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

by K. J. Jackson

  She wasn’t about to be tossed overboard, sink, the horror of water filling her chest, drowning her to the depths of the sea.

  “On yer knees, lass.” Captain Folback yanked a long red handkerchief from his coat pocket and held it out to her.

  Des removed his hand from her wrist and Jules glanced around. A crowd of the men had gathered. Almost everyone on the ship in a half circle about them, silent.

  What did the captain say she had to do? She’d barely heard his words she was so concerned about not being tossed overboard and Des taking her lashes for her.

  Bart stepped forward, a sneer on his lips as he slammed his boot onto the wood boards in front of her. “On yer knees, wench.”

  Shine his boots? Was that what the captain had said? A pit expanded in the bottom of her stomach.

  Her eyes closed, heat running up her neck, crawling onto her cheeks. Burning. Searing humiliation across her face.

  It wasn’t the drink.

  Wasn’t death.

  Anything to survive.

  She’d thought she was long past having to hold tight to that mantra.

  She’d gotten comfortable.

  Too damn comfortable on this blasted ship. Too damn secure under Des’s blasted wing.

  Her eyelids cracked open. Red in front of her face. Waving.

  She snatched the cloth from Captain Folback’s fingers and dropped to her knees.

  Hard. Her kneecaps clunked sharply onto the wood.

  Her head bowed and she leaned forward, swallowing hard.

  Swallowing the degradation filling her body that sent her veins to fire. Swallowing the unjust rage burning her from the inside out.

  Don’t fight it.

  She could hear the words, Des’s voice in her head, even if he wasn’t speaking them out loud. His voice, hard and commanding…and begging.

  Don’t fight it.

  She set cloth to boot. Scrubbing.

  “Add some spit onto there, wench. Shine ‘em real good.” Bart’s sneering voice floated down to her, sparking the firestorm in her veins.

  Her fingers clenched about the cloth, her knuckles turning white.

  Not death.

  Anything to survive.

  Don’t fight it.

  Her fingers unclenched and she spit onto the cloth, closing her eyes and leaving her hand to scrub the leather in jerking swathes.

  An eternity passed, and Bart hopped, setting his other boot in front of her nose.

  Her fingers clenched, the humiliated fury festering in her bones overcoming her, and her right hand went to her boot. A dagger straight through his foot would do well. And the blade wouldn’t be higher than anyone’s blasted waist.

  Nothing but air by her hand. Her dagger gone, still lying below deck.

  A hand clamped onto her shoulder, stilling her.

  Not vicious, not threatening. Supporting. Quiet strength.

  Des’s quiet strength.

  Des’s hand sent a shield around her, her ears closing off the murmurs of the men surrounding her, the barbs spewing down upon her from Bart’s lips. She detached. With Des’s shield about her, she went numb.

  Numb to sound, numb to her hands working the cloth around the boot, numb to anger that was near to overwhelming her.

  Numb to everything except for Des’s fingers along the muscles in her shoulder, his hold keeping her sane, keeping her from doing something incredibly stupid.

  “As polished as they’re about to get,” Captain Folback’s voice boomed across the deck. “Onto the lashes, then.”

  Des’s hand disappeared from her shoulder.

  Her head jerked up, the legs of the men around her shuffling, moving toward the main mast.

  Not the lashes—lashes that should be hers.

  Dropping the red cloth on the deck, she scrambled to her feet, trying to move through the bodies, move closer to the main mast.

  She wasn’t quick enough.

  The first crack of the cat o’ nine tails snapped through the air, sending men around her to cringe.

  Another. Another.

  She shoved through the bodies.

  Another.

  She pushed the shoulder of a burly man to the left just in time to see the nine tips of the whip flash across Des’s back one last time, shredding more lines into his skin.

  Blood dripped downward, soaking through the white linen of Des’s shirt tied about his waist as he stood facing the main mast. Unmoving, taking the lashes with not a sound.

  “That be all, mates.” Captain Folback shouted to his crew. “Back to work.”

  The men around her shuffled slowly away, dispersing to their interrupted tasks.

  Captain Folback stood next to Des, staring at her as the men about them cleared the space.

  He turned to Des. “Have the girl tend to them. And keep the harpy out of trouble. I’ll not have it on my ship this close to home waters.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Des leaned forward and grabbed his coat and waistcoat from the crate he’d flung them across.

  Des turned back to Jules, walking by her without looking at her.

  When she didn’t immediately follow him, he lifted his head, though he didn’t glance back to her as he barked, “Come.”

  Jules jumped and hurried after him.

  The deck was no place for her at the moment.

  Maybe not for the rest of the journey.

  ~~~

  Des stomped into the room, picked up the chair by the desk and flipped it around, slamming it back to the floor, the wood almost cracking under his hands.

  Dammit to the bowels of unjustly hell.

  He ripped off the shirt tied about his waist and tossed it to the bed, then straddled the seat, sitting, his forearms resting on the high back of the chair. A bottle of brandy sat on the desk next to the bowl of water and he grabbed it, taking a healthy swallow. And another.

  Jules stepped into the room behind him, closing the door.

  He slammed the bottle onto the desk. “Stop the damn bleeding.”

  The growl of his words shook the room, shook the floorboards beneath his feet, but he couldn’t control it. His restraint had lasted until he’d reached the door to his cabin. That was it. And it was damn well going to be unleashed now.

  A gasp from Jules and she squeezed herself to the side by his thigh, leaning past him to the basin of water on the desk. She picked up the washcloth next to it and dunked it into the water.

  Standing straight, she moved behind him. Silent, untouching, she was assessing his bare back.

  The back that had suffered this same punishment too many times in his life.

  The faintest touch of her fingertips landed on his back. But not on the line of a fresh wound. On the lifted skin of a lash, long since scarred over.

  “This…this is grievous.” Her words the slightest whisper as her fingers trailed along a scar. “These lashings of the past, up and down…too many to count. Are they from Folback?”

  “I’m no stranger to justice on the sea, Jules. And, no, none of them are from Folback. Just the new ones.”

  She swallowed hard, almost as though she were swallowing a sob. He couldn’t turn around to her. Not while he was still as furious as he was.

  “But that you would suffer this for me—it isn’t fair—just another thing that isn’t fair on this blasted ship.”

  Her finger drew away from his skin and she set the edge of the wet cloth onto the top lash cutting between his shoulder blades. She smoothed the blood away and his shoulders tensed, but he didn’t jerk away, didn’t flinch.

  She cleared her throat as she moved onto the next bloody line. “Do they hurt? These aren’t as deep as the lashes I’ve seen before. Shallow even.”

  His head dipped forward, the back of his bare neck going long. Control. He needed to find his control again.

  “Des?”

  Des heaved an exasperated breath, his words vibrating in rage, control nowhere within his grasp just yet. “Folback’s a master with the whip.�
�

  “A master of idiocy. You said Folback was a fair captain.” She dabbed at the next line across his back. “But this wasn’t fair. This was a travesty of justice. What he did to you. And let that weasel get away—”

  “He was backed into a damn corner, Jules.” His words seethed into the room. “By all rights you should be floating in the bloody sea already.”

  “But—”

  “You are the only exception he’s ever made to that one rule, Jules. The only one. In all the years I’ve been on his ship, you’re the only one that hasn’t been tossed overboard—no matter the situation.” He twisted his head to look back at her. “That you escaped with your damn life was proof enough he believed you.”

  Her lips drew inward and she gnawed on them as she leaned past him to rinse the rag in the bowl of water.

  “Move the damn bowl.” His finger flicked forward. “The last thing I want to see is my own blasted blood at the moment.”

  He leaned to the side and she awkwardly shifted over him, her hands wrapping under the copper bowl and lifting the basin, attempting to not let the bloody water slosh onto him as she moved it past him. She set it behind her on the top of the chest and finished rinsing the cloth, then returned to his back.

  Five more lines she cleared in silence. All the cuts shallow like the first. He could feel them, how shallow Folback had made them. Enough for blood. Not enough to do more than itch like mad in a few days.

  Yet he couldn’t control his breathing—anger rushing into him with every inhale that expanded his ribcage, his shoulders lifting up toward her.

  She exhaled a sigh. “You didn’t have to do this—you didn’t have to offer to take the lashes. And I understand—your anger at me is justifiable.”

  His palms slapped onto the top of the desk in front of him and he twisted to look at her. “I’m not bloody well angry at you, Jules. I’m furious at myself.”

  “At yourself? But I did it—I raised the dagger to that idiot.”

  “It was all about a blasted rule I never told you about.” He spun fully around and grabbed both of her wrists, lifting them, shaking them in the air. Shaking them so hard the cloth flew from her fingertips. “And that you even had to bloody well draw a blade to protect yourself makes me all the more furious.”

  “I shouldn’t have helped him—I shouldn’t have gone below deck with him.” Her head shook. “I should have known—should have seen it. I thought I was helping when I’m a bloody fool—I should have recognized his intentions—I just…I just have become too complacent. Let my guard down when I shouldn’t have. I thought I was safe on this ship and I’m not. I’m smarter than this. Smarter than the trap I fell into today.”

  A growl shook though his chest, exploding, filling the cabin. “This—this makes me livid. That you think you were in the wrong. That you protecting yourself ended in punishment. Unjust—wrong to its core and I could do nothing to stop it.”

  He leaned forward, his look intent on her, fire alive in his veins. “You did exactly what you should have. You wanted to help, so you did—and that bastard, Bart, used that in you—your benevolence.” Raw vehemence rumbled through his words, vicious. “You had to raise a blade to his neck to stop him—you did exactly what you should have—I’m just sorry that you didn’t get a chance to stick it through his throat.”

  Her jaw dropped, her blue-green eyes riveted on him. “You understand?”

  “Of course I understand, Jules. I’m not an idiot.” His head flew back, his look on the ceiling for a long moment. “But no. No, I’m glad you didn’t stick him through—Folback would have surely tossed you overboard for that one. I don’t think I could have saved you had that happened.”

  “He would have? Truly?”

  “Aye. He would have.” Des stopped, seething a breath inward as he dropped her wrists from his grip. “Even though he knows the bastard Bart cannot be trusted—that he’s the lowest snake.”

  She shrugged. “All of the men on the ship have been courteous, if not kind. My guard was down when it shouldn’t have been and I didn’t expect it of him.”

  Des’s look lifted back to the ceiling. “And I cannot even blame the bastard for it. Not when I want you in exactly the same way.”

  { Chapter 10 }

  Her eyes snapped wide open, not sure she’d heard him correctly. “You what?”

  Des’s gaze dropped to her, his hazel eyes searing into her. “I want you in the exact same way.”

  “You do?”

  A rough chuckle escaped his throat. “I have been sleeping next to you for three weeks now, every night, torture going to sleep, torture waking up. Torture every second your body is next to mine.”

  He said it out loud.

  Said the very thing she’d been tiptoeing around in her mind for weeks.

  The air that crackled between them, energy without anywhere to go. The way his mouth would curl into a smile when she said something bizarre—remnants from her life on the pirate ship. The way his hazel eyes would sink into her, searching her soul. The rough cut of his hair, always disheveled and how she had to battle her fingers back from randomly touching it.

  He’d said the words out loud and now they hung in the air between them, fine crystals of warm breath in the freezing cold, waiting to be shattered. Or melted.

  Hell, she wanted to touch him. Wanted it like she never had with a man before.

  She found his eyes. “Your body on mine, behind me, it…it is the same for me.”

  He exhaled a deep breath, relief brewing with flaring desire. “Damn, Jules, tell me I can touch you.” His fingers flexed and he stood up, looking down at her. “But if you do not want that—I understand. Nothing changes between us. We go on as before.”

  “No.” She had to steal a breath to steady herself, to steady her words. “I do—I want you to touch me.”

  “But?” His head gave a slight shake. “I can see the hesitation in your eyes and I’ll not lift a hand to you until it is gone.”

  Her bottom lip pulled under her teeth. Hesitation would be the death of her.

  His eyes narrowed. “What is it? Did he rape you? You said he didn’t hurt you, but did that bastard Redthorn rape you?”

  She clamped her teeth together, silent.

  “Tell me, Jules.” His voice dipped, raw. “This is the moment you need to be honest. You need to tell me. Did he rape you?”

  Her head flew back and forth. “No. Never that. I told you, he never laid a finger on me. Not one that I didn’t want.”

  Des’s brows arched. “One that you didn’t want?”

  Her eyes closed, blocking Des from her view. Blocking his face—his reaction from her sight to what she was about to say. But she had to admit this. Admit it because it was who she was now.

  The person she could not escape from, no matter how she tried.

  Jules heaved a breath. “He was my husband and he was not ugly—handsome, even at times. And he could be charming when he set his mind upon it and that is how he wore me down. That is my sin to not have resisted him.” Her eyes opened to Des, her words dwindling to a whisper. “I liked it. It is that I liked it.”

  For a moment his eyebrows drew together, confusion setting deep into his forehead.

  In the next breath, understanding set in and his look went wide, his words slow, measured. “You liked sex with Redthorn?”

  Her eyes squinted shut and she nodded, heat staining her cheeks. “I did. Being on that ship was my life. I didn’t think there was a way off—I didn’t think I would ever live on land again. And there were things that I wanted to experience before I died. That was one of them and he knew that. I never told him, but he knew it of me. So I succumbed. Freely of my own will. He was a murderous bastard, yes, but he had the softest touch. Gentle. A bastard that managed to take care. And as wrong as it was, I liked it.”

  She stopped, drawing a breath, choking it down past the knot in her throat and her eyes opened to him.

  The hard line of Des’s jaw had s
urfaced, the vein along his temple pounding. “You liked it?”

  “Yes, I bloody well liked it, Des.” Her voice pitched high. “I liked when he would strip me bare. When his hands would run over my body. When he would make me scream in pleasure.”

  “Stop. Just damn well stop, Jules.”

  She stepped forward, the tips of her toes hitting his, her neck craning to look up at him, even as he avoided her eyes. “No. You don’t get to do that to me, Des. You don’t get to make me feel more disgusted about it than I already am. I was weak and I was never going to admit any of it to you, but you couldn’t let it rest. You asked—you pushed—you were the one that needed to know.” She gasped a breath, her lips pulling back in a straight line. “And now you do.”

  It took Des long seconds to look at her. “I’m not disgusted at you—it’s that I don’t want to imagine any man ever touching you.” His stare shifted, boring into her. “There were never any children?”

  “No. I’m barren.”

  The line of his jaw twitched. “Did you love him?”

  Her head snapped back. “No.”

  His gaze cut into her, his look piercing her to her soul.

  “No.” She met his stare, repeating the word. “I never loved him. Coupling was never about that. It was just…just sex. Something my body wanted. Moments of escape from the cruel reality about me. It had nothing to do with my heart. But I respected him as much as I hated him. Think of me what you will, Des, but that is the crux of it. My body is not innocent. My soul is not innocent.”

  Des’s eyes closed to her for a long breath. Two. Three. Four.

  He took a step away from her, his legs hitting the chair, and he turned to the side, his hand rubbing his forehead. Her fingertips twitched, her nails digging into her thumbs. Waiting.

  Waiting for the revulsion that he would shower her with.

  His head shook, his lips pulling into a tight line as he finally shifted his gaze to her. “I’ve had a wife. You’ve had a husband. Neither one of us is an innocent.”

  Her breath held in her chest. “And?”

  “Innocence is overrated.”

  He swallowed the space between them, crashing into her, his lips meeting hers. Salt and sweat and brandy touching her tongue. Her mouth cracked open and heat invaded her, sinking through her body, sparking all her nerves into attention.