Page 16 of The Heart of an Earl

“Was that true, the note?”

Des set his head back down, his cheek pressing against one of her braids that had spread onto the pillow. “Aye, it was.”

“You loved her?”

“I did.”

He said no more—could say no more. Corentine’s death had shattered him, still did, to this day. His chest would collapse, stones crushing him, whenever he thought of her. Time had numbed the pain, but it had never erased it.

She nodded slightly, her hand lifting to wipe her cheeks again. “I’m sorry I’m crying. It’s just that I haven’t—haven’t ever.”

“You’ve not cried in the last six years?”

“No.”

“Then you have years’ worth to go through. Don’t stop on my account.”

A shaky breath in, and he could feel the tears starting to swallow her once more.

Her hand sank back to his left arm, clutching it tighter to her belly.

Not letting him go.

If she needed it—if she needed her body curled tight into his.

This, he could give her.

{ Chapter 6 }

Jules pulled up on the front of the lawn shirt she had stuffed under her corset. The only thing that fit her correctly—the black corset Redthorn had brought back onto the ship from a port years ago. The lawn shirt, his. The trousers beneath her long-ago-shredded skirts, a young deckhand’s that couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Clothes that were now threadbare.

She should have long ago disposed of the shredded peach skirt of her dress from six years ago. But she’d never been able to. No matter how the fine muslin had torn. No matter the blood stains on it. No matter that the color now resembled mud.

She’d refused to give it up.

She’d made do throughout the years. Covered what needed to be covered. Redthorn had never wanted her in anything else.

Jules looked at the chest on the floor, the top flipped open. Several shirts, an extra pair of boots, trousers, stockings, all haphazardly dumped in there by a cabin boy earlier in the day.

She stepped over to the chest, picking up Des’s shirts, trousers, and stockings and snapping them open, then refolding them neatly and stacking them in the chest.

She didn’t know how Des had landed himself on the crew of this ship—but she did know he had been a passenger on thePrimrose. And thePrimrosehad only carried the wealthiest passengers. Her father would have seen to that.

Des was of money—or had been at one point in his life—and where she hadn’t thought about her appearance in years, she was suddenly acutely aware of how much her current wardrobe of these few ragged pieces on her body lacked.

A knock rapped on the door.

She gave another tug to the white linen resting along the upper slope of her breasts, hoping it would stay in place. “Come.”

Des popped his head into the room, checking it before he moved fully inside and closed the door behind him.

“Three days in here is too much. Are you ready to go on deck?”

Jules eyed him, unsure if she should be happy to escape the cabin for a spell or should be clinging with her fingernails onto the wooden rail of the bed. She forced a half smile. “Air would do me well.”

“Good.” He gave a nod. “You’ve been in this room long enough, but before we go, you need to tell me about the box.”

Hell and damnation.

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