I Kissed an Earl: Pennyroyal Green Series (29 page)

He leaned back, and drummed his fingers, and looked decidedly pleased with himself.

“What?” Flint was in no mood for suspense.

“…not before I issued an invitation for Mr. Hardesty to dine with me, Captain Flint, and Captain Flint’s doxie, Violet Redmond, aboard The Fortuna tonight.”

“Doxie?” Violet choked.

The earl pointedly did not look at her.

Lavay seemed mildly puzzled. “Well, but of course, Miss Redmond. Didn’t you agree to be the earl’s—”

“It’s perfect,” the earl interjected smoothly. “Lavay knows that we agreed early on, Miss Redmond, that your brother would, shall we say, object to the thought of you being defiled by the likes of me, which would make you very effective bait. Hence his stratagem. I commend it.”

He took a little too much wicked, dark relish in the word defiled. With his eyes he warned her, and not kindly, to compose herself. Lavay was not stupid, and he was studying her with those cool gray eyes, and would draw conclusions about her and the earl she disliked. They were going to lure Lyon into a trap, using her as bait.

Her hands turned to ice.

“It’s the point of you continuing with us, isn’t it? You agreed to be bait?” the earl said with intolerable calm.

Lavay had more to say. “I might have also put it about that the doxie Violet Redmond had been very reluctant to submit to the earl’s attentions at first, but that the earl actually preferred a bit of a battle every time, so he considered this an asset. And that he would be happy to share her with Mr. Hardesty if he was in need of a little fiery feminine companionship.” Lavay was proud of himself.

“Good God. Very good work, Lavay,” the earl approved admiringly. Violet was horrified by the plan’s brilliance. “But…It will kill Lyon to hear it. He won’t be able to bear hearing it. He’ll be determined to…kill you.”

“That is the point,” Lavay said a little too happily and bloodthirstily. “But no killing will take place if we can help it. We’ll simply apprehend him then.”

The earl’s knee shifted ever so slightly again against hers as he turned to greet the barmaid like a long lost friend.

This time Violet had no trouble jerking it away from him. Appalled, in that instant to be touching him.

With what in God’s name had she been thinking?

She hadn’t been thinking with her brain.

Of course these men were deadly serious in their intent to capture Lyon. As the earl had said earlier in the landau, his entire future depended upon bringing him to justice. “Justice” in England was entirely too often synonymous with “hanging by the neck until dead.”

Violet went silent. There was nothing like envisioning her brother dancing at the end of a rope or helpless at the point of a pistol to kill desire.

Polly the barmaid seemed to have suddenly sprouted eight arms and each one was carrying a foaming pint of ale. She crouched to begin plunking theirs down on the table.

“’ere you are, monsieur, the fine dark ye asked for and I hope you enjoy it, and for mademois—OH!”

She dumped the entirety of a light ale down Violet’s bodice.

Violet gasped and shot backward, toppling her chair, scrambling to her feet, sending the now empty tankard rolling the length of her shins to land on the floor with a clank. She flung out her arms, staring down at the sodden bodice. Ale had all but glued it to her. Violet stared pure evil at the barmaid.

The men began to stand warily.

Polly began babbling inconsolably. “Mon dieu, mademoiselle, I am so, so clumsy! I am horrified! You must—”

Without preamble she seized Violet’s arm with shockingly strong hands and dragged her through the chuckling, ogling crowd to the bar. She seized a rag and began scrubbing at her bodice and rattling rapid-fire unaccented, hushed and very aristocratic English at her.

“Quiet. Quickly. Short answers. Are you or are you not the earl’s doxie?”

Violet’s heart stopped.

“Quickly! Yes or no?”

“No. You work for—”

“Yes. For God’s sake, don’t say his name,” she hissed.

“Is your name really Polly?” Clever Lyon!

“I’m asking the questions. Are you with the earl voluntarily?”

“This is silk. Have a care. Yes.”

Polly became a bit less vigorous with the scrubbing. “Why?”

“To try to find Lyon. The earl wants to capture him. I want to find him. I am to be bait.”

Dab dab dab Polly went at her bodice. “Are you truly well and safe?”

The questions and answers were swift, under-breath, staccato.

“The earl will not harm me. He is a good man. He has been charged by the king with capturing Le Chat.”

He will test my will, he will haunt my dreams, he’ll make me peel potatoes, he’ll make me crave his touch with a mere glance, but no. He will not harm me. And why do I feel like a traitor to that bastard even now?

Polly dabbed once more, giving up, and flung the rag over the bar.

“Another two pint of ze dark and light,” she bellowed.

Violet put her hand on Polly’s arm. “What the hell is Lyon doing? Why is he doing it? Please tell him to come home. Why can’t I see him? Please. Please tell me.”

“He has more work to do,” Polly said shortly. “Hush now. Hush.”

“Where is he going next? What does ‘two more’ mean? Tell me that at least! Is it ships?”

“Enough.” Polly’s lips clamped closed. “We are finished. Go sit down. I’ll bring you another ale. Say nothing of this.”

Violet drifted back to the table, damp, stunned, happy, furious, and utterly unmindful of the drinkers leering at her bodice, which was still clinging to her absurdly provocatively. Her chair had been righted; she sat, still dazed. She felt the earl’s eyes bore into her. She didn’t meet them.

Lavay and the earl had been joined by a raw-boned, florid man who wore his shaggy blond hair pushed behind his ears. His black coat was well tailored, apart from the slash in the sleeve. As though he’d recently been in a knife or sword battle. A battered beaver hat sat in his lap.

“Miss Redmond, this is Captain William Gullickson, lately of The Caridad. Lavay met him this afternoon and invited him to join us here.”

Ah. The captain of the ship they’d been too late to save.

Gullickson half stood and performed an awkward nodded to her. “A pleasure, Miss Redmond.”

The voice was drink-and-smoke-roughened but the accent hinted at a formal English education somewhere in his distant past. He slicked a hand through his hair self-consciously. The hair was dirty. His nails were dirty. She was careful not to take too deep of a breath, because she was certain he bathed indifferently.

“I’m not certain whether this is a conversation a…lady…should hear.” He glanced up at Violet, then almost shyly glanced away. Too long at sea, too roughened to feel comfortable in a presence as refined as hers.

Polly appeared and plopped two ales onto the tabletop. “No charge, monsieur, due to my mishap.”

She winked at the earl and ignored Violet utterly.

“Miss Redmond has a sturdy constitution,” the earl assured Captain Gullickson. “You may speak before her.”

She realized her bodice was still damp, and she shivered with it. She glanced down, and saw that her nipples were alert and staring directly at the earl.

He followed her gaze. His knuckles immediately went white around the tankard of ale he was gripping. He stared. He toasted her ironically, shook his head slightly, lifted the tankard and drank most of it down in one long anaesthetizing gulp.

She watched his throat move. And then she forced her eyes to her lap. Breathed in, breathed out. Lyon would be safe from the earl and Lavay for now.

He has more work to do. But what work was Lyon doing?

She was heartily sick of all the men in her life at the moment.

“You want to know how it happened?” Gullickson began. “With Le Chat. They came on in the fog, so we couldn’t see his ship. Surprised us, they did. Came over the sides, quiet as cats. Le Chat, indeed.” He shook his head bitterly. “Came in launches, from what we saw later. Had us surrounded almost before we could draw swords or pistols, and then they fought like devils. Swords. The pistols were for later, when they forced us into the boats. Honorable.” He laughed shortly and spat abruptly on the ground, and Violet jumped.

“The whole lot of them in masks. Like something out of a nightmare it was.” He looked up for sympathy and got it in the form of nods from Lavay and Flint. “But he was a gentleman. No disguising that, is there?” Another of those ugly laughs. “I’ll never forget it. He said, ‘It’s for the good of all, Captain Gullickson.’” Gullickson mimicked an absurdly refined drawl. “How the bloody hell could that be true, I ask you? Robbing and sinking ships? How did he know it was my ship? And then I hear the guns, and The Caridad…well, I watched her sink with my own eyes. I’ve been drinking ever since.”

He drained his pint and banged it on the table for another, craning his head in vain for the barmaid. Flint didn’t look eager to buy him another one. Violet suspected the captain had been drinking long before The Caridad sank and rather enjoyed the excuse to continue drinking.

“Did you see what Le Chat looked like?” Flint asked with cool detachment. “Any details would be helpful.”

“Nay. Was dark. Foggy. He was tall, near tall as you, Lord Flint. Lean. Hair was dark. Saw that. Not long. Clean-shaven. Quite the dandy. Apart from the ridiculous mask.”

She still had trouble picturing Lyon wearing a mask. How Jonathan would laugh.

“Earrings? Tattoos? Scars?”

Parrots? Violet wanted to ask, remembering Jonathan’s fit of mirth. He shrugged. “Saw none of those things. But ’twas dark, as I said. Lit only by ship’s lamps.”

“How did he get you into the launches?” Lavay prompted.

“He had a crew relieve us of our cargo right quick. And then they got us over the side at sword and pistol point. I’d no doubt he would have shot us if any of us had said boo. We bobbed out there like a load of bloody apples, set loose without a compass. Was picked up by The Lilibeth sailing into Brest, else we would have all perished.”

The earl’s long fingers tapped against the side of his now empty tankard. “It fits with all the other accounts we’ve heard so far of Le Chat. He isn’t unnecessarily brutal, he isn’t ugly, he’s polite, and the blighter steals everything and then sinks the ships. So we can likely trust the accounts we’ve heard.”

“You can trust mine. Good luck catching the bastard. He has nine lives. Like a cat.”

“For whom do you sail, Captain Gullickson?” Violet asked this suddenly. “Who is your employer?”

She saw all the heads turning toward her, surprised.

He was still diffident. He turned part of the way; he didn’t meet her eyes when he answered. It struck her that he behaved like a man who’d done things he wasn’t entirely proud of, or perhaps he was being careful of her modesty, as her bodice was still damp.

“When I return from a voyage, I’m paid by draft drawn on an account held by an English firm in La Rochelle. Up the coast a ways, as you’ll know. The Drejeck Company, they’re called. A group of investors, I’m to understand. Dined with one of them here in Brest last night—Mr. Musgrove. Perhaps you know him? Right upset, he is. He lost thousands of pounds. I nearly didn’t get paid. But I would have made the man walk the plank if I hadn’t been.” He smiled nastily.

Violet began to frown. Then stopped instantly as a flash from the earl’s eyes warned her not to react.

Because Musgrove had told them earlier he couldn’t remember the name of the captain or any of the crew.

And yet Gullickson and Musgrove had dined together just last night. And Musgrove had said they’d be sending a ship, The Prosperar, from La Rochelle, to take up the task of purchasing sherry now that The Caridad had been sunk.

“Are you acquainted with a Mr. Hardesty, Mr. Gullickson? Another very successful trader?

Captains The Olivia.” Lavay asked this.

“Met him a year or so ago in this very pub. I was just back from America then. So was Mr. Hardesty. We shared a tale or two.”

So Lyon had been in America? Good God. Where else had he been?

Gullickson banged his empty pint again, making her jump.

Violet suddenly looked about for Polly. She was gone as if she’d never been in the pub at all.

“What ship did you captain then?” The earl’s question. Mild, almost abstracted. He asked it as he peered out the window toward the harbor, as if thinking of his own ship. A hesitation from Gullickson.

“Large cargo, sir.” And he smiled. He refrained from answering any other part of the question. And didn’t volunteer the name of the ship.

Flint and Lavay exchanged a fleeting enigmatic glance.

Gullickson fixed his eyes on the earl now. The red veins mapping his eyes matched the highway of veins hatching his cheeks.

And Violet understood that this was not a pleasant man.

“La Rochelle is about two days up the coast, if the weather is fair,” Flint said casually.

“Lovely journey, if it is. Thank you for your time and good luck on your voyage…Captain.”

Gullickson looked longingly for the barmaid, and understood he would not be watered with any more free ale tonight courtesy of the earl.

“On the contrary, thank you for the ale and the conversation with a fellow seafarer, Lord Flint, Lord Lavay.” Gullickson slid his chair back, got upright, and bowed to them. But he departed at a slight stagger.

“Flint…” Lavay’s voice was strange. “Drejeck means ‘triangle’ in German.”

“I know.” Flint was grim.

“Why is ‘triangle’ significant?” Violet demanded.

Lavay glanced at the earl. The earl nodded, giving Lavay permission to answer her question.

“Have you heard of the Triangle Trade, Miss Redmond?”

“I have, in fact. I read about it in one of those pamphlets Olivia Eversea left in the Pig Thistle.” I must have been truly bored that evening to read the pamphlet, she thought. “It has to do with slavery, doesn’t it?”

The two men said nothing. Sipped at their ales.

When she began to understand, a cold knot of horror settled in her stomach. Slavery.

The Drejeck Group. They were treading the edges of something sinister here.