Since Rowan was too short, Ford lifted him to the eyepiece. “Zounds,” Rowan breathed. “There are big, dark spots on it.”
“They’re called craters.” Ford raised a foot to the pedestal of the sundial, settling Rowan on his knee with an ease that drew Violet’s scrutiny. She’d never imagined someone as vain and preoccupied with himself as the viscount would behave so naturally with children. ”What do you think of it?”
“I wish to fly up there and visit.”
“Me, too.” Ford laughed. “But I expect neither of us will get our wish.”
Now Jewel was jumping up and down. “I want to see. Oh, please let me see!”
“Very well.” Ford set Rowan down, then readjusted the telescope before lifting his niece. “Hurry, so Lady Violet can have a turn.”
“Oooh,” Jewel said.
“Why must she hurry?” Violet wondered. “The moon stays out all night.”
“Yes, but the Earth moves, you see—it spins. That’s why we have night and then day. And because of the spinning, we’re moving relative to the moon, so it doesn’t stay in the telescope’s sight for very long.” He set his niece on her feet and waved Violet toward the instrument. “Your turn.”
She stepped forward and put one eye to the end, closing her other eye like he had. “Oh,” she breathed. “Stars. Just look at all those stars.”
“Can you see the moon, too?”
“No, we must have spun out of range like you said.” Against black velvet, lights winked at her. White, and faint yellow, and the palest, most beautiful pink. A wonderland of stars.
“Let me adjust it for you.”
“Wait.” She was looking at a whole new world. Or a universe, to be more precise. “I’ve seen the moon,” she told him. “Not up close, but at least I’ve seen it. I want to look at the stars.”
“But they don’t look much different through the telescope. They’re much too far away for the magnification to make a significant difference.”
“But they’re beautiful,” she said. “Miraculous. What are they, really?”
“Other suns. And some people think there are other planets around them, the same way our planet circles our sun.”
The children were chattering behind her, probably planning an outrageous jest, but she couldn’t stop staring. She nudged the telescope a bit, and another group of stars burst into view. “‘There is an infinite number of worlds,’” she murmured softly under her breath, “‘some like this world, others unlike it.’”
“A lovely way to put it.”
Startled, she jerked back from the eyepiece. She hadn’t meant for him to hear that. “I didn’t put it that way myself. I was quoting Epicurus.”
“Who?”
“A Greek philosopher.”
She felt, rather than saw, him nodding beside her. “A forward-thinking man.”
A smile twitched on her lips. “Very. He lived about three hundred years before Jesus Christ came to Earth.” She leaned close again, peering through the telescope. “Do you believe that there are other planets?”
He laid a hand on her back. A warm hand that made a warmer shiver ripple through her. “I do.”
Giggles erupted behind them.
“My uncle thinks your sister is pretty,” Jewel told Rowan in a loud, confidential whisper.
Rowan’s response was a disgusted groan.
Violet stiffened, and Ford’s hand dropped from her back. “So,” he said a bit formally. “Should I adjust it on the moon?”
“In a minute.” Of course he hadn’t meant anything by touching her, Violet told herself—he was a flirt, just like his niece. The awkward moment passed as she refocused on the sky. “For now, I’m enjoying the stars.”
Just then, one of them streaked across her field of vision, and she made a silent wish.
Give me the wisdom to write something worth reading…and the tenacity to publish it.
Her first wish on a star.
“Oh,” she breathed, “it’s magnificent.”
Hearing the wonder in Violet’s voice, Ford relaxed and decided to ignore his niece’s careless comment. Violet probably hadn’t even heard; her velvet cloak had slipped to the ground, and she’d not yet bothered to reach for it. He stared at her arched back, encased in a snug green bodice. Simple and practical, but it didn’t hide the distinctly feminine figure underneath. Had she been wearing the same gown earlier today? He hadn’t paid any attention.
Pretty or not, Lady Violet was even odder than he’d thought. She was still gaping at the sky, slowly shifting the telescope. “Wouldn’t you like to see the moon now?” he asked. After all, the stars looked much the same through the telescope as without it.
“Lord Lakefield.” Rowan tugged on his breeches. “Lord Lakefield.”
“You may have another turn in a minute. For now, your sister’s looking.”
“I know.” When Ford looked down, the boy’s smile looked as wide as the telescope was long. “Violet’s never seen the stars before.”
“Never?” Baffled, he ran a hand through his hair. “What do you mean?”
“She cannot see very well. She says they all just blur together.”
She straightened and turned to face them, her eyes glittering with joy in the torchlight. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for showing me a whole new world.”
The way she said it made Ford feel like he had given her the world, not just shown it to her.
The feeling was not unpleasant.
He eased her aside to adjust the telescope. “Here, now look at the moon.”
When she leaned to peer through the lens, he was rewarded with a gasp of discovery. “It’s a sphere,” she said. “I can see the outline. Even though it looks like a crescent.”
“Depending on our position, the Earth blocks part of the sun, so only a portion of the moon is illuminated. But it’s always a sphere, no matter how it appears to us.”
“Of course. I’ve just never thought of it before.”
When the moon disappeared from view, he pointed out some constellations—Libra down near the horizon and Pegasus up higher.
“My turn!” Rowan said, and Jewel chimed in. “Let us have a turn!”
Clearly reluctant to relinquish the instrument, Violet stepped back, and the
