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

by K. J. Jackson

  Far. Fast. Away.

  Three feet from his horse, he collapsed against a tree. His weak body unable to take him any farther.

  He slid down the bark, his backside landing in the drifted snow, his hands burying into the freezing ice crystals.

  Cold that now held Jules to the ground. To death.

  His eyes closed and a vision of her flooded his mind. Jules on the ship on one of those first days. Her hair still in braids, distrust in every one of her movements, suspicion on her face. But hidden under that wariness, the glimmer of the woman she truly was.

  Her lips moving with a grin she tried to hide as her blue-green eyes sparkled at him. “What could go wrong with me?”

  “Everything,” he’d said.

  Everything.

  What could go wrong? He’d known the answer then.

  Known it so deep in his soul he never could have found it, imagined it at the time. But it had been there all along, waiting for him. Waiting to devour him.

  Love.

  Love was what could go wrong. Love that he didn’t want, couldn’t hazard. Not again.

  Love was the enemy.

  He’d known he’d never have love again. Not after Corentine.

  Yet love had forced its way into the cold barren shadows of his heart.

  Despite his steadfast hold against it, despite the cruel fact that he’d never dared to say it out loud—never dared to tempt the fates—he’d fallen in love with Jules.

  Soul shattering love. Love that had become his very purpose for living.

  He’d chanced it—despite all that could go wrong—he’d chanced it.

  And he’d lost it.

  Cursed.

  Exactly as he knew he was. Exactly as he should have remembered.

  ~~~

  Two cutthroats approached him.

  Or was it three? Four?

  He blinked hard, his sight pulling back into focus. Two. Definitely two.

  A table flipped on their way to him. Ale flying. Chaos behind them.

  For how fast he imagined they moved, they seemed to be slow. Slow as they stalked him.

  Des downed the last of the whisky in his glass and set it down on the table.

  He missed and the glass fell off the table, knocking onto his knee before shattering on the floor by his boots.

  Smashed glass. Daisy—Daisy the voluptuous bar maid was going to be mad. She’d been so very good, glass after glass after glass delivered to him for six days now. Daisy would be mad.

  A blade flashed in the air in front of his nose.

  How did they get that close, that fast?

  His head rolled—a thousand stones banging inside of it—and Des managed to tip his chin upward, his eyes following suit. Pirates. Pirates he knew. The right one—the one from the Red Dragon that had stolen Jules from the street in front of the dress shop.

  That pirate, then the other man moved away, backward. Floating through the air.

  No sense. No sense at all.

  He had to concentrate on blinking again.

  No—not floating. They were being dragged, fighting.

  A cold blast spun into the tavern as the door opened and the pirates disappeared into the darkness. Swallowed by a black hole of hell.

  “Ye’ve been a hard man to track, Des.”

  His head bobbing, falling downward, he found black boots on the floor in front of him, the toes crunching onto the shattered glass.

  “Des.”

  With a heave of effort, Des made his eyes move upward. Captain Folback.

  Where did he come from?

  Des’s mouth curled in a sneer. “I didn’t want to be followed.” The words, even to his own soused ears, were slurred beyond recognition.

  “Yet I found you.”

  “Aye, so what of it?”

  Captain Folback nodded toward him. “This because of the girl?”

  For a moment, Des paused, swaying, near to passing out. He forced air from his lungs. “She’s dead.” A mere whisper, the words stained a bitter taste across his tongue.

  “A shame, a beauty like that.” Captain Folback kicked out the chair across the round table from Des and sat in it, staring at him. “Then this will be a mite easier.”

  “What?”

  “It seems ye forgot to tell me about a little gem that came off the Red Dragon with that lady friend of yers.”

  That sobered Des—as much as possible with the whisky deep in his veins. His back straightened from the permanent curl it had formed in the last week and a half since leaving Gatlong Hall. “What are you talking about, Captain?”

  “The crew of the Red Dragon escaped from the hold a day after they were set in chains. Had help they did—from who I don’t yet know. They took back over the ship and killed Johnson.” Captain Folback threw his arm onto the table, leaning over it as his voice lowered. “The bastards followed us into port and they have loose lips—loose about what they’re after—who they’re after and why. We’ve been following them. They’ve been following ye. Those are the two demons yer mates just dragged away from ye—they were seconds away from cutting ye.”

  Des’s blurry gaze swung to the closed door.

  Captain Folback pulled wide his red coat lapels and sat back in his chair, his leg flipping up to rest on his left knee. “The Box of Draupnir should have been mine, Des. Ye know that fact. So give me the box and come back to the ship. We’re leaving port in a week. We have new crewmen to train in.”

  Des pulled his blurry eyes straight, focusing on the captain in the middle of the three he currently saw.

  Captain Folback wasn’t angry, wasn’t threatening. If anything, he looked concerned.

  Des squinted at the captain and then his eyes closed.

  The sea. Back to the sea.

  That was the only place for him. What little hope he had for living on land again was killed the moment dirt hit Jules’s casket.

  “Think about it, Des.” Captain Folback stood, patting Des’s shoulder. “We moved to Bristol and will set sail in three days’ time. I’d prefer it if ye were on board, box or not.”

  Captain Folback’s boots thudded away, the sound echoing in Des’s ears.

  The Firehawk.

  He had to get back to it.

  Back to the only home he knew.

  For the dream of a home with Jules was dead.

  { Chapter 19 }

  With a sigh, Jules set her reticule and gloves on the table beside the settee in the drawing room.

  Her father had summoned her back to Gatlong Hall from her aunt’s home on the Isle of Wight. Too soon, not that she’d had any luck finding Des. She’d made the trek to Portsmouth—her Aunt Eliana had insisted on accompanying her—and she had found Captain Folback. Even met his wife. But not a one of the crew had seen Des since they’d parted ways in Plymouth Docks.

  Something was dreadfully wrong.

  Des would never abandon her like that. Never abandon his shipmates without a word.

  She just had to figure out what to do next—how to find him. Visiting the local villages and towns would be her next course of action. Someone must have seen him in the last several weeks.

  “I adhered to your conditions, Julianna.”

  Jules spun around. Her father stood in the doorway to the drawing room, his left fingers clamped around a lit cheroot.

  Her tongue curdled at the sight of him and her head dipped for a long second as she smoothed the front of her skirt. She had thought a number of weeks without her father’s face in front of her would help ease the rage that sent her veins to boiling whenever she caught sight of him.

  It was not to be.

  She managed a neutral line of her mouth, tight though it was, before lifting her gaze to him. “You did what, Father?”

  “I adhered to the conditions. Your conditions. The man, Mr. Phillips, came here looking to speak with you.”

  “Des?” She rushed three steps toward him, close enough the smoke from the cheroot swirled around her neck. “Des w
as here?”

  “Yes, and I welcomed him into my home, as was the agreement. I welcomed him, but you were not here, so he left.”

  Dammit. She’d been out looking for him and he’d been here, just as he’d said he would. Stupid. She should have waited. Waited longer. Trusted him to come back for her.

  Her look went desperate on her father. “He left? But where? Where to?”

  Her father eyed her, lifting the cheroot to his mouth and dragging an inhale, stretching time long. “I held up my end of the bargain, child.”

  She took another step toward him, the smoke stinging her eyes. “You did. Thank you. Thank you so much, Father. Thank you for reconsidering. How long ago was he here?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  A smile broke wide on her face as hope flooded her chest. Des had come for her. Just like he’d promised. Late, but he’d come. Where had he been? She had to find him immediately, find out where he’d been. Not that it mattered. He’d come for her. That was the most important thing.

  “The agreement, Jules.”

  She met her father’s steely gaze and her jaw flexed back and forth. Of course he wanted the damn box. Of course that was the only reason he’d welcomed Des into Gatlong Hall. But this would be worth it. This would be worth anything. “I’ll give you the box.”

  “It’s about bloody time, child.” He crossed his arms along his chest, the smoke of the cheroot swirling up along his face.

  She shook her head. “But only if you let me go. I’ll give you the box—if you give me free rein to go to him.” Her look pinned him. For all she believed that he’d held up his end of the bargain, she didn’t trust him to not interfere in her life further. The box was the only bargaining chip she had and she was damn well going to use it.

  “You never bother us again, Father. You never threaten Des again. You give me your word on that and the box is yours.”

  Her father nodded. “Deal. But we get the box first.”

  Two hours later, Jules flexed her hands, attempting to keep blood flowing into her cold fingers as she searched the trees across from the sheep field. The vantage point from atop her horse was as she remembered and her father waited on his steed behind her.

  She looked over her shoulder across the road. Three capstones in from the left on the stone-stacked wall. Her look swung back to the woods. An oak. A pine tree. Another dormant oak with an odd bulge in the shape of a troll nose with a wide knot directly above it.

  There.

  She nudged the horse six strides back into the thick of the woods.

  There it was. Just above the top of her head, an empty hollow in an oak.

  She glanced at her father. “Hold my horse steady.”

  She positioned her horse next to the oak and her father maneuvered his mount to the front of it and grabbed the bridle. Jules lifted herself up on the stirrup of her sidesaddle. The reins wrapped around her left hand, she twisted and shifted to balance her shins on the saddle, facing the tree.

  She reached up, her hand going into the cavity of the tree.

  Nothing.

  Air.

  Her hand slapped around. Bark. Nut shavings.

  Nothing else.

  She tore off her glove, thrusting her hand back into the hole, her fingers frenzied, running along the interior of the hollow.

  No box. No dagger that Des had stuck through the cloth that they’d wrapped the box with, then jabbed into the wood so rodents couldn’t drag it about.

  No blade. No box. No cloth.

  Her hand still searching, she looked about her, her eyes frantic on each tree. Maybe she had the wrong tree. Maybe—

  But there. Her fingers landed on a gash in the wood in the back of the hole.

  A gash made by a blade. A blade now gone.

  Her hand slipped out of the hollow, curling onto the wool cloak lapped over her chest. “It’s not there.”

  She sank onto her calves and slowly turned, her legs slipping along the sidesaddle.

  “What? No.” Her father dropped the bridle and shoved his horse between hers and the tree.

  “You’re mistaken, girl. It has to be there.” He pushed himself up on his stirrups, his weight against the tree as he looked into the hole, his hand diving in, rolling around the cavity.

  A growl bubbled up from his chest, turning into a roar. “Bloody cutthroat. I knew it the moment I saw him.”

  “No. No.” Jules gasped a breath, thinking, trying to imagine a scenario where Des would need to take the box. There had to be an explanation. There had to be. “No—there must be some mistake.”

  “There is no mistake, Julianna.” The fury of her father’s booming voice shot at her. “You were taken in by a scoundrel—just as I said, just as I saw him for what he was, as God is my witness.”

  “No—no, you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not wrong, you idiot child. That blackguard always wanted the box, Jules. It was never about you.” His face turned red—what looked like the blazes of Hades curling about his brow. “Fool girl—why would anyone want you? It was about the box. It was always about the box. No one else knew where it was. You and him. That was it. And then he took it for his own.”

  “No.” Her head shook, tears filling her eyes as her body began to crumple upon itself. “No, it cannot be.”

  Her muscles turned to mush, air leaving her lungs as though she’d just been punched. She slid down off her horse, her hand slipping off the reins as her boots sank into the melting snow. All of her bones failing her, she dropped downward, crumpling into a heap on the frozen forest floor. White ground dotted with crinkled, dead leaves that wouldn’t stay still, that tilted and spun around her.

  “Disgusting.” Her father jerked his horse away from the tree, then yanked up on the reins, spinning his animal back to her, its hooves near to crushing her. “If it’s any solace, you’ll be content to know the knave is dead. I lied. He never came to the house. I had him killed after the first time he was here. Dumped into the river. He’s been dead, rotting for a good long while. The bastard betrayed you, and now he’s dead. So good riddance. I told you what he was—I saw it directly, Julianna, and you wouldn’t listen. Your fool stubbornness is your own cross to bear.”

  Her look lifted to her father, trying to find him through her tears as she weeded through his onslaught of words. Her voice cracked. “He’s dead? Des is dead?”

  His lip curled. “You are welcome.”

  A gasp wrenched from her chest, sticking in her throat, choking her.

  A snort of disgust and her father turned his horse. “Find your own way home, you ungrateful child.”

  { Chapter 20 }

  Waters west of Portugal

  June 1824

  Des stared at Robert Lipinstein, his crewmate for the last year and now his captain. The man stood alone on the forecastle deck of the Firehawk, his forearms on the railing, his hands clasped, his head bowed, the half moon offering streaks of light as wispy clouds passed in front of it.

  There wasn’t a man on this ship he respected more.

  For all the blood still weeping from wounds on the deck below them, they were alive. Enough of them were still alive and Roe was the reason.

  Captain Roe, now.

  Des climbed the ladder to the forecastle deck and strolled over to him, settling his forearms on the railing next to Roe, his eyes on the water glittering under the moonlight.

  “The men, have any else died?”

  “No.” Des looked down, his left forefinger playing atop his mangled knuckle. “Most look to hold. I do not know on Wes. The cutlass that he took when he stepped in front of me to block it went deep into his side. An organ was sliced, or so Murray said—I couldn’t look at it close enough.”

  Roe’s brows lifted. “The blood?”

  “Aye. Too much of it. It’s why I’m up here.” Des sighed. “When it should be me down there instead of Wes.”

  “Wes took a blade meant for you while Captain Folback took a blade that should have been mean
t for me. I don’t know that any of us can hold any dignity after a battle like that.”

  Des shrugged. “No one knew where blades and shots were coming from, the smoke was that thick—I’ve never seen it thicker.” Des looked to Roe. “You couldn’t have prevented his death, Roe. None of us could have.”

  Roe shook his head. “It was my responsibility. You were leading the men and I was to have the captain’s back. I didn’t.”

  Des turned sideways, studying Roe’s profile. “I saw the brutes he had to get through on the Minerva to get to Lord Bockton. That he made it that far was only by your uncanny skill with blades. You’re the dirtiest fighter I’ve ever seen—and also the most effective.”

  “Then how did I not see that dagger coming at him?” Roe’s head dipped, his voice low.

  Des paused, picking at his mangled knuckle before turning back to the sea and resting his forearms on the railing. Roe was never going to forget or forgive this. Neither was Des. “Captain Folback was going to go down with his wife, one way or another—he knew it the moment he swung across to the Minerva. The sea was his world, but she was his love. Once she was dead, he meant to go down with her as well.”

  “Damn love.” Roe’s words rumbled rough into the night sky.

  Des nodded. Damn love, indeed.

  Roe’s head turned to Des, his grey eyes still flickering rage from the day. “How are the men that are still able to stand?”

  “Rum is flowing heavily.”

  Roe nodded, his look going back to the sea.

  Des kept his gaze on his friend. “Folback would have wanted you to be captain, Roe. He sees it in you just like I do.”

  Roe shrugged. “Yes, and I wanted it to be you.”

  “You know why I cannot.” Des sighed. “We don’t always get what we want, Roe.”

  “No. No, we do not.”

  Des’s cheek lifted in a half smile. “Except for me. I wanted you to become captain, so for a change, I got what I wanted.”

  “Ass.” Roe shook his head, his look dropping between his arms.

  They stood in silence for long moments until Roe lifted his head.