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

Veils with a blue-white half-moon.
    Within a few minutes the launch came rowing back, and a round, short-legged man in sturdy boots, a cap pulled down tight over his large head, a limp neck cloth tied about his neck in the manner of all sailors disembarked. His face was so pale it nearly glowed in the moonlight.
    “Mr. Rathskill, I presume?”
    “Aye,” he said slowly, suspiciously.
    “Five pounds if you take me aboard The Fortuna.”
    “Ye’d…like me to take ye aboard The Fortuna.”
    “Yes,” she said impatiently.
    He stared at Violet as if she were a ghost or a fairy. And then he apparently came to some sort of conclusion.
    “Begging yer pardon, miss, but the crew they take their pleasure at The Velvet Glove. And t’aint a man among ’em who’ll pay five pounds for a bit o’ muslin, fine though she might be. And that include me, miss. Flattered ye thought to ask fer me, ’owever.”
    Good God. Violet’s head swam. It was rather a lot of information to take in all at once, particularly picturing the crew cavorting at The Velvet Glove, whatever in God’s name that might be, and she’d never before considered how much the company of such a woman might cost a man for the evening.
    Interesting to know that a woman could be gotten for fewer than five pounds, however.
    “I am not a prostitute, Mr. Rathskill.” The word felt foreign and lumpen in her mouth; had any Redmond woman ever uttered it aloud over the centuries? “I mean to say that I will give you five pounds if you allow me to take your place on the ship, as I know you’re unhappy aboard it.”
    This was sheer bloody bravado on her part and a very good guess. She crossed her fingers. He gaped, eyes wide and white. And then gave a nervous little laugh. “’Ave yer been dared, then, madam? Did Greeber or Corcoran put ye up to it? The captain, e’ll ’ave me run the gauntlet! Strip the flesh from me bones, they will.”
    “’E will? I mean, he will?” Barbaric!
    “Aye. And worse,” he said glumly.
    What could be worse than having flesh stripped from one’s bones? She didn’t ask; she didn’t have time to listen to a litany of gory nautical punishments.
    “But if you weren’t aboard, this couldn’t happen, now could it? I heard a rumor you weren’t entirely happy with your position here, Mr. Rathskill, and I had a conversation with the captain that leads me to believe that your fate will not be an entirely easy one, regardless. I am quite serious about my proposition.” She crossed her fingers again against the lie. “You don’t want to be aboard The Fortuna. I do want to be aboard.”
    He was instantly and rather touchingly alarmed. “Oh, I dinna think this is true, miss, whether or no the captain an’ I are overfond o’ each other, and I assure ye, we are not. ’Ave yer ever been aboard a ship?”
    The never having been aboard a ship was rather the point of this adventure, so she ignored this. But the longer this conversation continued, the greater their risk of being interrupted or caught in conversation with Mr. Rathskill. The earl had said he’d return at dawn, but anything could result in his earlier return.
    “He’s not aboard now, is he?” she asked carefully. “The earl?”
    “Nay. Hasna returned.”
    “Give your quarters to me. I shall pay you to abandon your post. Five pounds.”
    He stared at her. “But…yer a woman.”
    “You have eyes.”
    He sucked his bottom lip noisily in thought, studying her shrewdly. “Well, seeing as ’ow ye’d like this so much, I might ask for a bit more of what a woman can gives me, if ye take me meaning.”
    “I take your meaning, and you might ask for your throat to be slit by one of my brothers if you do trouble to ask for that sort of thing.”
    “Where’s yer brothers now, miss?”
    “Within earshot. In the hack.”
    The driver coughed messily.
    “I dinna believe you.”
    “Test me. I excel at screaming. And kicking.”
    “Life is cheap, ’ere in London.” He’d