Page 66 of The Heart of an Earl

Des flipped onto his hands and knees, scrambling away. Away from the grave. Away from the thought of Jules’s body underground. In the cold. In the dark.

He clambered to his feet and ran, shoving past the half-open gate and across the estate.

In a sprint, every step laden with snow and ice. Every step dragging him down.

Far. Fast. Away.

Three feet from his horse, he collapsed against a tree. His weak body unable to take him any farther.

He slid down the bark, his backside landing in the drifted snow, his hands burying into the freezing ice crystals.

Cold that now held Jules to the ground. To death.

His eyes closed and a vision of her flooded his mind. Jules on the ship on one of those first days. Her hair still in braids, distrust in every one of her movements, suspicion on her face. But hidden under that wariness, the glimmer of the woman she truly was.

Her lips moving with a grin she tried to hide as her blue-green eyes sparkled at him. “What could go wrong with me?”

“Everything,” he’d said.

Everything.

What could go wrong? He’d known the answer then.

Known it so deep in his soul he never could have found it, imagined it at the time. But it had been there all along, waiting for him. Waiting to devour him.

Love.

Love was what could go wrong. Love that he didn’t want, couldn’t hazard. Not again.

Love was the enemy.

He’d known he’d never have love again. Not after Corentine.

Yet love had forced its way into the cold barren shadows of his heart.

Despite his steadfast hold against it, despite the cruel fact that he’d never dared to say it out loud—never dared to tempt the fates—he’d fallen in love with Jules.

Soul shattering love. Love that had become his very purpose for living.

He’d chanced it—despite all that could go wrong—he’d chanced it.

And he’d lost it.

Cursed.

Exactly as he knew he was. Exactly as he should have remembered.

~~~

Two cutthroats approached him.

Or was it three? Four?

He blinked hard, his sight pulling back into focus. Two. Definitely two.

A table flipped on their way to him. Ale flying. Chaos behind them.

For how fast he imagined they moved, they seemed to be slow. Slow as they stalked him.

---