Page 90 of The Heart of an Earl

“I did, as much as it pains me to admit it.” Her hands left his face, spreading onto his chest, her fingers tapping on his biceps. “You were dead. I knew that. You do not know how many tears I shed, imagining your last moments. Your last breath. That you were alone. That you were wondering where I was.” Her voice cracked and it took her three full breaths to gain control of her mind, of her words.

“You were dead, you abandoned me. It wasn’t your fault and I knew that, but you left me—left this earth, left me here alone—and I hated you for it. I hated you for not living. I hated that it was my own fault. I hated that I believed I had to go home to Gatlong Hall—and that it led to your death.”

His hands went to her wrists. “You couldn’t have known what awaited us with your father.”

“Couldn’t I? Maybe I did. Maybe I should have. I looked into the past and only remembered the good instead of remembering what he was capable of. I had forgotten all of the malevolence he possessed—chose to forget all of that bad. It was just that I was finally back in England and I wanted to forget that evil existed—forget the atrocities that I had lived among for so long. But evil knows no borders.” Her shoulders slumped with a slight shrug. “Do you know that I tried—I tried to give him the Box of Draupnir in order to be with you?”

“You did? When?”

“I had gone to Portsmouth to search for you and when I returned weeks later he said you had appeared, looking for me. He said he had welcomed you into his house. So I promised him I would give him the box if he would tell me where you were—if he would swear to leave me be and never bother us again.” Her fingernails curled into his chest, her voice lowering. “But when we got to the tree it was gone. The box was gone. That was right before he told me you were dead.”

Her head dropped forward for a long second before she lifted her gaze to him. “It tore my heart out—that you would have taken it, betrayed me. I hated you for that as well.”

His head shaking, his grip on her wrists tightened before she could pull away from him. “I never betrayed you, Jules. Never.”

“But you took it?”

“Yes, but only after I thought you had died.”

“Why?”

Des sighed, his shoulders lifting. “I took it because it was my ticket back onto theFirehawk. Back to getting lost. You were gone and that’s all I wanted again. To be lost. Lost on the sea.” A frown set into his face. “Captain Folback learned of the box—most likely from those pirates that had taken you in Plymouth—and was irate that I hadn’t handed it over to him when we were on theFirehawk. You were dead, so I thought it fine to take the box and give it to him.” His mouth pulled into a tight line. “And I never should have done it.”

“Why not?”

“I—we all paid for it, time and again.” He released her wrists and slipped his hands along her bare hips, threading his fingers together at the small of her back. “The box—the ring—ruined Captain Folback, just the same as you described it with Redthorn. Folback was obsessed on it. It worked its magic and we stumbled upon riches that we never imagined, but it ate away at his mind. He died because of it.”

Her jaw dropped. “How did he die?”

“In the most gruesome way. Too many people know about the box now, and its lore has only grown. There are men that have been after it for the last five years. One of those men decided to steal Captain Folback’s wife in a bid to get the box from him. Folback died trying to get her back.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Des, no.”

“It’s evil, Jules. Pure evil. The Box of Draupnir should never have seen the light of day.”

“Where is it now?”

“Hidden.”

Her heart stilled in her chest. “No, Des, no. You took it back and hid it?”

He nodded.

“But that makes it in your possession—hidden or not.”

He exhaled a wicked sigh. “What do you want me to do with it, Jules?”

“Not have it—anything to not have it. To not be responsible for it.” Her voice went frantic. “We have to get rid of it, once and for all.”

“You want to destroy it?” His eyebrows lifted.

She pulled slightly away from him, her stare going to the curve of the mahogany headboard above his head. “I don’t know. How do you get rid of a curse?”

“Jules, curses only have power if you believe they do. We can just choose to believe the box is nothing—nothing but a red stone and some flecks of gold and some brittle wood.”

Her gaze dropped to him. “But you know that isn’t the truth.”

“So what do you propose we do with it? Burn it?”

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