Surrender of a Siren (18 page)

“Sugar,” the captain answered. “It was a sugar plantation, Miss Turner, but our father died several years ago.”

“Oh.” Sophia forced herself to turn to the captain, though her gaze wanted to linger on Mr. Grayson’s face, study the shadows that flickered there. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Are you?” The words were a low, casual murmur. So faint, Sophia wondered if she’d imagined them. She looked around the table. If anyone else had heard the remark, they gave no sign.

Her foot stopped struggling beneath the weight of his boot, and the pressure eased. The contact remained.

“Who manages the property now?” She pushed an olive around her plate. “Have you an older brother, or a land agent?”

The two brothers exchanged a strange look.

“The land is no longer in the family,” Captain Grayson said tersely. “It was sold.”

“Oh. That must have been a difficult decision, to sell your boyhood home.”

Captain Grayson rested one elbow on the table. “Once again, Miss Turner, I couldn’t say. Was it, Gray?”

“Was it what?” Mr. Grayson clearly wished to evade the question. Sophia knew he’d been heeding the conversation, and she winced with discomfort as his leg tensed, crushing her toes once more.

“Pudding!” With his usual flourish, Stubb swept through the cabin door and added the dish to the table. As he uncovered the dome-shaped pudding, the aromas of figs and spices and brandy mingled with the familiar comfort of treacle-scented steam. A Christmas miracle, indeed. Sophia’s mouth watered.

“The lady asked a question, Gray.” The captain leaned forward, ignoring both Stubb and pudding. His voice took on a steely edge. “Was it a difficult decision, to sell our boyhood home? I’ve told her I couldn’t say, seeing as how I wasn’t involved in that decision. So the question falls to you. Was it difficult?”

Mr. Grayson clenched his jaw. His eyes narrowed as he regarded his brother. “No. It wasn’t difficult in the least. It was the only profitable course.”

The captain’s mouth quirked in a humorless smile, and he sat back. “There’s your answer, Miss Turner. Decisions never give my brother pause, so long as the profitable course is clear. He keeps his conscience in his bank account.”

Sophia’s gaze darted back and forth from brother to brother. The men warred silently, a battle of stony glares and firmed jaws and tight grips on silver. Then Mr. Grayson’s posture suddenly relaxed, and, as Sophia had seen him do on so many occasions, he took the advantage with a roguish smile. Charm was always his weapon of choice.

“So that’s why Gray’s never married.” Mr. Wiggins gave an easy chuckle. He leaned over the table to slice into the pudding, dispelling the tension between the brothers. “A rich man may keep his conscience in a vault, but we poor men have to marry ours.”

Mr. Grayson made a show of smiling at the jest. But his grin faded, and for a moment Sophia saw what she had never before noticed, in those dozen occasions. It cost him something, that roguish smile. Behind it, he looked … weary. Empathy gripped her before she could push it away. She’ d spent many evenings in many ballrooms, struggling under the weight of feigned levity. Fooling everyone but herself.

He looked up suddenly and caught her staring. Sophia blushed, feeling as though she’d walked in on him in his bath.

And that thought made her blush deeper still.

Mr. Wiggins rescued her again. “Without my wife, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I can’t even decide what color waistcoat to order at the tailor ’s.” He gave Sophia a playful glance, his eyes merry with wine. “Do tell, Miss Turner, how is it such decisions come naturally to the fairer sex?”

Sophia smiled. “For you, Mr. Wiggins, the choice is clear. With your dark coloring, an ivory waistcoat would definitely suit you best.”

The man beamed, tucking into his pudding. A trickle of brandy sauce dribbled down his lapel. Cursing, he dabbed it with his sleeve.

“But then, ivory does show stains most dreadfully.” She looked down at her plate, testing the pudding’s texture with her fork. “You see, sir, there are some of us for whom decisions are no trial. Living with those choices … now
that
is our burden.” She gave Mr. Grayson a cautious glance.

His boot released hers, and Sophia felt oddly bereft. She wiggled her toes inside her stocking. After all that time, she worried they might never regain sensation.

She need not have been concerned. For Mr. Grayson did not retract his foot. He merely moved it to the floor, to rest alongside hers. And then he stretched his leg and slid that foot forward, so that the edge of his boot caressed her from toe to heel.

Oh, yes. Her sensation was intact. And not only in her toes. A hot tingling spread like flames throughout her body, and her heart began to bounce in her chest. Sophia froze, her fork poised in mid-air. She stared down at her plate, afraid he’d see the crimson staining her cheeks.

Then his ankle brushed hers. Her heart leapt into her throat. And before she knew what was happening, the warm weight of his calf was crooked around her own, his leg twining with hers in an intimate embrace. The posture instantly recalled their tussle with the shark—boots lashed together, bodies entangled, chests heaving with the exhilaration of escape.

Oh, and now Sophia blushed
everywhere
. Her lips, her nipples, the cleft between her legs—she felt every pink part of her body swelling and turning deep red.

“Is there something wrong with your pudding, Miss Turner?”

Curse the arrogant charm in his voice. Curse her body’s response to it. She closed her eyes, then opened them. “No.”

Teasing, teasing man. He’d rejected her once before; she’d be a fool to throw herself at him again. She ought to pull her leg away, Sophia told herself. Kick him in the shin; stab his thigh with her fork as though it were a slab of roast goat. But she didn’t want to do any of those things. She wanted to sit like this for hours, letting his strong leg support her own. Feeling alive and exhilarated and desired … and not the slightest bit alone.

And beyond this dinner, this night, this secret embrace—Sophia wanted more. She wanted to be as close to him as she possibly, humanly could. She wanted
him
. This night was her chance, and this time she wasn’t scared or uncertain or drunk on rum. This time, she wouldn’t let him get away.

The decision was easy to make. Living with it would be another matter.

“No,” she repeated boldly, looking up. No longer caring if he saw her wanton blush or noted her shallow breath or heard her wildly thumping pulse. His eyes issued a challenge, and she met it without blinking, trading him smile for smile. “Everything is quite to my liking.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“What the hell was that?” Joss turned on him the moment Gabriel cleared the last of the china.

“What the hell was what?” Gray pulled a flask from his breast pocket and offered it to his brother.

Joss waved it away. “You know damn well what I mean. Something’s going on between you and Miss Turner, I know it.”

Gray uncapped the flask and took a sip. “What makes you say that?” He circled the table, discreetly examining the angle of the tablecloth and the perspective from the captain’s chair. Surely Joss couldn’t have seen what had taken place under the table. Even if his brother had noticed, he could demand all the answers he wished. Gray had no desire—or words—to explain it.

For the first time since he’d left England, Gray gave thanks for the thin, impractical leather of those dandified Hessians. The feel of her lithe, shapely leg against his … She’d accepted the contact so readily, blushed so attractively. Beneath that table, they’d formed some sort of alliance.

And then she had extended a clear verbal invitation.

If he went to her berth right now, she would be expecting him. At last, he could solve the mystery of what held together that damned striped frock. Or … he could simply rip it from her body.

Gray shoved the image aside before his groin could react further.

Joss did his bit to provide distraction. “How did she know about the plantation?”

“I told her in Gravesend, before we even set sail. The minute she mentioned Waltham.”

They stared at each other.

“And on that topic,” Gray continued, “what the hell was
that
about? Interrogating me about selling the land?”

“Miss Turner brought it up.”

“You continued it. Why this resentment now, Joss? It’s been almost eight years, and until M—” Gray bit off the end of that sentence. Joss didn’t need another reminder of his wife’s death. “Until recently, you never once complained. At the time, you told me you understood.”

“At the time, I was nineteen years old.”

“And I was three-and-twenty. Not precisely a man of the world. I did my best. I’ve done my best ever since. And if my best doesn’t meet your high expectations, I don’t know what to say. Except that it’s no surprise.”

“Don’t play the martyr with me. You’re the one who didn’t keep his word. And speaking of your word and its dubious worth, don’t change the subject. I saw the looks you and Miss Turner were exchanging. The lady goes bright pink every time you speak to her. For God’s sake, you put food on her plate without even
asking
.”

“And where’s the crime in that?” Gray was genuinely curious to hear the answer. He hadn’t forgotten that shocked look she’d given him.

“Come on, Gray. You know very well one doesn’t take such a liberty with a mere acquaintance. It’s … it’s
intimate
. The two of you are intimate. Don’t deny it.”

“I do deny it. It isn’t true.” Gray took another swig from his flask and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Damn it, Joss. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to trust me. I gave you my word. I’ve kept it.”

And it was the truth, Gray told himself. Yes, he’d touched her tonight, but he’d never pledged not to touch her. He had kept his word. He hadn’t bedded her. He hadn’t kissed her.

God, what he wouldn’t give just to kiss her …

He rubbed the heel of his hand against his chest. That same ache lingered there—the same sharp tug he’d felt when she’d brought her foot down on his and pursed her lips into a silent plea.
Please
, she’d said.
Don’t
. As if she appealed to his conscience.

His conscience. Where would the girl have gathered such a notion, that he possessed a conscience? Certainly not from his treatment of her.

A bitter laugh rumbled through his chest, and Joss shot him a skeptical look.

“Believe me, I’ve scarcely spoken to the girl in weeks. You can’t know the lengths I’ve gone to, avoiding her. And it isn’t easy, because she won’t stay put in her cabin, now will she? No, she has to go all over the ship, flirting with the crew, tacking her little pictures in every corner of the boat, taking tea in the galley with Gabriel. I can’t help but see her. And I can see she’s too damn thin. She needs to eat; I put food on her plate. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

Joss said nothing, just stared at him as though he’d grown a second head.

“Damn it, what now? Don’t you believe me?”

“I believe what you’re saying,” his brother said slowly. “I just can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

Gray folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “And what are you hearing?”

“I wondered why you’d done all this … the dinner. Now I know.”

“You know what?” Gray was growing exasperated. Most of all, because
he
didn’t know.

“You care for this girl.” Joss cocked his head. “You care for her. Don’t you?”

“
Care
for her.”

Joss’s expression was smug. “Don’t you?”

The idea was too preposterous to entertain, but Gray perked with inspiration. “Say I did care for her. Would you release me from that promise? If my answer is yes, can I pursue her?”

Joss shook his head. “If the answer is yes, you can—and should—wait one more week. It’s not as though she’ll vanish the moment we make harbor. If the answer is yes, you’ll agree she deserves that much.”

Wrong
, Gray thought, sinking back into a chair. Regardless of the answer, he knew she deserved far better. Damn it, he couldn’t even enjoy the fantasy of destroying that striped frock. Because he knew she’d only one other to wear, and he’d be too concerned over whether she possessed the needle and thread to mend it. Because the pattern might never match up right again; the stripes would be off, and the effect would be a bit less lovely than before. Because he would have taken something from her, destroyed something beautiful and perfect … and never again would she look at him with those clear, trusting eyes and tug on his heart.

Please. Don’t
.

Gray punched his thigh. This was why when he took a fancy to a woman, he pursued her, sampled her, and moved on. Becoming acquainted first ruined everything.

Agitated, he hooked a finger under his neck cloth and pulled it loose.

“Care for her,” he muttered. “How could that be possible? I’ve scarcely gone near the woman in weeks.”

“I don’t know how it’s possible, but it seems to be true. In fact, I think you’ re half in love with her. More than half, perhaps.”

Rising from his chair, Gray straightened to his full height. “Now wait. I’m half out of my mind with lust, I’ll grant you that. More than half, perhaps. But I ’m certainly not in love with that girl. Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Joss. I keep my conscience in my bank account, remember? I don’t even know what love looks like.”