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

by K. J. Jackson

  Jules nodded. “She was quite charming—far more than just polite. Sloane and Reiner have raised a fine young lady.”

  “Fine to everyone but me.” He sighed.

  Her mouth pulled to the side. “Yes, I did see how she reacted to you in the gardens. And in the solarium. She wants nothing to do with you. But you were right in the gardens to intercede before that fop dragged her into the maze and ruined her, even if she clearly did not see it as helpful.”

  “No.” His gaze moved up to the canopy above as his fingers trailed along the bumps of her spine, making her skin prickle. “I don’t know what to do with her. How to make her…how to change this.”

  “You realize she hates you for abandoning her?”

  “What?” Des’s look dropped to her. “How did you guess that? She has said as much directly to me, but I don’t understand it.”

  Jules took a deep breath and pushed herself upright, her legs straddling him as she settled on his thighs. Des lifted himself and scooted them backward until he could lean against the headboard of the bed.

  Her hands went to his face, capturing his cheeks between her palms. “I love you, Des, but you need to know I hated you in the same way as Vicky does for a long time.”

  His eyes widened. “You hated me?”

  “I did, as much as it pains me to admit it.” Her hands left his face, spreading onto his chest, her fingers tapping on his biceps. “You were dead. I knew that. You do not know how many tears I shed, imagining your last moments. Your last breath. That you were alone. That you were wondering where I was.” Her voice cracked and it took her three full breaths to gain control of her mind, of her words.

  “You were dead, you abandoned me. It wasn’t your fault and I knew that, but you left me—left this earth, left me here alone—and I hated you for it. I hated you for not living. I hated that it was my own fault. I hated that I believed I had to go home to Gatlong Hall—and that it led to your death.”

  His hands went to her wrists. “You couldn’t have known what awaited us with your father.”

  “Couldn’t I? Maybe I did. Maybe I should have. I looked into the past and only remembered the good instead of remembering what he was capable of. I had forgotten all of the malevolence he possessed—chose to forget all of that bad. It was just that I was finally back in England and I wanted to forget that evil existed—forget the atrocities that I had lived among for so long. But evil knows no borders.” Her shoulders slumped with a slight shrug. “Do you know that I tried—I tried to give him the Box of Draupnir in order to be with you?”

  “You did? When?”

  “I had gone to Portsmouth to search for you and when I returned weeks later he said you had appeared, looking for me. He said he had welcomed you into his house. So I promised him I would give him the box if he would tell me where you were—if he would swear to leave me be and never bother us again.” Her fingernails curled into his chest, her voice lowering. “But when we got to the tree it was gone. The box was gone. That was right before he told me you were dead.”

  Her head dropped forward for a long second before she lifted her gaze to him. “It tore my heart out—that you would have taken it, betrayed me. I hated you for that as well.”

  His head shaking, his grip on her wrists tightened before she could pull away from him. “I never betrayed you, Jules. Never.”

  “But you took it?”

  “Yes, but only after I thought you had died.”

  “Why?”

  Des sighed, his shoulders lifting. “I took it because it was my ticket back onto the Firehawk. Back to getting lost. You were gone and that’s all I wanted again. To be lost. Lost on the sea.” A frown set into his face. “Captain Folback learned of the box—most likely from those pirates that had taken you in Plymouth—and was irate that I hadn’t handed it over to him when we were on the Firehawk. You were dead, so I thought it fine to take the box and give it to him.” His mouth pulled into a tight line. “And I never should have done it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I—we all paid for it, time and again.” He released her wrists and slipped his hands along her bare hips, threading his fingers together at the small of her back. “The box—the ring—ruined Captain Folback, just the same as you described it with Redthorn. Folback was obsessed on it. It worked its magic and we stumbled upon riches that we never imagined, but it ate away at his mind. He died because of it.”

  Her jaw dropped. “How did he die?”

  “In the most gruesome way. Too many people know about the box now, and its lore has only grown. There are men that have been after it for the last five years. One of those men decided to steal Captain Folback’s wife in a bid to get the box from him. Folback died trying to get her back.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “Des, no.”

  “It’s evil, Jules. Pure evil. The Box of Draupnir should never have seen the light of day.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “Hidden.”

  Her heart stilled in her chest. “No, Des, no. You took it back and hid it?”

  He nodded.

  “But that makes it in your possession—hidden or not.”

  He exhaled a wicked sigh. “What do you want me to do with it, Jules?”

  “Not have it—anything to not have it. To not be responsible for it.” Her voice went frantic. “We have to get rid of it, once and for all.”

  “You want to destroy it?” His eyebrows lifted.

  She pulled slightly away from him, her stare going to the curve of the mahogany headboard above his head. “I don’t know. How do you get rid of a curse?”

  “Jules, curses only have power if you believe they do. We can just choose to believe the box is nothing—nothing but a red stone and some flecks of gold and some brittle wood.”

  Her gaze dropped to him. “But you know that isn’t the truth.”

  “So what do you propose we do with it? Burn it?”

  “No. I fear if we do that the curse will never leave us.” Her bottom lip pulled under her top teeth, worrying. “But it cannot be in our lives anymore. Not in our possession. This—us together—I am not willing to risk the curse wreaking more havoc on our lives. We just lost five years to the blasted thing. We cannot just destroy it or keep it hidden or we’ll always be saddled with it.” Her fingers tapped on his chest. “We need to impart the box to someone evil—someone that deserves the curse of it.”

  Des’s chest lifted against her hands in a heavy sigh. “Aye, as much as I hate to admit to the curse of it, I’ve seen too much to not believe. Getting rid of it would ease my mind.”

  “Where did you hide it? Where do we need to go to get it?”

  “Gatlong Hall.”

  Her eyes went wide as her forehead crinkled. “My father’s estate? What? Why?”

  The corners of Des’s eyes cringed. “I hid it with your grave. In a metal box, buried next to your headstone. It was the only place I could think of after Captain Folback died.”

  Her mouth pulled into a thin line. “Then we need to go retrieve it.”

  He nodded, his right hand lifting to play with the curls of her hair that had fallen from her upsweep. A streak of darkness swept across his face as he stared at her hair entwined with her his finger. “I love you, Jules. But…”

  “But what?”

  He met her gaze, his voice near to cracking. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough for this. Loving you. Not again.”

  “You’re the strongest man I know, Des.”

  He shook his head. “Not when it comes to you.”

  She lifted her hands to his neck, pulling herself closer to him. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

  Terror flashed across his face and he opened his mouth, his voice rough. “It already did. You died.”

  She stared at him, at the pain that still haunted his eyes and her voice cracked. “Three blows and you will never be the same?”

  A grim line pulled back his lips. “Aye.”

  Her
cheek lifted in a half smile, even though she knew exactly what he spoke of. The pain of losing him. The pain that refused to yield. That sucked the very life from her marrow. She’d lived through it, just the same as him. But that was the point. She’d survived it. He had as well.

  Her fingers curled up along his neck. “So you have nothing to fear. You’ve already lived through it.”

  Both of his hands went to the back of her head, burying into her hair. “You don’t understand, Jules. I just found you, I just got you back. And when I’m not with the women I love, they tend to die on me. I cannot live through that again.”

  Her half smile turned into a full smile. “Then we’d better avoid that third blow. We’d better stay together.”

  “You think it is that easy?” His hazel eyes searched her face, searched her soul. “Dare I say that you have found hope, Jules?”

  She shrugged. “Quite possibly. It had deserted me for a long time, but in the last twelve hours I appear to have stumbled upon it again. Death or not, I would never sacrifice a minute of the time I spent with you if it would have lessened the pain of losing you. Never. And that is where my hope lies. Us together. I will hold onto that for as long as fate has decided to grant me it.”

  He pulled her to him, the smallest smile breaking through on his lips. “I think I have just managed to stumble upon my own hope as well. Or at least a fool’s prayer.”

  { Chapter 27 }

  Des sent the shovel into the ground beside the center of the granite obelisk grave marker, the tip digging through the hard dirt with ease under the moonlight.

  They’d waited until deep into the night. The better to avoid any of the staff at Gatlong Hall. The better to avoid her father.

  Des swallowed hard, his look avoiding Jules’s name carved into the heavy stone by his right hand. He’d stared at the tall stone twice in his life—the first time when her father had brought him to it, the second time when he’d buried the box.

  Both times he’d vomited, his body unable to accept the fact that she was dead. He’d thought the second time when he’d brought the box to be buried, visiting her grave would be salve on the bitter, shattered shards of his heart. It had done nothing of the kind—only sending him into a dark whisky-fueled fortnight that he didn’t remember, and wasn’t about to escape except for Roe finding him and dragging him back onto the Firehawk.

  Des shook his head. “I cannot believe your father has left this in place knowing you are alive.”

  Stripping off her kidskin gloves, Jules lifted her hand, her bare fingers going to the pointed tip of the stone obelisk.

  Des had to stifle the urge to slap her hand away from the granite. To stop her before she touched her own death. Idiotic, but he didn’t want her anywhere near this grave. Anywhere near where he’d thought her body had been underground. But she’d refused to stay at the coaching inn and wait for him.

  Together, come what may.

  Her mouth quirked to the side in a partial frown as her fingers settled on the tip of the grave marker. “Before I left for my aunt’s home, my father told me he lost me the day I was taken from the Primrose. That’s why he left this up. I was dead to him and always will be.”

  Des jabbed the shovel into the ground again. “Forgive me, but your father is an ass of the highest order, Jules.”

  “Yes. He is that.” She leaned against the obelisk, her fingers rubbing across her name on the granite. Her own death, there for all the world to see.

  Des exhaled, fighting for control over the rage exploding in his chest. “Step away from the gravestone, Jules. I cannot watch you touching it.”

  Her gaze swung to him, her eyes meeting his in the shadow of the moon.

  Silently, she nodded under the hood of her cloak and took a step backward. It took her a silent moment to point to the ground by Des’s feet. “Let us get the box and be done with this place. Forever.”

  “Aye.” He lifted and sank the tip of the shovel into the ground and it clinked into metal.

  Several more shovelfuls and he’d cleared enough dirt to wedge the box out of the ground. He dropped to his knees, his fingers sinking into the cold dirt and wrapping about the metal edge of the container he’d hidden the Box of Draupnir in.

  With a grunt, Des yanked it free of the ground and set it on the pile of dirt.

  “Don’t make another move, you bastard, or I’ll blow you through.”

  Des froze for the smallest of seconds, the voice of Lord Gatlong wrapping around him from behind, sending his blood to ice, then to an instant boil.

  “Don’t shoot.” Slowly, Des lifted his left hand in surrender and his right hand shifted past his belly to the handle of the cutlass he had strapped to his waist. He came to his feet, turning around with great care.

  Lord Gatlong squinted in the darkness at Des. “You—you dare to come back here?” He lifted the pistol in his hand high, the barrel pointing at Des’s head. “I should have killed you years ago when you came back instead of sending you off. Time to remedy that oversight.” The ominous click of the hammer being pulled back echoed across the hillside.

  “Stop—no—Father—it’s me.” Jules jumped in front of Des, her hands tugging the hood of her cloak from her face. “It’s me Father—me. Julianna.”

  The barrel of the pistol shifted, training on Jules.

  No.

  In an instant, Des grabbed her arm, shoving her to the side and then yanking her behind him. He kept his grip on her forearm, holding her in place even as she struggled against him. The bullet would have to go through him to reach her.

  “The both of you. I should have guessed.” Lord Gatlong’s lip snarled. “What do you have there?” He waved the barrel of the gun at the box on the ground by Des’s feet.

  Des’s fingers twitched on the cool edge of his cutlass’s handle as he shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? I doubt that—for you to dare step foot on this land—that’s not nothing.” Lord Gatlong’s head cocked to the side, and then he jerked his head back toward the main hall. “We are going back to the house. And you’re bringing that.”

  “No.” The word spilled hard—commanding—from Des’s lips.

  Lord Gatlong lifted the pistol, aiming it at Des’s head.

  Des stilled, dragging in an imperceptible breath. He wasn’t about to be shot dead in front of Jules. He wouldn’t leave her with that image—and then at the mercy of her father.

  He inclined his head to Lord Gatlong. “To your house, then.”

  Jules clawed at his back. “Des—no—no—we don’t go anywhere with this monster.”

  His hold on her arm tightened—tightened until she gasped a breath. “We’ll go to the hall and then leave here forever.” His voice left no margin for argument.

  Jules went silent, stilling behind him.

  “At least you got her in line. Always too headstrong that one.” Lord Gatlong flicked the pistol in the air. “I’ll follow you.”

  Des picked up the box and stepped around Lord Gatlong, pulling Jules in front of him—his body between her and the pistol aimed at his back.

  Silent, nothing but the crackling of dried grasses in the wind and the crinkling of fallen leaves underfoot as their boots crunched across the land.

  Jules walked to the side door of Gatlong Hall, pushing it open, and Des followed her, stepping into a dark hallway.

  “To my study, child,” Gatlong said from behind them. “Get in there. There aren’t any rugs in there.”

  A slight gasp jarred Jules to a stop in front of Des, but then she took another step forward and turned to her right, opening the door to the study.

  Lit by four sconces and a lamp on the desk, the space sat in a jumble. Rare artifacts rested on bookcases and display cases around the room—ancient Egyptian pottery, a Greek long spear, a delicate atlatl, carved tusks, a Roman gladius, Japanese samurai armor complete with a gilt copper helmet and a gleaming katana, three medieval longbows, shreds of a red-stained white cloth draped over a
cross, glittering stones of all shapes and sizes, and several iron strongboxes from three centuries past.

  Papers were strewn everywhere. Books open, discarded on every surface.

  A room of madness if Des were to guess.

  Passing by the samurai armor, Jules stepped to the left, positioning herself by a long row of bookcases filled with weapons and random nuggets of history.

  Lord Gatlong’s own personal museum.

  Jules had mentioned her father collected the rarest artifacts, but this went beyond anything Des had imagined.

  The Box of Draupnir was never anything more to him. Just another artifact to collect. The need to possess the unattainable a curse in its own right.

  Des split away from Jules, going to the wide dark oak desk that centered the room. He held the Box of Draupnir, and the box was the only thing Lord Gatlong cared about at the moment. Splitting with her was strategic. If Gatlong dared to turn his attention to Jules, Des could attack him from the side. Easy to do if the man would just glance away from him, but Gatlong knew who to train his pistol on.

  Jules’s father closed the door behind him and walked to the middle of the room, eyeing Des. What in the bloody hell did he think to do to them? Take the box and then kill them? Des wouldn’t put it past the bastard.

  Des lifted his free hand, his palm open and attempting to placate. “Whatever you’re thinking to do to me, to do to us, Lord Gatlong, she’s your daughter. Julianna is your daughter. Your only child. You need to let her leave this room. Leave this place.”

  Gatlong’s eyes went into a squint at Des. “My daughter is dead.”

  Des met his stare straight on, refusing to glance at Jules. He didn’t want to see her face. See how her father’s voice struck, slicing deep with every word. “Yes, you told me that once and I was fool enough to believe it. But she is very much alive.”

  Gatlong’s right hand shook, his face splotching red as he waved the pistol at Des. “She is dead.”

  For all he didn’t want to bait Gatlong’s trigger finger, Des couldn’t stand by as the man declared Jules dead. Not when his daughter was breathing four feet away. Fury spiked his voice. “She’s standing directly behind you, Lord Gatlong. Real. Alive.”