Page 77 of The Heart of an Earl

He followed the line along the side of the ballroom where French doors led out to the gardens. The evening chilly, only a few of them were partially open, men moving in and out, cheroots in hand.

His gaze stopped on an exquisitely coifed head of auburn hair. His eyes involuntarily did that, paused at auburn hair—moth to a flame. He hated that about himself. Hated when he thought of Jules.

Hated having to lose her over and over again, for that was what happened each and every time he dared to let her enter his mind.

He lost her.

The pain of it today just as harsh as it had been five years ago.

The woman in the dark sapphire blue gown with the auburn hair turned his direction to speak to the blond woman next to her and Des lost his footing, his shoulder falling into the wall.

Dammit to all hell, she looked just like Jules.

The same nose. The same lips. The same hair.

His feet moved forward, even as his mind tried to quell his steps.

He’d done it before—scared some strange lady because he thought she looked like Jules. Her ghost. Her ghost still following him, not letting him go.

Not that he wanted to be let go. He took a certain comfort in the fact that she haunted him.

Before sanity could work its way to his feet and halt them, he was five steps away from the woman.

Five feet and she looked even more like Jules than she had across the ballroom.

He took another step toward her.

The same eyes.

She smiled at the woman next to her. The same bloody smile. The dimples that appeared when she gave a true smile.

Blast it.

Two more steps forward and he was far too close.

The woman’s look flickered off her friend, scanning past him, then darted back to his face.

Her jaw dropped, her eyes going wide as her face paled to an unearthly shade of white.

But there, in the center, blue-green eyes that could never be matched. Never be duplicated.

Blue-green eyes that locked into his.

Jules.

And she knew it was him just the same.

Her blond friend grabbed Jules’s arm, looking from Des to her. “Julianna, are you not well?”

Jules gave the slightest shake of her head, her gaze locked with his.

“Julianna?” The woman shook her arm.

“You’re not dead.” His words a whisper under the din of the ballroom, they still made it to her ears.

“You’re not dead.” She echoed the words back to him.

“What? Julianna?” The blond woman stepped in between them and set her hand on Jules’s shoulder.

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