Well, except for the tree bark digging into her bottom. But other than that, it was just like the dream.
In fact, it was better. She couldn’t have imagined the sensation of his chest against hers—hadn’t had any notion that his body would feel so solid and muscled and different from hers. Nor could she have dreamt up the feeling of his lips trailing soft kisses across her throat. She’d never realized her skin was so exquisitely sensitive.
Suddenly she could understand, at least a little, how fallen women succumbed to that temptation.
There was nothing about neck kissing in the Master-piece, she thought dazedly, winding her fingers into his hair. “Ford,” she heard herself whisper, “do you think it feels like this for everyone?”
He stilled, then pulled back enough to meet her eyes, a hazy expression in his own. “No. I think…”
He fell silent. Shaking his head, he reluctantly backed away from her—slowly, as though he didn’t want to—until they were once again sitting side by side, turned toward each other. He plucked a leaf from her shoulder, smiled at it, then suddenly sobered.
“I think I may have fallen in love,” he confessed in a rush.
Her world skidded. It wasn’t quite I love you…but it was close.
She removed her spectacles and wiped them on her gown, stalling for time. Trying to wrap her mind around the meaning of his words.
He was saying all the right things, in just the right way to make her question all her old insecurities. When he looked at her like that, with those incredible blue eyes, she wanted to believe him more than she’d wanted anything, ever. She just didn’t know whether she could.
She slipped her spectacles back on, determined to regain control, to refocus her mind on something less confusing. Something safe and practical. ”Where will you sell it?” she asked quietly.
His eyes changed, darkening with concern, with hurt at her lack of response. “Sell what?”
“Your watch.”
“My watch?” He sighed, then bent his head, his hair flopping forward like a young boy’s.
A desperate streak of longing shot through her.
“I’m not planning to sell my watch,” he said. “I’m not equipped to manufacture watches.”
Stunned, she sat up straighter and saw him tense in response. “Well, then,” she asked, “what do you plan to do with it?”
He straightened, too. “I’ll bring it to the next Royal Society meeting. I’m certain it will be a sensation.”
“And then…”
“That’s it. I have other projects I’m working on—”
“You’re serious, then?” She couldn’t believe it. “You’re not going to patent it? You have no plans for the watch?”
“I invented it. That was my plan.” He made to rise, but she gripped his shoulder and held him in place. “I’m not a businessman,” he said through gritted teeth. “I have no knowledge of that world. The creation was a satisfying end in itself.”
“I don’t understand you,” she said. True, aristocrats tended to think trade beneath them, but only a rich man had the luxury of doing what he pleased without considering his income.
Or a man who planned to rely on his wife’s fortune.
She didn’t want to think that of him. His confession had sounded too sincere, his explanation of his motivations too uncalculated. She’d seen how much he cared for Jewel; she knew he had a good heart. And though his eyes held many indecipherable emotions, she felt instinctively that none were deceit.
Yet she couldn’t help wondering.
He stared at her for a long, silent moment. A bird fluttered from one tree to another. A cow lowed in the fields beyond the woods. She heard her blood pounding in her ears.
“I don’t understand me, either,” he said.
FORTY-THREE
“HAVE YOU AND the viscount had a fight?” Sitting cross-legged on Violet’s bed that night, Lily patted May-dew on her face from a bottle she’d purchased in London. “He didn’t seem very happy when he came back for his watch.”
Violet paced her bedchamber, restlessly touching things at random. “No, we didn’t fight.”
She had no idea how to explain what had happened in the woods, because she hadn’t yet figured it out. The two of them had walked back in silence, as though they had nothing left to say to each other. But Ford hadn’t seemed angry. Before they’d reentered the house, he’d even brushed a kiss across her forehead at the door. And then sighed before he opened it.
She sighed now. “I still cannot believe he isn’t going to do anything with the watch.”
Rose played with her hair, examining herself in the mirror at Violet’s dressing table. “Not everyone is as ambitious as you are, Violet.” Holding her tresses twisted up high, she turned from her reflection. “Do you prefer it up or down?”
“Up,” Lily said at the same time Violet said, “Down.”
“Some help you two are.” Rose stood, fluffing her white night rail. Violet was struck anew by her younger sister’s stunning beauty, but quickly suppressed the stab of envy. “It’s not like you can change him,” Rose told her. “And why would you want to, anyway? You keep insisting you’re not interested in him.”
Violet plopped on her bed so hard the ropes creaked a protest beneath the mattress. “I just find it hard to believe he can invent something so important and not be interested in selling it. Or patenting it, at least. At the Royal Society event, I heard that Christopher Wren patented a device for writing with two pens. If anyone uses his idea, they have to pay for it.”
Lily scooted nearer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Why is this bothering you so, Violet? It’s not your invention.”
“I just hate to see such brilliance go to waste.”
Blinking, Lily shifted to
