The Heart of an Earl (A Box of Draupnir Novel Book 1)

by K. J. Jackson

  “I did. I’m hoping if my hair can rest unplaited the crimps in it will loosen.” She grabbed the whole bundle of her hanging hair, twisting the auburn locks together and dragging them forward over her left shoulder. “It’s what I’ve been doing for the last four hours as I couldn’t sleep. It was time to let them go.”

  He nodded and his fingers lifted, touching a rogue strand that had curled along her right cheek. “Yet you cut some of it, here around your face.”

  Her hand went up to touch the lock and she tucked it behind her ear. It fell loose almost instantly, cut too short. “I did. How did you notice?”

  His hazel eyes swept about her head, a curious quirk to his mouth. “I’ve been staring at those braids about your face for two weeks now. I know how long they are. Why did you cut it?”

  Her lips drew inward, the tips of her front teeth biting hard onto her skin as her look flew out to the darkness of the sea. The tiniest bit of moonlight flickered on far-off crests of swells. Her chin dropped, her look going to her hands on the railing. “For him. For the death of him.”

  The words so soft, she could barely hear her own voice.

  Yet it was loud enough.

  Des went deathly still, his voice laced with barely controlled malice. “Redthorn?”

  She nodded, her eyes still downcast. “Aye. It was his way. For as cruel as he was, for all those he sent to the otherworld—he had an odd heart. For every death of a crewman, he’d lose a braid. He loved each of them when he wasn’t being cruel to them. He was always crazy—a complicated paradox like that. More so as the years went on and his obsession grew.”

  “Obsession?”

  Damn her mouth.

  Jules shrugged and reached up to touch the ends of the hair determined to curl about her cheeks. “I owed this to him.”

  “He deserved that?” The twinge of hostility was now unmistakable in Des’s rumbling voice.

  She looked to her right, studying Des. Studying the hard set of his jaw. Studying the twitch of the vein just above his left eye. Anger. Tightly held anger.

  But that was nothing new.

  Everyone had always hated her husband. She couldn’t fault Des’s reaction. Redthorn deserved every ounce of hate directed at him.

  Jules looked away, a heavy sigh leaving her lips as she stared at the faintest line across the horizon where the sky met the sea.

  “He—Redthorn—he loved me. As much as a ruthless man like that can love.” Her head shook slightly. “For all his brutality. For all the people he killed. He never once lifted a finger against me.”

  “He never—”

  “No.” Her eyes closed for a long breath, then opened, locked on the night sky. “It’s hard to explain it—even harder to fathom it. But he never struck me. Never caused me any physical pain. It took me six months to understand that. A year to trust it. He was never going to hurt me. Yes, he enjoyed threatening me—at least in those first months—but I never received the slightest scratch from him. And he ensured none of his men would touch me.”

  “So you married the bastard because he managed to keep the cut of his rings away from your face?”

  Her look went to him, her glare slicing him through. “I don’t know what would have happened if I had refused to marry him. I wasn’t about to take that chance. It was eighteen months after I had boarded the Red Dragon. Eighteen months and then I married him. I wanted to survive at any cost and I didn’t know how much longer it would be before I fell out of his favor.”

  Des seethed in a breath, tethering his fury. “Aye. Of course. My apologies. You did what you had to in order to survive. I understand that.”

  “Thank you.” The words stiff from her mouth, she watched the cut of the waves as they met the side of the ship.

  Silence fell on them, heavy for long minutes.

  “Tell me about the box, Jules.”

  Her gaze didn’t leave the water. “Why do you insist that there is a box?”

  “Because there is.”

  “Whatever you think you saw, Des, you were mistaken.” She looked to him, her eyes meeting his straight on. “There is no box. Just me and me alone that came off that ship.”

  He nodded, his eyes narrowing slightly at her. “As you say.”

  “I do.”

  She shifted her head forward, her stare on the swells of the sea. “With my time at sea—even though it was forced upon me—it is odd how it has become a part of me—the waves. I never thought much of the sea one way or another until I was on it, unable to escape. I would watch it in those early days on the Red Dragon, drowning in the pity I had put upon myself. It was so tempting—alluring—the possibility of just stepping over the railing and letting the sea take me.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. I wanted to make Redthorn pay in those days. Lived to someday see him die a horrible death. Which is exactly what happened, though not by my hand.” A cringe tightened her face. “The yellow fever ate away at his body from the inside.”

  “That was what kept your feet firmly on deck? Revenge? For a highborn lady, hoping for another’s death seems a bit extreme.”

  “Just because I’m a highborn lady doesn’t mean I am not a blood-thirsty one when the situation dictates.”

  Des nodded. “Making the dregs of the sea pay for their sins is what has kept me on a ship this long. Though I could do without the blood part of it all.”

  She laughed. “Your distaste for blood?”

  He nodded, a crooked smile on his face. “Vengeance can be hard when one has an aversion to blood.”

  She turned fully toward him, her left hand remaining on the railing. “Tell me, is it more a revulsion of your own blood, or is it worse on other people?”

  “Both. All of it.” His eyebrow cocked. “Is that an answer?”

  “It can be whatever you want it to be.”

  He chuckled and stood straight, his chest swiveling toward her. “I do like your hair out of the braids, Jules. It makes you look…lighter…not as rigid.”

  She grinned, her eyebrows lifting. “I’m rigid?”

  “One of the most rigid women I’ve ever met. The suspicion in your eyes around everyone is hard to watch sometimes, though you’ve come by it naturally. But it seems to be waning.”

  “I think I have you to thank for that.”

  His hand lifted, his forefinger snatching a wisp of hair by her temple and twirling it around the digit. “You have yourself to thank. You were the one that survived the last six years, and with your spirit intact.”

  “Enough of it, anyway.”

  “More than enough.” His hazel eyes met hers, the depths in them vibrating in the shadows of the night.

  She felt it. The pang deep in her stomach, dropping to her core. Sending her body to tingle, her muscles to coil in anticipation.

  “I do believe I want to kiss you, Lady Julianna.”

  A soft smile came to her face. She hadn’t been addressed as that in so long. So very long. That was what she liked so much about Des. He was a link to her past—a beacon of light to everything she’d once held dear, to everything she once was.

  He made her remember.

  For everything he’d been to her on this ship, for how much she liked when his hazel eyes were intent on her, his low voice wrapping around her insides, making them tremble—she wanted that as well. Wanted his lips on hers. Wanted it just as much as he did. Maybe more.

  She met his stare, the tip of her tongue wetting her lips. “I am quite certain I wouldn’t mind that in the slightest.”

  He leaned down before her words were finished, his warm lips meeting her cool ones. His hand that had just teased a wisp of her hair dropped, sliding along her jaw, slipping into the hair at the base of her neck. She leaned into him instinctively, her right hand finding his chest, her palm slipping upward along his coat until it lifted, curling into the dip where his neck met his shoulder.

  Tilting her head, he deepened the kiss, the heat of his breath on her skin, and
he parted her lips, his tongue dipping, exploring. It set her nerves on fire, a direct line to her core.

  Awakening the very heart of her.

  Too much. Too much like Redthorn.

  The base instinct that had parted her legs to her husband, fanned alive by one simple kiss from this man.

  It couldn’t be the same. It couldn’t.

  She’d thought she could forget all of that. Everything she’d done with Redthorn. But not when Des’s kiss set the wicked longing deep into her loins. Fire. Fire she couldn’t control.

  No.

  She yanked her head away from his, her breath panting, panic rising in her chest.

  Des instantly pulled away, taking a step backward. “I apologize, I didn’t mean—”

  “No—it was right—I wanted—” Her left hand flew up to stop his words while her right fingers landed in front of her mouth, trying to quell the feel of him on her lips. “But…but…”

  Des pulled himself to his full height, shifting his hands behind his back. “I’ll sleep on deck tonight.”

  The thought that he didn’t have to do that, that she could sleep on the deck, find a corner to hide in, sat in her throat, unable to manifest into words.

  Without a nod, without a word, she turned from him and scurried to his cabin.

  What the hell had she just done?

  To him?

  To herself?

  { Chapter 9 }

  Jules stood on the forecastle deck, far forward and out of the way of the men hustling about. Full sails billowed high above her. White clouds of wind that took up everything in sight.

  She leaned back against the railing, a pang in her heart as she watched a man climb up the rigging of the foremast. The crew wouldn’t let her help with anything.

  She could haul ropes, climb rigging with the best of sailors. She’d done it for years on the Red Dragon, once Redthorn had finally permitted—needed—her help after they hit a wicked storm just after they’d parted with half the crew that moved on to commandeer a felled ship.

  Ever since that time, she had been an equal part of the Red Dragon crew, and it had at least filled her days with something other than staring at the endless sea.

  Not like on the Firehawk. She was expected to do nothing. Asked to do nothing. Even though she’d offered her services to almost every deckhand on board.

  Hauling a crate past her, one of the crew—a smaller man, wiry, but still a head taller than her—slowed his steps. He glanced at her, then looked to the wall of sails to his left. His look shifted back to her. Bart—or Jason—or Jared—she couldn’t rightly recall how he was introduced to her several weeks ago.

  The man’s feet stopped. “We’re hauling up crates to rotate out the older sacks of grain for cook.” He nodded with his head toward the full sail behind him. “Most are busy with the wind right now, so if ye’d like to help, it’d be welcome.”

  A smile lifted her face. Finally. Something to do. “I would be happy to help. I’ve told Des that very thing again and again, but every time he pretends he doesn’t hear me.”

  Bart—she was sure his name was Bart—laughed, his gold left front tooth flashing in the sunlight. “Des does like to control things—especially things under his power.” He moved to stack the crate on top of the one already on deck. “Come, I’ll show ye where we’re pulling them from.”

  Jules followed Bart off the forecastle deck, and then down the labyrinth of steps and ladders to the ship’s stores. Crates were stacked high, barrels and sacks in rows behind them in the small storage area.

  Jules pointed. “Those are the sacks we need to get to?” She could see where maneuvering them out would be hard without hauling several rows of the crates out of the storage area. “And these are the ones we’re moving?” She stepped to the crates in front of her, her fingers tapping on the rough wood covering.

  “Or ye could just stay still for a moment.”

  Her brow furrowed and she spun back to him just as he advanced on her, grabbing her and shoving her backward into a stack of crates. “Tis not fair Des thinks to keep ye for himself when there is plenty of ye to go around.”

  Her hand went lightning quick to the dagger she kept on the outside of her right boot and she had the tip of it pressed into his neck before she could even draw a breath to scream.

  Survival first, screaming second.

  Her look skewered him. “There is none of me to go around. Do not mistake my presence on this ship for one of a whore, sir.”

  His fingers tightened on her shoulders.

  Her lip curled and she dug the tip of the dagger into his skin. “Don’t make me use this on ye, ye lily-livered whoremonger.”

  “Jules—shit—drop the blade.” Des appeared, jumping onto the floorboards from the stairs and running to them, rage in his voice. “What the hell are you doing to her, Bart? What in the blasted Hades is this?”

  Bart’s hands released her, lifting alongside his head. “Just a chat we be havin’, Des. Just a chat and the harpy pulled a blade on me.”

  “Shit—drop the dagger, Jules. Drop it.” He jumped to her, his hand grabbing her wrist and pushing it down.

  Bart turned from them, a smirk on his face. “Ye see that, Murray, Pad?”

  Two of the men that had followed Des down into the ship’s stores looked to Des, then to Bart.

  Eyes wide, solemn, both looked like they had just seen something they wished they hadn’t.

  “Ye seen it, boys,” Bart said again, the smirk on his face growing wider.

  Murray seethed a sigh, shaking his head. “Aye, we seen it.”

  “Get the captain, then,” Bart said, flicking his head upward, and he followed the two up the stairs to the main deck.

  Her heart still hammering in her chest, Jules looked to Des. “What did they see?”

  Des shook his head, his grip on her wrist clenching, sending pain along her bones. So much so, she thought the bones might snap. The dagger dropped from her hand.

  Her voice lifting, panicked, she tried to shake her wrist free of his grasp. “What did they just see, Des?”

  The line of his jaw had gone rigid and his mouth pulled into a furious line, his eyes avoiding her, his stare on the steep stairs leading up to the main deck. “He was trying to attack you, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, but I know how to protect myself, Des. I didn’t survive on the Red Dragon without learning how to wield a blade.”

  “Come. We need to get up there—try to intercede.” He stalked across the storage room, dragging her with him.

  Up the stairs and ladders, and Des grabbed her wrist the second she stepped foot onto the main deck, tugging her toward the quarterdeck.

  Captain Folback was standing before the entrance to the cabins and captain’s quarters, surrounded by Bart and Murray and Pad.

  Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good.

  The group of them parted as Des and Jules approached.

  Des didn’t slow as he approached the group, stalking into the circle and setting himself in front of Captain Folback.

  “The bastard was attacking her.” His voice thunder, Des yanked Jules forward to his side, sending her shoulder bumping into Murray.

  Captain Folback’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Des. “Attacked or not, ye know the rule. The first rule.”

  Jules’s forehead wrinkled. “Rule? What ru—”

  Des jerked on her wrist, cutting her words. “She doesn’t know the rule.”

  “Then ye should have told her, Des.”

  “What rule?” Her voice screeched out the words, refusing to be silenced by Des.

  Captain Folback’s gaze swung to her. “I told him to watch ye, ye harpy.” He shook his head. “A shame it is, that hair of yers, that face, that body. A shame.”

  Des looked down at her. “A blade goes higher than your waist, and you are overboard. Done on this ship. The first rule.”

  Her jaw dropped. “A blade goes…” Her look flew to the captain and then back to Des. “Your
waist, my waist—whose waist? That’s ridiculous. How—how am I supposed to protect myself?”

  Her feet moved and she started to back up, pulling herself out of the circle. Des yanked her forward, her body slamming into his side.

  Des took a step closer to Captain Folback, his gaze steel. “She didn’t know the rule and she was being attacked, Captain Folback. What was she to do?”

  “She shouldn’t have been down in the storage room by herself, Des,” Captain Folback said. “Yer responsibility.”

  “Down in the storage room?” Her finger flung out, pointing at Bart. “But he asked—he asked for my help.”

  “I did no such thing, Cap’n,” Bart said. “Why would I ask wee bones like that for help? She was down there, waiting fer me amongst the crates.”

  “Was she?” Captain Folback asked.

  “No.” Jules spit out.

  “Aye, she was.” Bart hooked his thumbs into the top band of his trousers and rocked back on his heels, a smarmy grin on his face.

  Captain Folback’s palm rubbed against the beard off the tip of his chin, his fingers scratching deep into the red and grey whiskers alongside his jaw.

  His look shifted to Des and he stared at him for a long breath. “Overboard appears that it may be misplaced in this situation.”

  “Aye, thank you, captain.” Des inclined his head.

  Captain Folback’s hand flew up, stopping Des before he could say anything else. He stared at Des, his hand falling to his side, his voice hard. “But the action cannot go unpunished. It’ll be five lashes.”

  “I’ll take them in her stead.” Des’s words cut off the gasp in Jules’s throat.

  Captain Folback’s left wiry eyebrow lifted. “Ye sure on that, Des?”

  “Aye.”

  Captain Folback gave a slight nod. His look shifted to Jules. “And the second part of the punishment—Bart will have his boots shined by the lass.” His look flickered to Des. “And there’ll be no doing it in her stead, Des.”

  An exhale left her lungs.