Flowers From The Storm Read Online Free PDF Page B

accustomed to the duke’s handwriting, but it was difficult to decipher at the best of times. She dared not make any mistakes now, bending her entire concentration to transcribing correctly the order of equations and copying the circles and the lines that transected them. Endless hours of work with her papa had given her a knack for following the sequence under consideration; she listened for certain series as Jervaulx spoke of them, judging when to proceed to the next formula and erase the last to gain more room. She only faltered once, lingering too long on a page, until Jervaulx’s pause when he turned toward the slate cued her to her error; she hastily scrubbed off five equations and scribbled out the top half of the duke’s next page.
    When she reached the last of his notes, she was ahead of him; he was still describing the progression of the proof several steps back. But as Maddy finished copying the final equation, adding a flourish to the integral between zero and r out of pure relief, and immediately sat down, a rustle began to grow within the audience. Jervaulx kept speaking. Slowly, gentlemen in the audience began to stand up—one, then another, then by twos and threes and fives, all gazing at the slate.
    Someone started to clap. Others took it up. A rumble developed into a reverberation as more and more stood. The clapping became applause, and the applause rose to a roar, drowning out words.
    The duke stopped speaking. Amid the resounding acclaim, he looked back at Maddy with a grin and made a little motion behind the podium toward her papa—but Mr. Milner was already escorting him up onto the floor.
    The vigor and sound of the ovation doubled; the gentlemen began stamping their feet, making the room vibrate with noise. Maddy stood up, taking Papa’s hand to squeeze it in delight. He patted the back of her palm, and the little quivering smile at the corners of his lips, the exhilaration in his face, was something Maddy had not seen since the day her mother had died six years ago.
    Pure energy boomed around them, a tangible throb of tribute. Jervaulx reached out and shook her father’s hand, holding onto it when Papa refused to let go. The duke inclined his head a little, with a half-embarrassed smile: a look, if Maddy could have brought herself to believe it, that spoke almost of shyness. For an instant one might nearly imagine him an eager and awkward boy, full of innocent enthusiasm—and then he turned to her and lifted her hand, bending over it with a glance into her eyes that was completely a schooled and experienced man’s: a suggestive intimacy that would mark a rogue at fifty paces.
    He leaned close to her ear, using her hand to hold her so near that she could feel the warmth of him and breathe the faint whiff of sandalwood. “What do you think, Miss Archimedea?” he said, just loud enough to be heard above the din.
    Maddy took a step back, pulling away. “What have we done?”
    “What have you done?” President Milner bellowed. “Proved a geometry outside Euclid, m’girl! Burst the parallel postulate! A whole new universe! By God, if this is as flawless as it looks to be—” He clapped Papa and the duke both upon the back, shouting amid the clamor. “The pair of you are wizards, my men! Wizards!”
    “The credit must all go to thee, Friend,” Papa repeated yet again. Maddy had counted six times; this one was the seventh. “Verily it must.”
    Jervaulx shook his head and took a sip of wine. “Nonsense, Mr. Timms.” He smiled wickedly. “You’re going to do the hard part. Write the paper.”
    The four of them sat at a round table in the bay window of a lovely, cozy room overlooking the darkened square. Maddy had never penetrated this far into the duke’s house before; the blue chintz and comfortable chairs surprised her. She had not thought a bachelor would be able to make such a warm home for himself.
     
    He looked bachelor enough, though, having pushed his chair back from the