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

by K. J. Jackson

  “Are we far from your father’s estate?”

  Jules glanced about. “No, not far. An hour by horse, if I remember correctly.”

  Des nodded to himself. “Then this is as good of a place as any.”

  He pulled up on his reins, stopping his horse.

  Jules followed suit. “Good for what?”

  “I have a proposal for you.”

  She gave him a scolding look. “This better not have anything to do with lifting my skirts, Des. The cold in my bones is already too much. I have not adjusted to this weather at all.”

  He chuckled. “No—as enticing as that prospect is, I’m stopping for a different reason.”

  “What?”

  “The box. I propose we hide it. Only the two of us know where it is. We find a nook in a tree over there.” His forefinger pointed over his shoulder to the grove of oaks. “And we hide it until we can come up with something else to do with it. It’s safer if neither of us has it on our person.”

  “Safer from the crew of the Red Dragon?”

  “Yes. They haven’t followed us thus far, but I don’t wish to depend on that for long. And safer from your father. It will be easier if we pretend it doesn’t exist. If we think of it as stolen. Gone.” He watched her face, the indecision on it. “But if you would rather keep it with you, I understand. I can protect you from the Red Dragon crew, Jules. I just wish I had injured them more severely in Plymouth.”

  Or killed them. Of all the men he’d sent to their graves in his day, he should have dispatched those three to the same fate. They had dared to steal Jules from him—and since that moment, he’d begun to realize what he would do for this woman—what he would do to keep her safe.

  Anything. Everything.

  And if hiding the blasted box would help keep her safe, then he’d make that happen, one way or another. And it wasn’t just the Red Dragon crew he was worried about. Des had no idea what sort of a man her father was—but he’d killed a man once for the box—and Des didn’t trust the marquess not to sink to that level again.

  He bit his tongue as he watched her decide, willing her to come to the answer on her own.

  Her bottom lip pulled under her teeth and she stared at the woods standing starkly from the blanket of snow.

  “Aye. It will be easier.” Her gaze shifted to him. “We hide it.”

  Des swallowed his held breath.

  Thank the heavens.

  ~~~

  Des stood next to Jules on the front marble steps of Gatlong Hall. Looming above them were the dark tans of the pennant sandstone that graced the front baroque façade of the hall that centered her father’s Gloucestershire estate.

  Her fingers gripped his hand hard, even through the leather of her gloves, the tips of her nails digging into his skin every other second. In and out.

  When would the blasted butler get to the door?

  She gasped another breath, her look going nervously from him to the door. “I don’t—”

  The left of the double-wide doors began to creak open.

  An elderly man—bald head, white tufts about his ears, and a face that time had stacked wrinkle upon wrinkle upon—peered out at them between the crack of the doors.

  Weathered eyes skipped past Jules, worked up Des’s mismatched and rumpled clothing and then settled on Des’s face. His gravelly voice managed a flair of haughtiness. “Your business?”

  Jules swayed, leaning into Des’s side, attempting to get the butler’s attention. “Mr. Charles, Mr. Charles, it’s me.” The words came out in a ragged whisper.

  The butler shifted his gaze to Jules and he stared at her.

  Stared at her for second after second.

  His grey eyebrows shot up, his head pulling back and sending the stoop in his back to flatten. “No. Lady Julianna? No. No. It cannot be.”

  Her head bobbed up and down, her words fast. “It is. It is, Mr. Charles.”

  The man’s left hand went to his chest and he staggered backward, his grip on the door tearing free.

  “Oh, no.” Jules rushed forward, grasping his right arm. Des followed her, grabbing the left side of the butler as his feet continued to shuffle backward.

  Jules motioned with her head over her shoulder. “In the drawing room, we need to have him sit.”

  They walked the butler into the drawing room adjoining the foyer. A darkly wainscoted room, rose and peach furnishings offset the heavy walls. They maneuvered him to the tufted peach settee angled toward the open doors of the room and set him down.

  A gasp behind them.

  Des looked over his shoulder just as Jules did. A maid had appeared in the foyer, her hands at her throat.

  “Miss—miss—” Jules shook her head, not having a name for the woman. “Please retrieve his lordship immediately.”

  The order in Jules’s tone was not to be disobeyed and the maid lifted her skirts, scurrying off down the hallway.

  Des kept his hands on the butler’s shoulders to steady him as Jules took her cloak off and set it on the settee, then dropped to her knees in front of Mr. Charles and grabbed his hands. “Mr. Charles, I am so sorry to have frightened you so.”

  Mr. Charles’s mouth opened and closed several times before slurred words came out. “Lady Julianna—fr—from the grave.” He lifted a shaking hand and set it on Jules’s cheek.

  She snorted a chuckle, clasping his weathered hand to her face. “No, not from the grave at all. Just alive. Alive and here.”

  “Child—you don’t know how…” He shook his head, his other hand leaving his chest to collapse against her other cheek. “You are grown.”

  A tear brimmed off her lower left lashes as she nodded. “I am.”

  “What? What is this?” A booming voice echoed against the stark black and white marble in the foyer.

  Jules froze.

  Des looked to the foyer. Older. Wrinkled. But the same as he’d been on the Primrose. A wide belly that slid from his chest. Dark hair, now peppered grey. Jowls that took up half his face.

  Jules’s father. Lord Gatlong.

  Staring him down like he was a speck of dirt. No, dung. Excrement straight from the stables.

  Next to Des’s legs, Jules pushed herself to her feet. Her limbs crawling ever so slowly, she spun to her father.

  Lord Gatlong’s stare shifted off of Des as she turned to him.

  “Good Lord.” Her father exhaled the words, all brimstone taken from him.

  Des watched Jules. Watched her flinch at his words, watched her face pale as she saw him.

  Fear. Fear from deep within her.

  Fear that her father would think the worst of her. That he would know what she’d done to survive.

  “Good Lord.” The words slipped from his mouth again and then his feet started forward. Faster. Faster until he was barreling at Jules.

  Her father hit her with a force that swept her off her feet, his arms clamping about her, suffocating her to his body.

  Des had to jump to the side to avoid Jules’s swinging legs.

  Her father heaved breaths and he clamped her tighter, tighter to him.

  Just when Des was going to touch his shoulder to make sure he didn’t crack any of Jules’s bones, Lord Gatlong dropped her to her feet, his hands on her shoulders, shaking her. “Tell me it’s you, child. Tell me.”

  “It’s me, Father.” Tears streamed down her face and she nodded. “It’s me.”

  Des exhaled a silent breath of relief.

  Gatlong’s head swung back and forth, his jowls swinging. “Good Lord, child, how—how—how can this be?”

  “I escaped the Red Dragon, Papa. I know it has been so very long.”

  “Escaped? The ship—the pirates that took you? How? How can this be? How could you have survived?” His gaze swung to Des.

  There wasn’t the slightest speck of recognition in his eyes. Des had interacted with Lord Gatlong on the Primrose as they had limped it back to port, but the man’s eyes had been glazed over the entire time. Shock. G
rief. An inconsolable wife to manage. And Des had been several stones thinner then—skin and bones.

  “This bastard? He had you? He kept you from me? From your mother? Who is he?” Lord Gatlong turned fully to Des, his look sweeping him up and down. The side of his mouth curled into a snarl and he stepped in on Des. “He’s one of them, this filthy bastard. He’s a filthy pirate like the rest of them and now he thinks to come into my home with my daughter. What—”

  “No.” Jules jumped in front of her father, squeezing between him and Des. “No, Father. No. Des isn’t a pirate.”

  Des stared at Gatlong over Jules’s head. He didn’t need Jules to defend him. Not against a bigoted prig like this.

  He’d run into men like Lord Gatlong far too many times. The worst of the peerage—judging all those around him by looks alone.

  Des leveled the ire in his voice. “My lord, it seems you are mistaken.”

  Jules set her hand on her father’s chest. “He’s not a pirate, Father.”

  “I know what I see and I’m not mistaken.” Lord Gatlong shoved Jules to the side and moved forward, his belly running into the front of Des. “Don’t tell me what this bastard is or isn’t, Jules. I can see he’s a pirate. I can see he’s a bloody cutthroat.”

  Jules grabbed his arm. “Father, no—you’re wrong. I’m more of a pirate than he is.”

  Gatlong shrugged her hold off his arm, his glare eating into Des. So vicious, it spasmed into madness creeping across his pale blue eyes. Eyes like he was dead, no life in them.

  No life except for the deadly rage directed at Des. “You don’t tell me I’m wrong, child. This cutthroat took you from me—from your mother.” He looked to his right and lifted his hand, twitching his fingers.

  Three footmen appeared from the foyer. All tall. All muscular like any valuable footman was.

  Gatlong’s glare landed back on Des. “Get this trash out of my home.”

  “Father, no.” Jules grabbed his arm again, tugging on him. He swatted her away like a pesky fly.

  Jules stumbled to the side and just as Des moved to catch her before she fell to the floor, he was yanked from his feet, two of the footmen grabbing his arms and dragging him backward.

  Jules fell the to the floor, terror striking deep in her blue-green eyes. “Des, no.”

  Des glanced at the man on his right. On his left. Burly, but he could take them. But it would be bloody.

  Bloody in the drawing room of Jules’s home. Bloody in front of her father.

  Exactly what the man thought of him.

  Control he didn’t know he possessed flooded him and he looked to Jules dragging herself back to her feet, her hands clutching the edge of the settee.

  Not now. He couldn’t do this to her. He needed to let her father settle. Let the shock of Jules appearing out of nowhere dissipate.

  Caution.

  He had to side with caution at this juncture. It was the only way to abate the fury in the room. To find a path forward.

  He didn’t fight the footmen as they dragged him out of the drawing room. “Jules.”

  Her face snapped up to him.

  “I’ll be back for you. I swear it. Nothing will stop me. Just calm. Calm. Just let this be. I’ll be back. But this—right now—you need to sleep in your bed. Talk to your mother. Talk to your father without me here. I will be back tomorrow.”

  “Des—”

  “Let it be.” His words cut her off, cut hard through the air as his boots hit the marble of the foyer. “Let it be, Jules.”

  Through the front door and into the drizzle of rain and sleet that had started falling.

  The footmen shoved him, sending him to the crunch of snow just beyond the marble step.

  The door slammed closed behind him.

  { Chapter 16 }

  The crash of the door closing echoed through the foyer and into the drawing room.

  The crack broke Jules free of the shock of what had just happened. What had just happened to Des. What he had let happen to him.

  Des could have easily bested those footmen. She’d seen him fight on the Red Dragon—she’d seen him crush those three brutes outside the carriage. Those footmen were nothing.

  But Des hadn’t lifted a finger—he’d chosen the path of peace.

  She could not hold onto the same sense of decorum.

  Fury surged through her chest and she ran at her father, shaking his arm. “What have you done? He’s not what you think he is, Father.”

  She rounded him. “Where is Mother? Where is she? I need her.”

  Her father’s head jerked back, his face paling as though he had just been slapped out of his rage. Her mother always had that effect on him—could snap him free from the demons of anger that would coil around him and take over his entire being.

  His gaze tore away from the foyer and he looked at her. “My sweet Julianna.” His hands lifted and he clasped her face between his palms. “My sweet, sweet Julianna.”

  She grabbed his wrists, her voice hard. “I need Mother, Father.”

  His head shook slightly and he looked around the drawing room as if surprised his wife wasn’t in the chamber. “Of course.” His hands dropped from her face. “Of course. I’ll get her.”

  He moved around Jules, leaving her standing in the middle of the drawing room.

  Mr. Charles still sat on the settee, though he looked much farther away from death than he had when they had first brought him in there. He looked at Jules, shaking his head, his voice weary. “Much has changed, Lady Julianna.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the open doors to the foyer where her father had disappeared. “And much has stayed the same.”

  “That it has.” Unmistakable sadness ached in his voice.

  Just as she started to look back to Mr. Charles, she caught sight of Des moving past the drawing room window. He was probably going to the stables to retrieve his horse.

  She had to stop him from leaving.

  Her mother would fix everything. She would listen to Jules and welcome Des into their home.

  “I—I will be back, Mr. Charles. Please excuse me for a moment.” She spun and went to the foyer, looking both up the stairs and down the hallway that led to the library and her father’s study. Both were empty. She ran down the hall on her tiptoes and slipped out the side door just past her father’s study.

  “Des.” She intercepted him just before he reached the side entrance, the cold sleet that she’d stepped out into bitter pins on her face.

  Des pulled himself to a stop, his voice a low whisper. “Jules—thank the heavens. We have to leave—leave here now.”

  “No, you have to stay. Mother will come down and fix everything.” She grabbed his forearms. “I am so sorry—I forgot—time passed and I forgot how my father could be. What he could do. His anger. Time happened and I only remembered the good in him. But there is so much…”

  Her voice trailed off, her look dropping to the snow-covered ground on his left.

  “Bad? I saw it in his face, Jules. The murder in his eyes. He means to kill me for daring to touch you.”

  “Des—no.”

  His look cut into her. “I’ve been in enough battles to know when someone is about to kill me—and this is a battle I had no way to foresee.”

  She shook her head. “No…”

  “Yes, Jules.” His fingers lifted to grip onto her elbows. “We have to leave and we have to leave now.”

  “No, no, no—this was supposed to be different—not like this.” Her hands dropped from his forearms and she rubbed her palms on her face, her eyes closed. The spikes of the icy sleet dug crevices into her skin. “I know you’re right. Bloody Judas—what have I done?” Her eyes opened to him. “What have I done, coming back here? Bringing you?”

  His voice dipped low. “You’ve done exactly what you should have, Jules—but now we have to leave.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. Maybe in a day or a week we can return when he’s calmed. I can write mother and expl
ain everything—who you are, how I made it back.” Jules grabbed his hand as she turned, pulling him into motion. They moved along the building and rounded the back corner of Gatlong Hall when Jules jerked to a stop, yanking back on Des’s hand.

  Two of the footmen that had thrown Des out the front door were entering the stables.

  Her head shaking, she backed up, dragging him with her. “They don’t mean to let you leave—not peacefully.” Her grip on his hand went brutal as she wiped sleet from her eyelashes. “Damn my father—damn his vile temper—his idiocy.”

  Des tugged her along the stone side of the hall, his head swiveling, searching in all directions. “They’re in the stables so we need to escape on foot—which is the best way? One that will get us to the closest village?”

  She pointed to the forest that spread out far and long on the opposite side of the rambling drive up to Gatlong Hall. “There—to Snowshill.”

  “Then we run. We need to get to the woods before the footmen come out of the stable.”

  They darted in a sprint across the open expanse of land between the house and the forest, Jules praying with every slick step in the snow that no one would see them escaping into the confines of the trees.

  Des only slowed his gait once they were well into the woods, dodging the shrubbery and trunks, his grip pulling her along faster than she would have been able to run on her own.

  Down a ravine. Up it. Scrambling over rocks and fallen branches, their feet slipping on the half-melting snow that had blanketed the ground.

  The sleet had gathered into globs of wet snow that fell from branches and hit her forehead as they ran through the forest. Twenty minutes they sped along at Des’s relentless pace, her lungs thundering—threatening to explode—yet still he dragged her on.

  “Des. Des. Des.” The words barely made a sound through her gasped breaths.

  She was going to drop.

  The world around her was turning darker with every blink of her eyes. Her head starting to sway. Breath no longer in her lungs.

  Des glanced back at her and his feet instantly slowed.