Page 41 of The Heart of an Earl

He would get clothes. And he would speak with her father. Court her properly. She deserved that after everything life had stolen from her. After what little he could offer her on theFirehawk.

She deserved balls and gowns and jewels and heated kisses under torches in a garden.

Everything she’d missed. Everything he wanted to give her.

A courtship, but the quickest one possible as he didn’t know how long he could go without her in his bed. Without her body under his hands.

Not that he could tell her any of this yet. It was too much.

Bringing her home was the first order of business. And the rest…the rest would come. He just had to be patient.

She hadn’t breathed a word about the future. Never asked him for anything beyond the very minutes they were together. A remnant, he was sure, from her life on theRed Dragon. Living for survival meant living for the moment. And she had spent too many years surviving.

But he didn’t want to give her up. His body didn’t want to give her up.

She never spoke about what would happen now that they were back on English soil, but it was all he’d been thinking about for the last five days.

What he was willing to give up for her. The secrets he could no longer keep.

“This appears to be the best fit on hand.” Jules’s face ashen, she walked past the curtain the shop girl had pulled aside with both of her hands clutched flat to her belly, her cheeks scrunched upward.

Wobbling, Jules went directly to the counter along the side of the shop where she could lean against the polished wood. She still couldn’t walk straight. His own legs had only just solidified to the earth moments ago.

His look riveted on her, Des froze in place.

She’d gone from a pirate bride to a lady riding along Rotten Row in Hyde Park. The wool carriage dress, blue as the deepest waters of the Caribbean, was trimmed along the edges and at a slant across the front of the dress with black velvet edging. The matching blue pelisse draped open and a white lace collar set against her neck, making her sun-kissed skin look even darker. The tan of her skin was far from the fashion, but it set a glow about her face he’d always found endearing.

The whole of the outfit fit her body perfectly, the swell of her breasts mounding up enticingly from the cut of fine lace across her bosom. Elegant and enticing at the same time.

The smooth fall of the wool hiccupped on her left thigh where a small lump poked outward along the folds of the skirts. Another deep pocket to hold the box.

With no pins to hold her hair, she had gone with one thick braid along the back of her head. The shorter auburn strands about her face accentuated the crinkle of hesitancy around the edges of her blue-green eyes as she looked at him. “But I fear it is much, much too expensive, Des. The dress and then the pelisse that accompanies it for warmth. But Lucy has assured me it will do for travelling and I will not be an embarrassment arriving at Gatlong House as it is apparently of the latest fashion—fashion I know nothing about.”

“Nor I.” Des shrugged without blinking, his look trained hard on her. “But it is perfect for you. It sparks to life the blue in your eyes.”

“I cannot ask you—”

“Do not refuse the clothes, Jules.”

“But Des.” She glanced over her shoulder at the shop girl staring at the assortment of bonnets and caps lining the back wall of the shop, then took several steps forward to him, her voice low. “The cost—it is too much, but I am sure my father will be able to repay you.”

Des leaned toward Jules, his own voice dipping to just above a whisper as he set his hand under her elbow to balance her. “You never asked, and I never told you, but I am a wealthy man. The trade of theFirehawkhas been overly generous, and in all honesty, I’ve had nothing to spend the riches on through the years, so this is a delight.”

Her blue-green eyes looked up at him, uncertain. “Des—”

“Jules.”

“This is the perfect bonnet for the carriage dress.” The shop girl walked toward them, cradling a simple black bonnet with wide blue trim in front of her. “You said you would be travelling, so it has a low profile, simple lines without too much fuss—just as the dress.”

Jules looked to the shop girl. “It—”

“It is perfect, as you said, miss.” Des stepped to the side of Jules, setting his hand on the small of her back. “We will take it as well.”

“Excellent, sir.” The shop girl smiled at Des with a bob of her head, then handed the bonnet to Jules and scurried behind the counter to write the bill of sale.

Her fingers going reluctantly to the ribbons of the bonnet, fingering the fine satin, Jules set it on her head, tucking the loose strands of her auburn hair about her face up into the confines of the hat as Des paid.

With Jules’s hand solidly in the crook of his elbow to keep her feet steady, he walked out of the shop and a break in the clouds sent a ray of sunlight directly into Des’s eyes. Jules lifted her hand, blocking the sun. The brim of the hat did nothing to hide the harsh sunlight from her eyes.

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