THE NEXT DAY, Ford paced Trentingham’s library. He still had no idea where he stood with Violet following that confusing, interrupted conversation. He’d tried to talk to her before departing yesterday, but here at the Manor there always seemed to be a sister or two around.
Turning the old book in his hands, he sighed, thinking she’d probably already forgotten their discussion, anyhow. Why would Violet be dwelling on it, as he was? The exchange could have no particular significance to her. And her family had let him in the house, so apparently they didn’t hold him responsible for upsetting their daughter—not to mention for the young heir’s soaking. That was a good sign.
After all, he’d hate to think Jewel might lose her playmate.
“Lord Lakefield?” Jarring him out of his thoughts, Rose sauntered into the room with Violet, fluttering her fifteen-year-old lashes. “My sister said you wanted to see me?”
He bit back a laugh, then fastened his gaze on those bold dark eyes and tried his famous smile on her—the one that sent most ladies tittering behind their fans. “Violet tells me you’ve a special expertise in languages.”
Looking a bit off her stride, she leaned a hand on one of the library’s two impressive globes, then jumped when it spun beneath her fingers. “Not truly,” she said, glaring at Violet as she brushed the front of her magenta skirts. “I know only a little.”
“More than a little,” Violet argued. “You know French and Spanish, German, Welsh, some Gaelic—”
“Would you know this one?” Ford interrupted, struggling for patience. So far as he could tell, the book was none of the tongues Violet had mentioned or anything related. He walked to a round wooden table and opened the book on its surface. “Does this language look familiar?”
When Rose didn’t make a move, he sent a pleading look to her sister.
“Rose…” Violet said. It was a single word, but uttered in a tone he hoped never to hear directed at himself.
“Oh, very well.” Rose unriveted herself from the floor and came to lean over the table. She frowned at the book, reaching to gingerly turn a page, then another. The brittle paper crackled in the silence of the richly paneled library.
“No,” she said at last. “I’ve never seen this language. It may be obsolete.” When she looked up, her dark eyes were apologetic. “I know only modern languages, my lord.” Her false pretense of empty-headedness gone, she closed the book respectfully and slid it across the table.
Disappointment formed a weight in his gut. Reaching for the book, he sat himself on one of the table’s four straight-backed chairs. Violet surprised him by sitting beside him. After yesterday, he didn’t know what to expect from her.
“How about the title?” he asked, not quite ready to give up. He reopened the book. No author had signed it, but there, right on the first page, was the alchemical symbol for gold. Of course, the symbol was just a plain circle with a dot in the center, so it could mean something else. Or nothing at all—in a handwritten book, such a mark could be a decoration or a doodle. But the sight of that symbol had set Ford’s heart to pounding in John Young’s shop.
The title alone could confirm whether or not he’d found the right book. He pushed it back toward Rose. “Can you puzzle out a single word of the title, even?”
“I can try.” Rose’s reluctance disappeared as she took a seat on his other side and drew the book closer. Clearly warming to the challenge, she ran a tapered finger across the handwritten text. “There are five words.”
“Yes.” But were they the right words? “Can you read any of them?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I think not.” She flipped back to the center of the book. “Some pages are stuck together.”
“It’s old,” he said with a shrug. He’d peeled a couple of the pages apart and found nothing of interest, just more of the same. And he’d ripped one of them in the process. “I hesitate to start tearing at it, when I don’t even know—”
“This is strange.”
“What?” Violet asked.
“Well, I can read this one word here. Argento. It means silver in Italian.”
Silver. Ford’s hopes took an incautious leap. A book that mentioned silver might also mention gold. And Raymond Lully had lived in Italy for years.
Violet reached across Ford to touch her sister’s hand. “Are you sure? I never knew you could read Italian.”
“I’m sure.” A hot blush touched the girl’s cheeks.
Rose resembled Violet, but her features had a glossy perfection that was missing from her sister’s. Tabitha had been like that, too. They were too perfect, Ford thought. Violet’s looks were friendlier, more comfortable. Natural.
He could touch her without worrying about messing her up.
“I found an Italian book,” Rose explained, gesturing to the shelves that stretched to the high, geometric-patterned ceiling. “It wasn’t too difficult to teach myself. The language shares much with Spanish.”
Nodding, Violet sat back. A pity—he’d rather enjoyed having her lean over him. She’d smelled like flowers. Probably violets, he imagined.
Rose looked back down to his book. “Of course, some languages share the same words with different meanings. For example, in French four means oven, but in English it’s a number. So just because argento means silver in Italian doesn’t mean it couldn’t mean something else in another tongue.” Carefully, she flipped another page. Scanning it, she hummed under her breath.
“What is it?” Violet asked.
“It’s odd, that’s all. That one word appeared to be Italian, but others aren’t. There are letters here that are foreign to me, and here”—she looked up—“look at this line, here.”
Both Ford and Violet scooted closer, their chair legs rasping on the carpet. “Yes?” Ford prompted.
“This line is written backwards. Even the letters are backwards, like in a mirror. And then this line here”—she drew a graceful finger along some text—“has no strange letters at all.” In her enthusiasm, her voice had lost its deliberate seductive quality. “The writing is a bit faded and more than a bit smeared, but all readable, you see?”
Violet shook her head. “I cannot read it.”
“You cannot comprehend it,” Rose corrected. “But you recognize the letters, don’t you?”
“It may be a code,” Ford realized suddenly.
“Different languages and patterns. You may be right.” Rose looked up at him, her dark eyes excited. Her face looked younger. “Violet said this could be an important book. Was the book you’re looking for written in code?”
“I never considered it before, but it could have been.” The book had been rumored to be difficult to read. If he were recording priceless secrets, he’d be tempted to do so in code.
And he knew someone who was very good at cracking codes.
“If it’s a code,” Violet asked her sister, “do you think you could puzzle it out?”
Rose shook her head regretfully. “I’m afraid not. There are too few words I recognize.”
“And none in the title?” Violet pushed.
“None.” Rose turned to Ford. “I’m sorry.”
She looked sincere and capable, and although she didn’t hold the same appeal as her older sister, he liked her much more than he’d thought. “That’s quite all right,” he told her, offering a smile. “You’ve actually helped a lot—”
“Where is Jewel?” Rowan interrupted, running into the room.
“At home,” Ford said. “With her new friend Harry.”
“I’m her new friend.” Jewel would positively preen if she saw Rowan’s pout. “Is she in your laboratory?”
“She’d better not be.”
“You said we could go into the laboratory today. You promised.”
“Rowan—” Violet started.
“He’s right,” Ford cut in.
He had promised. And at Lakefield, it would be easier to get Violet alone.
Just to talk to her, of course. To apologize for however he’d managed to offend her yesterday.
Rising, he closed the small leather book. “I did promise,” he reminded her. “And a Chase promise is not given lightly. You’ll come along, won’t you?”
Her hesitation wasn’t encouraging.
“Lord Lakefield…” Rose’s voice was back to its practiced purr. “What is your laboratory like?”
“Messy,” he said shortly. She was plainly angling for an invitation, but he wasn’t at all tempted to offer one. Then he noticed Violet was scowling at her sister.
That was much more encouraging.
He graced Rose with another of his famous smiles, adding, “Perhaps sometime I’ll show you.”
“I’ll come along,” Violet blurted.
Very encouraging, indeed.