Kendra nodded eagerly.
While she watched, he turned to skate backward in a big circle, doing the crossover strokes that she and her siblings had learned long ago in the Netherlands during the Commonwealth years.Which she didn’t find particularly impressive, given that she was a competent skater herself.But then he seemed to reach a slippery patch of ice and lose his balance, his arms windmilling to keep him upright.
Kendra laughed as he hurtled past her.“Very impressive!”she teased.
He gave her a sour look, which became a look of shock as he hit an uneven patch.Some instinct made him swiftly turn forward and jam the front of one skate into the ice, evidently trying to stop, but instead it had the curious effect of launching him into the air.As the entire family watched in amazement, Ford spun halfway round in the air and landed on the opposite leg, skating backward again.
“Uncle Ford!”Adam cried.“How did you dothat?”
“I want teeth on the front ofmyblades!”young Rebecca called out.
When Ford came to a stop, half the children converged on him, demanding that he teach them.
“What the devilwasthat?”Jason wondered.
“I don’t know,” Ford said in a daze, oblivious to the children hanging all over him.“But I bet I can work out how to do it again…”
He began muttering under his breath, his gaze trained on the ice.
Kendra rolled her eyes, knowing her twin would now stay up half the night employing complicated physics equations to learn how to skate-jump on purpose.Not that she wasn’t as thrilled as the rest of her family.In fact, of all the remarkable things Ford had invented, these ingenious new skate blades might be her favorite.
Jason skated up to her.“It’s nice to see you smiling.Happy, Kendra?”
“About some things,” she said ruefully.
“About most things, I’m hoping.”He grabbed her to skate arm-in-arm, as he had when she was a child and had needed him to hold her up.“Careful, now,” he said as he had way back then, mentally sending her back to a frozen canal in Holland, where they had been exiled along with King Charles.“Remember to push out to the side.”
She laughed.“I remember.How about you?”
“How about what?”
“Are you happy, too?How do you feel about the babe?”
“The babe?”
“The…” Her feet stopped pushing sideways—stopped moving at all.At the edge of the ice, far from the rest of the family, she skidded to a stop.“The baby.Cait told you, surely?She promised she would.”
His hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him.“The baby?”
“She didn’t?Oh, my God, I’m—”
“I’m feeling stupid,” he interrupted.“What baby, Kendra?What on earth are you talking about?”
“Cait’s.And yours, of course.She’s…” She searched his eyes, seeing only confusion.“Cait’s with child,” she finished as gently as she could.“I thought she’d told you.”
“She told you before me?”He’d gone white, the freckles he’d inherited from their mother suddenly visible on his pale face.“Who else knows?”
“Only Amy and Violet.Cait was afraid to tell you, afraid to ruin your happiness.But she promised us she would.Oh, Jason, I’m so sorry.I—”
He wasn’t listening.While she was rattling on, he was tramping through the snow toward a stand of trees, his skates still attached to his boots.
She looked around, but no one else had noticed.Ford and Violet were skating together, lost in conversation, and the youngsters had gone back to what they were doing before his demonstration.Cait and Amy were now judging the girls’ twirling competition, since Jewel and Elspeth had decided to join in, and Trick and Colin were timing the boys with one of Ford’s newfangled watches.All the cousins were having the time of their lives.
In the meantime, Jason had disappeared from view, gone who knows where.
What had she done?
“Jase?”she heard Cait call.“Jason?”She was looking all around.“Where’s Jason?”
