I Kissed an Earl

by Julie Anne Long

  Flint still couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud. Whether or not he loved Violet was a matter between him and Violet, and perhaps it was moot now. And still…this was a man who shared her blood. Who’d had the privilege of knowing her his entire life. When he spoke, he spoke for Violet’s sake.

  “I’ve very little experience of what they like to call the finer emotions, Mr. Redmond. I haven’t your talent for grander expression…I can only tell you…”

  How in God’s name to describe Violet? It was like trying to describe his own heart, which naturally he’d never actually seen. It was an idea, his heart; he felt it beat inside him, sending life coursing through his veins. He needed it. It was everything.

  “You don’t know her, Mr. Redmond, any more than you can say you know your viscera. She’s part of you. I had to…learn her. She had to learn herself. And Violet…she has a…magnificent heart. A fierce warrior’s heart. Nothing…small…would ever do for her. Not a life in Sussex, not the usual domesticated English aristocratic husband, not a life of needlework and managing the servants, though this could very well be what awaits her anyway. She came across the sea to find you, and by God she did what no one in your family, and no one else who has diligently hunted you, could accomplish. She persuaded me to allow her to do it. This, I assure you, is very nearly impossible.”

  “Violet is persuasive,” Lyon said ruefully.

  “And I am impossible,” Flint said grimly. “It’s why the King chose me for this mission. She loves her family, but none of you know her heart. She, I believe, found everything she needed in me, on this journey. She was afraid to love in part…because of you. But for love of you, she gave me up. She did it for you.” He heard weariness in his voice. He stopped a moment. “That’s Violet. That’s who she is. And that’s the choice you forced her to make. You ought to be proud.” The words were so sharp, so bitter, he could nearly taste them.

  “May I point out an irony?” Lyon said.

  “I doubt I can stop you.”

  “You likely wouldn’t know her at all if not for me.”

  Flint took this in slowly. Inhaled at length. Exhaled. But said nothing.

  “You’re welcome,” Lyon said ironically.

  “It doesn’t change what I came here to do.”

  Lyon ignored this. “I can almost see it,” he said reflectively, after a moment of studying Flint. “I can almost see why the two of you could love each other without…incinerating each other. You’re certain she loves you?” He sounded unflatteringly skeptical.

  “She killed a man to save my life. She was the one who killed Abrega.”

  Lyon’s expression didn’t change at all. But he did go strikingly still. His fingertips pressed so hard into his tankard of ale they went bloodless. “Did she?”

  He didn’t sound as surprised as he ought to. His voice was steady enough, but it had gone soft. His eyebrows winged up then; he drummed his fingers against his tankard. And stopped. After a moment he smiled a smile so bleak, so full of loss and ache that Flint all at once understood the cost to him of his exile.

  “Violet,” Lyon finally said. That single soft word rang with love and exasperation and memories and regret.

  Flint suddenly recognized something critical, and possibly deadly: Here he faced a man possessed of control equal to his own. But Lyon Redmond had come by his strength in ways unique to his journey and his history. That elegance, those manners, the demeanor, the spirit—all were fashioned of finely wrought steel, and honed like a blade.

  Lyon Redmond was either a man on a pilgrimage in search of salvation, or a man out to burn on the pyre of his own love for a woman.

  Regardless, he still suffered.

  Flint wasn’t unaffected.

  And yet when another silence fell, Flint shifted his pistol in his lap, preparing for the inevitable.

  But Redmond was thoughtful. He seemed to be contemplating how to begin a story. He shifted slightly.

  “Tell me—what wouldn’t you do for Violet, Captain Flint?”

  Flint didn’t yet know the answer to this. Though he was perhaps closer to knowing.

  “I haven’t yet been tested.”

  Lyon smiled slowly at this, and shook his head. “Ah. Clearly you haven’t a soul of a poet, then, sir. You cannot be lured into hyperbole: ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do! Nothing!’ And etcetera. I can. I like hyperbole. Don’t fear it, Flint! Believe me, there’s some truth to all the purple words that surround love, you know. When you love someone more than life—and it is indeed possible to love someone more than life, or otherwise poets wouldn’t have gone on and on about it over the centuries—and you know, you know, you were born for only one person…imagine you cannot have them without tearing everything else you know asunder. Without hurting and disappointing all the other people you love. What then would you do?”

  “Well, naturally, I’d go out and sink ships.”

  “Witty, Captain. Would you settle for less than what you want?”

  “I have never settled for less than what I want.”

  Implicit in that statement was the fact that they both knew what Flint wanted: to bring Lyon Redmond, Le Chat, to justice.

  “Very well. Let’s say then you’ve made the decision to tear the life you know asunder in order to be with this person you love. A difficult decision to be sure. Putting it lightly. Because you cannot imagine a life without her, and the alternative left to you is a lifetime of desolation, as you don’t intend to don a hair shirt or join a monastery or fling yourself into the ocean and drown. And so you go ahead and do the unthinkable and tear your life asunder…only to discover the person you love won’t have you after all, and she actually has a reason.”

  Flint, despite himself, was drawn into this narrative, and his mind crept toward imagining what it must have been like for Lyon. Then shied back from that dark place: how he’d wanted Violet untenably in those long nights, knowing they were doomed for the very reasons they loved each other: the unshakeable loyalty, the courage, the determination and passion.

  And how the first time he’d known he’d been loved, he’d been given wings. And they’d been snatched back before he’d ever properly learned how to use them.

  And suddenly Lyon’s desolation seemed indistinguishable from his own.

  “For you see, Captain Flint, I, too, never settle for less than what I want. Or never thought I possibly could. I’m a Redmond. If only you truly understood what this means. So I set out to reorder the world in a way I thought would make me worthy of her love. But my quest has changed me in ways I never anticipated, and I’m not the man who once loved that girl. There’s much more to my journey yet. And here’s a bitter irony: I’ve found in becoming heroic, in becoming worthy of her, I’ve painted myself into an untenable corner. I’ve more work to do to prove someone’s innocence or guilt. And you, Captain Flint, though an admirable man, understand far, far less about what I’ve done, and why I’ve done it, than you think you do.”

  He paused. Took a long draught of his pint. Drank it down almost to the bottom, but left a half inch or so sloshing there. As though he knew when he reached the bottom his time would be up.

  Flint watched Lyon Redmond, he understood that beneath that cool Redmond elegance, that control, the measured irony of his words, was a man whose passions were likely twice as volcanic as Violet’s. Darker, more committed, more rooted in suffering, even more arrogant and less forgiving. Fascinating. Was he like this when he’d left Sussex? How this man must have chafed beneath his father’s rule. The golden Redmond son, the hope of his father and family. How extraordinary his control must have been even then, for no one had known he’d done anything but bask in the glory of being Lyon Redmond.

  “So tell me…what do you want above all, Captain Flint?”

  “What I want is justice for The Steadfast and for Captain Moreheart. A man to whom I owe everything. My entire future fortune, depends upon bringing you to justice. And it’s what I want. So…”

&nbs
p; He began to stand, and saw Lyon stiffen, poised to do whatever he needed to do.

  He, like Lyon, could throw himself on a pyre, too. Because fire cleansed. She’d won, and he’d lost.

  It had stopped mattering. Her happiness was indistinguishable from his own.

  No matter what became of him, he wanted her to know he loved her.

  “You’d best get out of here, Redmond. Your secret is safe with me.”

  Lyon’s eyes flared in wary surprise. He froze. And his smile, when it came, was slow, and crooked, and he looked very like Lavay when Lavay was being insufferably knowing.

  “Ah. You do love her more than life. Splendid. And that, my dear Lord Flint, is what I came here today to discover.”

  Whatever he felt was between him and Violet. “Go before I change my mind, Redmond.”

  And Lyon stood. All tall, lean, indolently lethal grace. And with a fluid motion, the way another man might tuck away his watch, he locked and tucked his pistol away.

  “Try Sussex, Flint. I paid for her passage on a ship sailing out to Calais, and from there she’ll board one that will take her to England again. She’s already on her way. Godspeed, Flint. Until we meet again.”

  With astonishing speed and grace, he slipped deeper into the pub, until smoke closed over Flint’s vision, and when it had cleared again, Lyon was gone.

  Chapter 27

  Violet had been away for nearly three weeks, during which everyone assumed she was enjoying a house party at Lady Peregrine’s. The message inquiring after Violet would reach Lady Peregrine’s only today, which would confuse the lady and prompt gossip.

  But nothing like the gossip Violet was about to cause.

  She was contemplating the results of her adventure and what now might become of her, when Jonathan peered around the corner.

  “Miss Redmond…you’ve a guest.”

  She heard the fruitless clacking of Morton’s footsteps following Jonathan. His legs were shorter.

  “Mr. Jonathan, I should have preferred to announce it more formally.”

  “My apologies, Morton,” Jonathan said, wide-eyed in mock contrition. “It isn’t every day you get to announce an earl. I say, Vi, are you going to faint?” He sounded less concerned than astonished. “You’ve gone white. Should I send the big bugger away?”

  “No. Go away, Jonathan,” she said faintly, rudely.

  All the announcements were moot anyway, because Flint, who had no patience or use for the social niceties when he was on a mission, stood in the doorway, listening to all of this.

  The footman’s arms jutted out and Flint absently dropped his coat and hat upon them. Morton bore them away.

  “The big bugger begs a private word with your sister,” Flint said politely.

  “When you put it so nicely, I can’t see how I can deny you that pleasure, my Lord.” Jonathan had extraordinarily fine manners when he chose to use them, too.

  And Jonathan wagged up his eyebrows and backed away, and closed the door, mouthing a word she thought might be Lavay.

  She scowled quickly at him out of habit, then turned.

  Oh God.

  It was so very, very clear that Flint was the only man for her. That he belonged to her, and she to him. Without him, she knew she’d become thin and glittery-eyed and take up causes like Olivia Eversea, which she was tempted to do anyway. Or become an eccentric burden to her parents, a secret shameful relative hidden away somewhere, destined to become part of the Redmond family lore.

  Because she had a rather large secret of her own.

  “Why are you here?” she began cautiously.

  “I’ve come for you,” he said simply.

  “Come for me? How like an order that sounds. And yet we’re not on your ship anymore, Captain Flint. I haven’t peeled a potato in weeks, and you cannot make me do it now.”

  It seemed he’d exhausted his words.

  And she was abashed, suddenly, because he was pale, too. She couldn’t bear to see this man look uncertain.

  “I’m sorry I left you as I did,” she offered tentatively. She was surprised when her voice emerged a mere whisper.

  “I know you are,” he said gently. “I wouldn’t have done anything differently. You did the right thing.”

  “I…did?” Wondering which of the things he meant: leaving, or taking the rosewood box, or warning Lyon, or—

  He smiled faintly at her wariness. “All of it was right. You did it for someone you love. You never pretended you might do otherwise. We both knew it.”

  Why was he standing on the edge of the carpet, as though it were lava, and she was an island he could merely aspire to reaching?

  She couldn’t bear not knowing. She had to ask. “Flint…why are you here? Where is Lyon?”

  “I’m here because I wanted you to know that I did what I did…for someone I love.”

  Her hands were damp. She, who’d once thought she’d expire from lack of novelty, wasn’t enjoying this particular game of suspense. She drew them down the front of her skirt nervously. Something she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing just a fortnight ago. She’d become more amenable to mussing things when circumstances required it.

  “And what did you think was right?” Her nerves were drawing tight as bowstrings. Her voice was faint and nearly shrill.

  He paused. “I saw Lyon.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  And then he smiled a slow crooked smile. So pleased with himself. With her.

  She thought she might just swoon. She thought she would draw that smile around her like a shawl, let it cradle her like a hammock. Her hand nearly went out to touch the back of a settee. Then she refrained and collected herself.

  “You saw Lyon?” she repeated. Coaxing it out of him was torture. “You…spoke to Lyon?”

  “Yes. And then I left Lyon.”

  She was stunned. “But…”

  “Violet…he looks so like you.” He gave a short, wondering laugh. His hands pushed his hair back nervously.

  “Where is he?” She looked about wildly. “What was right?”

  “Loving you is right, Violet,” he said easily. “I left him in Cádiz. He has more work to do. He says. He looks quite fit.”

  Fit.

  “Flint…I found Captain Moreheart’s journal in Lyon’s box and…all the investors were listed. I know what Lyon is doing and why he’s doing it—I so didn’t want to tell you about Captain Moreheart—”

  “I know. Of a certainty he was captaining and investing in slave ships. They all were.” He sounded grim. “I cannot begin to guess why. I can’t condone it. But I can’t grieve him any less. I suspect justice was meted to him, though it wasn’t Lyon’s justice to give.”

  “There’s one thing you don’t know, Asher.” An expression, inexpressibly tender and fierce, flickered over his face when she said his name and she felt shy. I do love you. “One of the investors listed on the last page of Moreheart’s diary is…Jacob Eversea.”

  Flint frowned, puzzled. Then his face cleared. “Olivia’s father?”

  Violet nodded. “It would kill her. And ruin the Everseas if anyone discovered. I’ve been left with a loaded gun, so to speak. Bloody Lyon is leaving me to decide what to do about it.”

  “Poor bastard.” He meant Lyon. “And I thought we had a dilemma for a fortnight.” He sounded almost amused. “He said he had more work to do regarding proving someone’s innocence or guilt.”

  Silence fell. She watched her father’s clock pendulum swing out the time. It was time for a very careful and specific question.

  “But Flint…so that means…you don’t want to capture Lyon anymore? That you’ll tell the King you failed?”

  “Well, I’m not partial to the word failed.” Oh, good. He sounded amused. “But Violet…when I saw Lyon, I knew I was sunk. I live only to make you happy, Violet. You’re necessary to me. I belong with you. And please, for the love of God, may I touch you now?”

  It was only now that his composure was crumbling that s
he saw how powerfully he’d tried to keep it intact.

  She all but bolted across the carpet for him, and she reached out her hand, and he reached out his hand, and their hands clung there, joining and separating their bodies from a distance of about two feet. Hers was cold, and his was warm, and he gripped hers as though she were anchoring him to the earth, or the means by which he would launch, like a kite.

  She needed to know more. “But that means…”

  “It means I love you, Violet. I have never said that aloud to another human being.”

  He said it quickly and tonelessly. As if he was afraid of the words.

  Violet stood basking in those words the way she might a sunbeam after a long, gray day. She closed her eyes. And she knew she was lit from within.

  “Do not let me just stand here having said those words,” he said stiffly. “It’s undignified.”

  “I love you, too,” she said softly, hurriedly. Feeling abashed. Eyes still closed.

  Egads. So this was what it was like to be in love. Awkward and foolish, indeed.

  And he furled her abruptly into his body and sighed his relief when they were folded together, because their bodies knew what to do when words made them feel human and awkward. She melted into him without reserve. She pressed her ear against his chest to hear his heartbeat, to feel his breathing, wrapped her arms around him to reassure him she was here and would never leave him.

  He would never again be alone.

  “It also means,” he said over the top of her head, “I’ve land, but no money to support it. Just the grand title. You could always marry Lavay instead. I think even he has more money than I do at the moment.”

  “I have a dowry,” she said absently. “My father will be pleased enough to marry me off to an earl. I think. Even one such as you.”