I Kissed an Earl Read online

  He’d need land, a fortune, and a wife. The land he coveted was in New Orleans, Fatima would do for the wife, as she was at least dedicated to his pleasure and comfort, but the necessary fortune remained elusive, and the seller of the New Orleans plantation was growing restive.

  A fortnight ago, everything had changed.

  He ironically cursed again his fatal flaw, which is how he’d come to be in this ballroom in the first place: He never could leave well enough alone when it came to rescuing. He’d been anchored in Le Havre, wondering how to restore his badly depleted fortunes after a storm damaged his cargo of silk, when he’d rescued a drunken fool of a young gentleman from footpads in Le Havre. As it turned out, the grateful man was a beloved cousin of Lady Conyngham, the King’s mistress. Word of Flint’s heroics—which amounted to nothing more than swift swordplay and some menacing growls, really, though there were two footpads and one of Flint—reached her ear through Flint’s acquaintance, the Comte Hebert, in Le Havre.

  Which is how the King of England had learned about Flint and his talent for bounty collecting, and he’d seen an opportunity to both ingratiate himself with his mistress and to solve a sticky little problem on the high seas. He proposed to resurrect a grand English earldom and bestow it upon Flint. All Flint had to do capture a pirate called Le Chat who’d been robbing and sinking merchant ships, a number of them English, up and down the coast of Europe. The title was his to keep, as were the rich farmlands attached to it, lands that would provide a steady income—as well as require an enormous income to maintain.

  The bounty was entirely dependent upon delivering the pirate into justice.

  It was a diabolical proposition. It was a thing of beauty, really: practical, capricious, and cruel.

  Flint greatly admired it.

  And Flint rejected it.

  Not since he was a lad of ten years old, when Captain Moreheart of The Steadfast had given an abandoned boy a home, a purpose, and the knowledge he’d needed to become the man he was today, had he danced to anyone’s tune but his own. He didn’t intend to start now, even if the King of England was the one playing the hornpipe. Even if, in one fell swoop, it held the potential to give him everything he wanted.

  Of course, if he failed, it could destroy him.

  The King wheedled. Flint demurred. The King cajoled. Flint demurred.

  The King, astonished, resorted to issuing subtle threats. Flint, amused and unafraid, demurred.

  When he heard the King had actually thrown a wee tantrum, he began to thoroughly enjoy the game.

  And then Le Chat sank The Steadfast.

  The news reached Flint in evening while he sat with his crew in a pub in Le Havre. He’d gone still, his hand tightly curled around a pint of ale, roars of bawdy laughter eddying around him. He was stunned to realize the news felt like taking a shot to the gut.

  Steel-spined Captain Moreheart, going gray and gouty but still shrewd, ferociously opinionated, dignified…forced at swordpoint into a launch by that damned pirate and floated with his men to an almost certain death on a rough sea.

  While behind him the pirate blew The Steadfast to smithereens with cannon fire.

  This was why he agreed to become the Earl of Ardmay.

  And now those great tracts of English lands, a century-old estate included, dangled like both a carrot before a donkey and like a Sword of Damocles.

  A half hour ago the press of the ballroom and his mission and the memory of Moreheart sent Flint strolling restlessly to the doors on the terrace to open them an inch. Outside the wind was howling like a cornered, wounded animal and smelled of coal-sullied London and sea. His schooner The Fortuna was anchored out there. Calmer winds would likely prevail tomorrow, and they would sail as early as possible with his small but loyal—and gleefully violent when necessary—crew.

  Well, loyal save one. He might be an earl now, but the duties of a captain were myriad, mundane, and often maddening.

  “Did you manage to find a replacement for Rathskill in between, shall we say, bouts of ecstasy at The Velvet Glove?” Rathskill, the boob of a cook’s mate needed to go before Hercules, the cook, finally lost all patience and sent him through the meat grinder. Rathskill was lazy, he was sloppy, and they’d all stared in morbid fascination at the biscuit crumbs clinging to his lips while he’d lied about stealing rations with his hand over his heart. He’d grossly exaggerated his experience in a ship’s mess, making fools of both Flint and Lavay.

  Neither of them countenanced being made to feel a fool. Ever.

  Lavay sighed. “I spoke to a few men at the docks but naught were suitable. Perhaps we’ll have better luck in Le Havre. We can sail at least that far without a cook’s mate.”

  “Hercules will be…unhappy.”

  Unhappy seemed too pale a word for what Hercules would be. Their cook was Greek, diminutive, and he expressed displeasure…operatically. All of his emotions were operatic.

  “Speaking of unhappy, Flint, your scowl could wilt flowers at fifty paces. This is a ballroom, and do recall it’s a title you’ve been handed, for God’s sake, not a Turkish prison sentence. God knows I have done my best to impart my gentlemanly ways to you—”

  Flint snorted.

  “—but you really ought to try smiling. One of those women in fact described you as a ‘savage.’”

  Savage. Flint went still. Even after all these years, the word still touched between his shoulder blades like the cold point of a rapier.

  “Which one?” he said sharply.

  “The brunette—the one in blue.”

  Flint found the brunette in question easily. She was part of that group but seemed separate somehow, limned in stillness. Her hair was dressed intricately up; a pair of calculated ringlets dangled to her chin; her features were fine apart from a decidedly lush mouth; her dress a singular shade of blue, cut low enough to reveal the tops of a more than acceptable bosom above which dangled a single bright jewel of some kind, strung on a chain. Her throat was long. Her fan flapped below her chin as disinterestedly as if the hand holding it belonged to someone else altogether.

  But her eyes were brilliantly alive, and the corner of that lush mouth was dented with wry contempt.

  For herself? For her companions? For everyone in the room?

  Funny, but Flint was distantly reminded of himself.

  “That one is bored, Lavay. And I’m willing to wager there’s nothing more dangerous to a man’s health than a bored, spoiled, wealthy young Englishwoman.”

  “I won’t take that wager, Flint. I’d like to see the morrow.”

  The woman in question and the pretty be-plumed blonde detached themselves from the group and began to move rather purposefully in their direction, joined by another English gentleman en route.

  “Well, bloody hell.” Lavay was amused. “Try to look civil, for a change, you scoundrel, because I feel we’re about to be compelled to dance with Englishwomen after all.”

  “My apologies, Lavay,” Flint murmured. “I’m sure it has everything to do with my majestic thighs.”

  Chapter 2

  Lady Peregrine, as promised, had contrived an introduction to Lord Lavay and Lord Flint through a cousin of her husband who had been introduced to the pair earlier, and who abandoned them rapidly once it was clear that the earl and Lord Lavay now felt obliged to ask the ladies to dance.

  A waltz began, lilting and insistent, and all around them men and women swirled off in pairs.

  Lord Lavay dutifully bowed in the direction of Violet and Lady Peregrine. “I would be so pleased if you would do me the honor of dancing with—”

  “It would be my pleasure, Lord Lavay,” Lady Peregrine said smoothly, and up went her hand to intercept his.

  That hand hovered in midair, chandelier light winking on the blue stones in her bracelet. They all stared at it for a surprised—and in Violet’s case, resentful—moment.

  Lady Peregrine’s eyebrow gave a smug, infinitesimal twitch.

  Then Lavay, like the gent
leman he was cursed to be, gracefully took it and led her away.

  Violet watched, quietly seething.

  “Miss Redmond?”

  “Lavay” is what that Gypsy girl had shouted to her. And surely it was significant that someone named Lavay should appear in a ballroom just as she was about to expire from boredom?

  “Miss Redmond?” came the voice again.

  She whirled, almost startled.

  The large earl bowed dutifully to her, and when he was upright again, outstretched a hand, and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  She took swift note of him and immediately again thought of jewels. His face was faceted, too: high-planed cheeks, jaw hard and clean-edged as a diamond. Chin stubborn, brow high and broad, nose bold. A good mouth, drawn with elegant precision. An Indian, certainly. She could imagine Indian in his bloodline. His complexion was what marked him as decidedly un-English and as a man with no particular pedigree: more golden than fair and likely to darken and darken rather than burn in the sun.

  But he knew how to waltz.

  When he expertly, gently took her hand in his and placed his other hand against her waist, she knew a moment of peculiar breathlessness, as though she were being pulled inexorably into an orbit. His intangible power was such that she was tempted both to resist it and surrender to it, and being Violet, she preferred the former to the latter, and promptly set about doing it.

  Dash it. It was Lavay she needed to see.

  Grrrr.

  She peered over the earl’s shoulder in time to intercept Lady Peregrine’s triumphant glance before she was twirled out of her view.

  She stared darts at the back of Lady Peregrine’s head.

  “I don’t bite.”

  The earl’s voice was a low rumble near her ear.

  Violet was startled. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You were staring at me as if you wondered whether I might.”

  His accent was interesting: flat, commanding American crisped about the edges with something like aristocratic English. His R’s were softer, almost rolled. It was as though he’d absorbed a bit of the music in the language of every land he’d traveled.

  “Oh. No, I was satisfying…another curiosity.”

  “As to the number of eyes I might possess?”

  “I ascertained the number rather quickly, thank you.”

  “Ah. So you were staring beyond me. I see.” He sounded distantly amused. “What does it say about an evening when bad manners seem refreshing?”

  He’d all but murmured it to himself.

  Violet was seldom dumbstruck, so this was novel. She stared up at him.

  She’d been right about his eyes. They were a remarkable, cloudless sky blue ringed in darker blue. Thick lashes, golden tips where the sun had touched them again and again. Lines, three each, at the corners of his eyes, like the rays she used to draw about suns when she was small. Squinting into the sun from the deck, indeed.

  “Have you considered it might be bad manners to insinuate that my manners are bad?” she said with some asperity.

  This amused him. “You presume that I care whether you care.”

  She blinked. What manner of man was this?

  His brows went up. Well? Inviting a volley. But his air was still somewhat resigned and detached. As though he entertained no real hope she could ever possibly divert him.

  She in truth possessed exquisite manners and knew how to employ them, and she considered that she ought to exert a modicum of effort to charm him. He was an earl, after all, the captain of a ship…and he might be able to tell her something about Mr. Lavay.

  “How do you find England, sir?”

  He gave a short laugh.

  She bristled. “I wasn’t trying to be witty.”

  “Were you trying to be banal?” he asked politely.

  “I’ve never been banal in my entire life,” Violet objected, astonished.

  He leaned forward as he swept her in a circle, graceful for a large man. As though he were a chariot and she were simply along for the giddy ride. He pulled her a trifle closer than was proper. She smelled starch and something sharp and clean; likely soap and perhaps a touch of scent. She was eye-level with the whitest cravat she’d seen outside of Lord Argosy, and suddenly she was overwhelmingly aware of his size and strength.

  “Prove it,” he murmured next to her ear.

  And then he was upright again, all graceful propriety, and they were turning, turning, gliding in the familiar dance.

  Which suddenly felt astoundingly unfamiliar thanks to her partner.

  Well.

  She was stunned.

  Still…she had the peculiar sense that the earl was simply amusing himself. His eyes remained on her but still oddly…uncommitted…even as they moved gracefully together, even as his hand rested warmly, firmly at her waist. She suspected he had already taken her measure, categorized her, and neatly dismissed her, and was now simply prodding at her like a toy that he wished could do more than roll or squeak. To make the waltz more interesting for him. For as long as he needed to endure the tedium of it.

  “Customarily,” she said with gentle irony, “in England, it’s the gentleman’s duty to charm his dancing partner. Perhaps you’ve been at sea so long you’ve forgotten.”

  He was instantly all mock contrition. “You could very well be correct. It could be I’ve become a savage while I was away.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  He met her gaze evenly.

  For a moment they swept along in time with the music.

  “It’s impolite to eavesdrop,” she said finally.

  “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” he said easily.

  “Then it’s impolite to send spies to do the eavesdropping for you. For clearly you did.”

  This pleased him. His eyes brightened; the hand at the small of her back pressed against her approvingly, and it was a new sensation, startling, almost intimate. “I’m not certain impolite is the word you’re looking for. In all honesty the overhearing, as it were, was happenstance. But as you are an expert in the matter of etiquette, please refresh my memory. How polite it is to gossip?”

  The man was a devil. And yet she was awfully tempted to laugh.

  “I was being gossiped at,” she tried after a moment. And offered him a mischievous lowered-lashed smile that usually all but dropped grown men to their knees. Generally hothouse bouquets arrived at her door the day after she’d deployed one.

  He wasn’t entirely immune to it. She was rewarded with a pupil flare.

  “Ah, but are you a complete innocent, Miss Redmond?” His voice had gone soft. His mouth tipped sardonically. Up twitched one of those brows again. This time it was almost a threat: Don’t bore me.

  If this was a flirting relay, he’d just handed her the baton.

  Violet felt that familiar surge of exhilaration when tempted with a reckless inspiration. She’d seldom been able to resist that surge.

  She briefly went on toe to murmur the words closer to his ear than was proper, so close she knew he could smell her, feel her breath in his ear when she spoke. Once again she was rewarded with the heady smell of the man himself: sharp, clean, heightened by his warmth and nearness.

  “What do you think, sir?”

  She instantly had his full attention for the first time since the waltz had begun.

  And yet once she had it she wasn’t certain she wanted it. It was like being passed something too hot to hold overlong. His gaze was potent; there was nothing in it of the entreaty she was accustomed to seeing in the face of men. He was weighing her with a specific intent in mind. His eyes touched on her eyes, lips, décolletage, taking a swift bold inventory of her as a woman that somehow both shortened her breath in a peculiarly delicious portentous way and made her fingers twitch to slap him.

  And then he smiled a remote, almost dismissive smile and his gaze flicked up from her as they negotiated a turn in the dance.

  And then froze.

  He dropped the remnants of his flir
tatious demeanor as abruptly as a boy drops a toy when called into dinner.

  Before her eyes his jaw seemed to turn to granite; tension vibrated in the hand pressed against her waist. He gripped her fingers a trifle harder than he ought to.

  What in God’s name had he just seen?

  She flexed her fingers. He absently eased his grip.

  “Miss…” He glanced at her perfunctorily. And returned his gaze to whatever—or whomever—riveted him.

  He’d forgotten her name? She clenched her teeth to keep her jaw from dropping.

  “Redmond,” she reminded him with exaggerated sweetness.

  “Of course,” he soothed. He gave her another cursory, dutiful glance, meant to placate. Then returned to the object of his focus. She’d seen a fox look at a vole that way before. Right before it pounced.

  And shook it until its neck snapped.

  “I believe I may be acquainted with the gentleman dancing with the young lady in yellow. If I’m correct, his name is Mr. Hardesty. Are you acquainted with him?”

  With some perilous head craning, she managed to follow the direction of his gaze.

  And her hands went peculiarly icy inside her gloves.

  He was looking at her brother Jonathan.

  “I believe the gentleman to whom you’re referring is Mr. Jonathan Redmond. He’s my brother.”

  The earl’s attention sharply returned to her. But the expression on his face stopped her breath as surely as though he’d stabbed an accusing finger into her sternum.

  She felt him will tension from his big body. Obediently tension went.

  “Is your brother Mr. Jonathan Redmond a merchant, by any chance?” His tone was mild. “A sea captain?”

  He somehow kept Jonathan in his line of sight even as he moved her by rote in the waltz. ONE two three ONE two three…She felt utterly superfluous. Suddenly she was the means by which the earl could stalk her brother about a ballroom.

  But Jonathan, who like all men his age possessed of good looks and money and prospects was convinced he was fascinating, chattered gaily to the woman he danced with, and she glowed up at him.