TWO WEEKS LATER, in the wee hours of the night before her wedding, Violet found herself wide awake for the last time in her childhood bed.
The house was quiet, but her mind was whirling with anticipation, excitement, and plans. Unable to sleep or read with her thoughts in such disarray, she was absently flipping through the pages of the Master-piece when she noticed something odd.
In one particular section, the pages felt different.
She shut the book. The section looked different, too. Its pages didn’t lie as flat as the rest.
Dragging the candle on her night table nearer, she reopened the book—then blinked and peered closer.
The pages looked as if they’d been cut out and then reattached, messily stitched back onto the cut edge, as if the job had been done in haste.
How had she not noticed this before? Her brow furrowed, she paged back to the beginning of the section. Chapter Seventeen: A Word of Advice to Both Sexes, Being Several Directions Respecting Copulation.
“Hang it!” she remembered Rose saying. “Someone ruined the book!”
And Lily: “Who would do such a thing?”
Violet gasped in sudden horror.
Mum!
THE NEXT MORNING, Margaret finished threading a pale blue ribbon through the back of Violet’s hair and tweaked one of the fat, springy curls she’d so painstakingly created.
At last, Violet’s wedding day had arrived.
The days since her betrothal had been excruciating. All of a sudden, her parents had become oddly vigilant, when earlier they’d seemed so permissive. She hadn’t found more than five minutes alone with Ford at any one time. They’d scarcely stolen a single kiss.
“Why are you smiling?” Rose asked, watching Violet’s face in her dressing table mirror. “Brides are supposed to be nervous.”
“I’m not,” Violet told her. In truth, she was a bit nervous—but only a bit. This marriage was so right. How could Mum have ever imagined Ford was too intellectual for her? Was her mother losing her matchmaking touch?
When her maid left, she stood and turned to face her sisters.
“You look beautiful,” Lily breathed.
Today, in her pale blue satin wedding gown, Violet felt beautiful, whether she actually believed she was or not. Smiling to herself, she absently traced the pearls embroidered in scrolling designs on her bodice—which was every bit as tailored to her form as the gown that had riveted Ford the night of the Royal Society celebration. But this time she didn’t feel self-conscious. She was seeing herself in a new light. What did it matter if she’d never be as pretty as her sisters? The man she loved wanted her, and that was all that counted.
“You should leave off your spectacles,” Rose said. “At least for the ceremony.”
“No.” She wanted to see everything clearly, especially Ford’s eyes when they exchanged vows. “Ford said I look fine in them. And I believe him.”
“I told you that you should marry him,” Rose gloated. “Just think,” she continued, her tone changing to one of half awe, half envy. “Tonight you’re going to experience the secrets of Aristotle’s Master-piece.”
“Oh, Rose,” Lily started, but then a knock came at the door and she went to answer it.
“A delivery,” the majordomo said, holding out a small, long box. “From Lord Lakefield to Lady Violet.”
“Thank you, Parkinson.” Lily shut the door and carried the wooden box over to Violet. “What do you suppose it could be?”
“Diamonds, I’m sure,” Rose said. “It’s a wedding present, after all.”
“I think not.” Generous though he might be, Ford was focused on the estate these days, and Violet doubted he had enough of her ten thousand pounds left to feel comfortable spending money on diamonds.
The box was tied—very crookedly—with a purple ribbon Violet thought she remembered seeing in Jewel’s hair. “Open it,” Rose said, reaching for it. “I’m dying to see what he gave you.”
Violet pushed her sister’s hand away and untied the bow herself. The object inside was wrapped in blue brocade fabric, which she quickly unfurled.
“Oh, how lovely,” Lily gasped.
“Gemini!” Rose’s mouth hung open. “Even I would wear those!”
With trembling fingers, Violet lifted an exquisitely crafted pair of eyeglasses. Around flawless lenses were elegant gold wire frames, worked all over in the most delicate, intricate tracery imaginable, and studded with tiny purple stones. They were more beautiful than any piece of jewelry Violet had ever owned.
Removing her plain spectacles and placing them in the gift box, she slowly, reverently slid the gold spectacles into place and moved to the mirror. And gasped.
They looked beautiful. She looked beautiful. For the first time in her life, she felt like the prettiest girl in the room.
Lily was beaming. “I told you eyeglasses suit your face,” she reminded Violet. “Do you believe me now?”
Violet nodded without turning her head. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from the mirror.
But eventually she had to, because it was time to go to the chapel. She tucked the box with the plain spectacles into her satchel, alongside her night things and her own wedding gift to Ford. She planned to present it to him later, when they were alone.
On their wedding night.
During which, as Rose had helpfully pointed out, Violet would be initiated into the secrets of the marriage bed. She was glad she’d had the Master-piece to help prepare her for the evening ahead, even if she remained horrified that Mum knew she’d been reading it.
Yet somehow she still felt entirely unprepared. She pressed a hand to her chest, wondering when her heart had begun thumping.
Perhaps she was more nervous than she’d thought.