I Kissed an Earl Page 3

  “Good heavens, no, sir. Jonathan lives with our family in Pennyroyal Green and London. His amusements are in London and Sussex, and if he’s ever been on a ship, I assure you he wouldn’t be able to stop bragging of it. Jonathan has never even expressed an interest in the high seas. Perhaps you will have an opportunity to meet him this evening. Upon closer inspection you may discover his resemblance to Mr. Hardesty is not so strong.”

  This was meant to reassure him—and protect Jonathan.

  The earl remained coldly silent.

  She was beginning to feel a bit like a ship steered on a voyage. And as much as Violet craved novelty, this was a sensation she could easily have done without.

  “He doesn’t ‘resemble’ Mr. Hardesty,” he explained, as if to a slow child. “He could be Mr. Hardesty’s twin.”

  The conversation was now making her uneasy. Her hand twitched restlessly in the earl’s. He gripped it tightly, almost reflexively. As though he alone would dictate when or if she could leave.

  “I can tell you Jonathan hasn’t a twin, sir,” she said tartly.

  Violet peered over his shoulder for Lavay, who would have the pleasure of the next dance, and noted with relief that the waltz approached its closing notes and Lady Peregrine looked pleased with him, not troubled or irritated.

  “Is Mr. Hardesty a fellow sailor?”

  There was a hesitation.

  And then his smile was a tight, remote thing. Oddly, it made all the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

  “I suppose you could say that.”

  It really didn’t invite additional questioning about Mr. Hardesty, which she supposed was the point of it.

  He suddenly appeared disinterested in conversation.

  “Are you staying in London long?” she asked.

  “We’ll return to the ship by dawn and sail shortly after sunup.” A perfunctory response.

  “You’re bound for…”

  “Le Havre.” A curt two-word answer.

  Moments later, mercifully, the waltz ended. He bowed beautifully to her, the epitome of graciousness, and she curtsied, and he handed her off to the approaching Lord Lavay with as much regret as if she were a tureen to be passed.

  She peered over her shoulder as he bowed to Lady Peregrine and dutifully took up his position in the waltz.

  Lady Peregrine turned quickly to Violet and surreptitiously tapped her teeth with one finger in a signal: He has all of them!

  Violet doubted the earl would even remember her name.

  Chapter 3

  It quickly became clear that after the earl, Monsieur Lavay would be balm.

  They began by admiring each other in silence. There was nothing ambiguous about his looks. Waving dark gold hair, narrow silver eyes, an aquiline nose, elegantly drawn mouth. Broad shoulders. Not lean at the hip like the earl, but not a barrel, either. Tall, but not oppressively so. Politely tall. Not a loomer, per se.

  A splendid-looking man, and a bit like breathing the air of earth again after the peculiar heady, dangerous atmosphere one dance with the earl created. He had an air of slightly jaded reserve. Perhaps earned from watching the heads of various ancestors roll during the revolution.

  “How are you finding London, Lord Lavay?” she tried. It was a perfectly acceptable nicety, she told herself. A nicety, not a banality. “Have you been here long?”

  “We docked but a fortnight ago. But oddly, Miss Redmond, I now greatly regret that we must set sail tomorrow.”

  He said it lightly, but it was edged all around in flirtatious heat. The remark was entirely about her. His eyes glowed the subtext.

  Violet nodded her recognition approval, gave a slight encouraging smile. Very good beginning.

  Monsieur Lavay’s eyes lit, amused, encouraged.

  “And have you visited London before, Monsieur Lavay?”

  “Under other circumstances, many years before the war. We are here on business for the King, and to deliver a diplomat from service in Spain. And of course, to be feted at parties and balls, for it is not every day one’s captain is styled an earl.”

  Violet smiled. “And it is our family’s pleasure, of course, to participate in the celebration of the new earl.”

  This wasn’t entirely true. But Violet did know the appropriate things to say, the sort of things one laid out like paving stones at the outset of a friendship before one gets comfortable enough for frankness. She’d heard her father curse but twice in his life: once, when Colin Eversea didn’t hang as scheduled, and next when word arrived that the new earl would be Captain Asher Flint.

  Generally, she preferred to dodge frankness when it came to men, however.

  And as she was a tester and risk-taker, she chose her next question deliberately.

  “Are you acquainted with a Mr. Hardesty by any chance, Lord Lavay?”

  The name brought a similarly intriguing reaction. Silence.

  And then: “Are you, Miss Redmond?”

  His manner was now a degree or two cooler.

  “It’s just that the earl thought my brother Jonathan resembled him, and described him as a fellow sailor.”

  She refrained from describing the earl’s profoundly visceral reaction.

  But Lavay’s rueful smile told her he’d guessed at it anyway. “Ah. Did he. Interesting. Given that we’ve thought of almost nothing else recently, perhaps it is understandable the earl is seeing Hardesty everywhere. And I suppose it’s not entirely an insult to your brother.”

  “I am eager to hear which part is an insult, then.”

  Monsieur Lavay smiled. “Well, to put your mind at ease, one hears that Mr. Hardesty is charm personified. And he is pleasant to have at one’s elbow during a supper, as I have on one occasion. His manners and speech are exceedingly refined and he is clearly well educated, though how he came by all of this charm and wealth and excellent conversation remains a mystery. He was all that is correct and knowledgeable about trade. He has been seen in France and Belgium, in Portugal and Spain, in Morocco. Primarily he brings in goods from the West Indies and Cuba.”

  “He sounds delightful. And yet my impression is that your reunion with Mr. Hardesty would not be a joyous one.”

  Lavay enjoyed her circumspection; his brows went up. But there was another hesitation.

  “I suppose there is no harm in telling you. We believe this Mr. Hardesty is in fact a man they call Le Chat. Who, as it so happens is a—well, privateer is the polite word—a more accurate word is pirate.”

  Good heavens. Violet was thrilled into silence. Which likely wasn’t the reaction she ought to have.

  She seldom had the sorts of reactions she ought to have, however.

  “What on earth would a pirate be doing in a ballroom?”

  “Miss Redmond, I’m certain Le Chat would brave the gallows if he knew he might have an opportunity to dance with you. Perhaps he prowls balls for just this reason.”

  Violet laughed and gave a surprised toss of her head. The compliment was cognac-smooth and unexpected enough to dissolve the fog of her ball ennui. The French accent that clung to the edges of his flawless English made listening to him a pleasure akin to hearing the strains of a minuet floating in from a distant room.

  Lavay was encouraged to continue. “We’ve some intelligence that suggests Mr. Hardesty and Le Chat may well be the same person. Mr. Hardesty certainly appears to be wealthy, for one. But one can hardly condemn a man for wealth. And many successful traders are wealthy.”

  “I would be the last person to condemn a man for wealth, Lord Lavay.”

  He smiled at this and wagged up a pair of golden brows. “We—that is, the Earl of Ardmay and the crew of The Fortuna—have been charged by your King with bringing Le Chat to justice.”

  “It sounds dangerous,” she flattered.

  Lavay somehow managed to shrug with one shoulder, even in the midst of the waltz. Too French, perhaps, to think communication complete without it.

  “But why should a pirate be called ’the cat’?”


  “It is said this is the name he uses when he takes over ships. Perhaps it is because he boards ships with a small crew and pounces, silently from out of the fog? From out of the night? Perhaps it is because he is said to have no allegiance to any crown or to any person? Or his charm when he wants something, perhaps—like a cat circling one’s legs, purring? The ladies say this is so; Hardesty is said to have no heart, but happy enough to win and break them. Perhaps it is because he appeared from nowhere one day, like a stray cat, and began to take whatever he wanted. I cannot say, Miss Redmond. People do enjoy naming their pirates, for this is how myths are constructed. Pirates never seem to object.”

  At least Mr. Lavay had remembered her name.

  And as she danced, she realized she saw the earl and Lady Peregrine nowhere in the room, and wondered whether she had managed to isolate him to test her theory regarding thighs.

  Which was when she realized she’d actually been looking for the earl.

  She ceased immediately.

  Thankfully she did see Jonathan, dancing again, with a small be-muslined blonde. He looked bored. He looked like Jonathan. Not remotely piratical.

  “What has this Le Chat done?”

  “We believe Le Chat has boarded a number of merchant vessels and seized valuable cargo in just a year, And then he has sunk the ships. Four of the ships had English captains. The most recent ship is The Steadfast. He is a scourge, in other words,” he said flatly.

  “Is bringing pirates to justice a habit of the earl?”

  “Achieving the impossible is a habit of the earl. It’s how he became an earl,” Lavay said shortly. “And what drew the attention of the King to him for this particular mission.”

  “I heard he did something heroic to earn his title.”

  “You heard correctly.”

  Mr. Lavay said nothing more. But he seemed privately amused about something. “But why, Lord Lavay, would a pirate attend balls by night and then creep out to sink ships?”

  He managed a shrug again. “Power? Money? Notoriety? Vengeance? Who can say? Needless to say, he would never sink a ship if he knew you were aboard.”

  They smiled at each other, pleased with the progress of their flirtation; they understood each other almost too easily. His gray eyes smoldered with a comfortable heat, familiar but refined with a frisson of the exotic as he was French. His eyes and hands and very presence didn’t…take her captive.

  Unlike the earl’s.

  Oh! And there he was! The earl’s expression fixedly polite, watching with sleepy fascination as Lady Peregrine’s mouth moved and moved, as though she were a talking dog. A novelty. Doubtless not really listening.

  She almost pitied him.

  “We shall find Le Chat, however,” Lavay told her. It was a deliciously certain, arrogant statement, calculated to return her attention to him.

  “How can you be so certain?”

  He hesitated. And then he smiled. The smile was a beautiful thing, polished and shapely and easy, probably the same smile his ancestors had smiled through centuries. But it was cold. In a way that reminded Violet of her father, who, by dint of birth and influence, knew there was nothing he couldn’t have, achieve, hide, if necessary.

  “I have never known Captain Flint to pursue a goal in vain. The Earl of Ardmay wants Le Chat alive or dead for many reasons. And what he wants he is very certain to get.”

  Did she detect a hint of irony in his words? Or did French-accented English simply consign one forever to sounding ironic?

  For many reasons.

  She felt that same prickle at the back of her neck, some hybrid of unease and thrill. She wanted to peel back the layers of meaning shrouding the phrase, unwrap it like a gift, like the cure for her boredom.

  And perhaps this was why the Gypsy girl had shouted “Lavay” to her. She found him appealing; she could not feel herself falling in love, however. Love seemed to come with extremes of behavior and loss of dignity, and in her family, disaster or grave compromises.

  Still, she’d never before encountered men quite like these. And yet they would be gone tomorrow.

  “Could Le Chat be in London this very minute?”

  “Ah, you’ve naught to fear, Miss Redmond. The Olivia isn’t docked here alongside our ship.”

  Forever after she understood what it meant when someone said “time stopped.”

  Because it did. Or at least stuttered.

  His words seemed to echo peculiarly in her brain. And at first she thought she’d misheard him.

  But then a cascade of facts and impressions came into speedy focus, as though she were falling toward them from a great height.

  That’s when shock blurred her vision. She stumbled; Lavay’s arm stiffened, balancing her, the awkward half step she’d taken never interrupted the smooth flow of the waltz.

  “Miss Redmond?” He was genuinely concerned. “Please forgive me. Perhaps we ought to speak of gentler things. One forgets, you know, when one is forever in the company of men, what a woman may prefer to discuss.”

  The poor man. He thought her constitution delicate.

  She looked up at him. She couldn’t feel her extremities. They’d gone numb.

  She rallied. “Your conversation has been the pleasure of my evening. I merely trod clumsily in my new slippers. But I fear I missed the name of Le Chat’s ship? It sounded intriguing.”

  A sick, thrilling portent flooded her as she awaited confirmation. The Gypsy girl shouting “Lavay!” echoed in her mind, and her ears rang from the beating of her heart, and considered the odd directions life could take, and what she ought to do next even before he spoke.

  “Naturally, as it’s the sort of thing that might interest a woman, for it is the name of a woman. It’s The Olivia, Miss Redmond. Perhaps it’s the name of the woman who did break his heart. Assuming he ever had one to break.”

  Already quivering with purpose, she exchanged bows and pleasantries with handsome Lord Lavay, who again expressed regret his stay should be so brief.

  And then Violet ran.

  Or nearly ran. She freed her ankles by tucking her dress up with her fingers, weaving between dancers and clots of giddy gossipers. A smile pasted to her face. Her slippers nearly skidding over marble.

  Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Lyon couldn’t be that stupid, could he?

  Or that…interesting?

  Where the devil was Jonathan? If he wasn’t dancing again—and a quick scan of the room told her he wasn’t—he would be near the punch bowl, or close to the garden windows so he could sneak out for a cigar or a tryst or to hop over the fence to go on to his club without Father knowing, and—

  She nearly crashed to a halt when she saw the back of him. So unmistakably a Redmond, long and lean, finally grown out of coltishness. He was indeed proximate to the punch bowl and the garden doors, but he was also strategically tucked behind a pillar, and one hand was outstretched and propped against the wall. He was obscuring someone or something.

  She knew what it was when she heard the giggle.

  She peered over his shoulder to get a look at the woman he was shielding: a delicate blonde in unimaginative white muslin: big-eyed, petite-nosed, a little overbite that gave her a not unappealing rabbity appearance peeled back in a smile. Lady Wareham? Wartsomething? Violet had been introduced earlier and had forgotten her name instantly.

  Where had her brother learned to do that? To strike that indolent pose, to pour…silent, burning attention…upon a woman and to say things to cause her to picturesquely blush? Violet wasn’t a blusher; growing up in a household of frank brothers rather inured one to that sort of thing. But her brother looked unnervingly like a…grown man. Which he of course he supposedly was.

  It was just that she so seldom saw him behave like one.

  “Jonathan,” she said. Sotto voce. About two feet away from his ear.

  He didn’t turn.

  “Jonathan!” she barked.

  Her brother jumped and spun to face her, glowering. And i
n that instant he looked so remarkably like Lyon that Violet was intensely aware of the passage of time and the urgency of her mission. She saw instantly what the earl must have seen when he saw Jonathan, and wondered how she hadn’t yet seen it.

  “Viiiolet,” her brother drawled warningly, by way of greeting. He cast a quick sidelong look at the blonde, and then a speaking one back at Violet. All of which was sibling for: Go away.

  “Oh, please do excuse me for interrupting,” Violet gushed insincerely. “But Jonathan—were you aware the gentleman accompanying the Earl of Ardmay is named Lavay?”

  Her brother’s frown shifted into irritated confusion. “Well…yes. I was introduced to him. Pleasant, if a tad oily, his manners so very, very exquisite you know. One gets the sense that he thinks he’s better than you, but it’s naught he does or says in particular, really. Not certain you can yet entirely trust anyone of French—”

  “Do shut up, Jon. His name is Lavay. Don’t you recall what happened when we visited the Gypsies?”

  “I say, hardly cause to raise your voice, sister dear.” The tone was condescending and came with an inclusive smile for Lady Wartle…Lady Wartham! That was it!

  The beast. Jonathan was showing off. He really, really ought to know better by now.

  “You do take telling a number of times, Jon. Don’t you remember? The Gypsy girl shouted ‘Lavay’” to me? The one who said you would have ten children?”

  He went instantly rigid, alarmed as if she’d hexed him.

  “That Gypsy girl is touched in the head, Violet,” he said on a fervent hush. “That’s pure lunacy, and you know it.”

  “You probably will have ten children.”

  “Bite. Your. Tongue.”

  “You might even have all ten of them with Lady Wartham here,” Violet pressed wickedly.

  Young Lady Wartham’s eyes widened to saucers and began to sparkle with dreams.

  Her brother was incensed. “Never! Never, I tell you! I’m nowhere near ready to be leg shackled and she’s just a dallia…” He squeezed his eyes closed as he realized he’d neatly tumbled into his sister’s trap. “Damn you, Violet,” he croaked.