Surrender of a Siren (9 page)

“I wouldn’t get her with child. Give me that much credit, at least.”

“I give you credit for nothing. Let’s try this one last time, shall we? You made me this ship’s captain. If I’m the captain, what I say goes. And I say you don’t touch her. If you can’t abide by my orders, take command of the ship yourself and let me go home.”

“Go home and do what? Squander your fortune and talent on dirt farming?”

“Go home and take care of my own family. Go home and do what I damn well please, for once.”

Cursing, Gray leaned against the wall. He knew Joss would make good on that threat, too. It hadn’t been easy, coaxing his brother out of mourning. Gray had resorted to outright bullying just to convince him to take command of the
Aphrodite
, threatening to cut off his income unless he reported to London as agreed. But he needed Joss, if this shipping concern was to stay afloat. He’d worked too hard, sacrificed too much to see it fail.

And if Joss didn’t become a willing partner, it all would have been in vain.

“Stay away from the girl, Gray.”

Gray sighed. “We’re on the same ship. I can’t help but be near her. I’ll not promise to refrain from touching her either, because the girl seems to lose her footing whenever I’m around. But I give you my word I’ll not kiss her again. Satisfied?”

Joss shook his head. “Give me your word you won’t bed her.”

“What a legend you’re making me! Insinuating I could bed her without even kissing her first.” Gray worried the edge of his thumbnail as he considered. “That might prove an amusing challenge, now that you suggest it.”

Joss shot him an incredulous look.

“With some other lady, on some other ship.” Gray raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “I’ll not bed her. You have my word. And don’t think that’s not a great sacrifice, because it is. I’d have her in two, three days at the most, I tell you.”

“Once again—not amusing.”

“For God’s sake, Joss, it’s a joke. What do you want, an apology? I’m sorry for kissing Miss Turner’s hand, all right?”

Joss shook his head and flipped open the logbook. “No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.” The odd thing of it was, Gray was telling the truth. He knew he was being an ass, but the joking was easier than honesty. For all his teasing, he hadn’t kissed her hand with the intent to seduce, or to judge if she tasted as sweet as he’d dreamed. He’d kissed her fingers for one reason only. Because they were trembling, and he’d wanted them to stop. It was wholly unlike him, that kiss. It was not a gesture he thought it wise to repeat. The girl did something strange to him.

Gray tried again. “I’m sorry for kissing Miss Turner’s hand.” He crossed to stand opposite his brother’s chair. “I’m sorry for arguing about the storm. I’ m sorry for sacking Bains. Hell, I’ll even say I’m sorry for the goats. I’m sorry you had the great misfortune to be sired by my degenerate father, and I’m sorry you’re stuck with an equally degenerate half brother.”

Joss looked up sharply.

Gray said, “I’m sorry Mara died.”

Joss looked back down.

Gray sat down across from him. “But I’m not sorry I made you the captain of this ship, Joss.
Joss
.” He waited until his brother met his gaze. “You’re the only one I can trust. I need you to command this ship, and I’ll not jeopardize that in any way. I won’t countermand you again. I’ll stay out of any disputes.” He fanned his fingers out over the blotter and recalled the slender width of Miss Turner’s waist. Then he closed his hand into a fist. “I said I wouldn’t pursue Miss Turner. I won’t.”

Joss snorted.

“Damn it, I wish one of these days you’d learn to trust me.”

His brother looked him in the eye. “Not half as much as I wish you’d give me a reason to.”

CHAPTER SIX

Sophia was hungry. Suddenly, ravenously hungry.

A near brush with disaster could do that to a woman.

She followed the stairs down into the belly of the ship. Hadn’t Stubb mentioned the galley was down here somewhere? She couldn’t remember where.

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, she propped one hand on the ladder to steady herself. Her heart throbbed in her chest. The air was too thick. Her breaths were shallow, and she was faint with hunger.

She’d come so close to confessing everything.

If only he weren’t so infuriating and so solicitous, all at once. One or the other, she knew how to resist, but insolence and charm made a potent brew indeed. The way he’d soothed her concern with rough fingers, even as his words teased. The way he’d guided her with a light touch at the small of her back, kissed her fingers so tenderly … they could have been in an elegant ballroom, preparing to dance a quadrille.

By all evidence—his fine attire, cultured accent, proud bearing, the rare flash of politesse—Mr. Grayson was a man who could move in the highest echelons of English society, but delighted in doing just the reverse. For a moment, she’d thought: If she told him everything, perhaps he would understand.

Perhaps he was a runaway, too.

Foolish, foolish girl
. He understood profit. He understood six pounds, eight shillings. Mr. Grayson was no different from any fortune-hungry suitor of the
ton
. Or for that matter, from even her own family. He looked at her and saw gold, tied up with a pretty bow. And she would give him his blasted gold and have done with him—just as soon as she had something to eat.

Instead of turning left into the ladies’ cabin, Sophia went right. She emerged into a cabin quite similar to her own in appearance, but distinguished by the strong smell of goat. Holding her sleeve to her nose, she passed through the common area quickly and stepped through a door on the opposite side.

“Shut the bloody door, then!” The voice thundered at her through a cloud of steam.

Sophia complied hastily.

A tall, lean black man stood over a pot of boiling water, carving chunks from a peeled potato with a large knife. “Not time for mess now, is it?” he said without looking up. “That’s six bells just sounded, and I ain’t so old as I can’t hear, nor so stupid as I can’t count. So off with you then, you greedy bastard, and come back in an hour.”

Sophia would have obeyed this request, but she was momentarily shocked immobile. No one, in all her twenty years of genteel privilege, had ever addressed her in such a coarse manner. Much less a Negro cook. She couldn’t quite name the sensation that overtook her. It wasn’t anger, or shame. It was more a sense of complete disorientation. As if God, in a fit of boredom, had thought it might be amusing to flip the globe on its ear.

The cook flung the knife down and wiped his hands on an apron. “I told you, you can bugger off. You’re not getting nothing until—” He turned, saw Sophia, and froze.

They stood there, staring at each other, not speaking, until the pot boiled over.

“Bloody hell.” The cook grabbed an iron and wrenched open the stove, poking vigorously at the fire. Sparks shot out to mingle with the steam.

“I beg your pardon,” Sophia said. “I only hoped to ask for a bit of bread. Perhaps …” The cook swore again as he banged the stove shut, and she jumped. “Perhaps a drop of tea.”

“No, it’s I who must beg your pardon, miss.” He wiped his hands on his apron again, leaving dark smudges of soot. “Have a seat, Miss… ?”

“Miss Turner.”

“Have a seat then, Miss Turner.” He pulled a three-legged stool up to a square, butcher-block table and patted it with his hand. “I’m Gabriel.”

Sophia sat down quickly. It was a comfortable stool, and a comfortable space. A square little room, lined with cabinets and the stove to one side. Overhead, the ceiling hovered a foot or so above deck level, letting fresh air and sunlight in from all four sides. The aromas of cooking food had her stomach grumbling.

“I’ll fetch your bread and tea,” the man said. Now that he’d ceased swearing, the exotic cadence of his voice intrigued her. Unlike the sharp commands the seamen volleyed from rigging to deck, Gabriel’s speech was smooth and resonant. “I’m not accustomed to having passengers aboard.” He looked her over, and a white, toothy smile split his face. “For a moment there, I thought you were an angel, come to take me up to Heaven.”

She winced. “No, I’m not an angel.” She knew he meant to be conciliatory, but he may as well have called her a beetle, for all the pleasure that appellation conveyed. “I’m a governess.”

His angel
, Toby had always called her.
His innocent dove
. He would wax nearly poetic about how perfect she was, how beautiful and pure.

He had no idea.

“Forgive me,” he’d whisper after each kiss, swallowing hard between ragged breaths. “You’re so lovely, I can’t help myself. But don’t be frightened, my angel. I shan’t press you further. I’m so sorry.”

But Sophia hadn’t been sorry, or frightened in the least. She recited the demure deferrals that come as naturally as embroidery to any young lady of accomplishment, but she left these encounters feeling frustrated and curious. She longed to be pressed further. Pressed further, harder, and in unspeakably intimate places.

A lifetime of playing Toby’s perfect angel had loomed before her like a living hell. She had no use for purity; Sophia wanted passion. So she’d run away. She’d fled the dream wedding—and dream groom—of every young lady in England, on the slim hope of finding it.

But at the moment, she would settle for some tea, and a morsel of bread.

“I apologize for cursin’ at you like that.” He put a kettle on the stove. “I thought you were one of the sailors, come looking for extra food. Can’t let ’ em have a morsel more than their allotment, the greedy beggars. You give them one biscuit extra, and they’ll expect the same every day until we make port.” He set a hunk of bread before her. “That’s the last of the bread, miss. Enjoy it.”

Sophia bit into it gratefully. Stale bread had never tasted so delicious. “I’d gladly forgive you anything for a cup of tea. But what if,” she asked, swallowing, “what if I had been Captain Grayson? Or Mr. Grayson?”

Gabriel made a dismissive wave of his hand. “I been chasing Gray and Joss out of one kitchen or another since they was boys. They know better than to run afoul of old Gabriel.” He reached for a canister of tea and paused. “But it might have been that Mr. Brackett. And something tells me he’d not take kindly to being told to bugger off.” He shrugged, scooping tea into a tin pot. “Lots of changes for an old man like me. Not used to men of Brackett’s type aboard this vessel. Nor beautiful young misses like yourself.”

“But you can’t be old,” Sophia insisted. Gabriel laughed, and she peered through the steam at his face. Smooth, unwrinkled skin with the sheen of polished mahogany stretched over high cheekbones and a flat nose. His laughter revealed a full set of straight, white teeth. Only the faintest dusting of white in his close-cropped hair hinted at advancing age.

The kettle whistled.

“And what do you mean, you’re not accustomed to passengers?” Sophia propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand, entranced by the steaming trickle of water from kettle to teapot. “Are all the berths typically occupied by goats, then?”

Gabriel chuckled. “Now don’t disparage the goats, Miss Turner. They’ll give you milk for your tea, and a taste of chowder on Sundays.” He set a tin mug on the table before her and ladled a generous amount of treacle into it. “But these cabins are all new, miss. Used to be just steerage all through, from galley to forecastle. The
Aphrodite
is a whole new ship inside. It’s like her maiden voyage.

“We needed all that space during the war,” he continued, pouring tea into her cup. “For extra crewmen and guns. Powder and cannonballs, too. And the ship had to leave port half-empty at least, so we’d have room for prize cargo and prisoners.”

Sophia blinked at him, ignoring the delicious-smelling tea before her. “Cannonballs? Prisoners? Was the
Aphrodite
a warship, then?”

“No, miss.” He smiled and went back to his pot of potatoes on the stove. “
This
crew, falling in with the British Navy? No, the
Aphrodite
was a privateer vessel. Brought in three-and-sixty prizes—French ships, American ships. And she brought Gray more money in five years at sea than the old Mr. Grayson lost in thirty years of farming sugarcane.”

Sophia’s hand plunked down on the table. “But privateers … aren’t they nearly the same as pirates?”

“No, miss. There’s a world of difference between the life of a privateer and a pirate.”

“Less violent?”

Gabriel shook his head. “About the same, there.”

“More honorable.”

“Not necessarily. That would depend on the particular privateer and the particular pirate.”

“Then how is it different?”

“Why, privateering’s legal, of course. Sanctioned by the Crown. Can’t be hanged for a privateer.”

“I see.”

“ ’Course, the war’s over now.” Gabriel sprinkled the dish with pepper before removing the pot from the stove. “No more privateering to be had. So we’ve got to turn respectable, Gray says. It was either that, or turn pirate.” Gabriel winked at her. “And I’m rather attached to my neck.”

Sophia sipped her tea, amazed. She was the lone female passenger— the lone passenger, really—aboard a ship crewed entirely by men who might as well be pirates, except that they couldn’t be hanged. And Mr. Grayson, with his arrogant swagger and mercantile lust, was their erstwhile, unhangable pirate king.