I Kissed an Earl

by Julie Anne Long

  “Corcoran will now likely sell touches of his arm to the rest of the crew the way pilgrims sell relics.”

  The earl planted himself in front of them, looking rather like a fourth mast. He was in no danger of being toppled by the wind. He glanced at her hand resting lightly on Lavay’s arm. Long enough for her to notice. She saw his brows twitch in a frown, which he immediately repressed. Smoothing his expression the way she often smoothed her own brow to ward away wrinkles.

  For no reason she could identify, she slid her hand away from Lavay, as though her hand had developed its own allegiance. She was surprised.

  He looked swiftly and penetratingly hard into her face before his own went inscrutable again.

  “Ah, very good. I was looking for you, Lavay.” He turned to look at Lavay a few seconds after he said this, a peculiar delay.

  “Were you, sir?” Lavay said somewhat flatly, voice raised slightly to be heard above the wind and snap of sails. “And yet we just spoke a moment ago.”

  He looked a bit mulish, too, albeit in his refined French way.

  Violet began to understand the earl’s point of view about what the presence of a woman could do to a group of men. Men. No wonder every season the herd of fools was thinned out via duels and mad phaeton races.

  Not that she wasn’t enjoying it.

  Particularly since she half suspected the earl had appeared to see her. Again.

  The wind suddenly gave Violet another hearty push, and she clapped a hand to her frisking, bucking bonnet, which threatened to launch from her head and take her scalp with it. She planted her feet apart, getting purchase on the deck, learning how to stand upon it, and while the men stared at each other in another of those silent conversations, she stared about her, at sky and ship and sea.

  And her heart slowly filled like the sails of the ship.

  Everything was in elemental motion: the wind that made the huge sails snap and billow from three masts; the deck swelled and rocked beneath her feet as though she stood on the belly of a sleeping giant, as though the sway of its lungs beneath the sea sent the water heaving. Wind had scoured the sky to a blue so blinding looking upon it hurt and yet she did for as long as she could, then dropped them. The blue-green sea was silver-trimmed and diamond-shot in the sun. The Fortuna pared it into curls of creamy white foam and left a wake that closed behind it as though they’d never come that way at all. Violet tipped her head back as far as she could. Above the masts and rigging, in which a few men were perched, seagulls rode the air, their wings looking like sails against the blue. She wondered if these birds in flight were the inspiration for the first great sailing ships.

  Something in Violet eased, stretched, breathed, at long last and the sensation was so utterly new she understood with finality how confined she’d truly felt her whole life.

  Yet surely the opposite should have been true. Surely a sane and proper woman would have been frightened and humbled and nauseated by the pitch of the waves.

  But it was like hearing for the first time a note that harmonized with whatever wild tone her soul sang. It was a foreign feeling for her. She suspected other people would have called it peace.

  With a start, she finally remembered the men, who seemed to be honoring her wonder with silence. She whirled in time to see a startling expression fleeing the earl’s face, and her breath caught.

  He’d been looking at her, she thought, almost the way she’d been looking at the sea.

  And then she realized she was squinting in the blinding light, and she reflexively reached up her hand to smooth her brow, and thought perhaps she’d been mistaken about his expression, because now the earl was officious and brisk. “You’re fortunate. It’s a fair day, yet, Miss Redmond. During storms, even grand sturdy ships like The Fortuna can be tossed like twigs in a river.”

  “It’s…” She couldn’t finish.

  “Don’t try, Miss Redmond,” he agreed, shading his eyes. “There are honestly no suitable words, so we shall not fault you for failing to find them. Nothing makes a man feel more like God than sailing a ship over the sea with no land in sight. And nothing makes a man feel less like a God than clinging to a shred of ship exploded by lightning in a storm.”

  It sounded uncomfortably as if he knew this from experience, and she hoped it wasn’t one she would ever know.

  “If you ever want to know your true place in the universe, Miss Redmond, the sea and a great empty night sky will put it all in very clear perspective for you.”

  She disliked the lecturing tone. Why did he feel it necessary? And yet she suspected he was right. He was the sort of man who would need to test himself again and again. Not against other men. By pitting himself against something he could never really conquer.

  Perhaps this described her as well.

  Oh God. She hoped not. She did want a peace not dependent upon pitting herself against things.

  Then again, perhaps the earl had had enough of incessant challenge, and this was why he wanted to settle down on solid ground and have the sorts of things that everyone of her acquaintance took for granted.

  He turned away from her. “I wanted a word with you, Lavay. I think we’ll reach port sooner than expected, and I’d like to discuss our visit with Viscomte and Viscomtesse Hebert. Shall we say half past in the captain’s quarters?”

  “Of course. Yes, sir,” Lavay said crisply.

  The earl nodded crisply to both of them and strode off, on his way shouting something up at a man called Dewey, who appeared to be staring down at her through a spyglass. His words were lost to the wind, but Dewey heard them clearly enough. The spyglass swung instantly upward again.

  “So it suits you,” Lavay said, with a little smile. “The sea.”

  Her quick laugh sounded a bit too shrill and exhilarated in her own ears. “There are no words that don’t sound woefully inadequate, but I should like to say it is beautiful. Is it always so windy? I might need to put a rock in my hat, if so.” Or a biscuit.

  The wind gave another hearty yank at her bonnet and her dress lashed her ankles, and she wished she were wearing half boots as she was sure sailors the deck over, as well as Lord Lavay, were taking the opportunity to feast their eyes on her stockinged calves and would later make wagers on the color of her garters.

  “Winds and seas like these are our friends; easy enough to navigate in, filling our sails, speeding the ship along. Calmer days are pleasant but tedious, particularly if we’ve a destination we need to urgently reach. And too much calm can ultimately be deadly.”

  Too much calm can be deadly.

  It was so utterly her life philosophy she considered she ought to stitch it into a sampler.

  “Why are calm days deadly?”

  “If we can’t move, we may not be able to reach shore in time to replenish needed supplies. Though we’ve a stove with a still now. Fresh water lasts such a short time, and we need to share it with beasts when they’re aboard. I do hope you enjoy small beer. Though the captain might be willing to share his wine.” He grinned. As though the likelihood was hilarious.

  She clapped a hand on her bonnet, which was flapping like a goose struggling to take flight. The decks of ships, Violet had learned today, were a challenge to one’s dignity.

  “Lord Lavay…I should like to ask you a question.”

  “I stand ready to answer it,” he said solemnly, clasping his hands behind his back as they strolled, paces evenly matched as Violet adapted quickly to walking over a moving surface.

  “I understand that you are indeed a lord, but I fear I am unaware of your title.”

  He answered easily. “I am a viscomte of the house of Bourbon, Miss Redmond.”

  Her jaw did not precisely drop. But her eyes widened, which allowed in such a painful amount of light she immediately restored them to normal gazing width.

  “But why then…” She looked upon Lavay in an entirely different light now.

  “…do I serve Captain Flint?” He considered his answer. “Because he w
on me in a card game.”

  She halted.

  He was pleased with her speechlessness.

  “Oh! Did you want me to begin at the beginning, Miss Redmond?” he asked with feigned innocence, eyes dancing. “It’s often easier to follow a story when it does begin there.”

  He strolled onward, and she followed, her hand now comfortably resting on her head like a supplementary hat.

  “Well, you see, I sailed with him when we were boys. I was an officer, naturally. I am the older one. He was hired on. He took rather a lot of ribbing for his parentage.”

  She felt her rib cage tighten, as if she were the one taking the mockery. She was afraid to ask. “What…manner of ribbing?”

  “They called him a ‘savage,’ among other things.”

  He wasn’t accusing her of anything, precisely. But he might as well have shot her with a dart. She felt heat start up in her cheeks. She didn’t meet his eyes.

  She suspected Lavay knew precisely what she was feeling in that moment, as Lavay had likely been the earl’s spy at the ratafia.

  “Did you do any of the ribbing, Lord Lavay?”

  “How did you know?” He sounded more amused than contrite or surprised.

  “Because you were a boy and an aristocrat, and it’s what boys and aristocrats do. I should know, having been raised among them.”

  “I did. It’s how I know he doesn’t suffer fools gladly,” he said ruefully. “He pummeled me soundly. Outside the ship, of course, or we would have been soundly punished. The gauntlet or the lash. Moreheart wouldn’t have stood for fighting.”

  Men were a mystery to Violet. How could they pummel each other or aim pistols at each other and remain friends? It almost seemed as though it was how they expressed affection.

  “So our friend Flint rather earned a reputation. In fact, I would venture to say he owes his ability to fight—and fight quite impressively dirty, I might add—to that very thing. And I might owe my life to it, too. Here’s to savages.” He raised an invisible toast.

  Splendid rationalization. But Violet still couldn’t shake off a sort of residual anger on behalf of the earl. She could imagine that parentless boy layering on armor against words and taunts, becoming more and more formidable rather than bitter.

  And now she remembered when he’d blinked. When she’d used the word savage.

  So it was still a chink in his armor, then. She knew a quiet shame that had naught of mischief to it—in other words, not the sort of shame she felt when she’d disappointed her brother Miles by attempting to run off with Gypsies. This was a new sensation. It was perilously close to humbling.

  She wondered, however, if his arrogance was native or something acquired.

  Native, she decided, as she was rather an expert on arrogance. It seemed an inextricable part of him. Born of absolute confidence. It just needed the proper circumstances to be brought into full bloom.

  “You said the earl was in the habit of doing impossible things. But how did the ribbing save your life?”

  “Ah. I am glad our first conversation made such an impression upon you.” It was impossible not to twinkle back at Lavay.

  “I don’t know if saving a life can be said to be impossible, though I certainly didn’t make it easy for him. I played deeper than I should have with the wrong men in the wrong gaming hell, who then cornered me with knives when they wanted their winnings. Who could blame them?”

  Another of those shrugs, which had begun to fascinate Violet, as did the content of the conversation. Gaming hells? Knives? Mistresses? The words that were tossed about so casually by these men made her light-headed, like hard drink. They sketched in a world of men she could scarcely imagine, and which she of course found fascinating.

  “As destiny would have it, Captain Flint was in the same gaming hell and took note of the commotion. I shall endeavor not to horrify you with the details of the story, but in short, I’ve a grand scar and so does Flint, but we won and we’re alive.”

  “Thank you for sparing me. The mention of the scars rather implied what transpired. Very good use of detail.”

  He laughed. “Thank you. And did I mention there were five of them? And two of us?”

  Two sailors up high inspecting rigging saw her just then and dropped jaws, then whipped off their caps and went motionless.

  “Have a care, Mcevoy, or a gull might fly in your mouth,” Lavay shouted up to them. “This is Miss Redmond. Don’t bow, for God’s sake, Emerson. You’ll crash to the deck. You’ve seen a woman before.”

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but not one quite like that, sir.” He beamed cheekily.

  Violet curtsied for them, and they continued watching her as though she were indeed a siren.

  Not an Amazon. A siren.

  “Back to work!” Lavay half growled, half bellowed.

  They scrambled back up the rigging, nimble as monkeys. Or some such animal. Likely Miles would have known what to compare them to.

  “But…five men attacked you and the earl?”

  She felt faint. And all too fascinated.

  “Five men came at me, expecting me to surrender my purse. And the earl appeared just in time. They only attacked, as it were, when he appeared to object to their treatment of me.”

  She was speechless. She could imagine how the earl expressed objection.

  Lavay smiled faintly at her expression. “Well, it’s not as though he cannot help it, you see. The…saving of things. I suspect it’s Captain Flint’s way of telling the world, ‘This is how it’s done.’”

  She wondered if it was also Flint’s way of showing the world, “This is how you could have saved me when I was a boy.”

  Breathing was strangely difficult as she thought about it. She did not particularly want to like the man whose raison d’être was capturing her brother Lyon, assuming Lyon was indeed Le Chat.

  And yet he’d come to the rescue of a man who’d been born with every privilege, who’d once mocked him. Because he’d been needed.

  Oh, Lyon, you fool. What a formidable enemy you have.

  “And…you began to serve the earl as a result of this rescue, Lord Lavay?”

  “Serve?” He quirked a brow, amused at the word. “Well, recall I’d been taken for all of my money. I do mean that I was in rather straightened circumstances. Doubtless my rescue wasn’t entirely altruistic on his part. He’s cleverer than that, Miss Redmond. He knew I was an accomplished sailor, fluent in many languages, would not embarrass myself in grand company and would indeed smooth the way for him, and would be trustworthy as I not only owed him my life. He decided he could make use of me. And of my conscience,” he added whimsically. “He gambled that I possessed one. And he was the only gambler who won that night in the gaming hell.

  “He gave me a position as first mate on his ship. When he carried letters of marque during the war, he was allowed to sell any ships captured on behalf of the English king and to share the proceeds with the crew. As first mate, my percentage has been impressive. I have earned my share. And I taught him to behave as a gentleman in exchange, opening doors of trade to him in every country.”

  She noticed the distinction, and she didn’t think it was an accident, for it was a snobbery she couldn’t help but share: “Behave as a gentleman.” For title or no, the Earl of Ardmay had been born a bastard. Not a true gentleman. He could never be one. He would always need to behave like one. His formal and flawless speech had hinted to her of this. It had nothing of, for example, Jonathan’s indolence or offhand slang. Jonathan’s birthright afforded him the luxury of carelessness. No one would mistake Jonathan, or any of her other brothers, for that matter, for anything other than the wealthy English gentlemen they were.

  Violet wondered how Lyon, if he were indeed Le Chat, had acquired a ship. Had he bought one, or captured one, like the earl and Lavay? But one would need to be aboard a ship in order to capture a ship.

  Where had Lyon been? Where had his journey taken him?

  “The earl said he�
�d taken command of his first ship at eighteen.”

  “Oh, that he did. He served Captain Moreheart admirably, but in truth, by the time he was grown he chafed under command; Moreheart knew this. When Flint led his first raid of a pirate ship and captured it at the behest of Moreheart, Moreheart allowed him to keep it. He became its commander. He is best in the solitude of leadership, anyhow. It is where he is most comfortable.”

  The solitude of leadership? She’d never thought of it in quite that way. But it made sense. She imagined all leaders felt a singular loneliness. The earl had been born into loneliness.

  But was it comfortable?

  She pictured him standing in that ballroom, the picture of elegance, larger than life, and still so subtly removed from everyone there.

  “But does it ever trouble you at all to serve below him in rank, given your title and ancestry?”

  Lavay shrugged, that pleasing one-shouldered shrug. “I suppose I do not think of it as such much of the time. It is a grand adventure, you see. If I am to serve anyone, I cannot think of whom I would rather serve. I owe him a debt, and when it is discharged, I will return to my estates in France, which are beautiful, Miss Redmond, very grand, very profitable. I’m certain you would look as lovely strolling about the grounds as you do strolling about the deck here.”

  She tipped her head back, biting back a smile, despite it all enjoying the novelty of being shamelessly, insincerely wooed by this charming Frenchman who clearly needed more money to support his land and had such faith in his charm that he didn’t care that she knew it.

  “No doubt I would,” she agreed placidly. Liking him anyway.

  He smiled at this, too. “I understand you are to accompany the earl and me into Le Havre when we arrive. You should know the earl has secured an invitation to a soiree held by the Comte and Comtesse Hebert, who are also friends of my family’s, and the comtesse is a particular old friend of the captain’s.”

  He said in such a way that Violet was immediately certain the comtesse knew the meaning of “work.”