at her friend. “As in you’re planning to wed?”
“Well, Mama is doing the planning. But it’s ever so exciting. Come October, I’m going to be a married woman. Can you believe it, Lily?”
“No, I cannot believe it.” The third of her friends to marry this year. Yesterday they’d been children; now suddenly they were supposed to be all grown-up. “Who will be your groom?” Lily asked.
“Lord Grenville. Didn’t your mother tell you she’d suggested he offer for my hand? Father says it’s a brilliant match.”
Grenville was wealthy, but thirty-five years old to Judith’s twenty. “Do you love him?” Lily wondered aloud. She hoped so. Judith was plump and pretty, but even more important, she was genuinely nice. A good friend who deserved happiness.
“I barely know him. But Mama assures me we’ll grow to love each other—or get along tolerably, at least.” The excitement faded from Judith’s blue eyes, replaced with a tinge of anxiety. Her fingers worried the embroidery on her aqua underskirt. “It will all work out fine, I’m sure of it.”
“I’m sure of it, too,” Lily soothed, reaching across to take her friend’s cold, pale hand. She squeezed, wishing she were as certain as she sounded. Lily’s parents had promised their daughters they could choose their own husbands, but she knew it didn’t work that way for most young women.
Her family was different. The Ashcroft motto—Interroga Conformationem, translated as Question Convention—said it all.
The Carringtons, on the other hand, were as conventional as roast goose on Christmas Day. Judith forced a smile and pushed back a lock of bright yellow hair that had escaped her careful coiffure. “Who was that handsome man who stood as godfather?”
Lily sat back. “One of Ford’s old friends. Lord Randal Nesbitt.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun to be newly wedded together, have babies together?” Some of the color returned to Judith’s cheeks. “You should marry him.”
“Wherever did you get that idea?” Lily crossed her arms over the long, stiff stomacher that covered the laces on the front of her gown. “I barely know Rand.”
“Rand,” Judith repeated significantly, making it clear she’d noticed Lily’s familiar use of the name. “What does that matter? I hardly know Lord Grenville, either. And believe me, he doesn’t look at me the way Rand was looking at you.”
“Looking at me?” Lily echoed weakly. She’d hardly looked at him at all. She’d been focused on the cooing baby in her arms, her sister’s first daughter. Her first niece. Nicky was great fun, of course, but now she’d have a little girl to play house with, to fix her hair, to—
“Lord, he didn’t take his eyes off you the entire time.” Judith’s lips curved in an impish grin. “Watching him was certainly more entertaining than the baptism.”
Lily felt her face heat and wondered if Judith could be right—if instead of watching the ceremony, everyone had been watching Rand watch her.
But surely that hadn’t been the case. Why would Rand be interested in her? The two of them had nothing in common. Her friend had seen something that wasn’t there. “You just have the
wedding fever,” she said lightly, rubbing the faint scars on the back of her hand. “Besides, if he’s interested in anyone, I’m sure it’s Rose. They share a passion for languages.”
“Ah,” Judith said with a smug tilt of her pert nose. “You know more about the man than you’re willing to admit.”
Ignoring that, Lily leaned to look out the window. But there was a long queue of carriages. They were going nowhere.
“Who’s that?” her friend asked, following her line of sight. “The girl in pink, coming out of the barn with your brother?”
“That’s Jewel, Ford’s niece. Rowan and she have been friends forever.”
“What sort of friends? And what do you suppose they were doing alone together in a barn?”
“Goodness, Rowan is only eleven and Jewel ten. Your mind is too much on romance these days. Knowing the two, they were probably planning a practical joke.”
“In a barn?”
Lily laughed at the expression on her friend’s face. “Over the years, there’s hardly a building on either property they haven’t used to stage a prank.”
Judith looked likely to say more, but the door popped open and her mother poked her head in. “Were you leaving without me, dear?”
“Of course not, Mama.” Judith scooted over to make room. “We just came inside to talk.”
A large, jolly woman, Lady Carrington wedged herself beside her daughter and tucked in her voluminous coral skirts. Before her footman could shut the door, Lily’s striped cat nimbly leapt inside.
Lady Carrington sneezed. “Shoo!” she exclaimed, waving a manicured hand at the hapless feline.
“Beatrix,” Lily said softly, “you cannot ride in this carriage.”
