Page 62 of The Heart of an Earl

The shaking in her arms travelled down to her fists and she yanked her knuckles away from the desk, hiding her trembling hands in her skirts. Control she had to pull from deep within snaked around the fury in her veins, squelching it. “It is best that I leave in the morning for Aunt Eliana’s home.” She forced her head downward, bowing her head in the first docile act she’d produced since arriving home. “Thank you.”

Jules turned and moved out of the room before he could rescind his approval.

She had to pack.

At the door to his study, she turned back to her father. “If Des appears here while I am away, please give him the message that I am currently on the Isle of Wight.”

“Why would I do that, child?”

“You know my conditions.”

A seething exhale, and her father waved his hand. “I will impart the information to him.”

“You swear it?”

“I do.”

Jules nodded again. “Thank you.”

She bounded up the stairs, desperate to pack. The Isle of Wight was only a short distance from Portsmouth. She could go there after visiting her aunt to check with Captain Folback. If anyone knew of Des’s whereabouts, it would be him.

She should have trusted Des in the woods. Believed in him and only him.

But she hadn’t.

She’d put her hope where it didn’t belong—in her family.

And now she had to find him.

She just prayed she wasn’t too late.

{ Chapter 18 }

Des opened his eyes, his vision not blurry for the first time in forever.

Days. Weeks. Months.

He didn’t know.

His gaze focused on the dried rushes of the thatched roof above him. Staring at the individual stems. Dried, cracked, dead. Worthless on their own, but bundled together—shelter, warmth.

Where in the hell was he?

His head flopped to the side, his neck muscles jelly, barely able to control the motion.

A woman leaned over and poked at the contents of a black cauldron hanging over a fire on the far side of the room. The far side being only a few steps away.

The room was tiny. But still, she seemed an ocean away from his body. His body he could barely feel.

Grey hair peeked out from under the simple round bonnet on her head and her dress was grey wool, serviceable.

Pulling herself straight, she turned around. Her look caught on his face, on his open eyes and she yelped, her hand on her chest.

Laughter immediately bubbled from her throat as she scuttled across the room to him. “I told him—I told him I was right. He was the one that dragged ye back here, frozen to the bone, but then he wanted to give ye up for dead once he saw yer back.”

She set a hand on Des’s chest and then jumped away, laughter overtaking her again as she went to the small round table near his feet. She fiddled with a pitcher and a tumbler, then came back to him, pressing the lip of a tin cup to his mouth.

He took a sip. Two.

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