“Lovely,” the newcomer said. “Both the spectacles and the lady.” A few years younger than Mr. Wren, the man topped him by but a couple of inches. His physique somehow looked crooked, his face twisted and much less than beautiful. But his large, pale head was crowned with a wig of dark brown curls so delicate they made Violet envious.
“Robert Hooke,” Ford introduced him. “May I present Lady Violet Ashcroft?”
“I’ve read your book Micrographia,” Violet gushed, overwhelmed to find herself encountering yet another great name. “It’s marvelous.”
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” Mr. Hooke’s gray eyes smiled along with his thin mouth, but in contrast to Mr. Wren’s, his face crinkled in a way that suggested he rarely grinned. “The gardener’s eldest, are you not?”
“Is my father’s hobby so well known, then?” she wondered aloud.
“Legendary.” Mr. Hooke shifted his awkward form. “Charming man, though,” he added after a moment.
Ford touched Violet’s arm. ”Mr. Hooke is Gresham’s Professor of Geometry,” he told her. “He lives here, right under that new observatory they’re building.” He indicated a corner of the quadrangle, where a small, square tower poked up from the roofline, surrounded by scaffolding.
“Convenient,” Mr. Hooke said. “If I fall down stumbling drunk, I’m close to my bed.”
They all laughed.
“How go the plans for St. Paul’s?” Ford asked.
The two older men exchanged a glance, the kind shared by friends with secrets between them. Odd to think that such a cheerful person and a curmudgeonly one would be close.
“I’m working on a model,” Mr. Wren said carefully.
Hooke let out a snort. “Twelve carpenters are working on it, and he’s sunk five hundred pounds into it already. We can only pray the king likes it and the clergy give their approval.”
“Approval for what?” someone asked in a voice with an Irish lilt. And before she knew it, Violet was introduced to Robert Boyle, a tall, thin man who also wanted a look at her spectacles.
No sooner had he finished exclaiming over them than another fellow walked up. Mr. Boyle handed him the lenses, and without them on her face, all Violet could tell about the newcomer was he was short and a bit stout.
“They belong to you, my lady?” he asked after examining them closely. He returned them with a bow. “Isaac Newton, at your service.”
“Lady Violet Ashcroft,” Ford introduced her. “The Earl of Trentingham’s daughter.”
“Ah, of course.”
With the spectacles safely back in place, Mr. Newton looked to have five or so years on Ford. Under a broad forehead, his brown eyes were set in a sharp-featured face with a square lower jaw. He was handsome despite the prematurely gray hair peeking out from beneath his wig.
“We’re pleased you remembered to attend,” Mr. Boyle teased him.
Everyone but Violet laughed, and her expression must have shown her confusion. “Mr. Newton is known to be a bit absentminded,” Ford explained.
“That is an understatement of the greatest magnitude,” Mr. Hooke said, eliciting more laughter. “He once entertained me for supper and went off to fetch more wine. An hour later I found him in his study, working out a geometrical problem. He’d completely forgotten I was there.”
“It was an important problem,” Mr. Newton protested good-naturedly. Violet couldn’t help noticing that, compared to the others, he looked rather slovenly. His suit was finely made, but so wrinkled she wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d slept in it.
Mr. Wren rubbed his chin. “Tell her about that time you rode home from Grantham.”
“That could happen to anyone.”
“I think not.” Mr. Wren turned to Violet. “He dismounted to lead his horse up a steep hill, and at the top, when he went to remount, he found an empty bridle in his hand. His horse had slipped it and wandered away unnoticed.”
Even Violet had to laugh at that.
And so an hour passed while it seemed she met most every Englishman connected with modern-day science. Between examining her spectacles and regaling her with stories, they talked casually of their various projects—while Violet could do naught else but listen in wonderment.
The king’s most favored architect, Mr. Wren had recently written a paper explaining how to apply engineering principles in order to strengthen buildings. He’d also patented a device for writing with two pens at once, and invented a language for the deaf and dumb, using hands and fingers to “talk.”
Besides Mr. Hooke’s improvements on the microscope that had allowed him to research and write Micrographia, he’d developed astronomical instruments that revealed new stars in Orion’s belt. Ford whispered that he’d show them to her one night. Mr. Hooke had also formulated a new law of physics, asserting that the extension of a spring is proportional to the force applied to it. A lively discussion broke out over his proposal to introduce the freezing point of water as zero on the thermometer.
Since Mr. Hooke often assisted Robert Boyle, the two talked about their experiments with the new air pump Hooke had built. Using it to create a vacuum, Mr. Boyle had proven that the pressure of a gas is inversely proportionate to its volume.
“That is now called Boyle’s Law,” Ford told her.
Violet drank it all in, silently thrilled to be in such company. Although some of these great men were aristocrats, many were not. Here, dukes learned alongside commoners. The Royal Society was open to men of every rank and religion, so long as the proposed member held an interest in promoting discovery and science.
As each new arrival exclaimed over the genius of Violet’s new spectacles, Ford basked in celebrity. And she didn’t feel uncomfortable wearing them at all. Being the center of attention wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d feared.
But as more eminent scientists gathered to praise Ford, she began to wonder if showing off his brilliant invention had been his real motivation for bringing her here. Disappointment took her by surprise, making the canary wine seem to sour in the pit of her belly.
True, he had never breathed a word about courting her. And
