I Kissed an Earl: Pennyroyal Green Series (17 page)

Something as taken for granted as admiration had never before left her so breathless and unsteady.

She straightened her own spine, squaring her own shoulders, unconsciously mimicking him. It was as though she were finding her balance on the swaying deck of a ship. She gave him a short regal nod and a little smile and arched a brow. Pretending to accept his rapt attention as only her due.

He nodded once, smiling faintly, and turned away.

And thus she was reminded rather powerfully that he was nothing like the London bloods, refined dinner party notwithstanding, and that he was not a man to be trifled with under any circumstances.

Peals of adorable laughter sent the viscomtesse’s froth of blond ringlets bobbing, and she rested her hand, gloved in copper satin, on the earl’s arm. Violet stared at that hand as though it were a venomous spider. Naturally the earl turned to her, leaned his tall self solicitously down to her petite height.

And then the countess lifted her hand up again, and Lavay apparently said something equally mirth-inducing, and down came that hand again on the earl’s arm—not Lavay’s—as though laughter wracked her petite frame so violently she required the extra support. Violet fought the urge to roll her eyes, and took a step into the room from her place at the periphery.

“Oi, Mum!”

What on earth? Something was tugging at her from below.

Down around her hip Violet found a boy of about five or eight years old or thereabouts

—Violet was never certain about ages when it came to young children—gripping her skirt. Reflexively, she gently extricated his hand. Children were invariably sticky, particularly boys, and this one didn’t look at all clean. His hair stood out in greasy spikes and there was dirt on his knees.

Where on earth had he come from?

“Ought you to be downstairs among the adults, young man? Does your nurse know you’re not in bed?”

Interesting how easily lecturing came to her. Then, goodness knows she’d heard enough lectures in her day.

He held in his hand a sheet of foolscap. “Mum! I waited fer ye. I’ve pictures for you, Mum.”

“Er…Pictures?” He’d waited for her?

Baffled, Violet looked about for rescue; saw no one who appeared to be a parent or a nurse. And the boy stared up at her so pleadingly, with such huge eyes, from such a seeming distance, that she found herself kneeling awkwardly to make herself closer to his size. Should she hold out her hand for him to sniff? What did one do with children?

He somberly pushed a sheet of foolscap at her.

She dutifully took it and looked at it, feeling foolish. At first glance, it appeared as though he’d been practicing his alphabet and drawing barnyard animals. He’d scrawled a few letters on it along with a picture of…was that a cow?

He twisted a finger in one nostril.

She looked up from the foolscap and frowned at him. The twisting stopped. What did one say to children? She’d cousins all over England, and a number of them were filling up their homes with broods, but their visits to the Redmond household were rare. Something praiseful would do, no doubt.

“Did you…draw these for me? Oh look! That’s a lovely cow! And is that a—”

“Ack!” the boy cried suddenly and darted off like a rabbit.

Well, then. Apparently she was a frightener of children.

She stood, feeling a bit abashed. Perhaps it wasn’t a cow, and she’d insulted him inadvertently. Children were fickle creatures.

She glanced again at the souvenir sheet foolscap he’d left her with, holding it gingerly with two fingers, considering what he’d been doing with his own fingers. But then her glance became a stare.

The random letters on the page were…astonishingly confidently formed. Eerily so. There was an R and U. Was the boy’s name Rupert? Perhaps he’d lost interest in spelling his name in favor of an overwhelming urge to draw the cow? For in front of the R and U was…

Wait. Was that a cow?

She frowned as she stared at it, then absently rubbed the frown lines smooth from her forehead.

And then the hair prickled at the back of her neck.

It wasn’t a cow. Or a bull.

It was…the devil.

As a matter of fact, a very good rendering of Beelzebub’s head. He sported a sneer and two grand horns.

Unsettling, to say the least. She looked about nervously for the child and was relieved to see it had all but disappeared. She glanced up; the earl and Comte Hebert were deep in conversation. She wondered if the rest of the drawings would prove similarly sinister. But a collection of barnyard animals did feature. The thing she’d thought was a cloud was in fact a sheep, looking like a fluffy cumulus with legs; a great fan of eyelashes decorating its dreamy eyes. Clearly meant to be a girl sheep, then. Below the sheep was an excellent pig, very fat with a tail like a spring and perched on hooves as sharp and neat as W’s. Next to the pig was a long narrow stem or stalk of some manner of plant…

Realization slammed her breathless.

That pig…was standing next to a thistle.

It was a Pig Thistle.

Goose flesh raced over her limbs. Her hands turned icy, then hot, then icy. She carefully raised her head, as though balancing one of the viscomte’s precious urns upon it, then with what she hoped would pass for nonchalance scanned the room. Nobody new had entered it. Nobody had departed it. Viscomtesse Hebert placed her hand on the earl’s arm and laughed her cascading bell-like actressy laugh yet again. For the first time this evening she didn’t mind. Everyone was still chatting. She heard no distinct words; the guests might well have been a hive of bees buzzing.

Her hand was shaking now. She supported it with her other hand to stop the sheet from rattling. Then she gulped in the images with disbelieving eyes, willed her wits to realign, and rapidly…began to decode.

The first drawing was what looked like a teardrop or perhaps a water droplet, followed by a line—the symbol for subtraction, perhaps?—and the letters E and R. Then came the leering little devil face, then the R and the U. They were followed by the letter D, which was joined to that picture of a sheep—a ewe—by a plus symbol, and another plus symbol joined them with and the letters ING. Then there was an H, a plus sign, and…for heaven’s sake, was that a seashell? A slice of potato?

And then she had it: It was an ear.

What the devil are you doing here? she finally deciphered.

A rush of pleasure, brilliant as a gulp of sunlight suffused her. Oh, very affectionate, Lyon.

Another R and a U were followed by a drawing of a little well. Very like the one she’d threatened to cast herself down when she’d argued with a suitor. Are you well?

And below this was the little Pig Thistle.

But why? Was mentioning the beloved ancient Pennyroyal Green pub just his way of ensuring the message would make its sender unmistakable?

She exhaled, which is when she realized she’d been holding her breath, and when she’d discovered that the invisible anvil she hadn’t known was riding on her chest since Lyon’s disappearance was gone. The next breath she took left her nearly airborne with an untenable, sun-bright happiness. Her eyes burned with a veritable conflagration of emotions. The world still contained Lyon. Ha! She’d been right!

It still didn’t prove that he was either Mr. Hardesty or Le Chat. That surge of sun-bright happiness was followed by an equally powerful surge of fury. Bloody man! What was he about? What the devil was she doing here? What the devil was he doing here? He was in danger, from the man who’d undressed her with his eyes moments before and whose arm was being felt again and again by a viscomtesse.

And clever, wasn’t Lyon, to send a childish code in the hands of a child. Brilliant, really. Where was he?

She peered anxiously in the direction the child had dashed. Down a hall, vanishing deeper into the house, perhaps into the kitchen? He wasn’t a clean child. Perhaps he’d been recruited from the street and somehow found his way into the house proper. Cheeky and bold. What now was she supposed to do?

She nervously glanced down again. At the very bottom of the note were two more letters: Y

and N. Then a drawing of a leaf—it appeared to be an oak leaf, but she wasn’t certain whether that mattered—then a tiny drawing of a bed with an arrow pointing beneath it, and a flower—a violet—drawn on top of it.

Violet—that would be her, she guessed. So she was to choose an answer regarding whether or not she was well—a Y or N—and leaf it under her bed.

She was tempted to laugh, if it wasn’t all so deadly serious.

Lyon was certainly putting a lot of stock in her intelligence and forgiveness at the moment, given that she wasn’t known for her scholarly impulses or selflessness, particularly. She wasn’t certain whether to destroy the foolscap immediately, but impulse made her speedily fold it in as many neat squares as the sheet would allow and tuck it deep into her bodice.

And the earl, with his knack for knowing precisely when she was looking at him, glanced at her just as she was sliding her fingers out from between her breasts. She froze in that unfortunate position.

And because he was a man, his gaze froze right where her fingers were; his pupils flared interestedly. But it only took a moment for his gaze to fly from her bosom to her face, because he was also hopelessly clever.

And he clearly saw something interesting in her expression.

He went very still again. He contemplated her thoughtfully.

The longer she held his gaze the more suspicious she would seem. Bloody hell. She couldn’t very well turn her bosom finger-dive into a full-on scratch. Her gloved fingers remained in that absurdly provocative position.

She finally pretended to adjust a necklace that wasn’t there, while silently screaming Touch his arm again! at the petulant viscomtesse.

Destiny favored her.

That small hand came up again, tapped the earl flirtatiously on his forearm, and for the first time this evening Violet wasn’t peculiarly tempted to bite off the woman’s fingers when the earl was forced to turn his attention to her once again.

Violet turned, hoping to find the stairs and dart after the mysterious child through the kitchen just as the strains of an orchestra started up.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw elbows lift bows to cellos and violins; the first bars of the waltz lilted forth. She committed to taking one step out of the room. Oh God. The stairs seemed acres away. Across a noisy expanse of slippery marble. From where she stood they seemed endless, insurmountable, like something out of a feverish nightmare. Her heart pounded with pugilistic ferocity.

She turned around to glance back into the room. Blocking her vision of everything else was a startlingly white cravat and crisp linen shirt.

Inside them, of course, was the earl.

How had he moved so quickly? She supposed it was helpful to possess seven-league legs. And then she realized she was in essence under surveillance for as long as she was here. He’d appeared to be talking to the viscomtesse, absorbed in the group. Likely he hadn’t missed a thing.

She wondered just what he’d actually seen and how much.

So much for destiny.

She looked slowly up. His eyes bored into hers, and his hand was outstretched, and he was prepared to escort her—like a prisoner?—into the dancing. His expression brooked no argument.

“I do enjoy the waltz, Miss Redmond. It affords one the opportunity for private conversation in the midst of company. I would be honored if you would join me in this one.”

She knew it wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.

In mocking contrast to his uncompromising expression, the music loped sweetly along. She recognized Mozart. The “Sussex Waltz.” Somehow this seemed significant. What could she do but take his hand? And hope he didn’t feel that rapid tick of her pulse in her wrist.

Chapter 11

I t was difficult, however, and she certainly tried, to continue to feel like a resentful prisoner, when dancing with him felt like soaring. She recalled this now: he seemed to bear the weight for both of them. Again she was torn between surrendering and resisting, and because her nature was simply to rebel, she did try. But exchanging glances from across the room was one thing. She’d forgotten how potent it was to have the entirety of his attention in such close proximity while he was in fact touching her, and how much nerve it took simply to withstand it without incinerating.

And then she sniffed surreptitiously to answer her question. His own soap.

“Your dress is beautiful, Miss Redmond.”

It was such an ambush of a compliment she nearly stumbled.

“Thank you,” was the clever response she finally managed.

“But it seems to itch.”

The devil!

“It’s silk. It doesn’t itch,” she said shortly.

He was smiling slightly at her, but his smile wasn’t entirely pleasant. He was enjoying her discomfiture, and was clearly simply getting warmed up when it came to cornering her into some kind of confession.

“My mistake. Perhaps you simply have caught a good case of insects on the ship and that’s why your fingers were in your bodice. Crawling things abound on ships.”

“So I’ve been instructed. But I am not infested with crawling things, thank you. However attractive crawling things might find the vole hole,” she said stiffly. But she felt that folded square of foolscap as surely as if it were a second heart beating right over her own.

Damn. His eyes lit upon on her bosom and lingered for a speculative, caressing second. It was like a match touched to her skin.

Two hot spots kindled high on her cheekbones.

He brought his eyes slowly up again, with obvious reluctance. Something about his speculative expression unnerved her. He was picturing things, carnal things beyond her experience, and they involved her.

I can take you whenever I please, Miss Redmond.

It was a moment before he spoke again. His own composure, then, was not made of steel.

“How do you know for certain you’re not infested, Miss Redmond? Are you certain you don’t need to be scratched anywhere in particular?”

His mouth was somber, the tone solicitous. His eyes were glinting now.