I Kissed an Earl

by Julie Anne Long

  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.

  “But what does it mean?”

  “I don’t know yet.” The earl’s voice was clipped. He was clearly tired of not knowing things.

  He looked at his ale, realized he’d drained it, fussed with the tankard instead.

  The sun was lowering into the sea. The sunset was of the gaudy citrus colored variety. The sky looked incongruously cheerful, like a circus tent.

  “Miss Redmond?” the earl asked suddenly.

  She looked up at him expectantly.

  “What did the barmaid say to you when she took you away?”

  Bloody hell.

  Lavay rotated his head slowly toward the earl in surprise. Then toward her. She was confronted with two pairs of suspicious, unsympathetic, unyielding eyes.

  “Apart from ‘mon dieu’ and ‘je regrette’?” she said lightly.

  But he knew. He must have known. So happy, he’d said to her in the garden. Almost wistfully. Anyone could see it. And likely he’d seen her face light up again when Polly spoke to her of Lyon.

  What use am I to Lyon if I can’t remain inscrutable?

  She remained tight-lipped. She could do that much for Lyon.

  “Your brother no longer fears you’re my doxie, does he, Miss Redmond?” He sounded almost ironically amused. But there wasn’t a shred of warmth in his voice.

  She didn’t answer. Lavay looked from one to the other. Clearly disappointed there would be no grand pantomime or ambush this evening.

  “No,” she admitted weakly.

  “But perhaps we ought to go to La Rochelle,” she added, when it was clear Flint and Lavay were only going to stare at her with cold and faintly surprised eyes. They were remembering that, despite her plethora of charms, she was essentially the enemy.

  And still she couldn’t resist making a point.

  “You may be forced to consider, Lord Flint, that it’s not just robbing and sinking. That maybe he has a plan that isn’t entirely sinister.”

  They stared at her.

  “And…how would that matter to our mission, Miss Redmond?” Lavay asked politely, finally.

  She saw the earl’s mouth twitch at the corner in appreciation.

  She fell silent again.

  Something shifted in the earl’s expression. She suspected he was forcibly recalibrating his own sanity. Perhaps he wondered how on earth he could lose sleep over desiring a woman who was determined to free a murderous pirate. The straightening of his spine was a way to impose a subtle distance.

  And then we are agreed on the distance, Captain, she thought. Relieved.

  Odd that relief should feel so bleak, however.

  “Of course we shall go to La Rochelle.” He ironically lifted his empty tankard to her.

  He sounded like a man determined to win no matter the cost.

  Chapter 19

  In solidarity with Violet’s mood, the weather was fitful and uneasy the moment they sailed from Brest. A blue sky was streaked in strange shreds of clouds on the first day; on the next, alarmingly dense fog gave way to glassy clear skies in the afternoon. It was still a sharp, breathless pleasure to emerge from the galley to the deck to absolute uncertainty of the weather, to the changeable vastness of the sea and sky.

  Unsurprisingly, there were no serendipitous meetings with the earl on deck. Oh, she saw him. Twice. Briefly. Rather like spotting a ghostly galleon sailing on the far horizon. If he saw her, he convincingly pretended he did not. He was a man of formidable discipline, after all, and likely he’d managed by now to corral his sanity and categorize her as inconvenient cargo, undesirable, untouchable, given his mission.

  Lavay still dutifully promenaded her about deck twice each day. But even his charm had become rote and distracted; he was warier of her now, too. But according to Hercules, Captain Flint was spreading tension like a contagion among the crew, pushing all of them to keep The Fortuna sailing as swiftly as they safely could. Both Hercules and Violet were silently aware of the steadily eroding stores of grain and potatoes and cabbage, and Hercules, out of loyalty, remained close-lipped about it.

  In La Rochelle, the captain would likely need to do some more of his nimble maneuvering to keep his crew paid and fed for another week.

  A week beyond that and things would become a little dire.

  All eyes were on La Rochelle.

  On the third day Violet emerged from the galley to find the sky gray and leaden, sagging beneath the weight of ominous clouds. Below the sea was flat and lightless; it simmered and foamed like a cauldron.

  She was a country girl. She recognized the makings of a storm when she saw one.

  She took a deep breath of the crackling air as a hot wind whipped at her dress and threatened to yank her hair from its pins. She put her hands up to rescue it. She didn’t dislike the impending wildness.

  Suddenly, as though she’d never disturbed a moment of his sleep, as though she’d sat across from him in the mess for the past two nights while he forked her labored-over potatoes into his mouth rather than avoiding her entirely, the earl was next to her within three emphatic strides.

  If he’d been ready to speak, the sight of her stopped him.

  The wind whipped his hair into absurd spikes and turned his shirt soufflé.

  She stared at him.

  He stared at her.

  How foolish I am, she thought, with sudden frightening clarity. He was so much more real than everything else around him. I only feel real when I’m near him. In that odd moment, everything that had come before him seemed like a dim dream.

  She suspected everything that came after him would seem that way, too. She was already ruined.

  And with the realization came the strange sense of falling and falling, exhilaration and despair. Unfair. A word he would have mocked.

  Her heart instantly hammered away at her.

  He still looked weary; the hollows beneath his eyes had deepened. Her impulse was to reach up and smooth them out. She wondered if he would nip off her fingers if she tried it. His demeanor certainly suggested something of the sort.

  She wondered what he saw in her face. When he spoke, she sensed the effort that went into keeping his tone neutral. “We’ve a storm coming on fast. Go below, Miss Redmond, and stay below until I tell you it’s safe to emerge.”

  It was a moment before she recovered from simply hearing his voice; she savored it. His meaning registered belatedly. “But I’ve seen storms before, Captain. Perhaps I can be of some—”

  “Do not argue with me. Go. Below. Miss Redmond.” Urgency crackled from him. His patience was clearly stretched so taut the breeze would pluck a note from it any second.

  She recoiled. She knew she had no right to feel wounded, but his lashing words made her breathless. She took a few steps toward the ladder. Then stubbornly turned to him.

  “But how long will it be dangerous to—”

  He pivoted and shouted across the deck, making her jump. “Mr. Corcoran! Will you please escort Miss Redmond below to her cabin and ensure she stays there, and return to the deck immediately? We’ll need all hands on deck for this one.”

  “Aye, Captain!” Corcoran’s big boots thumped hurriedly across the deck.

  And the earl took one last long unreadable look at her
. He drew in a breath, visibly squared his shoulders.

  Then whirled and stalked off muttering, “Bloody Bay of Biscay. Bloody pirates. Bloody, bloody, bloody—”

  She couldn’t hear the last word. She suspected it was woman.

  But Corcoran got her by the elbow so quickly she gasped. He summarily steered her to the ladder as she looked over her shoulder and all but clucked her down it, like a hen with a chick.

  She protested and questioned the whole way. “But what is the trouble with the Bay of Biscay, Mr. Corcoran? Is it always dangerous? It was so calm when we set out.”

  Will Flint be in danger?

  “Well, the Bay of Biscay, she’s a temperamental bit o’ water, ain’t she, Miss Redmond?” he said soothingly. “Nivver fear. We’ve sailed in all manner of weather, aye? ’Tis a storm coming on, ’tis all. The captain, ’e knows ’is ship. Just do as ’e says and ye’ll be all right.”

  But he was clearly already distracted, too, and his grim expression made lies of his soothing words.

  “But how do you know this storm will be so very terrible? I’ve seen storms before, Mr. Corcoran. “What should I—”

  “You should stay in ’ere, as the captain says.” As if this was all anyone ever needed to know.

  He opened the door to the cabin, guided her in, and released her elbow.

  “Dinna leave the cabin now, Miss Redmond, until ye’ve been told that ye can. Captain’s orders. And dinna worry.”

  And with a quick insincere smile and one final tip of the cap he closed the door hard, and she heard his boots slam, hurrying for the deck.

  She stared at the closed door. The feeling was all too familiar: she was being collected, herded like a pet.

  Funny how there was nothing like being ordered not to worry to inspire worry.

  Through the window she could see the sky was just a shade lighter than charcoal and the light peculiarly, eerily flat. It was just past noon, but the clouds purely united against allowing daylight through.

  It was certainly threatening. It was not officially a storm. Yet.

  Very well, then. If she were to be imprisoned for the duration, perhaps she would read.