“So I can see better.” The glow spread to encompass her entire face. “I can see things all the way across the room.”
“Oh.” Hands behind his back, the boy rocked up on his toes. “That’s good. But they look odd.”
“They look better on her than on me,” Jewel said. “Uncle Ford used my face to test different ideas. I think we tested about eleventy of them.”
Violet grinned. “Eleventy, hmm?”
“Jewel.” Rowan made a funny sound in his throat. “Remember? Remember what we were going to tell them?”
“Gads, I forgot!” She paused for effect. “You won’t believe what happened!”
“What?” Ford and Violet said together.
“We found a spider in the garden. A big, fat, hairy one. Rowan saved me from it,” she added, beaming at said savior.
“Did he?” Violet said very solemnly.
“Mmm-hmm.” Struggling to keep a smile from his face, Rowan whipped his hand out from behind his back. “Look.”
Violet screamed. And screamed some more. Then she turned to Ford and buried her face against his cravat, so hard he could feel the metal frame of the spectacles digging into the skin beneath his shirt.
He didn’t mind having her pressed up against him, but he wished she would stop screaming.
The spider really was quite impressively enormous. “Get that out of here,” he told her brother.
“But it’s dead. It cannot hurt anyone.”
Jewel erupted in giggles. “Yes, Uncle Ford, it’s dead.” She turned to her accomplice. “I told you it would work. I could tell your sister is lily-livered.”
“I am not,” Violet wailed, her voice muffled against Ford’s front. As if to prove her bravery, she turned to look, then promptly reburied her face.
Knowing his niece well—or rather, assuming she was like her prank-playing father—Ford sent her a warning glance. “Just get it out of here, will you?”
“Oh, very well.” Still giggling, Jewel went to open a window and motioned Rowan over to toss the creature outside. “But it really cannot hurt anyone.”
“It wouldn’t hurt anyone were it alive, either,” Ford said. “It’s not a deadly sort.” Somewhat reluctantly, he coaxed Violet out of his arms. “But that isn’t the point.”
“It was ugly,” Violet said with a nervous giggle of her own.
She walked to the window and peered at the dead spider dangling ungracefully from an overgrown bush. A delicate shudder rippled through her.
“I can see very well,” she declared, “and that is quite the ugliest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. Perhaps these spectacles aren’t such a good idea, after all.”
“Nonsense.” Ford stepped up to the window beside her. “Ignore the spider. Look at the clouds, Violet.”
“The clouds?” She looked up, and her mouth dropped open. “Oh, my word…”
Ford grinned, and as he watched the glow return to her face, he felt an answering glow inside himself.
SIXTEEN
WHILE ROWAN RAN for the house, anxious to tell their mother all about Lady Jewel and the spider, Violet alighted from the carriage, still looking about in wonder.
The world was magnificent. She wandered around the side of the mansion, stunned by the splendor of her father’s exquisite flowers. Such brilliant colors, such delicate petals. She’d seen them before, of course, but only in her own hands or leaning down close. The gardens overall had been blurs of color, never this entire panorama of perfect shapes and rainbow hues stretching into the distance. And, oh, the subtle details were wondrous.
Oblivious to her approach, her father knelt by some roses, patting mulch into place. She touched him on the shoulder. “You’ve done a spectacular job here, Father.”
“Eh?” Engrossed, he didn’t look up. “What did you say?”
Sighing, she raised her voice a notch. “Your flowers are beautiful.”
“So are you, dear,” he said automatically, rising from his knees. At the sight of her, he froze. “Violet. What have you done to your face?”
She grinned. “They’re spectacles, Father. Lord Lakefield made them for me.”
He blinked. “What do they do?”
“Besides make me ugly?” Despite that fact, a smile bloomed on her face. Throwing her arms out wide, she spun in a circle, looking at everything at once. “I can see, Father! I can really see!”
In her exuberance, she’d yelled it, and he’d certainly heard. When she stopped twirling, he gathered her into his arms—something he hadn’t done in quite a while.
He hugged her hard before pulling back, then searched her eyes with his. “Can you see everything? Just like me?”
“Everything.” She knelt by his flowers. “This red rose, and that yellow one in the distance. And the hedges over there, and the rowan tree by the river.” She rose, turning slowly this time, savoring the incredible view. “I cannot wait for tonight to look at the stars.” Facing the house, she stopped. “I can see Lily smiling behind the window.” She waved merrily, grinning when her sister waved back.
“Violet!” Rowan came running out, their mother trailing behind. “I told Mum about your spectacles, and she wants to see them!”
“Chrysanthemum!” Father cried, yanking Mum in for a kiss as though they hadn’t seen each other in weeks. Normally Violet rolled her eyes at her parents’ shameless displays, not to mention Father’s cloying nickname for Mum. They were so sickly sweet together as to make her stomach turn.
Normally. But today, their affection only made Violet think of Ford.
And her first kiss.
A tingling weakness spread through her body. What was happening to her?
“Let me see these spectacles,” her mother said, taking Violet’s face in her hands and turning it this way and that. “Do they really help you see?”
“Immeasurably. They’re miraculous. And worth looking hideous, I can assure you.”
“You look fine, dear.”
Now Violet did roll her eyes.
Her sisters stepped outside, both wearing new gowns they’d had fitted the past week while Violet had been at Lakefield House. Rose’s was a rich, dark green, the skirt looped up and caught on the sides to show off the bronze underskirt beneath. Flurries of lace trimmed her chemise, peeking from the scooped neckline and the cuffs of the fitted sleeves. With her shimmering hair and tall, willowy grace, she looked like
