by Lauren Royal
They all did. A carved molding divided the elaborate ceiling, and although the sides were decorated in an identical fashion, the front half was dated 1576 and the back 1577.
“Why are there two dates?” Rowan asked.
“That’s the secret.” Mr. Young smiled, revealing a mouthful of teeth with only one missing. “Tell me,” he asked the children, “what happened between those two dates?” He waited a beat. “I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t the first time it happened, nor will it be the last. It happened again about fifty years later, and yet again in 1665.”
“I wasn’t born yet,” Jewel said. “How should I know?”
Rowan puffed out his chest. “I wasn’t born yet, either, but I know anyway. The Black Death.”
“Bright boy.” The bookseller ruffled Rowan’s hair. “The workmen were from Italy and sailed for home when the plague took hold. But they promised to come back and finish, and so they did, a year later. Hence the two dates.”
“That’s funny.” Jewel stared at the ceiling a moment longer, then her gaze dropped to a table against the wall. “A draughts board!” She batted her lashes at the bookseller. “May we play?”
“Of course.”
“Mr. Young said I’m bright,” Rowan told her. “I wager I can beat you.”
Ford laughed. “I wouldn’t recommend you bet money. She’s the type that goes for the throat.”
“I can beat any old girl.”
Jewel narrowed her eyes and set her hands on her hips. “We’ll see about that.”
She made a beeline for the table, waving Rowan into the chair opposite as she settled herself with a fluff of her pale yellow skirts. Her face was all business as she made her first move.
Mr. Young turned to Violet, peering curiously at her spectacles. “May I help you find something, milady?”
“They allow me to see at a distance,” she explained, although he politely hadn’t asked.
“How very fascinating.”
He didn’t seem repulsed by her appearance, just honestly interested. “Would you like to try them?” she offered.
“I can see at a distance fine. It’s up close where I have trouble. My arms need to be longer.” His smile reappeared. “It’s a brilliant invention, though, isn’t it?”
“Quite.” She smiled in return. Perhaps people wouldn’t stare at her, after all.
“Have you any books in foreign languages?” Ford asked. “And my lady would like to see some philosophy titles.”
“Philosophy I have. This way, if you please.” After directing her around the corner to a tall shelf full of books, he scratched his graying head. “Now, as for foreign languages, I’m afraid…ah, yes, perhaps I do have something in the back. If you’ll excuse me for a moment.”
The instant he disappeared, Ford moved close, so close Violet could smell the warm scent of his skin. Patchouli and soap and fresh air.
He backed her gently against the shelves. “How does it feel to be off the barge?” he whispered.
“Liberating.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Will you look for books, too?”
“I’ll look for Rose’s.”
“Would you? I’m hopeless at languages.”
“I don’t know many. French, having grown up on the Continent during the years of Cromwell’s Protectorate.” He skimmed his knuckles along her jaw. “And Dutch, since the English court spent time at The Hague as well. And Latin, of course.” Wrapping a curl around his finger, he gave it a gentle tug. “But that’s all.”
“It’s three more than I can claim.” With his fingers teasing her hair, her scalp felt all tingly. She struggled to keep a clear head. “If you’ll choose some subjects Rose might find interesting, I’d be forever grateful.”
“Forever grateful. I like the sound of that.” He grinned, and her insides flip-flopped. “Though I’m tempted to just stand here and enjoy the lovely view of you in your spectacles.”
The proprietor ambled back, dragging a crate of books behind him, and Ford moved away. The old man nodded toward him. “I don’t know what sort of foreign book you’re looking for, milord, but you may have anything in here for a shilling.”
“Anything?” Violet asked.
“Take your pick. My son Thomas found these in the attic—never been up there myself. Must’ve been there since before I bought the shop—from the looks of them, before that curious ceiling even went in,” he added, his old grin quite fetching even with the missing tooth. “Tom wanted to toss them, seeing as we don’t deal in foreign titles, but I cannot seem to find it in me to get rid of books.” He dusted off his hands. “If you’re not wanting anything else, then, I shall leave you to look.”
With a nod, he walked off. They heard him stop and talk to the children, a soft murmur followed by youthful giggles. Apparently the shop had no other customers, which suited Violet perfectly. She turned to the shelves, her heart singing as it always did when she was in the presence of books.
Ford crouched on the floor and began absently sifting through the crate. “What would Rose like?”
“Anything, really, except perhaps philosophy or science.” The two subjects she and Ford would want for themselves. She smiled at that thought as she peered at the titles on the shelf.
Choosing a slim brown volume, she slipped off her spectacles, the better to see up close. She set them on a ledge and began to flip pages without really reading. She could still feel Ford’s fingers on her jaw, his warm breath on her face, the slight tickle of him playing with her hair.
“What is that called?” he asked without looking up.
“Aristotle’s Master-piece.” It looked promising, though she was surprised to find a book about or by Aristotle that she’d never heard of before. “I think I shall inquire about the price.”
“Here, I’ll hold it for you while you look some more.”
She handed it to him, and he set it on the floor, on top of two volumes he’d apparently chosen for Rose. She could understand why the bookseller would let them go for a shilling. Even without her eyeglasses, the foreign editions looked like they hadn’t been opened in decades.
Still crouching by the crate, Ford began humming a soft tune as he searched. A lullaby, if she didn’t miss her guess; she wondered if he sang to Jewel. She slipped another title off the shelf. The clicks of checkers told her the children were miraculously staying put. Though their voices were a bit louder than she would have liked, they didn’t seem to be bothering the proprietor, so she decided not to let it bother her, either.
She’d added two more likely books to the growing pile when Ford sat down with a thud, clutching a book in both hands.
He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
TWENTY
“WHAT?” VIOLET ASKED. Sitting on the floor, Ford looked as pale as her father’s prized lilies. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He glanced around uneasily, as though he expected someone to pop up and steal the book out of his white-knuckled hands.
She couldn’t help but notice those hands were shaking. The book was small and looked old. No, make that ancient, she decided after she’d reached for her spectacles and slipped them back on. It was handwritten, and the pages sounded brittle, crackling when he gingerly turned them.
“Another foreign title, is it?” Even with the eyeglasses, she couldn’t read a word. “Do you expect Rose would like it?”
“No.” Still trembling, he stood abruptly. “Not this one.”
“Can you read it? Is it French or Dutch?”
“It’s no language I’ve ever seen. Will you get those?” he added distractedly, gesturing to the books on the floor.
As she knelt to collect the volumes they’d chosen, he hurried away to talk to the proprietor.
“Yes, only a shilling,” Mr. Young was saying when she joined them a minute later. Gazing down at the book, he lazily flipped a few pages. “It’s not English or Latin, though, and difficult to decipher, handwritten as it is. Can you even read it?”
�
�Well, no.” Ford raked his fingers through his hair—not the smooth, thoughtful gesture Violet had become used to seeing, or even the quicker one that indicated frustration. This motion was jerky and convulsive instead.
What was wrong with him?
“I have a friend, an expert in languages,” he said. “I thought he might enjoy the challenge.” He held out his hand, and she could almost hear him willing the shopkeeper to give him back the book.
The man handed it over, gesturing dismissively. “A shilling will do, then. Truth be told, I feel guilty taking money for the thing at all.”
“Appreciate it.” Ford turned to Violet, taking the books from her arms. “Add these to the total, will you?” He passed them over to Mr. Young and started digging out his pouch.
“I brought money,” she protested. “I cannot accept a gift from you. It wouldn’t look right.”
“Rubbish. You’ve already accepted the spectacles, haven’t you?”
Her hands went to her face protectively. “These were different. You made them.”
“They’re just books, Violet.”
Mr. Young looked at each book, scribbling their prices on a scrap of paper, preparatory to adding them up. He paused when he came to Violet’s first choice. “Are you certain you want this, my lady?”
“Aristotle’s Master-piece? Yes. Unless…is it very expensive?”
Frowning, he blinked his pale blue eyes. “No, not particularly.”
“We’ll take it.” Ford selected a few coins and pressed them into the bookseller’s hand. “Jewel? Rowan? Are you done with your game?” He looked to be in a terrible rush.
“One more minute, Uncle Ford.”
He shifted from foot to foot while they finished playing, then took Jewel by the hand to pull her from her seat. With a distracted “Thank you” called over his shoulder to Mr. Young, he waved Violet and Rowan through the door and followed them out with his niece.
“Is something amiss?” the little girl asked.
“No. No, not at all. I’m hoping something is very right.” He hastened them down the street, his gaze focused straight ahead to where the barge sat waiting. “Hurry. Quickly.”
In her fashionable high heels, Violet had a hard time keeping up, and she completely forgot to worry about who might see her wearing the spectacles. In no time at all, he was ushering them aboard.
“Straight home, Harry.” Ford hesitated, though for barely an instant. “No, stop at the first decent inn—but not until we’ve cleared the town.”
The children joined Harry at the helm while Ford hurried Violet into the cabin, apparently forgetting it was unsuitable. He pulled the door shut behind them. When the barge began moving, he let out a long, audible breath and dropped heavily onto the bed.
Since there wasn’t any other furniture, Violet seated herself gingerly beside him. “What’s going on?” she asked, concerned by this odd behavior.
“I just…I suppose I feared Mr. Young would come running out and take the book back.” It was still clenched in his fingers. “It’s foolish, I know,” he said, offering her a sheepish smile.
“Is it that important, then?”
“If it turns out to be what I’m hoping it is, yes, it’s important.” He relaxed his grip and, opening the book, turned a page and then another. If she could judge from his smile, the crackle of old paper sounded like music to his ears. “Very important.”
“I imagine your friend will be pleased.”
In the midst of turning another page, he looked up. “My friend?”
“Your friend who is good with languages.”
“Oh.” She’d never seen a man blush before. “That wasn’t the whole truth, I’m afraid. I just didn’t know quite what to say. If the bookseller realized what he had…well, what it might be…”
Meeting her gaze, he sucked in a breath and blew it out. “This book could be extremely valuable, Violet.”
Just the way he’d said her name, deep, like he cared, made her warm to her toes.
Rowan opened the door and poked his head in. His gaze sought out the book. “It looks very old,” he said soberly. “Is it the emerald secrets book?”
“I’m not sure,” Ford said. “Everyone thought it was gone. I’m not certain I quite believed it had ever really existed.” Light streamed through the cabin’s two windows, illuminating the old pages, but they didn’t glow nearly as brightly as his eyes. “The book was supposed to have been small and bound in brown leather, and of course it would have been handwritten. And here, look.” He flipped to the first page. “The alchemical symbol for gold. And five words in the title. But I cannot be sure. I wish I could read the thing.”
If Violet had never seen a man blush before, she’d never seen one so excited, either. About anything. “The emerald secrets book?” she asked. “What’s that?”
Her brother smiled importantly. “It tells the lost secret of the Philosopher’s Rock. I’m going to tell Jewel.” He slammed the door, and she heard his footsteps pound across the wooden deck.
“The Philosopher’s Stone,” Ford corrected the empty space where Rowan had stood.
Violet gasped. “The formula to turn metals into gold?”
“The very same. Secrets of the Emerald Tablet has been missing for three hundred years, and if this is it…”
“Do you think it really is?”
“I don’t know. It could be. Everyone assumed it had been destroyed.” He turned a few pages and stared down at the ancient text. “I’m crossing my fingers—and I’m probably the least superstitious man you’ll ever meet.”
Suspecting he was right, she smiled at that. “What is the Emerald Tablet?”
He shut the book. “It’s a long story.”
“It’s a long way down the river,” she pointed out.
“Very well, then,” he said, looking pleased. He shifted to lean against the headboard, settling back against some pillows and appearing altogether at home there on the bed.
Her heart sped up at the thought, and she felt her face flush, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“It all started,” he said, “back in Egypt, some twenty-five hundred years before Christ. Where the Divine Art first had its birth.”
“The Divine Art?”
“Alchemy. A priest named Hermes Trismegistus was known to have great intellectual powers. The Art was kept secret and exclusive to the priesthood, but more than two thousand years later, when the tomb of Hermes was discovered by Alexander the Great in a cave near Hebron, they found a tablet of emerald stone. On it was inscribed, in Phoenician characters, the wisdom of the Great Master concerning the art of making gold.”
He paused, looking at her where she still sat perched at the foot of the bed. “You look uncomfortable there,” he said, reaching a hand behind him to pull out one of the pillows. “Lean back against the wall.” He tossed it to her.
He’d told her it was a long story, so she scooted over to the wall and tucked the pillow behind her back, her legs lying crosswise on the bed. Noticing their outlines were visible beneath the drape of her peach gown, she fluffed her skirts a little. “Where is the Emerald Tablet now?”
“We don’t know. But years later, in the thirteenth century, a man named Raymond Lully was born to a noble family in Majorca. He took up the study of alchemy and wandered the Continent to learn more of the science. Many stories have been told of Lully’s abilities to make gold, which he claimed to have learned from studying the Emerald Tablet.”
“What sorts of stories?”
His mouth curved in a faint smile. “You’re really listening, aren’t you?”
She cocked her head at him, baffled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason.” Still smiling, he turned the book over in his hands, then opened it again absently. “It’s said that the Abbot of Westminster found Lully in Italy and persuaded him to come to London, where he worked in Westminster Abbey. A long time afterwards, a quantity of gold dust was discovered in the cell where he’d lived. Anot
her story has it that Lully was assigned lodgings in the Tower of London. People claimed to see golden pieces he’d made, and they called them nobles of Raymond, or Rose nobles. It was during this period that he is said to have written Secrets of the Emerald Tablet, I believe around the year 1275.”
“Almost four hundred years ago.” Looking at the pages Ford was carefully turning, she could believe the book was that old. “What happened then?”
“Lully eventually left England to resume his travels, but it was thought he left the book behind. It was supposed to have been written in language that’s difficult to read.”
She held out a hand, and wordlessly, he passed her the open book. She removed her spectacles and peered at the spiky writing. She couldn’t read a word. Some of it didn’t even look like words, but more like symbols.
“Do you suppose it’s Phoenician, like the Tablet?” she asked.
“I have no idea. Legend has it that the book changed hands a few times and then disappeared in the fourteenth century, never to be seen again.”
“Until now.”
“Maybe.” His eyes appeared wistful. “It looks old enough, doesn’t it?”
“It would be priceless, wouldn’t it?” Imagine being able to produce gold. Caught up in his excitement, she handed back the book. “You could sell that for a fortune. An unbelievable fortune.”
“I’d never sell it.” He clutched the book to his chest. “If it’s the missing volume, I’ll never, ever sell it. Even should it turn out not to divulge a working formula.”
“You’d feel the same even if it doesn’t reveal how to make gold?” Surprised, and yet somehow not, she slipped her spectacles back on to study his face. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a romantic,” she said softly.
“A romantic?” he murmured, holding her gaze for a long, breathless moment.
He remained silent while he pulled off his boots and stretched out his legs. And crossed his stockinged feet. And set them on her lap.
Speechless, she looked down. Completely without her permission, her eyes wandered the length of his legs. They looked strong and well-turned, and his knees looked loose, like he was comfortable.