The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,37
There were plenty of easier targets to rob on that bridge, less sheltered reticules to snatch. Why you? Why tempt the fates by picking the woman with the biggest man next to her? Why bother to have to ram in between us to get it? Why not pick a lady out with her maid if some coin was all he was after? It had to have been the box.”
She untangled her naked limbs from him and picked up the box from the clothes. Shifting to sit upright, she squeezed her rear between him and the back of the settee, extending her long—exquisite—legs to drape bare over his thighs.
Flipping the box in her hands, her head tilted to the side as she studied the swirls of the grain, the tip of her forefinger tracing the smooth wood. “What is so damn special about this thing? Morty always said it was invaluable, but Morty also liked to exaggerate things. What do you know of it?”
A sigh stuck in his throat. He knew too damn much.
But he couldn’t tell her that.
“I know the same as you. What Morton told me, showed me.”
Her fingers stilled and she lifted the box between them. “He showed this to you?”
Wes nodded.
“How does it open? Morty told me what was inside, but I haven’t been able to figure it.”
His jaw went stiff. He didn’t want to—didn’t want to show her, didn’t want her to open it. Didn’t want her to know the slightest detail about the box. She was better off not knowing, not understanding.
“Show me, Wes. I can see you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Stifling a sigh, Wes shifted himself upright, his back along the side rail of the settee, and his hand lifted, his knuckles brushing her hand as he took the box from her grip.
The odd energy of the box trickled into the bones of his fingers, his arms. The fourth time in his life he’d actually held the blasted thing. Hopefully the last.
He twisted the top of the box, making the lid slide to the side. The swirls on the outside of the box integrated so well with the line of the crack, one would have to know how to open it in order to do so.
Without looking into it, he flipped around the open box to Laney. “This is what’s inside.”
She leaned toward it, peering into the box in his palm.
She studied it, her eyes squinting as her head angled to the side to see it in all angles. To look at the nine strands of golden cords woven together to form the ring and then snake about the darkest ruby. “It’s beautiful—strange—but beautiful. But that ring, it’s entwined with the wood. How is one supposed to remove it to wear the ring?”
His fingers twitched, the bottom of the box sizzling into his hand. “It’s not to be worn, as best I can tell. Only the wood wears the ring.”
“Then how—why is it so precious?” Her forefinger went into the box, touching the golden strands of the ring and he almost snapped the box away from her. His eyes closed as he tried to force a calming breath into his lungs. She was too damn close to it.
Her bottom lip jutted upward. “The box, the ring is interesting, yes, the ruby beautiful, but I don’t see how it’s worth a fortune. Morty swore it was worth more than ten golden isles.”
His head quirked to the side. “You don’t hear that hum in your ears?”
“Hum? What hum?”
Wes’s head jerked back. He thought everyone heard the hum—he knew sure as hell Morton had. “Usually people hear a hum, or a buzzing, when they’re near this thing when it’s open.”
Her eyes went wide. “Truly? No, you’re teasing me.” Her head shook. “Why is this a joke to you? Morty thought it was important.”
His mouth went to a grim line. “It’s not a joke, Laney. This thing is beyond what you think it is. Beyond what I think it is. Your brother found that out—he was obsessed with the box.”
Her eyebrows slanted inward. “What truly happened to my brother, Wes? Do you know how he died?”
The sharp clank of the door knocker cut through her last word.
Both of them jumped and Wes flung the box into Laney’s hands, then quickly tugged on his trousers and his lawn shirt. “Stay in here.”
Laney nodded at him and closed the box, setting it on the side table, her hands quick to sift through the piles of black fabric to