“Can you picture it paved over and crammed with shopping stalls?”
She looked down at the fresh green grass beneath her feet. “Was it?”
“Until recently. After the Great Fire, the whole administration of the City moved into the buildings, and the tenants of the Royal Exchange set up here in the quadrangle until it was rebuilt. A hundred small shops.”
People strolled by, men alone and some couples, nodding acknowledgments without interrupting their conversation. She and Ford seemed to be among the youngest attendees. ”How long has the Royal Society been meeting here?” she asked.
“Since 1660, save during the past seven years. We were incorporated under Royal charter in 1662. On the fifteenth of July. So something good happened that particular St. Swithin’s Day,” he mused. “It must not have rained.”
She shot him a sidelong glance. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind.” A private smile curved his lips as he began walking her around the perimeter, pointing out all the professors’ lodgings. There were professors of music, physics, geometry, divinity, rhetoric, astronomy, and law—and by the time she heard about all of them, she was dizzy with new information.
Or maybe dizzy with something else. It was like a fairytale, being here in this place, among these extraordinary people…with Ford.
“Do you like to dance?” he suddenly asked. The musicians had begun to play. A lilting tune wafted over the quadrangle. A temporary floor of wood had been constructed over a patch of the new grass.
Although she’d had lessons along with her sisters, Violet had never danced much. At the balls her family had managed to drag her to, she’d always done her best to fade into the background—so much so that Rose had taken to calling her a wallflower, claiming she clung to the walls like Father’s flowering vines.
But this was a magical night—a night that called for her to rise above her normal fears. In her whole life, she might never see a night like this again, and she was determined to make the most of it.
“I cannot claim to have much experience,” she heard herself saying. “But I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.”
Immediately she thought about taking back the words, but clamped her lips tight. Handing their goblets to a passing servant, Ford led her closer to the music.
The tune ended and another began. A minuet. Taking her by both hands, he swept her onto the makeshift dance floor.
She knew the steps, and for the first time, her vision sharp through her spectacles, she didn’t worry about tripping. His dancing was precise if not precisely graceful, exactly as she would have pictured. She was watching him, smiling to herself, when she suddenly realized her own feet were keeping pace.
Perhaps dancing wasn’t so tiresome, after all—when one happened to be dancing with the best-looking member of the Royal Society.
Cool night air breezed over her skin. She met his eyes, and her cheeks flushed at the intensity of his gaze. She wondered what he was thinking. Here beneath the stars, he seemed different, in his element. Not that he was reserved in any circumstances, but she’d expect a man of science to be more like her, preferring solitude to social occasions. Which just went to show how little she could trust her preconceived notions.
He took her hand again as they turned, and she found herself enjoying this particular social occasion more than she’d thought possible. For once, she had no desire to hide out, no wish to stay safely at home.
They rose on their toes, and he pulled her closer. Closer than the dance required, close enough to make butterflies flutter in her stomach. To make the Master-piece’s words flash in her mind.
Pushing those thoughts away, she broke eye contact, needing a moment to compose herself.
The dance floor had become crowded. Gentlemen outnumbered ladies by double or more, and the wooden platform was surrounded by clusters of them absorbed in conversation. Violet caught more than a few glances aimed her way. She suspected people were wondering what she was doing here with Ford.
Or wondering about her spectacles. Did they look odd with her formal gown and hairstyle? A niggling thread of insecurity invaded her dreamy, perfect evening, lodging itself in her stomach.
No sooner had she and Ford made their way off the dance floor than they found themselves besieged by curious men. Instinctively, Violet crossed her arms over her chest again.
“Trentingham’s eldest, are you not?” One of the gentlemen offered her a courtly bow. “I’m pleased to meet you,” he added. “Christopher Wren.”
She struggled to keep her face neutral. Christopher Wren! Mathematician, scientist, architect…the man personally chosen by the king to rebuild all of the City’s churches that had burned in the Great Fire. She was surprised to find him no taller than she.
And she was surprised that he knew who she was. She’d thought she’d been invisible to society, hidden away on her family’s estate.
“Violet Ashcroft.” She bobbed a curtsy. “I’m glad to make your acquaintance.”
“Are those a new sort of spectacles?” he asked without further preliminaries. Not at all the imposing personality she’d pictured, he seemed cheerful and open. She guessed him at around forty years of age. “May I see them?” Before she gave permission, he reached out eagerly.
She slipped the spectacles off and handed them to him. “Lord Lakefield made them for me.”
“I’m not surprised.” Mr. Wren turned them in his hands, then raised them to his own lively brown eyes and blinked. “Do they help you to see?”
“Very much. They’ve changed my life.”
Mr. Wren nodded thoughtfully, his wavy brown periwig moving along with his head. Beneath a patrician nose, his mouth curved pleasantly, as though he smiled often.
He turned to Ford. “This frame to hold them on the face, it’s brilliant. Why didn’t I think of it myself?”
Ford laughed. “You’ve thought of plenty. Give another man a turn.”
Another face peered over Mr. Wren’s shoulder. “What have you there?”
“Spectacles,” he replied. “Designed by Lakefield here, with a clever frame to hold them on the face.”
