Chase Family Collection: Limited Christmas Edition

by Lauren Royal

  “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. Another 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.

  Suddenly wondering what those legs might look like without breeches and hose, she wasn’t comfortable at all. Tucked behind her back, the pillow he’d thrown to aid her comfort didn’t seem to be helping a bit.

  “Raymond Lully is the stuff of legends,” he continued blithely, apparently oblivious to their shockingly intimate position. “Any book he’d written would hold an immeasurable amount of historic and sentimental value. It would be an honor to own it, no matter what it said.”

  When he fell silent again, she raised her gaze to his face, and the expression there told her he wasn’t oblivious at all.

  He knew exactly how uncomfortable he was making her.

  This was ridiculous.

  The barge slowed and bumped against a dock, but it didn’t jar her from the spell he’d so expertly woven around them.

  “A romantic?” he repeated, clearly not expecting an answer. His lips curved in a lazy smile, and he leaned forward, reaching one long arm to brush her cheek with two fingers. Her skin grew warm, and her body felt heavy on the bed.

  Harry pulled open the door, and the spell was broken.

  “Will this do, my lord?” He gestured toward a respectable old riverside inn that boasted tables along the bank of the Thames.

  To his credit, he didn’t blink when he saw Ford’s feet in her lap. And, thank the heavens above, Ford managed to swing them off the bed and pull his boots back on before the children arrived in the doorway.

  “It will do very well,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Twenty-One

  “LOOK!” JEWEL pointed to an enormous oak by the river. “There are swings!”

  The children bounded off the barge and ran shrieking along the grassy bank. Violet walked more carefully behind with Ford beside her, the book still in one hand. She teetered a bit on the unaccustomed high heels—and perhaps, she had to admit, because she felt drunk with new sensations.

  Ford had put his feet in her lap. Why on earth had she found herself so affected? Although they’d been sitting on a bed, nothing scandalous had happened. They’d both been fully dressed, and they hadn’t even kissed.

  The whole thing had been silly, really…as silly as a grown man physically attached to an old leather book. Wondering if he might sleep with it tonight, she smiled to herself.

  He put a casual hand at her back. “What do you find so amusing?”

  “Nothing.” His fingers felt warm through her thin satin gown. She chanced a look at him, feeling flushed and happy at the innocent contact.

  That was silly, too. “Nothing at all,” she repeated, trying to hide another grin. When his hand dropped from her back, she could swear she still felt its imprint.

  By the time the two of them caught up, the young ones had claimed the pair of rope-and-board swings that shared a heavy branch on the old tree’s right. They were pumping into the air, racing to see who could get the highest, their laughing taunts floating out over the water.

  “That looks like fun,” Violet said wistfully. Oh, to be six, flying into the sky on your birthday, instead of almost twenty-one and dreading it.

  One-and-twenty. According to Rose, that was the day Violet would become an official spinster. Not that she minded her fate. She’d been resigned to it for years—planning happily for it, in fact. A spinster enjoyed freedoms a wife never would.

  But the word “spinster” sounded so very old and final.

  Ford took her by the arm and marched her around the giant tree. A third swing there hung empty. “Sit,” he said.

  She giggled, feeling sillier still. “You take it.”

  “Sit.”

  With a shrug, she did. It had been years since she’d been on a swing—since the last time her family had stayed at Tremayne Castle. The board felt flat and hard beneath her skirts. She wrapped her fingers around the thick, scratchy ropes on either side of her head. When she felt a hand at her back, she gave a little shriek, then laughed as Ford pushed her swinging into the air.

  He came around the side to watch her, holding up the book to shade his eyes. “It’s nice to hear you laugh.”

  She laughed again. “I feel like a child.”

  “Is that bad?” he wondered.

  Pumping her legs to go higher still, she considered. The wind rushed by, tangling her hair in the frame of her spectacles. When her peach skirts billowed, she clamped them between her legs. The sun sparkled on the water. Through her miraculous eyeglasses, the landscape looked clear and brightly beautiful all the way to the horizon.

  “No,” she said at last. “Feeling like a child isn’t bad.” At nearly twenty-one, feeling like a child was wonderful.

  Setting the book on the grass, Ford stepped behind her and gave her a shove. She leaned back, feeling her hair flow and flutter as she went soaring over the river.

  “I can go faster than you!” Jewel cried.

  “No, I can go faster!” Rowan yelled, and the two of them pumped their hearts out, racing toward the sky.

  Ford’s hands on Violet’s back felt strong and warm, the pushes rhythmic and reliable. Her lids slid closed. She didn’t want to go faster than anyone; she just wanted to blank her mind and enjoy the motion.

  With her eyes shut, she imagined she was flying. She imagined she was young and beautiful, and Ford was her lover, not just a flirtatious, overwhelmed uncle who wanted her help caring for his niece.

  “Holy Hades,” Rowan complained, jarring her back into the real world.

  Her eyes popped open. “I’ve told you not to say that.”

  “No matter how high I get,” he panted, “I cannot seem to go faster than her. She swings three times and I swing only two.”

  Jewel snorted. “Because you’re heavier, you goose.”

  “I’m not a goose,” Rowan said, and Violet cringed, suspecting the girl had learned that insult from Rose. But Rowan seemed to consider Jewel’s analysis. “Anyway, you’re a girl, so you’ll get tired,” he decided smugly. “And then I’ll go faster.”

  “No,” Ford said, giving Violet another push, “you won’t.”

  “He won’t?” Violet asked. Rowan’s theory made sense to her. Well, perhaps not the part about Jewel tiring—the girl was a bundle of energy if ever she’d seen one. “If Rowan pumps harder, he won’t go faster?”

  “He won’t,” Ford repeated. “The swing is a pendulum—”

  “Like in your laboratory?” Jewel interrupted loudly.

  “Just like that.” He pushed again. “Only you are the weight at the bottom.”

  Jewel’s dark hair streamed behind her, then flew forward to hide her face
. “And he’s a heavier weight, so…”

  “No, the amount of weight doesn’t matter.” When Violet swung back, Ford wasn’t there to push. She slowed down to listen. “The time a pendulum takes to go back and forth is called the period,” he said, walking over to push Jewel instead. “And the period depends on the length of the string. Or in a swing’s case, the ropes.” He reached to give Rowan a shove. “Jewel’s ropes are quite a bit shorter, so Jewel swings faster.”

  “Are you sure?” Rowan asked dubiously.

  “Positive. But test it yourself. Switch swings with Jewel. That’s what an experiment is all about.”

  The children dragged their feet on the ground to stop the swings, and Ford came back to Violet.

  Soon Rowan and Jewel had switched sides and were pumping again. And Rowan was going faster. “You’re right!” he yelled.

  “Of course I’m right.” Ford gave Violet another little push. “But I didn’t figure it out myself. Galileo first made the observation.”

  “I know all about Galileo,” Jewel told Rowan importantly. “Uncle Ford named his horse after him.” She swung back and forth, back and forth. “I want to go faster again!”

  “I’ll swing a hundred times and then you can,” Rowan offered.

  “Fifty times.”

  “As you wish. But we’ll switch back after another fifty.” In his loud, young voice, he began counting.

  Ford gave Violet a huge shove, and she soared out over the river, swinging back so hard one of her shoes flew off and landed on the grass with a plop.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, the word sounding breathless and giddy. “Stop!”

  “Why?” He pushed her again, and when she rushed back, he plucked off her other shoe. She heard that one, too, plop somewhere behind her back. “There,” he called as she swung away again, “now you’ll really feel like a child.”

  Laughing, she wiggled her toes, feeling free in only stockings. And he pushed her higher. And higher. And higher. “Stop!” she screamed, meaning it this time. “Or I think I might get sick!”