I Kissed an Earl: Pennyroyal Green Series Read Online Free PDF

almost pitied him.
    “We shall find Le Chat, however,” Lavay told her. It was a deliciously certain, arrogant statement, calculated to return her attention to him.
    “How can you be so certain?”
    He hesitated. And then he smiled. The smile was a beautiful thing, polished and shapely and easy, probably the same smile his ancestors had smiled through centuries. But it was cold. In a way that reminded Violet of her father, who, by dint of birth and influence, knew there was nothing he couldn’t have, achieve, hide, if necessary.
    “I have never known Captain Flint to pursue a goal in vain. The Earl of Ardmay wants Le Chat alive or dead for many reasons. And what he wants he is very certain to get.”
    Did she detect a hint of irony in his words? Or did French-accented English simply consign one forever to sounding ironic?
    For many reasons.
    She felt that same prickle at the back of her neck, some hybrid of unease and thrill. She wanted to peel back the layers of meaning shrouding the phrase, unwrap it like a gift, like the cure for her boredom.
    And perhaps this was why the Gypsy girl had shouted “Lavay” to her. She found him appealing; she could not feel herself falling in love, however. Love seemed to come with extremes of behavior and loss of dignity, and in her family, disaster or grave compromises. Still, she’d never before encountered men quite like these. And yet they would be gone tomorrow.
    “Could Le Chat be in London this very minute?”
    “Ah, you’ve naught to fear, Miss Redmond. The Olivia isn’t docked here alongside our ship.”
    Forever after she understood what it meant when someone said “time stopped.”
    Because it did. Or at least stuttered.
    His words seemed to echo peculiarly in her brain. And at first she thought she’d misheard him. But then a cascade of facts and impressions came into speedy focus, as though she were falling toward them from a great height.
    That’s when shock blurred her vision. She stumbled; Lavay’s arm stiffened, balancing her, the awkward half step she’d taken never interrupted the smooth flow of the waltz.
    “Miss Redmond?” He was genuinely concerned. “Please forgive me. Perhaps we ought to speak of gentler things. One forgets, you know, when one is forever in the company of men, what a woman may prefer to discuss.”
    The poor man. He thought her constitution delicate.
    She looked up at him. She couldn’t feel her extremities. They’d gone numb. She rallied. “Your conversation has been the pleasure of my evening. I merely trod clumsily in my new slippers. But I fear I missed the name of Le Chat’s ship? It sounded intriguing.”
    A sick, thrilling portent flooded her as she awaited confirmation. The Gypsy girl shouting
    “Lavay!” echoed in her mind, and her ears rang from the beating of her heart, and considered the odd directions life could take, and what she ought to do next even before he spoke.
    “Naturally, as it’s the sort of thing that might interest a woman, for it is the name of a woman. It’s The Olivia, Miss Redmond. Perhaps it’s the name of the woman who did break his heart. Assuming he ever had one to break.”

    Already quivering with purpose, she exchanged bows and pleasantries with handsome Lord Lavay, who again expressed regret his stay should be so brief. And then Violet ran.
    Or nearly ran. She freed her ankles by tucking her dress up with her fingers, weaving between dancers and clots of giddy gossipers. A smile pasted to her face. Her slippers nearly skidding over marble.
    Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Lyon couldn’t be that stupid, could he?
    Or that…interesting?
    Where the devil was Jonathan? If he wasn’t dancing again—and a quick scan of the room told her he wasn’t—he would be near the punch bowl, or close to the garden windows so he could sneak out for a cigar or a tryst or to hop over the fence to go on to his club without Father knowing, and—
    She nearly crashed to a halt when she saw the back of him.