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the stars.’’
    ‘‘Is it?’’ Lady Violet asked, interest lighting her eyes. ‘‘I’ve never really seen the stars.’’
    Scant moments ago, she’d looked like she was ready to haul Rowan home. Not that Ford could blame her, but his own sanity depended on Jewel’s ability to win over the boy. He had to keep the Ashcrofts here.
    Whatever it took.
    He wouldn’t go crawling back to his brother for help.
    ‘‘I think Rowan might find my laboratory interesting,’’ he said with an inward grimace. ‘‘And although the telescope cannot help you see stars in the daytime, if you wait until dark—’’
    ‘‘I cannot stay until dark!’’ Violet looked horrified at the suggestion.
    Bloody hell. If she was stuck on propriety, he would invite her maid in to chaperone. No wonder he preferred the loose-moraled women of King Charles’s court. These sheltered country lasses must be damned difficult to seduce.
    Good thing he’d sworn off women.
    ‘‘I wasn’t planning to stay at all,’’ she added. ‘‘I had thought to introduce Rowan and then leave—’’
    ‘‘Leave me?’’ Rowan interrupted, looking even more horrified than she did. ‘‘I told Mum I didn’t want to come here!’’ He turned to his sister, burying his face in her dark blue skirts. ‘‘Would you really leave me, Violet?’’
    She patted him on the head. ‘‘Of course not. You must have misunderstood me.’’ She glared at Ford as if to say, This is all your fault. And he knew, then and there, that his happy visions of working while she and her brother entertained his niece were just that—
    visions. As ethereal as a dream.
    Lady Trentingham’s fairy dust wasn’t working, after all. Violet’s mother wasn’t his savior, and her suggestion that the children play together wasn’t the answer to his prayers. As a man of science, he should have known better than to imagine such flights of fancy, even for a moment.
    His plans were spinning out of control. No, make that his life . . . his life was spinning out of control.
    And unlike the centrifuge in his laboratory, this wasn’t a spin he seemed equipped to stop.

Chapter Four
    The next morning, Ford managed to get Jewel up and dressed by nine o’clock, at a cost of only two shillings. He was getting much better at this child care business. A good thing, because his dreams of additional help had been dashed last night.
    A letter from his solicitor had arrived, hinting at financial concerns and asking for a meeting in London at Ford’s earliest convenience.
    Bloody hell, he thought—it certainly wasn’t convenient now. Maybe after his niece went home. In the meantime, the two of them were getting along famously this morning. Now that he knew what she preferred for breakfast—bread and cheese, with warm chocolate to drink—he no longer had to pay her to eat at all.
    Now, if only he could bribe that Rowan boy to play with the girl, life would be rosy. True, after he’d suggested they stay ’til evening, Lady Violet had hurried her brother home so fast she’d tripped over his threshold on her way out. But today was a new day, and he’d awakened with a new determination.
    Desperation bred courage and ingenuity.
    Getting the children together hadn’t been Violet’s idea, he reasoned, but Lady Trentingham’s. Perhaps the mother would be willing to try again. With that goal in mind, he settled Jewel in front of him on his horse and started riding toward Trentingham Manor.
    ‘‘What do you call her?’’ she asked.

    ‘‘Well, my lady, of course. I would have to be much more familiar with her to use her given name.’’
    Jewel’s little hands tightened on his where he held her around the waist. ‘‘You are not fa-mil-iar with your horse? That is sad. Mama and Papa are friends with their horses.’’
    ‘‘My horse?’’ He was feeling thickheaded again.
    Women seemed to do that to him, to his constant irritation. ‘‘Of course I know my horse. But he’s not a