The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,70
to the isle, and with any luck you can discover the answer to where it belongs in those mosaics, and then get it home.” He paused, looking around at everyone. “And then we can all be done with the bloody curse of it.”
“Wait, am I cursed now?” Elle looked from Desmond to Jules with an incredulous wrinkle across her forehead.
Jules lifted her shoulders. “No, I am sure not—not if the box doesn’t affect you. If anyone can avoid the curse of it, I’m sure it’s you, Elle.” She gave her aunt a weak smile. So weak, not a soul in the room believed in its sincerity.
“Rune?” Desmond looked to his old shipmate.
Rune offered one nod. “It is done.”
{ Chapter 28 }
Laney stepped past Wes into the room Jules had shown her to when they had arrived at Seahorn, her look riveted on the bed and the sleep it offered. It was so far into darkness at this point they were close to dawn.
For as light as her spirit now was after getting rid of the Box of Draupnir, her legs were heavy, exhaustion of the past days finally seizing her.
The box finally out of her possession.
After seeing what it had done to Wes, how it had taken over his mind and nearly his soul, she never wanted to be near the demonic box again. It was shocking to her how coveted the bloody thing was. Why any man or woman would want the box in their possession, she couldn’t figure.
Lady Raplan was a brave woman.
Laney, on the other hand, never wanted to see or to think on the box ever again.
Wes shut the door behind them and she smiled to herself. He wasn’t escaping to the room down the hall Jules had directed him to when they’d first stepped foot into the corridor. For how weary she was, she could manage to stay up a few minutes more.
Wes went to the fireplace, stoking the coals of the fire and then turned to her. “There’s something you should see, Laney.”
The tone of his voice, the low rumble of it—warning—set her shoulders tight, instant unease sinking into her bones. “What is it?”
He moved to her, stopping in front of her, and she couldn’t quite read the look in his dark hazel eyes.
He wasn’t angry. Wasn’t scared. But there was unrest in his gaze.
Her eyebrows lifted. “What?”
“I have something from your brother.”
Her head snapped back. “You have something from Morty? What would you have?”
“A letter to you from him. I found it in the papers that we went through at your townhouse.”
She jumped a step backward, her eyes narrowing at him. “You found a letter from him and you didn’t give it to me? What were you thinking? Why would you do something like that—keep it from me? I don’t have anything of him and you stole away a letter from him?”
Wes sighed, reaching into the inner pocket of his coat and holding it out to her. “It was in the haversack on my horse, lucky that it didn’t go into the river with me.”
“Lucky?” The word croaked from her mouth.
He waved the letter in front of her. “Just read it, Laney.”
Glaring at him, she snatched it from his hand. “Of all the odious actions, keeping this from me.”
He shrugged. “I know what it says and the time never seemed right to show it to you. Certainly not at the townhouse. Not until now, until this moment. Not until we could breathe with ease into our chests again.”
She spun away from him, walking across the room to stand next to the fireplace as her fingers unfolded the smooth vellum.
Morton’s handwriting—a scrawl, as he never took the time to write properly. Always rushed. Always seconds away from the next thing to steal his attention away. Yet still, it looked to be one of the longest notes he’d ever written her.
My Dearest Laney,
You are reading this, so that will mean I have departed this earth. But there are things unfinished, things that I hope you will find a way to right—for me, for yourself.
I have pondered it a thousand times, my flitting dove, and this—my death—is how I am going to make it up to you—make up for all of the past seven years and what it has wrought.
What I have wrought.
But this is my chance. The box gave me that. Gave me a way to lead you and Wes back together. This—setting you two onto the correct course—the course you always should have been