Page 86 of The Heart of an Earl

“Aye. That he does.” Des’s voice had notched down to calm and his hazel eyes watched her, the moonlight sparking blue specks in his irises. “Do you still live at Gatlong Hall?”

“No. I have been quite content as a spinster living with my aunt on the Isle of Wight at her home. I’ve been with my Aunt Eliana since…” Her throat closed and she choked on her words.

“Since when?”

A rumble of frustration ripped through her throat. “Since you died. Since my father had you killed. He admitted as much. I left the same day he told me and I’ve never been back. My mother died years ago, so there was nothing for me there—not in that life. Not anymore.”

Des stilled, his look intent on her. “Jules—your mother died? When? How?”

“Two years after I was taken onto theRed Dragon.Father said she died of consumption.Mr. Charles and my aunt both said it was a broken heart—she just didn’t want to live anymore.” Tears filled her eyes, blurring her vision.

“Because she lost you?”

She nodded, unable to force any words past her ragged throat.

Des moved to her, grabbing her, letting no more space eat up the distance between them. He wrapped his arms about her, pulling her solidly into his chest. Into the warmth of him.

His head bowed, his words low next to her ear. “I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there to hold you. I would have given anything to be there for you.”

A coarse chuckle came to her throat. “You died for me. That was more than enough.”

“No. I never should have believed your father. I never could have imagined he was that kind of a man—to leverage your gravesite like that—claim you were dead.”

Her head curled down, her brow resting on the divot lining the middle of his chest. “He is. He has been mad ever since the box—ever since he heard of it, ever since he first went after it.”

Des’s hold tightened on her. “Come back with me to Wolfbridge. There are people I need you to meet. But if you would rather go to Lady Hewton’s estate, I’ll take you there.” He leaned back and looked down at her, waiting until she looked up at his eyes. “But Lady Hewton will have to accept the fact that she has an additional guest in her house—for either to her home or Wolfbridge, I’m not going to be leaving your side.”

A laugh bubbled up from low in her chest. “Fine. To Wolfbridge it is. And Des…”

“Yes?”

“I love you too.”

{ Chapter 25 }

Des tugged Jules into his chamber, ignoring the sudden dragging of her feet. It wasn’t until she dug her heels into the floorboards and fully stopped that he paused and looked over his shoulder at her.

Her breath held, stuck in the hallway, she looked back and forth along the empty corridor.

Most of the other guests staying in the north side of the castle had retired hours ago, while she and Des and the duke and duchess had stayed awake until well after dawn in the private solarium just off the duchess’s chambers. Des had introduced her to his daughter, though Vicky had soon feigned sleepiness with exaggerated yawns and excused herself. She’d been more than warm and polite to Jules, but her eyes were still daggers aimed at Des every chance she got.

Jules didn’t envy the road ahead Des would have with his daughter. The roadtheywould have with her, for Jules would do everything in her power to heal the jagged wounds between the two.

After Vicky had retired, it had become known that Jules had lived on a pirate ship and there were questions—as there always were.

Questions that would twist her belly into a heavy ball and send her mind searching for answers that were politely ambiguous. Questions that Des had extracted her from answering with ease. To their credit, the duke and duchess quickly read Des’s motives and pressed the conversation onto more benign topics—such as their own unconventional meeting and the duchess’s aptitude for climbing walls.

Jules was still hesitant to talk about her past—even with her aunt she'd only shared snippets of what she’d lived through. She had set herself firmly into the life of a respectable spinster, pretending that the past had never existed. That she wasn't the person she'd becomeon theRed Dragon.

It had been easier that way. Denying the past.

Though she knew, deep in her bones, she would always be different from the other ladies surrounding her. She would alwaysjump at the sound of a blade hitting a blade. If her hand merely brushed against a rope similar to the ones on theRed Dragon, her stomach would flip, nausea setting in. A crack in the air that sounded like gunshot would freeze her body, her eyes shutting tight, her breath stolen.

But she was fine.

She could hide most everything.

She'd lived that lie and lived it well for the last five years.

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