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

by K. J. Jackson

  Her hand fell to her side and her eyes closed, her head shaking. “And home ruined me—ruined us.”

  “Aye. That it did.”

  Her eyes opened, her gaze centering on him. “Where were you, Des? You were shot but what happened? You couldn’t send word? You were supposed to come back for me—you swore you’d be back. And the next day passed and then another and another and I didn’t lose hope. I refused to give up on you—little good that did me.”

  “Your father had me shot in the back as I left his estate. Shot and dumped in the river.”

  “What?”

  He nodded. “An elderly man fished me out of the water and his wife kept me alive—Ned and Jean Plinton—the both of them kind to their cores. After I could hold myself up again the very first thing I did was come back for you—but it was four weeks later. Your father apologized and told me you were dead—that’s when he showed me the grave. He was the epitome of a grieving father.”

  “Four weeks? But that was when I was gone, searching for you. I went to Portsmouth.” Her hand went to her forehead and she exhaled a growl, her look going to the dark sky above. “My father has the blackest heart.”

  “Aye. That he does.” Des’s voice had notched down to calm and his hazel eyes watched her, the moonlight sparking blue specks in his irises. “Do you still live at Gatlong Hall?”

  “No. I have been quite content as a spinster living with my aunt on the Isle of Wight at her home. I’ve been with my Aunt Eliana since…” Her throat closed and she choked on her words.

  “Since when?”

  A rumble of frustration ripped through her throat. “Since you died. Since my father had you killed. He admitted as much. I left the same day he told me and I’ve never been back. My mother died years ago, so there was nothing for me there—not in that life. Not anymore.”

  Des stilled, his look intent on her. “Jules—your mother died? When? How?”

  “Two years after I was taken onto the Red Dragon. Father said she died of consumption. Mr. Charles and my aunt both said it was a broken heart—she just didn’t want to live anymore.” Tears filled her eyes, blurring her vision.

  “Because she lost you?”

  She nodded, unable to force any words past her ragged throat.

  Des moved to her, grabbing her, letting no more space eat up the distance between them. He wrapped his arms about her, pulling her solidly into his chest. Into the warmth of him.

  His head bowed, his words low next to her ear. “I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there to hold you. I would have given anything to be there for you.”

  A coarse chuckle came to her throat. “You died for me. That was more than enough.”

  “No. I never should have believed your father. I never could have imagined he was that kind of a man—to leverage your gravesite like that—claim you were dead.”

  Her head curled down, her brow resting on the divot lining the middle of his chest. “He is. He has been mad ever since the box—ever since he heard of it, ever since he first went after it.”

  Des’s hold tightened on her. “Come back with me to Wolfbridge. There are people I need you to meet. But if you would rather go to Lady Hewton’s estate, I’ll take you there.” He leaned back and looked down at her, waiting until she looked up at his eyes. “But Lady Hewton will have to accept the fact that she has an additional guest in her house—for either to her home or Wolfbridge, I’m not going to be leaving your side.”

  A laugh bubbled up from low in her chest. “Fine. To Wolfbridge it is. And Des…”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you too.”

  { Chapter 25 }

  Des tugged Jules into his chamber, ignoring the sudden dragging of her feet. It wasn’t until she dug her heels into the floorboards and fully stopped that he paused and looked over his shoulder at her.

  Her breath held, stuck in the hallway, she looked back and forth along the empty corridor.

  Most of the other guests staying in the north side of the castle had retired hours ago, while she and Des and the duke and duchess had stayed awake until well after dawn in the private solarium just off the duchess’s chambers. Des had introduced her to his daughter, though Vicky had soon feigned sleepiness with exaggerated yawns and excused herself. She’d been more than warm and polite to Jules, but her eyes were still daggers aimed at Des every chance she got.

  Jules didn’t envy the road ahead Des would have with his daughter. The road they would have with her, for Jules would do everything in her power to heal the jagged wounds between the two.

  After Vicky had retired, it had become known that Jules had lived on a pirate ship and there were questions—as there always were.

  Questions that would twist her belly into a heavy ball and send her mind searching for answers that were politely ambiguous. Questions that Des had extracted her from answering with ease. To their credit, the duke and duchess quickly read Des’s motives and pressed the conversation onto more benign topics—such as their own unconventional meeting and the duchess’s aptitude for climbing walls.

  Jules was still hesitant to talk about her past—even with her aunt she'd only shared snippets of what she’d lived through. She had set herself firmly into the life of a respectable spinster, pretending that the past had never existed. That she wasn't the person she'd become on the Red Dragon.

  It had been easier that way. Denying the past.

  Though she knew, deep in her bones, she would always be different from the other ladies surrounding her. She would always jump at the sound of a blade hitting a blade. If her hand merely brushed against a rope similar to the ones on the Red Dragon, her stomach would flip, nausea setting in. A crack in the air that sounded like gunshot would freeze her body, her eyes shutting tight, her breath stolen.

  But she was fine.

  She could hide most everything.

  She'd lived that lie and lived it well for the last five years.

  But now that Des was next to her, not going anywhere, the questions didn’t sting as much. The panic didn’t seize her. Not when Des knew everything she was and accepted everything she was.

  Jules took a deep breath. Her toes still stuck on the ancient wood floorboards of the corridor, she couldn’t pick up her feet despite Des’s squeezing of her hand. She looked at him as he stood with the top half of his body turned back to her. “Des…this is—”

  His bottom lip jutted up. “If you dare to say to me this isn’t proper…I don’t know what I’ll do to you, but it will probably involve inducing some torture that will lead to some begging at an opportune moment that you will not care for.”

  She let out an exasperated chuckle, her voice a whisper. “This isn’t the ship, Des. This isn’t a coaching inn. This is the Duke of Wolfbridge’s castle and there are rules of propriety that must be followed. I don’t want to cause scandal.”

  “Jules—half the guests here aren’t sleeping in the bed they should. And I already set Reiner onto obtaining a special license for us to marry as quickly as possible.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “You did?”

  “I did. I’m not wasting any time and I’m not taking any chances.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. We scandal ourselves tonight and we have to get married or we sleep apart and still get married. It ends the same, but I would much rather take on the scandal beforehand than leave you in a cold bed.” His look narrowed at her. “Unless you think not to marry me?”

  A crooked smile came to her lips. “Don’t even utter such nonsense.” A breath cut sharp into her lungs. “But Des, your title, you need an heir. Are you—”

  “Don’t even utter such nonsense. I need you. That is what I need. Vicky is my heir and she’ll inherit everything that isn’t entailed. I care not past that.”

  He turned fully to her, sliding his hand along the side of her chin and his mouth dipped to hers, brushing ever so lightly over her lips as he spoke. “And strike what I just said about separate rooms. A cold bed for you isn
’t an option. I’m not letting you out of my sight. Not for a night. Not for a day.”

  His lips went fully onto hers and she could feel the pounding of the blood in his veins that sent searing heat into the kiss. Her mouth parted to him and he moved backward, dragging her with him.

  She moved forward willingly, her body pressing into him, her lips molding under his.

  How she had missed this. Longed for this. His touch on her body. His lips on hers. His shaft deep in her, swelling, filling her.

  Too long. It’d been far too long and the quick tryst in the garden had only teased her body. Woken it up to all that she had tried to forget when she’d thought he was dead.

  She had been content. Content to live out her days as a spinster for she knew no man would ever touch her as Des had. No man could.

  As many times as Eliana and her friends had tried to thrust eligible men in front of Jules, she had resisted. It wasn’t fair to the men, to compare them to Des and to have them invariably fall short in every measure.

  For they would, one and all.

  Des reached past her shoulder and the door closed behind her.

  He spun them as his lips descended to her neck, cutting across the line just below her ear that sent shivers along her back. Slow movements, long and languid, indulging in the time and place where there were no demands on them.

  Just them.

  Them and an enormous room with a robust fire and nowhere to be.

  He shuffled her backward until the side of the bed pressed through her sapphire blue skirts into the back of her thighs.

  A grin came to her face. “I don’t even know what to do.”

  His lips slow to leave her skin, he lifted his head. “You seemed to remember well enough in the gardens.”

  She laughed. “No—this—a bed. A real bed and we aren’t trying to escape anyone or hurry to my home or contort our bodies into tiny spaces.”

  He leaned down, nipping along the edge of her chin. “I’ll have you know I loved that tiny scrap that we slept upon on the Firehawk.”

  “I cannot complain on it—but this—this is decadent.”

  “Decadent?” He lifted her and tossed her backward onto the bed. “I’ll show you decadent.”

  She laughed, landing on her back, but then propped her torso upright with her elbows. “Please do.”

  “Challenge accepted.” He started toward the bed, then paused, stepping back.

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Sitting alone in bed is not decadent in the slightest.”

  A salacious grin took over his face. “But I think a naked man catering to your every whim might be.”

  She chuckled. “I’ll order one of those, please.”

  Des dragged free his cravat, shrugged off his coat, unbuttoned his waistcoat and the fall front of his trousers, all while staring at her like a starved leopard. Sleek and strong and choosing the right moment to pounce and devour her.

  A prickle ran through her core, setting the crux of her to fire.

  He was slow—slow on purpose. Bugger. Slow because he could see the hunger—quickly becoming desperate—in her eyes.

  His lawn shirt came off, his boots and trousers dropped to the floorboards.

  He took one step forward, the whole of him naked, the cords of muscles along his stomach twitching, the lines cutting along his arms, his biceps, flashing shadows in the light of the fire. The whole of him a marble god.

  Undeniable.

  She started to scoot forward on the bed, but he pounced, his knees straddling her calves on the bed, his hands alongside her hips.

  Hovering over her, he stalked his way up her body, his hazel eyes greedy as they moved along every inch of her. He made it to her face and his stare locked into her gaze and wrapped around her soul, the very life of her, branding her as his again.

  He’d always seen her—her spirit, who she truly was. The very thing he’d taken with him when she thought him dead.

  He’d kept the best of her and now she had him back. Her heart whole once more.

  Des dipped downward to the point where his face was directly above hers, the heat of his breath mixing with her exhales. So close to kissing her, but hovering, not descending. Their entwined stares locked in a dance that transcended all of the time, all of the angst, all of the heartache of the last five years.

  He was hers again.

  With an inhale that sent him downward, the restraint he’d shown thus far shattered and his mouth locked onto hers, searing her with a kiss. His right hand slipped behind her back, his fingers weaving through the ribbon along her gown closure.

  A growl rumbled through his chest and he pulled up, flipping her over on the bed with ease. His fingers set onto the top of her spine just below the upsweep of her hair and dragged down the bumps along her neck, her skin prickling under his touch. His mouth came down, his lips following the path he’d just traced with the pad of his finger.

  His fingers slipped up into her hair and pins started to fall out, dropping onto the bed, the upsweep that took Lady Hewton’s most practiced maid an hour to concoct disassembled in seconds.

  Des dragged her hair free, one lock at a time, draping them over her shoulders and onto the bed.

  He dipped down, his breath on the hollow just below her left ear. “I’ve missed this, missed your hair, missed the scent of you, missed the feel of your skin under my fingers.”

  His hands moved down to the ribbon holding her gown closed. “Bloody nonsense.”

  She craned her neck to the side, but couldn’t quite angle a look at him. “What?”

  “Your dress is knotted.” His fingers dipped between the top edge of the dress and her skin. “To the hell with it. Sloane has quite the wardrobe.”

  “Why are you talking about the duchess?”

  “Because I don’t have time for this and she is very generous with her guests. Especially with her clothing.”

  Before Jules could say a word, ribbons tore and threads popped free on the back of her gown. In a furious frenzy of hands and silk and muslin her clothes disappeared off her body. Some torn, some falling away in fear of Des’s path of destruction.

  She should have been upset. But for how much her body wanted his, she couldn’t fault him for the efficiency.

  The tip of his tongue swirled along her neck and dragged down her spine until he moved to the left, his mouth tickling the side of her stomach as he flipped her onto her back again.

  He worked his way back up her body, stopping at each breast to tease the nipples into tight balls of tension begging to be freed. His fingers wandered about her thighs, slipping into her folds to draw her sex into a frenzied peak. With no control, her body arched up into him, her head burying into the bed as she clutched at the thick wine-hued damask coverlet.

  Mewls bordering on soft screams ran ragged through her throat until he lifted himself from her body, setting his knees between her legs and drawing himself straight. His hands moved under her backside and he lifted her from the bed, holding her in the air as he set the tip of his shaft at her entrance.

  While she wanted to grab his shoulders, lifting herself to hold his body onto hers, she wanted him deep in her all the more. Her hands gripping tight onto the coverlet, she angled her hips forward and he drove inward.

  Full. Deep.

  Reaching into her very soul. His shaft setting to fire every nuanced crevice of her body as he drew out and then plunged. Holding her high, holding her to the onslaught of his body until she was writhing under his grip, nonsensical words begging him for release, begging him not to stop.

  Over the edge. Her world imploded into darkness and specs of light and Des. Nothing but Des.

  A scream, low and savage, sent his body trembling and he drove into her, his cock expanding, filling her, pushing her deeper into the abyss of her body releasing all agony. Waves of raw, brutal pleasure ripped through her nerves.

  He collapsed forward, gripping her body to his, making her one with him. The shudders of each of them drawing t
he other to new heights.

  He had her. Fully and wholly, her body his.

  She was home again. Home in his arms. A home that she hadn’t had in five years.

  Des spun her onto the top of him, then shifted them, drawing their legs long onto the bed, Jules tight to his chest.

  Her nose nuzzled into his skin, reveling in the scent of him. For all that had changed, for all that he hadn’t told her, he was the same. This, the essence of him—the essence of the two of them together—was the same.

  Earth shattering and familiar.

  { Chapter 26 }

  Her head popped up and she rearranged her limbs on top of him, balancing her chin on her left fist positioned on his breastbone. “That was worth scandal. But you’ll have to repeat it in short order so I don’t change my mind.”

  He laughed, a low rumble that warmed her soul. “Anything to serve you, my minx. Give me five minutes, though.”

  “I will be counting the seconds.” Her cheeks lifted in a madcap grin as her fingertips went to his jaw, dragging a line across the slight stubble that had appeared during the night. She’d always particularly liked him this way, when the gruff of his beard began to show—the feel of it against her skin. She’d wondered on it, long ago, why he’d always found time to shave when the rest of the crew let their beards grow. But once an earl, always an earl, she supposed. For all he said he didn’t want his title, he played the part well.

  “I enjoyed meeting your daughter. Vicky appears to have…spirit.”

  “Too much so.” He frowned.

  She tapped his chin. “Is there such a thing?”

  “Yes. As her father that is trying to find some common ground with her aside from the bouts we have about her behavior with men at functions such as these, there is such a thing as having too much spirit.” Des shifted his right hand under his head and the pillow. His left hand stayed splayed tight to her backside—just as it should be. “Though Vicky did an admirable job in being polite to you.”