I Kissed an Earl: Pennyroyal Green Series by Julie Anne Long Read Free Book Online Page A

Green, and with whom it was said he was raising sheep and cows and the like. His brother Chase, who used to drink all night in the Pig Thistle, occasionally even alone, was said to be marrying next. A very sudden thing, too, Chase Eversea’s engagement. He’d sent to Pennyroyal Green from London a boy named Liam Plum and his sister, Meggie, who now worked in the Pig Thistle.
    But yet another Eversea, Olivia, had driven Lyon away. And of all the secrets and grudges that bound the Everseas and Redmonds throughout the ages, some of which Violet knew of, others which were only intimated, some of which she was certain she would only learn when her parents were on their deathbeds, this one was the newest cut and perhaps the deepest. Colin lived happily; the Redmonds lived on, dignity, fortune, influence intact, but their family had been torn asunder. Like a mouth with a critical tooth punched out of it, everyone had slowly begun to lean and move in cockeyed directions and Violet felt more and more unmoored. And as for Olivia Eversea, she seemed in no danger of marrying soon. She could marry herself to her causes, Violet thought bitterly.
    Well, the Everseas may have the luck of the devil; the Redmonds were left to make their own luck, Violet decided. Her father, she suspected, often bought luck. She was about to make a little luck of her own. And as she had told Jonathan earlier, things just…happened. She couldn’t leave it. She didn’t know what would happen next, or precisely how she would go about achieving what she’d just decided to do. She only knew she had no choice.
    There was a whisper behind her. “I’ve brought the trunk down you ordered packed and called a hack as you requested, Miss Violet.”
    She turned to the footman. “Thank you, Maurice.”
    “Do enjoy your stay with Lady Peregrine in Northumberland. A fortnight is it, miss? The house party?”
    “Yes. A fortnight. Thank you, Maurice. I expect I shall enjoy it.”
    She pulled her cloak tightly about her and turned away from the window. She’d told Maurice she was leaving for Lady Peregrine’s house party at dawn in order to meet up with another friend at a coaching inn en route.
    She knew a twinge of regret at leaving Jonathan behind, and knew her family would suffer torments when—if—word reached them that she wasn’t in Northumberland at all. But she knew in her bones she would return triumphant.

    One ship looked very like another to her, with their great masts and sails furled, massive chains tumbling down from the ships to anchor them in the water like restive beasts. Huge, hulking, intimidating when viewed from this distance. The water, black beneath the night sky and calm in the weather, lapped and slurped at the dock. It stank of sea and wood and tar; the air was cold, and she pulled her cloak more tightly around her as a fetid breeze tugged at her clothes.
    “Are you certain this is where ye’d like to be put down, miss?” Uncharacteristic, if perhaps understandable, concern from the hack driver.
    “Very kind of you to question my destination, sir, but yes.” It was her most glacially imperious tone. “But if you would kindly wait for a time? If I do return to the hack and ask you to take me back to St. James Square, I will double your fare. And if you agree to wait until I…depart…I’ll pay you an extra pound now.”
    “One pound, miss?” It was a fortune for a hackney driver.
    “Yes,” she said. Her heart began to tick more rapidly. For luck, she crossed her fingers in the fold of her cloak she gripped.
    He sighed happily, uncorked a flask, and slumped back in his seat to wait. Entirely blasé. Doubtless he saw all manner of behavior from the aristocracy at this time of the morning. The horses snorted and pawed the ground, then apparently resigned themselves to not moving. She paid a dockworker to row a launch out to The Fortuna with her request. And waited, head tipped back to watch clouds perform the Dance of the Seven