I Kissed an Earl: Pennyroyal Green Series (8 page)

Hoping she’d astonished him with her knowledge of nautical punishments, she angled her shoulders to leave, since she’d recalled her trunk was in the guest cabin and her twenty pounds were inside, and she could not recall whether it was properly locked. As if in a dream, out of the corner of her eye, she watched as his arm stretched out and his hand closed over her upper arm—completely.

Shackling it.

She was just able to register the fact that his grip was impersonally ungentle, and that she’d never been touched like that in her entire life, and that she couldn’t move at all despite a cursory attempt to do so, when he spun her around to face him. Abruptly.

He held her motionless for a moment. As much with his hands as with the ferocity of his gaze. And then he slowly relinquished her, his fingers dragging along her arm, leaving behind an imprint of heat.

His point made: he could control her if he chose. And he could touch her if he chose. She was thunderstruck.

She resisted the urge to rub at her arm. It didn’t hurt, and yet she thought she could feel the brand of his five fingers on her arm. Heat started in her cheeks; she was uncertain whether it was fury or mortification or some combination thereof. Whatever it was robbed her entirely of speech.

She could only stare at him.

“Ah, that’s better. I prefer to be looked at when I’m speaking, Miss Redmond, and as captain of this ship, I prefer to do the dismissing when I feel a conversation has run its course. This one has not. And, oh, look at that: I dared to touch you.”

He waited for her to react.

She had enough sense this time not to say a single word.

“Here is what you fail to realize. I can take you whenever—and—however I please. Should I please to do so, and I can’t imagine why I would, as I expect my women to do a little of the work, as it were. And I doubt you’ve done anything resembling making an effort in your entire life.”

Absurdly, Violet was at first struck by his impeccable grammar. Little elegant hammer blows of words. She was reminded of her former French tutor; it was the same carefully flawless English spoken by those who didn’t come native to it, but learned it as a foreign language. The earl had learned gentility.

He balanced the trappings of it like a juggler with glittering clubs. Beneath it simmered whatever it was he showed her now, whatever it was everyone had sensed in him in that ballroom that night but would never have been able to identify. Savage. Or so they’d said.

He was studying her face for the impact of his words. “I daresay you haven’t the faintest idea to what I’m referring.”

And that’s when delayed shock settled fully in. A sweep of ice, then heat, washed her limbs and then settled into her stomach. For God’s sake, of course she knew to what he was referring. Take her. Animalistically, he meant.

She’d never heard it referred to quite as “work” before, however. She imagined the “ladies” at The Velvet Glove viewed it as such.

“I do know ‘of what you’re speaking.’” She mimicked him icily. Or, rather, she’d tried for ice. Her voice emerged hoarse and shock-frayed.

What an absurd thing to say. It sent his eyebrows upward mockingly.

“Well, then. I do wonder what makes you think that I won’t take you, on a whim. Brute that I am. And so forth,” he said as though he were merely idly curious. His eyes belied the tone, however. Imperious, impersonal, cold anger.

They stared at each other.

“Savage,” she corrected absently, “is what they say.” She possessed enough wits at the moment to not address the rest of his sentence at all.

He gaze increased in incredulity.

She returned it warily, unblinkingly, with a penetrating interest that unbeknownst to her made her look remarkably like her brother Miles, the naturalist, when he peered at man-eating plants and crawling things in order to understand them. The Earl of Ardmay was showing no indication of being anything like any of the other men she’d ever known.

“Is it that you are accustomed, Miss Redmond, to treating men either as pets or servants? I’m curious—which one of those did you suppose I’d be?”

This gave her pause. She’d never thought about it quite in those terms. And when she realized he was very close to correct, a fresh bolt of shock and anger shivered down her spine. As though she’d suddenly caught him peering at her through a keyhole. This was an entirely new angle from which she could be viewed, and it was hardly a flattering one. Occasionally, she supposed, she treated the young men who naively hovered about her at balls rather the way she did insects at a picnic: their presence—in swarms—was integral to the festivities, though they honestly seemed to enjoy being figuratively swatted away, as long as she was the one doing the swatting.

“Definitely not a pet,” she concluded tightly.

His expression went so odd then she thought maybe, just maybe, he was struggling not to laugh. Either that, or he was tolerating a gastric pain.

“Miss Redmond, it astounds me that I need to tell you this at all, but on the slim chance you might have a conscience, in paying my erstwhile crew member to board my ship you’ve done something…unconscionably rash and selfish. Your reputation of course precedes you, but you’ve inconvenienced my crew and me, no doubt worried your family and created all manner of scandal, and all on what? A lark, a whim, a—”

Suddenly it was enough.

“Not a lark,” she hissed.

He froze for a gratifying instant. The silence gathered an ominous density. She stormed recklessly onward.

“Rash—very well, I’ll grant you that. Impulsive? Oh, very good use of the word, Captain Flint. But not a lark. My brother Lyon, my father’s heir, disappeared more than a year ago. You can’t know what his loss has done to our family, but I will tell you: everyone pretends all is well, but it’s a quiet sort of devastation. And I suspect…I suspect you’re trying to find him, too. And it’s the first I’ve heard anything of him in ages.”

“What the devil does that mean?”

“It means I think my brother Mr. Lyon Redmond may be Mr. Hardesty. Or as you call him, Le Chat.”

Chapter 6

A silence.

“You think…” His expression was indecipherable. “Go on.”

“At the ball, your reaction to my brother Jonathan was rather striking. You said he could have been Mr. Hardesty’s twin. Jonathan looks very much like Lyon. And Lyon disappeared at night a year ago. And the woman who allegedly broke his heart is Miss Olivia Eversea.”

“The Olivia,” the earl repeated darkly, after a tick of silence. She heartily approved of his tone, because she could never say Olivia Eversea’s name in any other way.

“I tried, mind you, to tell my brother Jonathan what I learned from you about Le Chat. And his reaction told me I shouldn’t attempt to tell my father. Because I can tell you this: no one in my family will believe me. No one listens to me. They’re all very fond of me, of course, but I’m not certain they see me as needed. So why would they believe a woman? Why believe me, especially in light of my so-called rash behavior? Someone needs to find Lyon before you do, Captain, because I know how you intend to deal with him. And if I told you about my suspicions, Captain…would you allow me aboard your ship? Of course not. You are my best hope, Captain Flint, for finding Lyon and saving his life…from you. Furthermore—”

“There’s a ‘furthermore’?” His voice was utterly inflectionless.

“—I’m not a child. I’m a lady born of one of England’s finest and oldest families, and I daresay even you know how to behave in the presence of a lady. Regardless of the inconvenience I’ve caused you, I’ll thank you to remember whatever manners you’ve managed to feign to date, because the ones you’re exhibiting do you no credit and merely reinforce the prevailing opinion, Captain Flint, that you are a savage.” She delighted in giving the S a serpent-like sibilance. “The measure of a gentleman is how he behaves when he hasn’t an audience to witness the beauty of his manners. And I wouldn’t expect you to understand this, my lord, but centuries of fine breeding have ensured that I need not, as you say, exert myself if I choose not to. Only the likes of you equate the actual need to work with virtue. It is in fact due to the work of my ancestors that I no longer need to, and my family considers this a mark of honor.”

During this, he moved only once: to blink. As though she’d flicked water into his eyes. After that, his eyes remained unnervingly vivid and disconcertingly, dispassionately interested. She was done.

But he was quiet for such a long time after she stopped speaking that the fury animating her drained away for lack of a target. She felt hollow, spent, a cocoon abandoned by the caterpillar. A puff of air would carry her off.

He seemed thoughtful.

“And you honestly believe based on your younger brother’s resemblance to Le Chat and the name of his ship that your brother—Lyon, is it?—is a notorious pirate?”

Well, anything he said in that particular tone of voice was bound to sound ridiculous. So she didn’t reply.

“And you intend to do…what? Stop me from bringing your brother to justice?”

He was perilously close to mirth. Or hysteria. Something she wouldn’t appreciate, she was certain. He issued his words with great care and control.

She simply straightened her spine. She would not confess to the fact that she hadn’t thought quite so far as that. But she excelled at thinking on her feet. Or rather, she preferred to think on her feet, for it was the one way she could coax excitement from the routine of her life.

“Consider that you might be able to use me for bait on your stops in search of my brother, Captain Flint, if my brother is indeed Le Chat. You may be able to flush him out if you send word ahead that I am accompanying you. And yes, I fully intend to warn him of your presence…once you lead me to him. For if he is indeed Le Chat, I am certain all is not what it seems. Lyon is not a vicious pirate. So may the better player win.”

Good heavens. What an array of expressions chased each other subtly over his face in the long silence that followed.

The earl stared at her a moment longer.

“Tell me, Miss Redmond…” he said thoughtfully. “Are you often bored?”

She could have sworn the ground beneath her feet swayed.

Her vertigo must have shown. She stared at him, feeling all but stripped bare. How did he know?

Because the corner of his mouth tipped up. I thought so, was what it meant. He was amused. The bloody clever man understood her too well, and too easily. But he was eons away from believing her.

This was when she had her epiphany: She was the one who had always been treated like a pet. Coddled, indulged, scolded, occasionally mildly punished, but kept always, always on a rarified, invisible silken tether, reeled in by her brothers or parents no matter what she did or where she went, no matter how absurd or reckless. No one particularly needed her. And she was of course so much more than equal to every single blood in London. But this had left her entirely unprepared for the likes of the Earl of Ardmay. His voice deepened, softened, lowered. The change was instantly disorienting, as she’d been using his asperity for a spine.

“And I would never, ever, Miss Redmond, equate the type of ‘work’ to which I was referring a moment ago with…virtue.”

It was like incense drifting out from beneath the closed door of a bordello, his voice. She didn’t so much hear as feel it; brushing up against her skin like rough silk. It was also utterly calculated.

He was toying with her now. He found the whole circumstance so amusing he’d decided to play with her.

And it almost worked. She drew in a deep sustaining breath.

He’d cornered her into reasoning with him. Which for her felt like walking out on wobbly gangplank over uncertain waters. This was very much a last resort for Violet when it came to men. She’d heretofore always…well, managed them—which had staved off boredom nicely since strategy was invariably involved.

Pets or servants, indeed.

“Do you have brothers or sisters, Captain—Lord—”

“Captain will do. God knows. I might have dozens of them. I haven’t the faintest idea who my father is.”

Violet’s mind went blank. Her mouth parted a little. Then closed again. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for a conversation with a man like this. Then again, it was difficult to imagine another man quite like this.

He had no one? No family at all? She was conscious suddenly of an aberrant sweep of pity and swatted it back. This was not a man who needed, or would graciously accept, pity.

“I appall you.” He made it not a question but a statement.

She sighed. “Rather,” she admitted. “Are you trying to?”

He blinked in surprise. And then, to her astonishment, he grinned, and three unforgettable things happened at once: A dimple, a devastating crescent moon, appeared at the corner of his mouth; his eyes lit, and it was like watching lightning crack over the surface of a dark sea…

…and Violet stopped breathing, as surely as that lightning had struck her square in the chest.

“I doubt I have to try to appall you, Miss Redmond. I suspect I need simply…be.”

She breathed again, but she was still staring at the place the dimple had been. She dug her fingernails into her palm to punish herself for momentary witlessness. Enormous, frightening men should not be allowed to possess anything quite so whimsical as dimples, she thought resentfully.

His face was softer now, but she wasn’t so optimistic as to believe she’d actually charmed him.

“Nonsense. You underestimate me, Captain Flint,” she said coolly. This was pure bravado. He had in fact estimated her rather well up to this point. Mostly you weary me, Captain Flint.

Well…and you frighten me. And no man had ever before frightened her. Worst of all, you intrigue me.

This last was the most terrible realization of all, as it was the first time it was genuinely true for her of any man.

And it was the fault of a split-second smile and a dimple.

She gravely disliked the realization that she was human.

Her legs were trembling now from a toxic blend of fear and fatigue and bravado-maintenance when heretofore all that had been publicly required of her was pride and arrogance and elegance and wit. She wanted to sink into the oblivion of sleep, to forget him. But she thought of that dark, swaying, fetid little hole of a berth and the hard bunk stretched over with a lumpy bread-slice thin mattress likely teeming with the types of creatures her brother Miles would cheerfully write books about and manage to make sound fascinating. She hadn’t dared sit on it; she’d sat on a chair near it, and eyed it as though it was a predator for the remainder of the night. It had been a bad few hours, indeed. And then the feel of the ship lifting anchor and heading out to sea had nearly made her burst from her cabin in panic. She thought of Lyon, and how it would be to have him home. And she glanced at the earl’s chessboard and thought of her brother Miles longingly now. His head would likely be bent over chess across from old Mr. Culpepper’s near the fire at the Pig Thistle in Pennyroyal Green, engaged in chess warfare while his wife, Cynthia, adoringly and peacefully looked on. How she wished she could have spoken with Miles about her suspicions. Would he have listened to her? Likely not, especially if she’d mentioned the bit about the Gypsy girl and Lavay. Even Miles would have given a tug on her invisible leash and a pat on the head. Inspiration, albeit a desperate one, struck. So the earl could not be managed, per se. It didn’t mean that games were entirely out of the question. That strategy could not be applied. She desperately wanted to win back a measure of pride. Not to mention credibility.