I Kissed an Earl

by Julie Anne Long

  “Some might say that treating men as pets or servants,” he mused, “is a marvelous way to keep them at a distance.”

  She went motionless. Stunned as he’d stepped toward her and knocked her flat.

  She stared at him almost helplessly.

  She’d no map for the truth. Just a knack for dodging round it.

  Only with this man was she ever at a loss for words.

  “It…frightens you,” he guessed his voice low and slow and odd. Sounding like he was having an epiphany.

  “Said the pot to the kettle,” she answered, her own voice low and taut.

  The flower froze in its revolutions.

  She regretted saying it instantly. Because she sensed, somehow, she’d torn a strip from him and hadn’t meant to.

  She wanted desperately to unhurt him.

  How tremendously odd that it should hurt her to hurt him.

  “Oh, what nonsense,” she revised with a quick, feigned nonchalance, and a little laugh, to save both of them from anything so uncomfortable as truth. “You love Fatima, don’t you, after a fashion?”

  It took him a moment to recover from their collision with honesty. He studied her, head tilted slightly, for a moment of silence.

  “She’d think your name exotic, too, you know.” Sounding amused.

  “Why did you just say that?” She was irritated.

  “It’s the way you say her name. You make it sound as though your lips can scarcely form it for the sheer exoticism of it. And I know of a certainty it’s not a struggle for you. It’s very common name in her land, you know. Like Anne in yours.”

  She fidgeted. It was an uncomfortable observation.

  “Oh. Are you in love with her?”

  Out that question had come. She didn’t want to know. Oh, that was a bloody lie. She wanted to know desperately. No she didn’t. What manner of woman would a man like this choose to love? Was Fatima his choice simply because he wasn’t a gentleman born, because he felt more comfortable with someone as exotic seeming as he was?

  Or was he afraid? This man with no family, no ties. Why wouldn’t he be afraid to love when he’d been abandoned?

  “I think loyalty far more important than love,” he said very formally. “I’ve never known a woman more steadfast.”

  “Steadfast. How very romantic.”

  “Said the pot to the kettle,” he said.

  She acknowledged she deserved this with a tip back of her head, then brought it down in a sage nod and a slight smile, as though they were two barristers exchanging arguments.

  “And she has other talents,” he added, predictably.

  “Oh yes. I’m certain Fatima knows the meaning of ‘work.’”

  His grin was a quick, wicked, crooked crescent in the dark. He was pleased with her.

  She said nothing. She watched the flower twist in his fingers, lulled by his seeming ease, by the whimsy of a big man who seemed, for the moment anyhow, happy to be precisely where he stood.

  “But is not one a result of the other?” she asked. “Love and loyalty? I cannot see how could you prefer one to the other.”

  “No. My crew is loyal to me, but I shouldn’t think but two or three of them actually love me.”

  She laughed at that, and she saw him smile, and wished he stood closer so she could see the dimple.

  “Rathskill certainly didn’t.”

  “Of a certainty that’s true. He’s responsible for your presence, after all.”

  “And I am a trial.”

  “Your words, Miss Redmond.”

  “Whereas you are a stroll in Hyde Park.”

  “‘Definitely not a pet,’” he quoted somberly.

  She was smiling a little too often in his presence, and he in hers, and suddenly she felt as aloft, as softly glowing, as that moon. Dangerously, deliciously unmoored.

  She waved her fan beneath her chin, simply because her hands wanted something to do, and a bead of perspiration was working its way between her breasts and her dress was silk and she’d no abigail to see to getting spots out.

  “Very well,” she said after a moment. “Here is how I see that loyalty and love are the same: You would lay down your life for someone for reasons of both love and loyalty. But loyalty implies dependence, doesn’t it? For instance, dogs are loyal. It also implies indebtedness. For instance, servants are loyal.”

  “It also implies integrity. And honor. And—”

  “Steadfastness,” she completed, with only a hint of irony.

  “So you see them as absolutes then, Miss Redmond? Love means to be willing to die for someone, and loyalty perhaps the same?”

  “How can they be otherwise?”

  She couldn’t interpret his silence.

  She did know he was studying her, and she suspected it was rather the way Miles studied things. Searching for a conclusion. Perhaps in it was some form of admiration.

  “Captain Flint…” she began. “Know this. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my family. I will never allow you to take Lyon if I can possibly help it. And I can never forgive anyone who harms someone I love.”

  “Then the people you love are fortunate,” he said softly, surprising her. “And I suppose it’s a very good thing you aren’t armed.”

  She waited a strategic moment.

  “With traditional weapons, anyhow,” she said languidly. She leaned back against the bench indolently as a cat, let her head tip slowly back, allowed the soft air to move beneath her chin; it was delicious. And she knew as she stretched back that the pale, smooth tops of the breasts he’d gazed upon earlier likely arced invitingly up out her gown, that her shoulders were temptingly creamy and smooth even for a man accustomed to the more exotic charms of a steadfast dusky-skinned mistress, and that no man with blood in his veins would be able to resist feasting his eyes on her, given an unguarded opportunity.

  He had blood in his veins. She knew his eyes were feasting.

  “Do take care with the preening, Miss Redmond. You might muss a hair.” His voice was a little husky.

  Her hand went up to cheek instantly, and he gave a soft laugh.

  She found a wayward lock and tucked it back into place behind her ear, and she straightened on the bench almost instinctively. Like a soldier, like life itself was her drillmaster.

  He smiled at that. And then detached himself from the shadowed wall and strode over slowly, and settled down on the bench next to her.

  Her breath caught. She’d likely been unwise to tempt him.

  She didn’t think he did anything casually. He knew full well his own power and size and how it could be used. He settled himself down at a carefully polite distance, but still, only inches kept their thighs from touching, and the sheer size of him somehow reminded her that he was not entirely civilized, and she wondered just how much temptation he would tolerate before he simply took.

  It took some courage to maintain her languid pose.

  Then she abandoned the effort, and brought her hands into her lap to rest.

  But he just bent forward, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped, jasmine blossom still dangling between his fingers.

  “You do understand those are the reasons I will stop at nothing to bring Le Chat to justice. Loyalty. Honor. Indebtedness. Gratitude. To Captain Moreheart. I simply cannot forgive his death, either.”

  Not a shred of threat or melodrama in that. Just a calm, quiet conviction that might have seemed thrilling had he not been speaking about Lyon. And yes, the faintest hint of an apology.

  For he had no doubts he eventually would bring Le Chat to justice.

  Or of how she would feel about it when he did.

  Such a quiet moment. And yet fear chilled the backs of her arms. And a terrible, bittersweet regret.

  She breathed in the flower-scented night. Fear for Lyon, fear for her own inadequacy in the all-too-real danger of these circumstances, fear of the conflicting and utterly new things she felt in the presence of this man.

  She couldn’t allo
w fear to take root. She hiked her chin just a little.

  “I understand,” she said softly.

  He looked toward the rectangle of light where the guests were, one of them very chastened. Lavay inside, making apologies and smoothing relations, charming people within an inch of their lives, as he did so skillfully.

  “What did that child say to you?”

  She jerked her head toward him. Her heart instantly took up a sickening pounding. “I told you. He called me mum and so forth.”

  He watched her quietly. “But you’re not telling me everything, Miss Redmond.” Also apologetic.

  Apologizing that he was about to be relentless again.

  Breathing was suddenly difficult.

  “What makes you say that?” She tried for lightness.

  “Because you looked so…” He inhaled deeply, exhaled at length, searching for the word. “…so happy.”

  She looked up at him, surprised.

  Because he’d made it sound as though he’d witnessed a startling and glorious natural phenomenon, like a shooting star. “You should have seen your face.” He gestured up at the radiant moon. “Like that. Aglow. Miss Redmond, anyone could have seen it.”

  She looked away from him, down at her knees. She finally drew in a long shuddering breath. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. She wasn’t entirely certain why. But she knew he could likely see her eyes shining.

  “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” His voice was so soft. Wistful. But infused with a peculiar passion, too.

  He was still watching her closely, and yet she couldn’t look at him. “He sent a message to you, didn’t he? Via that child?”

  She still didn’t dare respond. And she knew her silence was tantamount to an answer, but she didn’t trust her voice to be steady yet.

  “Is he your brother?” he asked softly. Not looking at her. Looking toward the house. Hands gently clasped. The blossom still between his fingers.

  If she said no, he might leave her here to find her way home. She wanted to find her brother. And yet for some reason she felt traitorous both to the earl as well as to Lyon.

  She suddenly longed to tell this man everything that had happened this evening. She wondered if he knew this, was cultivating this impulse in her, as a means to his own ends.

  The irony was cruel: Of all the people she knew, here was finally the one person she could have entrusted to find her brother. He seemed capable of anything.

  So in the end she said what she knew to be true.

  “I think so.” She half whispered it.

  He was thoughtful for a moment. He pressed his lips together. He breathed in deeply, and exhaled on a short nod.

  “Do you know where he’s going next?”

  She knew if she ever wanted to see Lyon she needed to tell him.

  “I think he’s going to Brest.” Her voice broke a little.

  “Is he targeting The Caridad?” More quickly, intensely now.

  “I don’t know.” She whispered it. “I honestly don’t. I swear to you. And don’t ask me how I know this, for I won’t tell you.”

  He nodded shortly again. For a moment they simply sat quietly alongside each other. And he turned to look at her, and she at him.

  And then Flint leaned forward. She thought at first he meant to stand. Instead, he hesitated. Her heart almost literally stopped.

  Was he going to—did he intend to—

  And then his hand rose slowly, tentatively. And lightly, slowly, he dragged that jasmine blossom along the line of her jaw.

  Stunned, she stared up at him. She somehow felt that blossom everywhere, on her skin, as surely as he’d scattered cinders over it. Her eyes began to languorously close against the weighty rise of a physical longing so fierce, so new, it was nearly impossible to breathe through it.

  I can take you whenever I please, Miss Redmond.

  His face was mostly shadowed now, but she could see the slight uptilt of his lips. And then his hands were in his lap again, the blossom dangling between his fingers.

  “Couldn’t resist,” he said softly. “Your chin was just jutting up there, clean and proud, like the corner of a topsail.”

  She could not have spoken if Lyon had dropped from a tree in front of her and shouted “Ahoy!”

  They watched each other in utter stillness.

  She wanted desperately to retrace the path he’d drawn on her jaw with her own fingertips. To feel what he’d felt. She wanted to drag her own fingers along the diamond-angled line of his jaw.

  When she saw that her hand had actually risen, was actually hovering an inch or so from her lap, she dropped it to her knee.

  She stared at it, and suddenly her five gloved fingers looked like the petals on that jasmine blossom.

  “Which reminds me, we should go say farewell to our hosts and return to the ship if we want to catch up to Mr. Hardesty in Brest. It’ll be interesting to see if The Olivia has lifted anchor while we were dining.”

  He stood gracefully and turned to extend his hand to help her up.

  She took it. His enveloped hers almost absurdly. She was suddenly abashed. Almost…shy.

  She had never felt shy in her entire life.

  He held her hand a moment longer, as though puzzled by this thing she’d given him. He frowned slightly down at it. Then released it almost comically quickly.

  His eyes flared wide; she saw this in the dark. He turned away from her and straightened his spine.

  He turned and strode back to the house.

  She followed him, and glanced back over her shoulder at the fountain one more time.

  Chapter 13

  Violet was awakened at an ungodly hour by the next morning by vigorous knocking at her cabin door.

  She rolled gracelessly out of her bunk, feeling as though she’d slept in a clothing press, worked her arms through her nightrobe, and staggered to the door, opening it just a crack.

  “Good morning, Miss Redmond.” It was Mr. Greeber’s untenably sunny voice. “You’ve been given a job to do! You’re to be cook’s mate!”

  He made it sound as if she were to be knighted.

  Cook’s mate? The position lately belonging to Mr. Rathskill?

  “I’m to be…I beg your pardon?” She rubbed at her eyes. She peered beyond him, hoping he’d brought coffee or tea. She sniffed hopefully.

  “When Rathskill left we were without a cook’s mate, and well, mum, seeing as ’ow ye’re a woman—”

  She was instantly awake. “For heaven’s sake, that doesn’t mean I know how to cook.”

  “Well, the captain thought ye’d be perfect, mum.”

  The captain thought! Her reward for coming to his defense last night was to be set to work?

  She didn’t care who he was. She was a Redmond.

  He read her expression. “Oh, scarce any cooking is involved,” he reassured her. “’Tis really more about preparation. And boiling. Though Hercules would prefer it fancier, like, but ’tis a ship, after all. Mostly mixing, boiling, shaking off the weevils and maggots, things o’ that nature. Determinin’ wot can be eaten and wot must be tossed o’er the side because the bugs ’ave got at ’em. Though we took on some fresh goods in London, so we mayn’t have trouble with weevils fer a time.”

  “W-weevils?” She did not want to be the ship’s weevil shaker.

  “And we’ve vegetables as the trip is short,” he said brightly. “We’ll need to peel ’em. The captain may even give word to slaughter a cow, as they drink so much water, you know. Fresh beef!” he celebrated happily.

  Cows? That would explain the lowing she heard on board.

  “B-but I—”

  “And I’m to ask, do you sew?”

  “Of course I can sew!” She didn’t know why she was defending this particular skill. She didn’t want to sew, either, necessarily. She pictured sitting amidst a heap of filthy, rent sailor trousers and shirts and undergarments.

  Given a choice between weevils and trousers, she would likely choose
the trousers, however.

  He brightened. “Aye, then, mayhap you can stitch sails, too. We all sew, Miss Redmond. Always need to see to those! They’re verra important, the sails.”

  She was beginning to feel a little desperate.

  “But I…generally only sew initials into handkerchiefs, flowers, things of that sort.”

  “Well, I will ask the captain if he’ll allow you to sew a flower or two onto the sail, or mayhap his initials. So as you might enjoy yerself. I canna see ’ow ’ed mind. Flowers might be right nice on a sail,” he mused cheerily. “Loverly to ’ave a woman’s touch aboard.”

  Violet stared helplessly at him.

  He stared worshipfully back at her.

  She batted her eyes in preparation for talking him out of all of this.

  He looked alarmed. Really, staring at her was all he had the courage for. He would quail before actual flirting.

  “I’ll wait right outside, like, whilst ye put on a gown ye willna mind mussing a bit, and take you in to see Hercules.”

  “I mind mussing all my gowns,” she said tightly.

  “Ah, nivver fear. Hercules will find an apron fer ye. Ye wouldna want a beef stain on yer gown! They’re all so pretty!” he reassured her.

  “Mr. Greeber, where are we currently heading?”

  “Well, The Fortuna, she’s sailing for Brest, ain’t she?” He blushed over the word and sent his eyes toward the ceiling, as far away from her breasts as he could think of sending his gaze. “And then you and I are going to the galley.”

  She shut the door, cursed the earl, and wondered which gown would suffer least from a beef stain.

  “Ziss? You bring me ziss?” Hercules’s eyes bulged with disbelief.

  He raked her a look from head to toe, his face wrinkled in panic at what he saw—a slim, pale, well-groomed, surly aristocratic woman—and then he whirled on Greeber. “What am I to do wis ziss?”

  He clapped two despairing hands to either sides of his skull and shook his head to and fro as though he were trying to twist it off and hurl it overboard from sheer despair. He was a small sturdy man, with a broad torso and huge hands and short legs and a handsome, profoundly Greek face.