The Soul of a Rogue (A Box of Draupnir Novel Book 3)

by K. J. Jackson

  His voice came in a cracked whisper. “If I have to choose between you and Jules, I choose you, Elle. I choose you above promises or vows or friends or loyalty. You. You’re all that matters.”

  “Come, Rune, enough of that.” Hoppler’s voice cut through the delicate bubble of denial that had encased them for those few precious seconds. “You have some debts to pay and I’m getting impatient.”

  Rune released her and she floundered to find her footing.

  He didn’t catch her. Didn’t help. He was already turning to Hoppler. Already aimed at the stables. He needed a horse and they needed to get off this island before he did something stupid.

  For stupid would mean Elle would die.

  And he wouldn’t let that happen.

  { Chapter 21 }

  She sat on her front steps for fifteen minutes and not a second more.

  Fifteen minutes was all she was going to allow herself to wallow.

  Wallow in what she had just lost.

  Wallow in her stupidity for what she’d thought she had.

  A future. Love. Possibilities.

  When it had all been lies. Every touch. Every kiss. Every last word.

  Stupid.

  Elle didn’t think her legs would hold her, but she pushed herself up onto her heels, standing and rocking for a moment before she felt she could take a step and at least stagger inside.

  London. She needed to go to London. Get lost in what little fun was still to be had before the season ended.

  Or better yet, make her way to her good friend, Lady Hewton’s country estate in Suffolk. Lady Hewton would already be entertaining there, if she wasn’t off visiting herself.

  Her arms limp at her sides, Elle shuffled her feet around, facing her front door. Her driver had wisely not come out with her last bit of luggage. He must have seen Rune leave. Must have seen her collapse onto the stone steps.

  Such discretion, all of them. It was why she’d hired them.

  But at the moment, she’d rather like a shoulder to lean upon.

  Elle inhaled a deep breath, steeling herself, ignoring the churning pit in her stomach, the cavernous hole in her chest. This wasn’t the first time she’d been alone and devastated.

  She’d walked through that hell once. She could do it again.

  Just keep walking.

  “Eliana, thank goodness.” Lord Kallen’s gravelly voice cut through the air, wrapping her from behind. “I didn’t miss you, child.”

  Wiping the tear stains on her cheeks as quickly as she could, Elle turned around. She hadn’t even heard his horse’s hooves on the gravel drive. “No, you didn’t miss me at all. But what are you doing here? You hate goodbyes.”

  He shrugged and slid down from his saddle, pulling out his cane and moving toward her. “Sentimentality has sunk into these old bones. I may not be here when you return.”

  “What?” She stepped to him, grabbing his arm as she kissed his cheek. “Don’t say such silly things, Lord Kallen. I rather need you keeping me dancing on my toes.”

  “Not silly at all, child. Realistic.”

  She wasn’t about to validate his words with a response and instead took a step backward, smoothing the front of her skirt as she set a smile on her face. “Well, as it turns, I will not be going anywhere at the moment, so you will be seeing so much of me in the next days you’ll be wishing I was off the island.”

  “Flugbusters.” He waved his wrinkled hand in the air. “I would never wish to be rid of your smiling face. But that is not your smiling face, child. A smile is on your lips but not in your eyes. What is wrong? Where is that gentleman friend of yours?”

  There was no softening the truth, nor making excuses for it. “Rune is gone.”

  “He is?” Lord Kallen’s bushy grey eyebrows lifted, his head shaking. “I didn’t think that would happen.”

  “No?”

  “No. I rather liked this one.”

  Her head snapped back. “You did? You hate every man I’ve ever even looked at with interest. Plus, what he did to your nephew.”

  “Pisspant—Howard has had that coming for years—I never did like that he was near you. I thought you maybe saw something in the wretch that I couldn’t identify. So I’m rather delighted you came to your senses and that your friend took care of him as he did. It will ensure none of Howard’s despicable blood gets passed down to the next generation. He’ll have the title for a while, true, but then it will pass to his younger brother, Leroy. I’ve actually already willed everything that isn’t entailed to Leroy. That nephew is of good stock and has three boys of his own running about. In another generation Howard will be nothing more than a small scratch marring the title.”

  Elle couldn’t hold back a crooked smile from forming. “You sly fox.”

  Lord Kallen chuckled. “Vengeful fox, I am. Howard’s made no effort to curb his tongue when it comes to crowing about my death.” He lifted his gold-tipped cane, pointing to the still waiting carriage. “So where is Mr. Smith now? What happened?”

  Her voice caught in her throat. “He was lies. Lie after lie. I am apparently truly dismal at identifying the true nature of men.”

  Lord Kallen nodded, a deep frown setting into his face. “Come. We sit.”

  He moved to the front steps she had just heaved herself off of and leaned heavily on his cane as he sat. His bones creaked—it was too far down for him, yet he still did it for her.

  He patted the stone next to him and waited until Elle moved in place beside him before he continued. “Tell me of these lies.”

  She sighed a breath, looking away from him at the crest of the far-off sea she could see through the small opening of the trees that ringed the dower house. Her hands clasped together, she stretched her arms out long in front of her, balancing them on her knees. “Rune was after the box—the Box of Draupnir that we showed you days ago. He was after it all along. And he told lie after lie to get it. And then he left.”

  A grumbled sound came from Lord Kallen’s throat and his hand went onto her forearm, squeezing it. “I don’t know about his lies. People lie for different reasons, some are bad, some are good. I don’t know where he lands on that gamut, but I do know that Mr. Smith has been the only man that I’ve ever seen look at you like you deserve to be looked at, Elle.”

  Her gaze swung to him. “How was that?”

  “Like he would spill blood, upend the earth, fight the devil himself just to be next to you.”

  She shook her head. “Then I think your eyes are finally going bad, as you are sorely mistaken.”

  “No, child, no. I’m not. I saw it in Mr. Smith and I recognized it immediately.”

  Her fingers unclasped and went to the bridge of her nose, squeezing it to stop any tears from falling. “How could you possibly know what he was thinking?”

  “Because it’s how I used to look at my dear Francine. Every moment. Every hour. Every day. I know it because I lived it.”

  As hard as she fought it, tears sprang into her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone.”

  He patted her knee and then stacked both of his hands atop his cane, looking out at the vista. “Then why aren’t you with him?”

  “Because he’s not who I thought he was. He was lies—that was what you saw in him—lies.”

  “One cannot fake what I saw in him.” His shrewd grey eyes pinned her. “Whatever lies you think he is made of, he loves you. That wasn’t a lie. Let me ask you this. How did he leave? Did he sneak away? Did he take that box and sneer as he told you he was leaving?”

  “No.” Her eyes closed, her head dropping between her upper arms. “He held me. Held me like it was the last time he was ever going to do so. I felt it in him. He didn’t want to let go.”

  “But he did. So he’s either a fool or he had some other motive he wasn’t going to tell you about.”

  “There was nothing—nothing except for what he said at the end.”

  “Which was?”

  She lifted her head, her stare on the
gravel in front of her toes. “That he would always choose me over promises or vows or friends or loyalty.”

  Lord Kallen nodded, his fingers tapping onto the worn golden head of his cane. “That doesn’t sound like a man who was leaving you willingly.”

  “He wasn’t.”

  He lifted his cane and jabbed it into the ground. “Then what are you doing on your front step with your face drooping and your lips pouting? I always liked you for your fire, Eliana. I sure hope that whelp didn’t steal it from you.”

  Her look whipped to him. She’d never heard him raise his voice—at least at her. He grumbled—constantly—but never once had his voice lifted past the gravely rumble she knew so well.

  “Lord Kallen—”

  “He either stole it from you, child, or he didn’t. Which is it?”

  Her right cheek lifted in a half smile. “I don’t think he did steal it.”

  “Then you need to find him and find out the truth behind the lies.”

  “But I don’t even know where he was off to—London was mentioned—but I don’t know how to find him.”

  “Someone must know.”

  She nodded, her gaze going out to the sea. “You are right.” Someone did know. She just needed to enlist some help.

  “Good lass.” Lord Kallen stuck the tip of his cane deep into the gravel and pushed himself upright. Two steps toward his horse, he turned back to her, the stoop in his shoulder’s more evident than ever at this angle. “When you find the rogue, set a nice solid fist square across his jaw from me.”

  She blurted out a chuckle. “Lord Kallen—”

  “The man deserves it. Leaving you like this. He’s just lucky I’ve grown such sentimentality and showed up when I did.”

  Elle stood, new strength in her legs. “I’ll be sure to convey that to him when I see him next.”

  { Chapter 22 }

  At the top of the stairwell, Rune looked to Hoppler as he stepped into the shadowed hallway of the third level of the Den of Diablo.

  His patience with the gaming hell was on its last threads. A week he’d been there, waiting, moving among every manner of ignominy in the rookeries, when all he wanted was to be back on the island and bury his head into Elle’s neck. Hold her.

  The only thing he wanted more than that was to keep her safe.

  And that was going to happen in the next ten minutes this night, one way or another.

  “It’s neutral ground, the best I could do,” Hoppler said, his hand rubbing along the back of his neck. “But he brought some interference with him—probably what took him so long to get here, hiring that sorry lot about him. Can’t blame him though, coming to this part of town, especially at night.”

  Rune’s head tilted forward, his stare going to Hoppler. “How many?”

  “Two thugs inside with him. Two more are downstairs. There might be a third and a fourth planted in the main room below that aren’t obvious. But they shouldn’t affect you up here.” Hoppler shook his head, apologetic. “I couldn’t control what he brought with him without suspicion.”

  Rune nodded. “I know.”

  “He’s yours, if you can get to him. Finish it. But for how this could turn out, I can’t be a part of it.”

  Rune nodded. He knew full well why Hoppler had to remain neutral in case this went poorly.

  “Luck for you.” Hoppler clamped his hand onto Rune’s forearm.

  Rune returned the clamp. “Luck is for the weak.” Rune smiled, the familiar exchange still easy off his tongue even though it’d been ten years since he spoke it.

  “And we ain’t weak.” Hoppler smiled, releasing Rune and patting his back. “Prove it.”

  Rune inclined his head and stalked down the corridor, his hands checking one last time the two pistols and three blades concealed under his coat and along his boots.

  He paused, staring at the yellow peeling paint on the door to the private hazard room. Everything he’d lived for in the last thirteen years on the other side of the door.

  One breath to steel his spine and Rune pushed the door open, walking into the room with his hands up. Smart move, for two pistols were trained on him—one attached to a brute on the far left of the room and the other attached to an even bigger brute on the far right of the room.

  There.

  Standing in between two more thugs in front of the oblong hazard table.

  Lord Gatlong.

  Same jowls that took up half his face. Same patchy tendrils of hair, now grey, slicked over a mostly bald head. Same wide belly that slid from his chest. Same soulless ice blue eyes.

  The only difference in his appearance was the steel pick that jutted out of the end of his right sleeve. A replacement for his severed right hand.

  It gleamed in the sputtering lights from the sconces in the room, hanging long and deadly from his dark blue coat. The black abyss of the night in the window behind him made him look like he’d just clawed out of the most evil bowel in hell.

  Evil wrapped in the pomp of nobility.

  Gatlong’s top lip lifted in a sneer. “Give me the box, boy.”

  Rune held steady, his mouth clamped closed as his gaze flipped back and forth among the brutes, noting the threat of each one. Two more ruffians than Hoppler had reported—the bastard had double-crossed him.

  Gatlong taunted a chuckle. “You don’t like the looks of my men?”

  “I’m one man, Gatlong.” He centered his stare on Gatlong, his voice even. “Why would Hoppler tell you to fill the room with guards?”

  “Hoppler didn’t tell me a damn thing—I trust that cur as far as I can kick him. I had my own eyes on you—on him—ever since you arrived in London. I wasn’t about to trust something as important as this to that cheat.”

  Gatlong’s right arm lifted, the tip of his steel pick poking at the air between them. “You young—you think you have everything figured out. You have nothing. Nothing. That’s why the box should never have landed in my daughter’s hands—in your hands.”

  Rune glanced at the side door to his left. So Hoppler hadn’t sent him in here as a sacrifice. Gatlong was just a step ahead of Hoppler, sneaking his ruffians in.

  When had he become so callous that he couldn’t even trust Hoppler? He should have had more faith in his old friend, but when one’s life was built on lies, faith could be hard to come by.

  Hoppler had promised him Gatlong and he’d delivered.

  Gatlong took a step forward, stopping just shy of passing by the two guards standing closer to Rune. Telling.

  His eerie ice blue eyes pierced Rune. “Where is the Box of Draupnir?”

  The line of his mouth setting hard, Rune shook his head. “You’re never going to get near that box, old man.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Gatlong nodded, the sneer not leaving his face. If anything, it turned more vicious. “You willing to die for that?”

  Rune let his hands fall to his sides. “If my death is what it takes, then yes. Anything as long as you never see the box again. Then I win. Revenge is mine.”

  The sneer on Gatlong’s face faltered and his head cocked slightly to the side. “Revenge?”

  Rune nodded, his glare squarely on Gatlong’s devil eyes. “I don’t look familiar to you, Lord Gatlong?”

  He squinted at Rune. “Should you?”

  “I don’t look like someone you once knew?”

  Gatlong swung his pick hand in the air. “Enough with the drama, boy.”

  “Miles Draper.” Rune spat the name out, making sure it was loud, that it sank into the devil’s ears.

  Gatlong’s head jerked back, the jowls about his neck wagging. “Draper?”

  “He was my father.”

  “You?” Gatlong laughed, high pitched and manic. “Your father? You were the boy he talked about?”

  Rune nodded. “And your daughter wasn’t the only one to witness you kill him.”

  Red started to flush Gatlong’s face, mottled splotches appearing about his pasty sk
in. “Give me the damn box, boy. That was the deal. That was the deal with Hoppler, that slimy rat.”

  “Never.” His voice ice cold, Rune stretched his fingers, ready to pounce on whoever decided to attack him first. “I’m only in here because I wanted to see your face when you learned you’d never get your hands on it.”

  “No?” Gatlong looked to his right, his voice far too casual as a snake smile slithered across his lips. “Jones. Get the goods.”

  The thug holding a pistol at the far left end of the room moved to open the side door. He disappeared into an adjoining room for a moment, then reappeared, leading another man yanking along a struggling woman with a black hood over her head and her bare arms tied with twine in front of her.

  A boulder the weight of the world plummeted into the depths of Rune’s stomach and he froze.

  “I knew something didn’t smell right with Hoppler, so I brought insurance.” Gatlong stepped over to the struggling woman and ripped the black hood from her head.

  Elle.

  Shit.

  Her dark blue eyes huge, panic flooded them as she looked about the room, squinting from the sudden light.

  Her wild gaze landed on him. Panic shifted to relief. Relief that she was looking at him.

  What in the bloody hell was she doing here? Doing in London? Hoppler had sworn to keep her safe and he never would have given her up as a pawn. Once he swore something, it was true as daylight. He knew that of his friend.

  Panic pitched anew in Elle’s eyes as she glanced at Gatlong, but she looked back to Rune and she opened her mouth, fighting against the hold the thug had tight across her chest. “Don’t do it—don’t give it to him, Rune. He’ll go after Jules if he has that box and he can’t—”

  “Shut her up,” Gatlong snarled.

  The brute next to Gatlong extracted a rag from his threadbare coat and moved to Elle, stuffing it into her mouth. She bit him the second his finger breached her teeth—hard. Immediate blood flowed and the man swore, slapping her with the back of his hand.

  The instant his hand raised to her it snapped Rune into motion and he charged toward them. “Elle—”

  The thug with the pistol jumped in front of Rune, pointing the barrel directly at his belly and stopping him cold.