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

by K. J. Jackson

  Her body froze against him, her breath ceasing. Words came out in a tortured exhale. “It was. It was true.”

  “So hold onto that. Fight your way back to that moment in time.” His head lifted slightly from the pillow so he could see the outline of her profile. “I imagine none of this is or will be easy. Your tears alone tell me that. But it is those same tears that prove you’re not lost—not completely. You can find your way back to who you were, because you remember that girl. I remember that girl, that moment.”

  Her left hand lifted from his arm, swiping away wetness from her cheeks. “A moment that has haunted me since the day it happened.”

  “Me as well.”

  “You—the note Redthorn pulled from your hand, the one that said your wife was dead.” Her head didn’t shift to look at him, her gaze staying on the wood planks of the wall.

  “Yes?”

  “Was that true, the note?”

  Des set his head back down, his cheek pressing against one of her braids that had spread onto the pillow. “Aye, it was.”

  “You loved her?”

  “I did.”

  He said no more—could say no more. Corentine’s death had shattered him, still did, to this day. His chest would collapse, stones crushing him, whenever he thought of her. Time had numbed the pain, but it had never erased it.

  She nodded slightly, her hand lifting to wipe her cheeks again. “I’m sorry I’m crying. It’s just that I haven’t—haven’t ever.”

  “You’ve not cried in the last six years?”

  “No.”

  “Then you have years’ worth to go through. Don’t stop on my account.”

  A shaky breath in, and he could feel the tears starting to swallow her once more.

  Her hand sank back to his left arm, clutching it tighter to her belly.

  Not letting him go.

  If she needed it—if she needed her body curled tight into his.

  This, he could give her.

  { Chapter 6 }

  Jules pulled up on the front of the lawn shirt she had stuffed under her corset. The only thing that fit her correctly—the black corset Redthorn had brought back onto the ship from a port years ago. The lawn shirt, his. The trousers beneath her long-ago-shredded skirts, a young deckhand’s that couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Clothes that were now threadbare.

  She should have long ago disposed of the shredded peach skirt of her dress from six years ago. But she’d never been able to. No matter how the fine muslin had torn. No matter the blood stains on it. No matter that the color now resembled mud.

  She’d refused to give it up.

  She’d made do throughout the years. Covered what needed to be covered. Redthorn had never wanted her in anything else.

  Jules looked at the chest on the floor, the top flipped open. Several shirts, an extra pair of boots, trousers, stockings, all haphazardly dumped in there by a cabin boy earlier in the day.

  She stepped over to the chest, picking up Des’s shirts, trousers, and stockings and snapping them open, then refolding them neatly and stacking them in the chest.

  She didn’t know how Des had landed himself on the crew of this ship—but she did know he had been a passenger on the Primrose. And the Primrose had only carried the wealthiest passengers. Her father would have seen to that.

  Des was of money—or had been at one point in his life—and where she hadn’t thought about her appearance in years, she was suddenly acutely aware of how much her current wardrobe of these few ragged pieces on her body lacked.

  A knock rapped on the door.

  She gave another tug to the white linen resting along the upper slope of her breasts, hoping it would stay in place. “Come.”

  Des popped his head into the room, checking it before he moved fully inside and closed the door behind him.

  “Three days in here is too much. Are you ready to go on deck?”

  Jules eyed him, unsure if she should be happy to escape the cabin for a spell or should be clinging with her fingernails onto the wooden rail of the bed. She forced a half smile. “Air would do me well.”

  “Good.” He gave a nod. “You’ve been in this room long enough, but before we go, you need to tell me about the box.”

  Hell and damnation.

  Her face went expressionless, her eyes blinking. “A box? What box?”

  “You slipped a box into a pocket under your skirt when we were in the captain’s quarters on the Red Dragon. You thought I wasn’t looking. I was.” He said the words casually, though the line of his jaw had tensed.

  “You must be mistaken.”

  “No. No, I don’t think I am.”

  Silence filled the room and he scratched the side of his cheek, his hazel eyes intent on her.

  She met his gaze, her jaw refusing to unhinge.

  Another breath, and he held his elbow out to her. “You’ll tell me eventually. I have weeks to make that happen. In the meantime, shall we get that fresh air?”

  A strained smile came to her lips and she set her fingers into the crook of his arm. “Aye. That would do me well.”

  They moved onto the main deck, then walked up and onto the forecastle deck where they could stand mostly out of the way of the men. Des stopped by the starboard railing, his look fixed on the ocean, gusts tousling his light brown hair and sending it roguish across his brow. The winds had caught the sails full and the ship clipped along at an impressive pace, sea spray lifting high to wet her lips.

  He glanced at her. “Tell me, Jules, what is it you want most in life now that you’re off the Red Dragon?”

  “To be home again. To be home and normal.” Her words blurted out in a rush, no thought on them needed. It was the only reason she’d survived as long as she did—to get home.

  “Aye. That seems right.” Des nodded, an odd crinkle lining his eyes. Worry. Or skepticism. She wasn’t quite sure.

  His gaze shifted away from her and he leaned out past the railing, looking downward at the swells crashing into the bow. He shook his head. “We’re cutting at the wrong angle—too aggressive.”

  Jules went to her toes and shifted her torso outward, the railing cutting into her belly as she looked past him to the hull. “Not the smoothest line, but it looks efficient for the time.”

  He twisted to her and grabbed her arm, yanking her back from leaning too far out over the water. “Are you looking to fall overboard?”

  Her lips pulled to one side, her cheek lifting in irritation. “I’ve been on a ship for the last six years, Des. I know how to not fall overboard.”

  “You’ve not been on this ship.” His gaze dropped to his hand still clamped on her arm and his fingers snapped away.

  Jules turned fully to him and she set her left forearm long atop the railing, looking up at him. “You are a natural worrier, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged. “I imagine the worst that can happen and then I try to avoid that outcome, yes.”

  “Were you always a worrier?”

  “I don’t remember.” He turned his back to the railing, leaning against it as he clasped his arms across his chest and watched the crew scurry about. “My father died when I was twelve. My mother soon after. I was eighteen when I was separated from my wife. Then I spent years trying to escape the life I was thrust into and get back to my wife, only to learn she had died. So, yes. Yes, I worry. I look at every situation and determine what could go wrong.”

  “What could go wrong with me?”

  His gaze shifted to her and his hazel eyes slid into her, into the very crux of her soul.

  “Everything.”

  Harsh. But the way his voice caught—with sin and lust and curiosity and avoidance twisting around the word—made her chest tighten.

  He was a dangerous one, this man.

  Far more so than she had guessed when she decided to crash down upon him on the Red Dragon. Big. Strong. But also handsome. That fact had become abundantly clear during the last few days. Eating with him. Talking with him. His ha
zel eyes that saw everything in her mind—every barrier she’d carefully cultivated during the last six years to make sure not a soul knew what was actually going on in her head. In her heart.

  Dangerous on too many levels.

  His eyes shifted away from her and a frown creased his mouth. “That whelp—I don’t know how many times I told the boy to keep his feet out of the coils of rope. Excuse me—you stay here.”

  She nodded and Des moved across the deck to scold the cabin boy.

  The sailors scuttled about in front of her, adjusting sails, shouting back and forth, hauling rope—all of it so familiar to her now. Different men, but the same life. Wind, weather, work.

  The heartbeat of the ship was the same.

  The only difference was that she was standing at the sides. Not being sent up the masts to untangle rigging. Not hauling ropes from one end of the ship to the other. Not constantly sewing rips in sails. Not dumping Redthorn’s chamber pots. Not forced to set needle through skin to set wounds closed.

  No work. Stuck on the sides. Watching.

  There had always been so much expected of her on the Red Dragon. On this ship, she just stood there, watching the flurry about her. Nothing expected of her. Her fingers twitched nervously at her sides, waiting for someone to yell at her to move. To work.

  She heard the scream before the thump.

  A man falling just to her left. Falling from the foremast and landing on the deck. Hard.

  His wail pierced the air. With a wicked scream, his body shriveled into himself. The scream morphed into soundless agony.

  Jules laughed. Loud and cruel. “Ye done it, ye fool. Ye should’ve just aimed to the left three feet and sent yerself to the briny deep.” Her coarse laughter cut through the air again.

  Her laughter petered to nothing as her gaze lifted from the injured man writhing on the deck, to the men standing about her.

  Silence. Silence all around.

  All the men frozen in mid-motion, their jaws agape.

  Staring at her in horror.

  Disgust.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  She looked around, frantic, her face falling. Not a single person was laughing. Every one of them staring at her as though she were a demon straight from hell.

  She couldn’t have just done that.

  She couldn’t have.

  She wasn’t on the Red Dragon.

  She couldn’t have just said that.

  The injured man wailed again and the sound jerked several of the men into motion, going to him, dropping to their knees beside him to help him.

  The rest still stared at her, loathing in their glares.

  A hand wrapped around her upper arm, clasping it hard—too hard—and dragged her forward and down from the forecastle deck to the cabins set below the quarterdeck.

  Des.

  Dragging her without kindness. Dragging her with fury in each step he took.

  He shoved her hard into his room, sending her flying, her shins hitting the bedrail as she fell onto the bed, her arms wild, unable to catch her fall.

  The door slammed behind him.

  “What the bloody hell was that?”

  “I—I—” She knew it. She knew the atrocity of the words that had just left her mouth, her cackling laugh still echoing in her ears.

  “What—what in the blasted devil just came out of your damned mouth?” He stalked the two steps across the cabin and leaned over her, his fists driving into the bed aside her thighs. “That man almost died—could be dying at this very moment.”

  Her hands flew up in front of her. “I—there was no pity on Redthorn’s ship.” Her eyes closed against Des’s rage, her cheeks squinting upward as her words flew. “He—he was brutal and if anyone was ever injured, that was what happened. Laughter. Jeers. You didn’t help or you’d be punished. Lashes. The injured were tossed. If you didn’t get to your feet quick enough, you were tossed to the sea. You laughed, you jeered or you’d be under the whip.”

  His mouth twisted, the wrath on his face being fought, reined in. His lips pulled tight, words gritted through his teeth. “You just laughed at an injured man.”

  Her eyes opened to him, her head shaking. “I—I did it—said it without thinking—it—it just came out—I didn’t know—I just reacted. I’m so, so sorry.”

  He punched his fists into the bed and Des exhaled, fury seething from his lips. “Sorry?”

  Her fingers went to her face, her hands tenting over her nose and mouth as her head shook. “I’m so sorry. It’s cruel and harsh—but they were cruel and harsh and all of that is part of me now and I don’t know how to control it. I’m cruel and harsh and I don’t know the words coming from my own mouth.”

  Her hands went higher on her face, hiding her eyes, hiding herself from him.

  “Jules.”

  She couldn’t reply.

  He tugged her left wrist downward. “Jules.”

  Defeated, her fingers dropped below her eyes, her voice choking on her words. “When—when did I lose my humanity?”

  His glare bored into her.

  “I’m—I’m sorry but I don’t know how to be—how to be normal.” Her head shook, manic. “Not anymore. Not with people—real people. I don’t know what to say. What to do. I didn’t understand it until just now.”

  A deep inhale and Des shoved himself upward off the bed and took a step back, turning away from her as his hand clasped against his forehead.

  For a long breath he said nothing, and then his mouth opened, his voice low with gravel in his words. “You’re not cruel and harsh, Jules.”

  Her hands fell from her face, her voice a whisper. “Except I am. I don’t even know how it happened—how I could just utter those words to that man. How did it happen? Years passed and I don’t know...I became one of them. I’m brutal and it’s despicable—I didn’t know it until I saw their faces—the men. But I saw them. How they looked at me. I am a feral creature that just crawled from the bowels of hell.”

  “Aye. That you are.” His eyes closed and he shook his head.

  The words stung, slicing her deeper than the men’s accusing stares above. She’d endured years of degradation, of being berated at every turn. But those words coming from Des’s tongue—his opinion of her—wounded something deep within her chest that she’d thought had long ago died.

  Ridiculous. She’d only known the man for three days. His opinion should mean nothing to her. Needed to mean nothing to her.

  He was just a tool to get her home. That was all.

  His hazel eyes opened and he looked at her. “Those men think the worst of you, which is why we need to get you back above deck directly.”

  Her head snapped back. “What? No. I cannot face them. Not again, not after that. I don’t know how to be around people anymore. Normal people, sailors. No one. I don’t know how to act—I’ve lost all civility.”

  “You’re coming.” He reached out and grabbed her arm, his strong fingers wrapping fully around her wrist.

  “No.” She jerked her arm backward, trying to free his hold.

  “Yes.” He yanked her to her feet and started to drag her to door.

  Her heels dug into the floorboards and she clawed at the back of his hand. “No, I can’t go back out there.”

  He whipped around to her, his wrath breathing down on her. “You need to start being around people again, Jules. Real people. Not the dregs of humanity. And that includes facing people after an error. You face them and apologize.”

  Her head shaking, her nails went desperate into his knuckles. “No. I cannot.”

  “You can.”

  “They know—they know I’m not right—mad—and I will never be right. I saw it in their eyes.”

  “Exactly—and they’ll latch onto that certainty if you never face them again—or if you wait too long. You need to do this, Jules. You say you’re not civil—well, this is the way back to it.”

  She shook her head, her body pulling away as hard as she could a
gainst his strength.

  “Stop, Jules. Just stop.”

  She stilled.

  He pinned her with his stare. “You are around me, are you not?”

  “What?”

  “You’re around me, you talk to me, you listen to me, and you are as normal as they come. You have quirks, yes—you tear into your food with your hands like a wild animal, you slip in and out of a sailor’s accent, your edges are rough—but you are not mad, Jules.” His head shook. “You’re a survivor. You are not given up for the damned and discarded—I won’t give you up for that.”

  Her eyes closed to him. To what he was asking of her.

  “But it starts with a step. One step.” His hold around her wrist tightened. “I can drag you into that step—and I will drag you into it, make no mistake.”

  He released her wrist. “But it’s better if you take the step on your own, Jules. One step.”

  Her forehead fell forward, her chin dropping to her chest, all air in her lungs leaving her. She shook her head. “I’m mortified. Humiliated. I didn’t remember that this feeling existed. Not until just now.”

  “Then you’ve already taken the first step.”

  Her eyelids cracked open and her look lifted to him.

  He nodded. “Now take ten more.” He held out his palm to her.

  She drew a breath. Then another, deeper.

  She set her fingers onto his palm.

  One step. Two.

  Her chin lifted and she walked past him out the door.

  Her grip on his hand didn’t break. If anything, it got tighter.

  A buoy in the storm.

  She would need that during the next few weeks.

  { Chapter 7 }

  Des stepped into his quarters.

  For the first time in six days—since landing on the Firehawk—Jules wasn’t crying when he entered the cabin deep into the night.