Read Online Violet (Flower Trilogy) by Lauren Royal - Free Book Online

long.’’ Setting down his ale, he rose. ‘‘Let me free you, my man,’’
    he said, lifting Rowan into his arms, chair and all.
    Suddenly, seeing her brother hanging in midair stuck to a chair, and visualizing a bookish young Ford the same way, the smile that had been threatening broke free. Jewel was right. Given Rowan’s petulance, he deserved the jest, and a rollicking good one it was, too.
    ‘‘More stories,’’ Jewel said.
    ‘‘Later, baby.’’ Carrying Rowan out the door, Ford flashed his niece a smile. ‘‘Colin will be proud of you when he hears this one.’’
    And Violet had thought the Ashcrofts were eccentric.
    ‘‘All right, Rowan.’’ Ford set the chair down in his laboratory. ‘‘Let’s see what we can do here.’’ He turned away to locate a large beaker.
    ‘‘Holy Christ,’’ Rowan said.
    Shocked at the language, Ford swiveled back and stared.
    ‘‘Pardon.’’ But the lad didn’t look sorry. ‘‘What are all these things?’’
    Ford let his gaze wander the chamber’s contents, trying to see it through Rowan’s eyes. A full quarter of the huge attic space was filled with ovens and bellows, a furnace, cistern, and a still. Mismatched shelves held scales, drills, and funnels. Magnets, air pumps, dissecting knives, a pendulum, and numerous bottles of chemicals sat haphazardly on several tables.
    More things were shoved into half-opened chests of drawers. A larger table beneath the window—Ford’s workbench—was littered with the inner workings of several dismantled watches.
    ’Twas Ford’s playroom, and he was happier here than anywhere else. ‘‘Scientific instruments, mostly.’’
    He grabbed a beaker. ‘‘That’s a microscope,’’ he added, waving behind him.
    ‘‘What does it do?’’
    ‘‘It magnifies. You can put something beneath the lens and see it up close.’’ Forgetting the task at hand, Ford reached to a table for a book. ‘‘Here, look at this. Micrographia. ’Twas written by a man named Robert Hooke.’’ Opening the red leather cover, he set the book in Rowan’s lap.
    Rowan looked down at the title page. ‘‘ ‘Some Phys-phys—’ ’’
    ‘‘Physiological,’’ Ford said.
    ‘‘That’s a big word.’’ The boy read the next words slowly and carefully. ‘‘ ‘ . . . Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Mag—’ ’’
    ‘‘Magnifying.’’
    ‘‘ ‘Magnifying Glasses with . . .’ ’’
    ‘‘ ‘Observations and Inquiries Thereupon,’ ’’ Ford finished for him. ‘‘The book is drawings of things seen under a microscope.’’
    Unlike Jewel, Rowan apparently didn’t mind help.
    Nodding, he turned to a random page and gawked.
    ‘‘Whatever is this?’’
    ‘‘One of the pictures Hooke drew. Of a feather.
    That’s what it looks like very close up.’’
    ‘‘Zounds.’’ Rowan stared for a moment, then flipped the page. ‘‘What is this?’’
    ‘‘A louse.’’ Ford unfolded the large illustration, revealing the insect in all its horrible glory. The creature was oddly shaped, with a head that seemed almost conical and big goggling eyes.
    Goggling himself, Rowan lifted a hand to his hair.
    ‘‘ That’s what lice look like?’’

    ‘‘Up close, bigger than the eye can see alone.’’
    Pleased that Rowan was interested, Ford teased him with an expression of mock horror. ‘‘You don’t have any lice, do you?’’
    ‘‘I hope not. I don’t think so. Not now.’’ Tugging his fingers from his hair, the boy turned to another drawing. ‘‘This is a spider?’’
    Filling the beaker from the cistern, he glanced over.
    ‘‘A shepherd spider.’’
    ‘‘ ’Tis particularly ugly,’’ Rowan said, his tone one of fascinated glee.
    Remembering the glue, and his guest waiting downstairs, Ford rescued the book. ‘‘This is in the way.’’
    As he set Micrographia on a table, Rowan’s eyes followed it covetously. ‘‘May I take it home?’’
    ‘‘No.’’ Ford sensed an