Page 59 of The Heart of an Earl

The rage in his eyes from earlier had abated somewhat, but it still sat there in his odd blue eyes, searching for the slightest spark to reignite it.

Her father set his fork and knife down, his hands going to the edge of the table, clasping it as though he was about to throw the whole table end over end. He met her stare. “Your mother is dead, Julianna.”

The cold words entered her ears and she sat, trying to understand them, trying to grasp the true meaning of them.

A full minute passed before her hand flew up between them. “No. No, I don’t believe you.”

His face flared, the blue of his eyes sparking against his pink skin. “She’s dead. She’s been dead for four years. She wasted away after we got back to England.”

A vise, invisible and vicious, wrapped around Jules’s chest, squeezing the breath out of her. “No.”

“Yes.” He picked up his knife and fork and jabbed a morsel of venison, shoving it in his mouth before waving the fork in her direction. “Stop blathering about it and go to the Isle of Wight if you don’t believe me. Visit her sister—she’ll tell you the same thing. She’d dead. You can visit her grave.”

Jules’s hand dropped from the air between them. “Her—her grave?” Jules had to choke the words out.

“Yes, her damned grave.” His lip curled as he looked at her. “She demanded she be buried there. By the bloody sea—so she could be close to you. Not here where she belonged—in her home. You, she always chose you. You over life at the end—even in death she had to be by the damned sea.”

Her arms wrapping around her middle, Jules curled into herself, holding her ribcage, holding back the sobs that threatened but couldn’t quite yet break free upward and into her chest, her mouth, her eyes.

She couldn’t let go of the disbelief—of the last threads of hope. “No—not Mama—you cannot—”

His fork and knife slammed to the table. “I want the box, Jules.”

“You—” Her eyes lifted, his face blurring through the tears that had finally surfaced. “You want the box? The box? You tell me this of Mama and then you demand that blasted thing?”

Her father jumped to his feet, leaning across the table to her, his fist slamming onto the wood and sending the plates clattering. “I lost everything because of that damn box—it’s the only thing I have left and I damn well will have it back. The bloody thing has taken my wife, my only child and I’ll be damned if I don’t reap the just rewards of it.”

Her jaw dropped. “But I—I’m your child. I’m here. Here. Alive. In front of you. Me.”

His upper lip snarled. “You’re not my child. I saw it in the woods. My child is dead. She died six years ago. And she’ll never come back. What sits before me now is nothing but a used, broken shell of what my daughter once was.” He leaned down, his mad blue eyes level with hers. “But the box. The box I can have again. If I have that box, it’ll be worth everything. Everything.”

She jerked backward, her head angling away from him as fury instantly dried her tears. “I’m not letting you have the box, Father.”

His fist slammed onto the table again. “What—you said—you swore it in the woods. You would give it to me, you little wench.”

“No.” She shook her head, her lips pulling tight.

Where once she’d been afraid of her father, that fear had long since left her. There was only one thing she was afraid of now and that was losing Des.

She’d figured that fact out the moment she’d gotten onto her father’s horse and rode away from Des in the woods.

He was everything.

And she was going to be with him again. No matter what. No matter what it took.

He was the only thing left that mattered now that her mother was gone.

“Child—”

“No.” She angled forward, meeting his ire straight on. “Not until I see Des again. Not until you welcome him into this home. He was the one that saved me from theRed Dragon—saved me from those cutthroats, and you sent your bloody dogs after him—after us.”

“He’s a pirate, I could see it in him, through and through.”

She leaned forward, her nose almost touching his. “He’s a sailor. If you had stopped for one minute, I could have explained that. But you went off—condemning him without a thought.”

“The box, Julianna.” His jowls flapping, spit flew from his mouth with his growled words and landed on her cheek.

She didn’t flinch. “That is my offer. You welcome Des into this house and the box is yours. Do not speak a word to me until that time.”

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