A mustache with horrendous pointy tips sticking straight out at the sides.
King Charles wore a similar mustache, but unlike Rand, their monarch had the gravity to pull it off.
Ford struggled to keep his face neutral. He’d have to call on his former schoolmate more often. Academic prodigy or not, the poor fellow clearly needed looking after.
Lord Randal Nesbitt swung off his black horse. “This had better be important, Lakefield.” His words sounded serious, but he ruined the effect by giving Ford a friendly thump on the shoulder. “So this is the place, is it?” He turned to squint up at the house.
“Well, yes.” His gaze following Rand’s, Ford shifted on his feet. “I’m planning some renovations.”
He hadn’t been, not really, since his stay here wasn’t permanent and he couldn’t afford renovations in any case—not without a significant change of lifestyle. But seeing his home through Rand’s eyes made him wonder how Violet must see it.
The paint had worn entirely off the front, leaving bare beige stone. He’d never noticed before that it was a darker color on the left half, which had been added early this century, and a lighter color on the older half. The windows were different, too—four modern ones on the new side, five mullioned ones on the Tudor portion. The house was sound, but aesthetically…
Well, it left something to be desired.
“Rand.” In an effort to draw his friend’s attention from the pitiful sight, Ford touched him on the arm. “I may have found Secrets of the Emerald Tablet.”
“Secrets of—?” Rand spun back to Ford. His steel gray eyes narrowed. “You’re jesting.”
“I’m not. At least I hope not.” He ushered Rand up the steps. “I found this book in a shop in Windsor—looked like it’d been there for ages. It has five words in the title and the alchemical symbol for gold on the first page, and it looks exactly as the book has been described. But I cannot read it. Not a word.” He led his friend through the entrance hall and into the study. “Violet’s sister—”
“Violet?”
“A neighbor.”
Rand dropped onto a faded green chair, smoothing his mustache manfully. “What happened to Tabitha?”
“She eloped with the Earl of Berrescliffe,” Ford said with an impatient gesture. Somehow it no longer seemed important. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“The way you said ‘Violet’…”
Wishing not to alienate his friend by sitting behind the massive oak desk, Ford sat himself on an iron chest against one wall. “I didn’t say ‘Violet’ any special way.”
He sounded sulky even to his own ears. Sighing inwardly, he wondered for the hundredth time today whether she would agree to come to London.
And then wondered for the hundredth time today why he cared so much.
“Come on, man,” Rand said. “You think you can fool me after all these years?” His quick grin emerged. “I know when you’re interested in a lady.”
Ford leaned back against the dark, Tudor oak paneling. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”
Rand seemed to consider that for a moment. He ran his tongue around his teeth, a contemplative habit of his that Ford remembered well.
“Bosh,” he said finally, his smile returning. ”Now, what were you saying about Lady Violet’s sister? Violet is a lady?”
“She is.” Guessing where his friend was leading, Ford sighed. “And her sister is a linguist of sorts. Her younger sister,” he added in a warning tone, noting the interest that lit Rand’s eyes.
He knew Rand every bit as well as Rand knew him.
“How young?” Rand asked, sitting up straighter. He was Ford’s junior by four years—a brilliant student who had entered Wadham College early, while, due to his family’s exile, Ford had started late.
“Fifteen,” Ford said. “And a sheltered country miss.” Though accurate, the description somehow didn’t fit Rose.
“And me only just turned nineteen—that’s not so big an age difference. A woman can marry at twelve with her father’s consent.”
Ford thought of Jewel just six years hence. “A girl of twelve is not a woman.”
“Fair enough.” Rand reclined in his chair, propping one foot on the opposite knee. “So what of this sister?”
“She knows a language or three, you see, and she examined the book.” Ford rose, crossing to the desk to retrieve it. “She noticed a word she thought was Italian. For silver,” he added significantly as he opened the bottom drawer.
“And that was enough to make you decide it was Secrets of the Emerald Tablet?”
“You think me so simple-minded?” He handed the book to Rand, then sat again on the iron chest. “The moment I saw this book, I suspected it might be the one. Besides the book’s appearance and the clues on the title page, it includes diagrams that are clearly scientific. Other than that, though, I couldn’t really say why I think this is it. It just…feels right,” he added, suddenly feeling foolish.
He’d always trusted facts over feelings. Until now, at least.
“It does look quite ancient.” Rand turned the book in his hands, then opened it gingerly, reverently, as such an old book deserved. “You know, Old English is so different from what we speak today, it might as well be a foreign language.”
“But I would still recognize a word here or there, wouldn’t I? Rose—Violet’s sister—thought it might be several different languages. And patterns.” His fingers worried the decorative metal strips on the chest. “I’m thinking it might be a code.”
Rand looked up. “What is in there?” he asked abruptly, indicating the old iron chest.
“I don’t know. It belonged to the previous owners.” Ford looked ruefully at the heavy lock. The key was missing, so it would have to be hacked off with an ax. One of the many things he had yet to get around to doing here at Lakefield.
“Don’t you wonder if it holds something valuable?”
“They wouldn’t have left it had it contained anything valuable. Do you see anything else
