Settling herself in the soft feather bed, she retrieved the book in question and laid it on her lap. “Frankly, I’ll try anything to discourage her preposterous commitment to spinsterhood.”
“Spinsterhood! Why, she’s not even eighteen.”
“I know, darling. But Rose has been hard on her. Violet has tremendous strength of character, but she’s not without her weak points. And clever Rose knows exactly how to exploit them.”
Joseph crossed his arms. “I still don’t see how letting Violet read this unseemly book will improve matters.”
Chrystabel sighed. Men. They had to have everything spelled out for them. “What does Violet love more than anything else in the world?”
“Learning, of course.”
“Indeed. And what knowledge might she hope to gain from a marriage manual?”
“Um…knowledge about marriage?”
“Precisely. She’s taking an interest, Joseph. Will you be the one to quash that interest? Don’t you want to see your daughter happily married?”
“Of course I do—but not at the expense of her innocence.”
Chrystabel rolled her eyes. “Her innocence will remain intact. We’ll make sure of it.” She took a candle from the side table. “Or do you not plan to read it with me?”
Joseph’s eyebrows quirked with sudden curiosity. “I suppose it is my fatherly duty…”
Stifling laughter, Chrystabel leaned over and planted a kiss on her husband’s cheek. Then she opened the book.
“Oh my,” they said in unison.
FORTY
AN IMPATIENT KNOCK came at the laboratory door before Hilda’s voice called through it. “Will you be wanting breakfast, milord?”
Ford blinked and then carefully, reverently, set aside his watch. Still in somewhat of a daze, he rose and went to admit her. “Is it morning already?”
His housekeeper’s hands went to her hips. “Have you not bothered to look out a window lately?”
He turned to the one right over where he’d been working. The sky was blue. Birds were chirping, the perfect accompaniment for a beautiful, sunny day.
“Did you stay up all night again?” Hilda demanded.
“What is it with the questions?” Ford shook his head, refusing to let her disapproval ruin his exuberant mood. “Come, I have something to show you.”
She followed him to his workbench, weaving around a water bath and flicking her dust rag as she went. “If you’d let me in here to clean once in a while, this wouldn’t be such a skimble-skamble mess.”
Accustomed to her lectures, he ignored this one and lifted his watch, dangling by its gold chain. “Here it is,” he said with a broad smile. “I’m finished.”
“It’s very nice.” She raised a glass funnel and wiped it off.
Nonplussed, he stared at her. “I know it’s not fancy, but do you see here? It’s different from other watches. It has a minute hand, like a clock. So you won’t have to guess how far into the hour it is by looking at only the single hand.”
“Well, that is very nice, my lord.” She smiled, but her faded blue eyes didn’t sparkle with the enthusiasm he was seeking. “Although you have clocks enough around here for me to tell the time, I expect many individuals will appreciate the convenience.” She set down the funnel and glanced around the attic, sighing at the clutter and dust. “Will you be wanting breakfast now, then?”
He was silent a minute before mutely ordering himself to shrug off the disappointment. “Breakfast would be nice. I’ll be down shortly.”
He watched her calico-clad back as she picked her way through the maze that was his sanctuary. Convenient. She’d called his watch convenient. Although he supposed it was, that hadn’t been the reaction he was hoping for.
After months and months of analysis and experimentation—not to mention years of schooling and an entire childhood’s worth of tinkering—he’d finally managed to create something that could benefit mankind. He wanted awe, excitement. Criminy, a bit of hero worship wouldn’t be amiss, either.
Suspecting Jewel would have expressed all those sentiments and more, he found himself missing her all over again.
Luckily, another enthusiastic girl lived not so far away.
FORTY-ONE
AN HOUR LATER, having bathed, shaved, and gulped down some breakfast, Ford found himself in the galleried entry of Trentingham Manor, proudly holding up his watch for Violet’s inspection.
“Oh my,” she said, her brandy-colored eyes wide with unabashed admiration. “It’s amazing. I cannot believe it! Can I just stand here a while and watch it work?”
Ford laughed, finally feeling that rush of success, wanting to kiss her for giving it to him. “If you’d like. But if you’d care to invite me into a room with chairs, you can sit and watch it instead. That would be more comfortable, don’t you think?”
“Oh. I’m so sorry.” Holding the book he’d just given her, she turned and started down the corridor. “I’ve forgotten my manners.”
He walked beside her. “I’d forgotten how lovely you are.”
In his single-minded focus on his watch, he had forgotten. Intentionally forgotten. But she blushed prettily at the compliment.
“Besides,” he added, “I’m the one who’s socially inept. I should have exchanged pleasantries before shoving my invention in your face. Your manners, by contrast, are impeccable.”
She flashed him a smile that might as well have been a fist in his gut. He shouldn’t have come. Neither she nor her parents would ever agree to a match, and here he was, falling in love all over again.
How was it that he could he be so clever in some ways, and yet so entirely harebrained in others?
She was wearing a yellow gown today, and her red heels clicked on the corridor’s polished oak floor. “Would you show my family the watch? I’m certain they will be just as impressed as I.”
Thinking of Hilda’s reaction—or rather, lack of one—Ford wasn’t so sure.
“Mum is in her perfumery,” Violet told him, and he shrugged and followed her to the left, through a study he hadn’t seen before. Unlike the pretty feminine desks in the library upstairs, this room’s desk was heavy and utilitarian. There were
