Page 51 of The Heart of an Earl

And she had made an oath not to love him.

An oath she knew she had somehow broken days ago.

{ Chapter 15 }

She was uneasy on the horse.

And rightfully so, for how long it’d been since she’d ridden. But Jules had insisted on not riding double with him, merely so the horse wouldn’t have to bear extra weight.

The horse’s comfort and not her own. He never should have listened to her.

Des had found her the most docile horse at the stables in the town a day’s ride from her father’s estate, but he should have just superseded her insistence that she could still ride.

He glanced to his left, studying Jules’s stiff body, the pink tip of her nose in the cold. He’d bought her a heavy hooded cloak in Bristol to layer over her pelisse and dress, but he should have bought another wrap for her face as well. “Your arms look like they’re about to fall off they’re so rigid.”

She gave him a strained half-smile. “Why was it we didn’t take the coach the rest of the way?”

“With the snow last night I didn’t trust us not to get caught in the slush under the ice on the roads.”

She nodded. “Getting stranded would have been worse. I recall that about this area—the coaches that would get stuck. But maybe they have improved the roads since I have been here.” Her horse slipped into a deep rut at that moment and a squeal left her mouth, her body crouching down low to the saddle. The horse righted itself, moving forward.

Jules looked to him. “Or they haven’t improved them at all.”

“It doesn’t appear so.” His head swiveled as he looked around. A long grove of trees—leafless oaks they looked to be, lined the left side of the road, a stone-lined pasture with sheep digging their snouts under the snow spread off on the right. Not a cottage or farm or home in sight.

“Are we far from your father’s estate?”

Jules glanced about. “No, not far. An hour by horse, if I remember correctly.”

Des nodded to himself. “Then this is as good of a place as any.”

He pulled up on his reins, stopping his horse.

Jules followed suit. “Good for what?”

“I have a proposal for you.”

She gave him a scolding look. “This better not have anything to do with lifting my skirts, Des. The cold in my bones is already too much. I have not adjusted to this weather at all.”

He chuckled. “No—as enticing as that prospect is, I’m stopping for a different reason.”

“What?”

“The box. I propose we hide it. Only the two of us know where it is. We find a nook in a tree over there.” His forefinger pointed over his shoulder to the grove of oaks. “And we hide it until we can come up with something else to do with it. It’s safer if neither of us has it on our person.”

“Safer from the crew of theRed Dragon?”

“Yes. They haven’t followed us thus far, but I don’t wish to depend on that for long. And safer from your father. It will be easier if we pretend it doesn’t exist. If we think of it as stolen. Gone.” He watched her face, the indecision on it. “But if you would rather keep it with you, I understand. I can protect you from theRed Dragoncrew, Jules. I just wish I had injured them more severely in Plymouth.”

Or killed them.Of all the men he’d sent to their graves in his day, he should have dispatched those three to the same fate. They had dared to steal Jules from him—and since that moment, he’d begun to realize what he would do for this woman—what he would do to keep her safe.

Anything. Everything.

And if hiding the blasted box would help keep her safe, then he’d make that happen, one way or another. And it wasn’t just theRed Dragoncrew he was worried about. Des had no idea what sort of a man her father was—but he’d killed a man once for the box—and Des didn’t trust the marquess not to sink to that level again.

He bit his tongue as he watched her decide, willing her to come to the answer on her own.

Her bottom lip pulled under her teeth and she stared at the woods standing starkly from the blanket of snow.

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