“Dead. Dead and I’ll kill you if you say another word.” He took a step forward to Des. “Now lay your sword on the desk, you sod.”
His top lip pulling into a tight snarl, Des yanked free his cutlass and set it on the desk.
“Now open that box,” Gatlong said.
“What you want, you’ll never find in this box, Lord Gatlong.”
“You think you know what I want? You don’t have a clue, boy.” Gatlong stomped two more steps toward Des, his words screaming, filling the room, the pistol waving dangerously close to Des’s face. “I will have everything—everything with that box. You don’t know what it is—what you have in your hands. I’ll own the world with this ring. Now open the damn lid.”
Des looked down at the metal container that held the Box of Draupnir and flicked free the dirt that had crusted onto the edge. He flipped the latch and tugged the lid open, metal scraping against metal.
Before the lid had fully opened, Lord Gatlong sprung forward, his greedy left hand snatching the linen-wrapped box from the interior. He jumped back, his fingers shaking away the cloth from the wrapping.
The Box of Draupnir.
In the air.
In the light once more.
A manic giggle shook Gatlong’s chest as he lifted the box, his eyes glowing with madness. With the pistol still trained on Des, he swung the top of the box open with the fleshy butt of his right palm.
The ruby centering the ring flickered in the dim light of the sconces.
Gatlong snapped the box closed.
“You have what you wanted all these years,” Des said, his voice even. “Now Jules and I are leaving this place. And we are never to see your face again.”
Gatlong shifted his look to Des, the pistol lifting high once more. “You think that, do you, boy?”
“Yes, we bloody well think that.” Silent until that very moment, Jules’s scream ripped through the study. “That is exactly what is about to happen, Father.”
Gatlong didn’t look back to his daughter, his stare focused on Des, the pistol aimed at his torso.
“No, you owe us this, Father—after what you did to Des, what you did to me. You told him I was dead—you told me he was dead. There is nothing more we owe you. Nothing that you deserve.”
Gatlong chuckled to himself. “That was the sweetest vengeance of all after you two stole the box from me—both of you out there, moving through life, not knowing that the other was alive.” Gatlong extended the pistol toward Des’s chest. “And now this bastard can die for good this time.”
Des coiled, springing forward at the madman just as Jules jumped to the side of her father with the ancient samurai sword in hand, swinging it down with a mighty fury on Gatlong’s raised right arm.
The blade sliced clean through Gatlong’s wrist.
The pistol fired, the crack booming through Des’s head, the room, the house.
Gatlong’s right hand thumped to the floor.
Dismembered from his arm, his fingers still gripping the pistol.
~~~
Of course it was that sharp.
The sword of a samurai.
Even hundreds of years old, the finest of blades.
Her father never would have purchased it from that disreputable contraband merchant all those years ago if it wasn’t the real thing.
The world went blurry, slow in front of Jules.
His hand on the floor.
The box crashing down next to it. Her father stumbling back, the blow of Des crashing into him sending him across the room. His deranged screams filling the room as he fell to the hearth in front of the fireplace. Clutching his arm, clutching at the bleeding stump that now existed where his hand once did.
She should have killed him.
She knew it the moment he mentioned the lack of rugs in his study.
He would only care about his precious rugs if he meant to spill blood.
And she’d been right. He meant to spill blood. Des’s blood. Her blood.
She wasn’t about to let that happen. Not when she still had the soul of a pirate buried deep within her. Brutal strength to call upon.
Her father’s body convulsed, wrapping around his arm, agonized wails seeping from his throat in wave after wave.
She didn’t care. Not anymore.
Jules looked up, searching for Des.
He’d staggered backward to the desk, shock in his hazel eyes. Still. Unmoving.
Her jaw dropped, all air leaving her.
No.
Please don’t let him be shot. Not again.
Not now. Not when they had finally found each other again. Against all odds and the fates conspiring against them, they had found each other again.
No.
Des stumbled forward, grabbing her arms. “Jules…”
“Are you hit?” She forced the words through her throat, the words tearing at her very soul.
He shook his head. “No.”
His hand moved gently down her right arm and he twisted the samurai sword from her grasp, tossing it to the floor.
Des turned from her, going over to her father, kneeling on the floor beside him as his hands quickly ripped the leather belt holding the scabbard from his waist.
“Don’t touch him, Des. Don’t help him. He deserves everything he’s gotten.”
Des didn’t turn back to her. “I have to, Jules. He’s your damned father.” His hands quick, he wedged free the scabbard and dagger from the belt, then yanked Gatlong’s right arm toward him. He wrapped the leather strap about her father’s forearm, jerking the leather tight—his muscles straining—to stop the blood.
A minute passed of her father’s agonized screams while Des stared at the stump of his arm, waiting to see if the blood would cease.
Jules could only watch from across the room, unsure as to what she wanted the outcome to be.
His screams dipped into wretched moans and her father collapsed in on himself. Still breathing. Blood stopped.
Des pushed back from her father and stood, then turned around to her, swaying, his face pale. Damn—the blood. He was going to lose consciousness.
The door flew open behind her and Mr. Charles shuffled in as fast as his feet would carry him, his left arm jabbing into his dark coat, attempting to hide the nightshirt he wore. A quick glance around with a furrowed brow and he looked to Jules. “Lady Julianna—are you injured? I heard a blast.”
His words startled her into motion and she stepped across the room, sliding an arm along Des’s lower back to steady him. She looked to Mr. Charles. “No, I am well, Mr. Charles. We are both well. My father will need assistance, though.”
At that moment Mr. Charles spotted the hand clutching the pistol on the floor. He blanched, his hand grasping his chest. “My lady—”
“I did it, Mr. Charles.” She flicked her head backward. “Please see to my father—have a surgeon fetched.”
His head bobbing up and down, Mr. Charles shuffled in a circle around to the door. “Yes, my lady. At once.” He ran as fast his brittle bones could carry him out of the room.
Her left arm gripped tight around Des’s back and she twisted, looking down at her father. His wails had ceased. At least enough to hear her.
“My husband—the Earl of Troubant—just saved your life, Father. Note the fact that I said earl. And I said husband. Be grateful for his mercy and do not dare to tempt his wrath. Never, ever bother us again, or I won’t hesitate to pick up a sword against you once more.” She leaned down toward him, her voice a brutal hiss. “And the pirate in my bones will serve you up a much grimmer fate than what I just delivered.”
With quick breath, she spun from her father and started forward, tugging Des along with her.
In the middle of the room, she paused, bending over to pick up the Box of Draupnir her father had dropped.
His hand shifting along her shoulder, Des cleared his throat. “Jules, we could leave it here.”
She shook her head, standing straight as she look
ed at him. “The curse is too good for him. He’ll think he won. And he didn’t. He lost everything. So I leave him with that.”
Des stared at her for a long breath, his hazel eyes sinking deep into her soul.
This was the justice she needed. Be it cruel, she could not rise above it. She could not forgive her father for taking Des from her all those years ago. Forgive him for trying to kill Des not once, but twice.
His breath held for a long moment and then Des gave a slight nod. In that one moment, accepting her unequivocally and without reservation—everything she was, everything she had ever been, and everything she would be. Pirate blood and all.
He nudged her forward toward the door.
Just outside the study, Mr. Charles hobbled along toward them. “The surgeon has been sent for, my lady.” He glanced at Des and then back to her. “You are thinking to leave?”
“We are.”
“But Lady Julianna—”
“I am sorry to leave you with this, Mr. Charles, as you have always been so good to me. But you need to clean up the mess in my father’s study.”
“But my lady—”
Jules shook her head, her hand going to squeeze Mr. Charles’s arm. “Don’t worry—the blood didn’t get on any rugs.”
Mr. Charles’s weathered lips clamped shut. He knew just as well as her the misdeeds of her father.
Des’s arm tightened about her shoulders and she looked up at him.
Even in the dim light of the hallway, she could see the color returning to his face. Though he probably wouldn’t eat for a day.
“Are you ready, Jules?”
“I have been ready for this moment for years.”
A smile from him, and they started forth, walking out of Gatlong Hall.
Free. Free of the past.
Free to be who she was.
Free.
Except for that pesky box clutched in her hand.
{ Epilogue }
“Tell me it is done.”
Jules jumped to her feet as Des walked into her bedroom at her aunt’s dower house on the Isle of Wight. He flopped down heavily onto a side chair across from her in front of the fire.
For all that they needed to stay together, this was one event she couldn’t participate in, and she’d been skittish since Des had left two days ago. Every door opening and closing in the enormous Palladian country house had sent her running through the corridors, checking in rooms, making sure Des hadn’t arrived back.
She’d known it could take this long—known he’d had to travel to Portsmouth on the mainland and then find Weston.
As bleary as her eyes had been, she hadn’t been able to sleep so had been sitting by the fire, staring at the same page in a book for the last hour.
Her entire being suddenly wide awake, she stepped forward, looking down at Des as her fingers twisted with themselves. “Is it done?”
His hand ran across his face. He looked as weary as she felt—most likely having slept even less than her.
Des looked up at her as his fingers cleared from his face and his hazel eyes settled on her. “Yes. And no.”
Instant elation in her belly shoved aside by instant dismay.
Her fingers went to his cheek, dragging across a fresh cut marring his skin she hadn’t seen when he first came in. “This? Tell me. Tell me it is gone. Tell me it has fallen into the proper hands.”
Two months.
Two months they’d carried the Box of Draupnir about with them. To Wolfbridge Castle and then here to the Raplan Dower Estate on the Isle of Wight.
Des tugged her forefinger from his face, his hand clutching hers. “Not the hands that I had intended for it.”
Her legs going queasy, Jules sank to sit on the arm of the chair, her knees curling onto his thighs as her chest tightened. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “It had been going according to plan. Wes and Murray had been the fourth and fifth at the table, we were the last ones left in the gaming hell—and the man, the bloody bastard that deserved that blasted box was sitting across from me. The worst of the worst. Mr. Lopson. A whoremonger, he owns several whorehouses and rolls every man that dares to lose consciousness in his territory. Countless deaths of good men are on his hands. He was the perfect recipient of the box and the ruination it would cause. And everything—the pile of coin, the Box of Draupnir—sat on the table with the last hand of loo. Wes and Murray were out and Lopson was salivating, rabid.”
Des’s words stopped with a shake of his head. “He was set to beat me, but then the last gentleman at the table who was soused to his core—and I was positive wasn’t coherent enough to toss his hand onto the table—managed to lift his head, open his eyes and flip down his cards. A blasted flush of hearts and Pam. He looed the board. The poor bastard won it all.”
Her knuckles flew in front of her mouth. “No.”
“Yes.”
Her hand flattened, spreading across the front of her bare neck. “Who was it?”
“Lord Gruggin.”
“Gruggin? I’ve not heard of him.”
“He’s a man that has managed to gamble away almost the entirety of one of the finest estates in England. His father was a feared man in the halls of parliament. The son is a fool, but not a bad person.”
“So what happened? Lopson must have seen the box and known exactly what he’d just lost?”
“Yes. Hence the cut across my cheek.” Des’s fingers lifted from her hand and went to his cheek, tapping on the scab. “Wes and I had to see the gentleman home and, as predicted, Lord Gruggin was attacked by Lopson and his thugs. Five of them. Not one of those idiots thought to look twenty steps behind Lord Gruggin or they would have seen us.”
A frown tightened her mouth. “You are all well?”
Des nodded. “Wes and I were within striking distance, so the three of us all escaped unharmed.”
She shook her head. “But what about the future? Lopson will continue to seek the box—men always do once they’ve seen it.”
At his silence, she paused and stared at him, a half smile creeping across her mouth. “You’ve already worried this conundrum to death, haven’t you?”
“Aye. I have. Wes has agreed to move himself into the man’s life, protecting him until the box makes its home elsewhere.”
“Wes has?” Her head twitched to the side. “That is…benevolent of him.”
Des grabbed her hand once more, his fingers rubbing along her knuckles. “He has business with Lord Gruggin that goes beyond the box.”
“Business that you’re not going to tell me about?”
“Correct.”
She sighed, her forehead crinkling. Her husband knew far too well how to hold secrets. “But the most important thing, the box is not our worry any longer?”
“Heaven help us, no.” His gaze went intent on her. “But we’ll need to help Wes and Lord Gruggin should the need arise. It is only right.”
“Of course.”
“But for now—hopefully forever, the blasted thing is out of our lives. Curse and all.”
A tentative smile crossed her lips, the weight that had been festering in her chest since walking out of Gatlong Hall with the box in her hand broke apart, dissolving into nothing. “No longer in our possession. No longer our curse.”
He nodded. “That is the hope.”
A deep breath, and her smile solidified. “Good. I am exhausted by it and I have something else I would very much like to concentrate on.”
“Me?” For all the weariness in his shoulders, a carnal gleam lit red hot in Des’s eyes and his hand dropped to her thigh, curling along her hip bone to her backside.
“You, of course.” She chuckled. “And someone else.”
His eyebrows drew together, harsh. “If you utter another man’s name at this point I’m about to go quite deranged.”
She kissed his forehead, a chuckle at her lips. “I don’t know the name yet.”
“You don’t know the name yet? Then how can you worry on the pe
rson?”
Her eyes dipped down to her belly.
His head shook slightly. “What?”
She looked at him directly again and then dropped her stare to her belly.
His words slipped out with an exhale, soft and raw. “Are you telling me something, Jules? Something important?”
Jules nodded, the smile on her face beaming.
His hand shaking, he set his palm to her belly. “This?” The one word slipped into the air without breath, barely audible.
Her chest so full of love for this man, she hadn’t been able to speak, but then she managed to force words up through the thickness in her lungs. “This. A babe.”
“But I thought…”
“As did I.”
His arms crashed forward, clamping around her, dragging her fully onto his lap as his forehead dug onto her chest, his breath manic. “No, Jules, truly?”
“Yes.”
Her chin clasped down onto the top of his head, his breath warm against the bare skin of her chest. A moment to hold onto forever.
All she’d ever wanted but never dared to dream. So much she’d lost during her life—time, people, her very sanity for a time.
But now this.
Des. Love.
Love and so much more to come.
Hope had never burned brighter.
~ From K.J. Jackson ~
Thank you so much for reading! My next full book is about Weston and how his story intersects with that darn box. Be sure to check out the sneak peek below of The Blood of a Baron, Box of Draupnir.
~
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The Heart of an Earl (A Box of Draupnir Novel Book 1) Page 21
