“MOVE ASIDE, if you will. Please. This is heavy.”
At the sound of Lord Lakefield’s voice, which she hadn’t heard for far too many days, Chrystabel looked up to see Violet scurry into her perfumery. The viscount and a footman followed close behind, an enormous machine held between them.
At least, she thought it was a machine.
“What is that?” she asked.
With some effort, the men maneuvered it to her worktable and set it down. “My thanks,” Ford said to the footman, who bowed and took his leave. “It’s a distillery, my lady.”
“A distillery?” The machine wasn’t like any distillery Chrystabel had ever seen. Well, besides her own, she hadn’t seen any distilleries other than the one her aunt Idonea had used to teach her how to make perfume. Which had looked very much like the one she owned now. Two wooden bowls, a wooden block, a wooden tray beneath it all.
But this…this was all metal and glass and copper tubing. It positively gleamed.
And she hadn’t a clue how it would work.
“You’re sure that’s a distillery?” she couldn’t help asking.
He stroked the thing, very much like Lily petted her beloved stray animals. “I’m certain. I assure you there’s nothing radical about the design.”
“He has a much bigger one in his laboratory,” Violet said.
Ford nodded. “And at Cainewood, yet another that dwarfs that one. But they all work on the same principles.” He smiled at Chrystabel. “I hope you’ll enjoy using it.”
“Enjoy using it?” Her head swam with confusion, an unusual state of mind for Chrystabel. “Do you mean…can you mean to give it to me?”
He blinked. “Of course. I made it for you. Why else would I bring it here?”
“Why…” She felt speechless, another atypical condition. “That’s so generous, I…I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No thanks are necessary. I saw a need, I filled it. One does that for friends.”
Unsure which she appreciated more, his declaration or his gift, she came forward to take both his hands. “Then I’m fortunate to be counted among your friends,” she said warmly, her gaze drifting to Violet.
Chrystabel hoped to be more than the young man’s friend; she hoped to be his mother-in-law. But she was clever enough to keep her mouth shut lest she thwart her plans. One wrong word from her lips, and her skittish daughter would go running the other direction.
Her best bet was to keep throwing the two of them together until Mother Nature did her work. Chemistry…she’d wager that was how the viscount thought of it. And she knew it was only a matter of time before those feelings—those insuperable feelings, as the Master-piece put it—overcame her daughter’s stubborn and over-particular nature.
Hopefully Violet was still studying the marriage manual—minus those few unsuitable passages which had had to be removed, of course. Chrystabel meant only to open her daughter’s eyes to the institution of marriage, not to give her ideas.
She squeezed the viscount’s hands before dropping them. “I do thank you, whether you feel that’s required or not.”
Violet circled the large table, ostensibly examining the distillery. “Will you show us how to use it?”
“Of course,” he said, following her.
A courtship dance, Chrystabel thought with an inward smile.
“This container down here is for oil.” He lifted a lid. “Not your essential oils, but fuel, if you will. I’ve filled it for now, but you’ll need to add more as you use the still.”
“That makes sense,” Chrystabel said, watching her daughter move away again.
Lord Lakefield shifted closer to replace the lid, which had a hole in the middle. “Make sure the wick is thick and long at the top,” he instructed, inserting one he pulled from his pocket. “You’ll want the flame high enough to boil the water. At home, this part of my still is brick—a proper oven. But for your purposes, this should do fine.”
Violet’s next tactic was to cross back to Chrystabel’s side of the table. “It looks very complicated.”
A large glass bulb sat in a frame, and a second glass bulb was attached by a tube. Smaller, it was designed to rest on the tabletop.
“Put your petals in here,” Ford said, coming halfway around again to indicate the larger bulb. “Then fill it with water. There’s room here beneath the cover for the steam to collect, you see, but not too much room. Soon it will be forced down the tube, and on the long way down, away from the heat, the essential oil will condense and collect in this second receptacle.” He showed them how to remove it. “Does that make sense?”
Still overwhelmed by his gift, Chrystabel nodded. “It does!”
“It will take a bit longer than your original method, but you won’t be losing any steam. Your oil will be purer and stronger.”
“It will,” Violet said with a smile. “That’s quite obvious, and quite brilliant.”
“I simply can’t begin to express my thanks,” Chrystabel said, shaking her head in wonder. Impulsively, she rounded the table to wrap Lord Lakefield in a hug. “You’re a genius!” she exclaimed. “And so generous.”
And so perfect for her Violet.
His face was pink when she released him. “It’s nothing, really.”
“It’s everything,” Violet disagreed from across the table, leaning forward on both hands, though she still wouldn’t meet the viscount’s eyes. “Few men would take a woman’s hobby seriously, let alone devise ways to improve it. Most would be like John Evelyn with his ‘kitchen scientist’ wife Mary.”
Chrystabel hadn’t the slightest idea who John Evelyn was, but Violet’s voice was filled with admiration. Her daughter was falling for Ford, she was sure of it. However, things weren’t progressing as quickly as she’d like. The fellow had a disconcerting habit of disappearing for days at a time while he invented one thing or another.
“Violet’s birthday is tomorrow,” she told him. “We’re having a family celebration. I’d be pleased if you would join us.”
“Mum—”
“I’m delighted to accept.” He hesitated, then added all in a rush, “But I was planning to ask if Violet might take supper in my company tonight.”
A little gasp came across the table. “Alone?” Violet asked.
“Well, Harry will be there, and—”
Violet opened her mouth.
“I’m sure she’d be pleased,” Chrystabel rushed to say before her daughter could decline the invitation. She just managed to suppress a grin.
“Shall I come for her at six, then?”
“Wait.” Violet raised both hands, palms forward, looking thoroughly indignant. “Have I no say in this?”
“Of course you do, dear.” Chrystabel fixed her with a steady gaze. “I just couldn’t imagine you refusing such a request after Lord Lakefield went out of his way to make this new distillery.”
Ford walked around the table, stopping nose to nose with her daughter. Or they would have been nose to nose, if he wasn’t so much taller. The dance had ended. When their gazes finally met, Chrystabel’s heart sang to see her daughter’s eyes softening.
Surrender.
“Would you rather not come?” he asked quietly.
“I…”
“Please say you will.”
Silence for a heartbeat. “All right.”
A less than enthusiastic response, but Ford looked as happy to receive it as Chrystabel was to hear it. If she hoped to speed up this courtship, a supper alone together would be just the thing.
“I’m looking forward to it.” He bowed to both ladies. “Until six, then.”