Page 71 of The Heart of an Earl

“Rum is flowing heavily.”

Roe nodded, his look going back to the sea.

Des kept his gaze on his friend. “Folback would have wanted you to be captain, Roe. He sees it in you just like I do.”

Roe shrugged. “Yes, and I wanted it to be you.”

“You know why I cannot.” Des sighed. “We don’t always get what we want, Roe.”

“No. No, we do not.”

Des’s cheek lifted in a half smile. “Except for me. I wanted you to become captain, so for a change, I got what I wanted.”

“Ass.” Roe shook his head, his look dropping between his arms.

They stood in silence for long moments until Roe lifted his head.

“Here.” Roe unclamped his hands. He’d been clutching the Box of Draupnir in his clasped hands hovering over the water. He held the box out to Des. “I need you to have this. You’ll know what to do with it.”

Des shook his head, a crooked, bitter smile on his face.

“You don’t want it?”

“No.”

“I can’t have it.” Roe shoved the box toward him. “I saw what it did to the captain. When Captain Folback held this thing, he was controlled by it. It made him crazy, time and again.”

Des made no motion to take it from Roe. “And then his thread of sanity snapped when he saw his wife tied to the mast of theMinerva.”

“Aye, it did. Everything came at a price. It always does.”

Des glanced down at the box. “You can keep it—by captain’s rights it’s yours now.”

“No. I’ll not have it. I can already feel the wicked draw of it.” Roe reached out and grabbed Des’s hand and set the box into his palm. “Doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons—it’s a path I’ve already walked down and I don’t intend to do so again.”

A shiver skittered down Des’s spine. The blasted box in his hands again. The last thing he ever wanted.

Both hands on the box, Des flipped it over again and again in his fingers. “You could give it to someone else—Wes or your brother.”

Roe shook his head. “No. You’re it. You’re the only one that I’ve seen that doesn’t start shaking when he sees it.”

Des looked down at the box and the image of Jules crawled into his mind. Jules watching him the first time he saw the box. The way her blue-green eyes glowed—shocked—when he’d had the same reaction as her. The box was an object. Nothing more.

Almost four years and the memory of her hadn’t tarnished or eroded—still as crystal clear as though it had been yesterday.

Match. She had been his match and he’d never told her. Never told her he loved her. Never admitted it to himself until it was too late.

Tears welled and he closed his eyes, dropping his head.

“Just toss it into the sea.” Roe looked down at the box spinning in Des’s fingers. “You’re a better man than me, Des. I imagine if anyone can do it, you can.”

Des heaved a sigh, his stare fixed on the box. “I cannot. It’s not where it belongs. She knew it. She wouldn’t have wanted it there. Anywhere but there.”

“Jules?”

Des nodded, refusing to look up.

Roe’s hand went on his shoulder. “Ghosts that haunt are their own burden, Des. You don’t need this reminder as well.”

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