Surrender of a Siren (10 page)

Mercy.

She drained the rest of her tea in one long draught, capped with an audible swallow. “Thank you for the refreshment,” she said, rising to her feet. Blood rushed from her head, leaving her dizzy. The steam was suddenly too thick to breathe. “I … I believe I’ll go take some fresh air.”

As she hurried on deck, her mind was awhirl. All that time that Mr. Grayson had been touching her, teasing her … she’d been consorting with a
pirate
. If he had the slightest inkling that she carried hundreds of pounds beneath her stays, he’d surely stop at nothing to get it. And yet, she could not bid caution to overtake the gothic thrill. For Heaven’s sake, a
pirate
.

She could be in danger, she admonished herself.

She could be plundered.

The possibility really ought to have frightened her more than it did.

Perhaps she could not escape the man, but she had to tamp down this response he incited in her. There was only one thing for it. She would go to her cabin and sketch. Something simple, innocent. Rosebuds, apples, blocks of wood. Anything but him.

Then something fell to the deck with a loud thud, startling Sophia to a halt. It was a knotted length of rope, only a few feet long, and it had landed almost at her feet. A rather small object to have made such a noise. It must have fallen from high above.

Shading her eyes with her hand, Sophia craned her neck and looked upward. Davy Linnet descended the rigging hand over hand, like a monkey.

For all his nervousness earlier, he looked born to the ropes now. He landed at her feet in a graceful swoop. “Beg yer pardon, miss.” He picked up the offending coil and, flashing a shy smile, made an ungainly bow.

Sophia graced him with her best debutante’s smile, gratified by the manner in which his pale cheeks colored when she did. At least someone on this ship knew how to treat a lady. “Mr. Linnet, I wonder if I might trouble you for a favor.”

The youth swallowed, his expression suddenly earnest. “Anything, miss. Anything.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Over the next few days, Gray found himself partnered in an absurd sort of quadrille. Miss Turner was always in his sights, but rarely within reach. And when their paths collided occasionally, as much by accident as by design, she quickly twirled away from him, to be lost in the dance once again.

Just as well.

He learned the pattern of her activities. She came abovedecks shortly after breakfast, presumably to take some fresh air. Then she would disappear again, usually until the dogwatches in late afternoon. A sailor’s favorite time of day, the dogwatch—when work slowed and the sun hung low in the sky and dinner loomed hopefully on the horizon. It was the time of day when those who had pipes would play them, and those who had cards would gather ’round, and men with no talent for music or gambling might light a pipe instead. Only natural, then, that Miss Turner would be drawn to the deck at that hour, lured by the air of camaraderie and the sounds of laughter or song.

He couldn’t imagine how she passed her time between forenoon and dusk. What did ladies do with themselves on a transoceanic voyage? Sewing? Reading? Gray himself grew itchy with idleness. He found little to do, save charting the latitude religiously and circling the deck, pausing to chat with the sailors now and then. Every once in a while, a sail might appear on the horizon. And, according to his right of whimsy as captain, Joss might or might not decide to hail the ship and let the carved goddess adorning the
Aphrodite’s
prow curtsy to a kindred figurehead.

Odd, to watch the ships approach willingly now, rather than flee.

“Say!”

The shout drew Gray’s attention. A knot of sailors surrounded young Davy, who appeared as riled up as a fifteen-year-old green hand could get.

Davy stood nose-to-chest with O’Shea, jabbing a finger into the Irishman’ s chest. “Give it back then, you big, ugly—”

“Watch yer mouth there, boy! Mind who you’re talking to.” O’Shea gave him a half-strength push that sent Davy sprawling into Quinn, one of the new men. Quinn shouted in protest and threw a swift elbow, knocking Davy to the deck.

Gray strode over to join the group. A bit of good-natured hazing never hurt a new boy. He had to learn his place among the crew. But Gray had never countenanced cruelty on his ship. And this was, he reminded himself, still
his
ship. Wordlessly, he extended a hand to Davy and hauled him to his feet. The crewmen nudged one another, silencing the laughter.

“What’s the problem, O’Shea?” Gray knew better than to solicit Davy’s version of the conflict first. Shipboard hierarchy was sacred.

The Irishman shrugged. “Boy’s got himself all worked up over a bit of paper.”

“Paper?” Gray laid a hand on Davy’s sleeve.

Davy struggled in Gray’s grip. “It’s
my
paper, you great lout.”

“And I said I’ll give it back to ye, now didn’t I, ye wee bugger?” O’Shea clenched his fists and turned to Gray. “Can I hit ’im, Gray? Let me hit ’im. He insulted me mum, the little piece of sh—”

The bell clanged at the helm. All wheeled to view Mr. Brackett, wearing his usual black overcoat and equally dark expression. “Back to your stations, all of you!” He stomped to the skylight above the galley and called down, “Cook! No grog tonight for larboard watch!”

“Aye, aye, Mr. Brackett.” Gabriel’s voice wafted up on a cloud of steam.

The men grumbled in chorus, and Davy took a few dull knocks to the kidneys. “Ow!”

“Better let me have the paper, O’Shea,” Gray said. “I’ll have a talk with the boy here about minding his place.”

O’Shea handed him a crumpled sheet of parchment before heading back toward the ship’s bow.

Gray turned to the boy. He cleared his throat, summoning the serious tone he reserved for reprimands and funerals and other rare occasions. “Now, Davy. It’s bad form, and generally a bad idea, to run afoul of O’Shea. Or any of the crewmen, for that matter. You’re together on this ship for the next month, you realize. Life at sea isn’t all grog and sunshine. Your mates hold your life in their hands, and you don’t want to give them any reason to lose their grip.”

“Yes, sir,” came the boy’s sullen reply. “It’s just …” He gestured toward the crumpled paper in Gray’s hand. “Have a look at it, sir.”

Gray smiled. “What is it, then? A love letter from your girl back on the farm?” He released Davy’s sleeve and smoothed the paper against his chest before glancing down at it.

He nearly dropped the page.

It was a charcoal sketch of young Davy Linnet. And it was a revelation.

“Miss Turner done it,” Davy said simply.

She had, indeed. The boy’s likeness was rendered in deft, light strokes, and in stunningly faithful detail. It wasn’t anything like the schoolgirl sketches most young ladies produced—generic, blocky human figures distinguishable only by the shade of the subject’s hair, or the line of his nose. Every inch of this sketch was inimitably
Davy
. The restless energy in his stance and rumpled tufts of dark hair. The awkward ears and too-large hands he’d eventually grow into. The spark of youthful optimism in his eye, hedged by the self-conscious, lopsided quirk of his lips, a shadow of future irony. In a single sketch, the artist—for this was most certainly the work of an artist—had captured the boy Davy was and the man he would one day become. It wasn’t merely a likeness; it was a
portrait
.

It made Gray feel wistful for his boyhood. It made him feel strangely humbled and alone. It made him want to garrote the bloody goat that had eaten Miss Turner’s two sheets of paper and turn the ship around just to buy her more.

And most of all, it made Gray greatly curious—and a little bit afraid—to know what Miss Turner saw when she looked at
him
.

“Thought I’d save it for my mum,” Davy said, “so she’ll not forget what I look like. Miss Turner only worked on it while I was off-watch, Mr. Grayson. Said I was doing her a favor, giving her a subject to practice on.” The boy scrubbed at his face with his sleeve and craned his neck to look over Gray’ s shoulder. “Never had a portrait of myself before. Is it like me enough?”

“Very like,” Gray said quietly. Then he cleared his throat and forced a grin. “You’re a handsome devil, Mr. Linnet. Give it a few years, and you’ll be breaking the ladies’ hearts on two continents.”

“Oh, no,” Quinn called from the crow’s nest. “Lad’s up to his ears in love with Miss Turner. Aren’t ye, boy? She’s all he can talk about, Gray. Don’t go tempting him with talk of other girls. There’ll be no other lady for him—not this voyage, anyway.”

Davy colored and stammered. “I … It’s not …”

Gray laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t fault your choice, Davy. She’s a beautiful woman, and talented at that.”

Davy shifted his weight awkwardly. “Well, and of course she won’t look at me. I do know that, sir. I just …”

“You’re just a normal lad of fifteen. I was one once myself, you realize. And I never caught the eye of a lady half so fine as Miss Turner.” He gave the sketch one more lingering gaze before returning it to Davy.

“And she must think a great deal of you, Davy,” he said, chuckling. “She’s given you a whole sheet of paper.”

As Sophia emerged from the hatch, she immediately recognized Mr. Grayson’s roguish laughter, coming from somewhere to her right.

She turned left.

An overnight rain had scrubbed the inverted basin of sky to a bright, cloudless blue. The sun shone down with unmitigated audacity, and the crest of each wave gleamed. Their collective brilliance was almost painful to behold; like a sea of diamonds.

This should have been her wedding day.

Sophia wondered if the sun was shining on a small, picturesque chapel in Kent. What had happened, she wondered, to the hundreds of hot house flowers especially cultivated for the occasion? She thought of the wedding breakfast, so carefully planned to the last gilt demitasse spoon. Was the pastel pyramid of almond- and rose-flavored ices waiting stoically for her return, a fashionably Egyptian monument to her betrayal?

Even if they’d managed to keep her disappearance concealed until now … when she failed to appear for her own wedding, the secret would be out. Rumors of her elopement with the mysterious Gervais would leap from lady to lady like fleas in a church pew. She’d be the talk of the
ton
—although not quite the way her social-climbing parents would have hoped.

What an elaborate joke she’d played on them all. What a laugh.

So why did she feel like crying?

Standing on tiptoe and clutching the wooden pins, she leaned over the ship’s side, staring hard into endless waves and swirling trails of foam. A single tear fell from the corner of her eye, dropping into the seawater with all the significance of a grain of sand strewn in a desert.

A flash beneath the waves caught her gaze. A smooth dart rose up from the blue-green depths, then sank beneath the surface again. Sophia waited, holding her breath. It surfaced once more, a bolt of quicksilver slicing through the waves, pacing the
Aphrodite’s
brisk progress.

A sailor nearby called to another, and the two men joined her at the rail, marking the elegant creature’s course.

“What is it?” Sophia wondered aloud, her eyes never leaving the water.

“It’s just a dolphin-fish, miss,” one of the crewmen answered.

The creature leapt from the water, its sleek, shimmering form sailing through the air before disappearing once more beneath the waves. It leapt again, and then again, carving playful, exuberant arcs through the spray, trailing silver-dipped rainbows in its wake.

The fish’s course veered, bringing it even closer to the ship’s hull. Sophia admired the creature’s flat snout and the sharp blade of its fin, running the full length of its spine. But most marvelous of all were the bold, iridescent shades decorating its scales.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

A harpoon shot out from the sailor’s hand, skewering the fish with a sick squelch.

“It’s dinner,” the crewman said cheerfully. The two men dropped a net over the side and hauled their thrashing catch aboard.

Gagging, Sophia pressed a hand to her mouth and turned away.

“Now don’t be squeamish, miss,” the crewman said. “You’ll miss the colors.”

The colors? Sophia peeked over her shoulder. The men had the fish completely aboard now, and its flat body thumped uselessly on the planked deck.

“See, miss? The colors are starting.”

As the sailor spoke, the bold hues of the fish’s scales began to shimmer and change. Sophia stepped toward it, fascinated. Its light-blue belly deepened to the truest cobalt. A stripe of fresh green turned electric with gold. Sophia had never seen colors so vivid—not in nature, not in paintings. Not even in her dreams. The fish was a living rainbow.

A dying rainbow, rather. Its arcing body eventually went pale and limp, turning as colorless as the decking. Having withdrawn their harpoon, the crewmen returned to the rail to look for more. And there the fish lay, gutted and lifeless.

Sophia had never felt so disillusioned. The stark reality of life and death had been splashed in her face like so much seawater. She realized, with sudden clarity, that all her life she’d been raised to view the world as a collection of objects assembled for her amusement, her admiration, her consumption. But now she understood—nothing existed for beauty alone.