Tessa Dare

by Surrender of a Siren

  It came to her so easily, the flirtatious response. He had only to look at her, and her caution collapsed in the flick of a fan. “You shouldn’t tease, Mr. Grayson. It isn’t at all charitable.”

  “Ah, but I’m a tradesman. I’m interested in profit, not charity. And I asked you to call me Gray.” He leaned closer, and now—at this diminished distance—Sophia would have sworn his eyes were not green at all, but a pale blue.

  Piercing blue.

  “You have money, don’t you?”

  Her mouth went dry. He knew. From the handkerchief? It must be too fine, too embellished. Obviously it belonged to a lady of wealth. Curse it. If only Sophia had had more time to plan her escape, she would have managed a better disguise. It had been difficult enough to leave her painstakingly selected trousseau behind and take only her everyday linens. She hadn’t had time to assemble a coarser wardrobe, nor even any notion of where the poorer classes shopped.

  “I beg your pardon?” Her fingers tightened around the rapidly cooling tankard.

  “Money. You do have money, don’t you? You never paid your fare yesterday. It’s six pounds, eight. If you haven’t the coin, I’ll have no choice but to hold you for ransom once we reach Tortola.”

  Her fare. Sophia sipped her tea with relief. If Mr. Grayson was this concerned over six pounds, he surely had no idea he was harboring a runaway heiress with nearly one hundred times that amount strapped beneath her stays. She suppressed a nervous laugh. “Yes, of course I can pay my passage. You’ll have your money today, Mr. Grayson.”

  “Gray.”

  “Mr. Grayson,” she said, her voice and nerves growing thin, “I scarcely think that my moment of … of indisposition gives you leave to make such an intimate request, that I address you by your Christian name. I certainly shall not.”

  He clucked softly, wrapping the handkerchief around his fingers. With hypnotic tenderness, he reached out, drawing the fabric across her temple.

  “Now, sweetheart—surely my parents can be credited with greater imagination than you imply. Christening me ‘Gray Grayson’?” He chuckled low in his throat. “Everyone aboard this ship calls me Gray. Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s no particular privilege. There’s but one woman on earth permitted to address me by my Christian name.”

  “Your mother?”

  He grinned again. “No.”

  She blinked.

  “Oh, now don’t look so disappointed,” he said. “It’s my sister.”

  Sophia slanted her gaze to her lap, cursing herself for playing into his charm. If the sight of him drove the wits from her skull, the solution was plain. She mustn’t look.

  But then he pressed the handkerchief into her hand, covering her fingers with his own, and Sophia could not retrieve the small, defeated sigh that fell from her lips. His touch devastated her resolve completely. His hand was like the rest of him. Brute strength, neatly groomed. She heartily wished she’d thought to put on gloves.

  He leaned closer, his scent intruding through the pervasive smell of seawater—wholly masculine and faintly spicy, like pomade and rum.

  “And sweetheart, if I did make an intimate request of you”—his thumb swept boldly over the delicate skin of her wrist—“you’d know it.”

  Sophia sucked in her breath.

  “So call me Gray.” He released her hand abruptly.

  Disappointment—unbidden, imprudent, unthinkable emotion—cinched in Sophia’s chest. Distance from this man was precisely what she wished. Well, if not precisely what she wished, it was exactly what she needed. He looked at her as though he’d laid all her secrets bare, and her body as well.

  She pushed the tankard back at him, leaving him no choice but to take it from her hands. “I shall continue to address you as propriety demands, Mr. Grayson.” She cast him a sharp look. “And you certainly are not at liberty to call me ‘sweetheart.’”

  He donned an expression of wide-eyed innocence. “That isn’t what it stands for, then?” Teasing the handkerchief from her clenched fist, he ran his thumb over the embroidered monogram.

  S.H.

  “You see?” He traced each letter with the pad of his finger. “Sweet. Heart. I thought surely that must be it. Because I know your name is Jane Turner.”

  His lips curved in that insolent grin. “Unless … don’t tell me. It was a gift?”

  At least this time she made it to the rail.

  And there Sophia clung, until she was certain she must be casting up remnants of Michaelmas dinner. Until the heavy footfalls of those soiled boots told her that he’d left.

  Back in her berth, she dipped a clean, unembroidered handkerchief into a basin of fresh water. Stripped down to her drawers and stockings, she sponged the icy water over her neck and face, then between her breasts and under her arms. After toweling dry, she dusted her body with scented rice powder.

  She still felt filthy.

  With trembling fingers, she restrapped the heavy bundle around her ribs. She tugged a clean chemise over her head and cinched up her stays.

  She still felt exposed.

  She brushed out her hair with sharp yanks, as if to punish the feeble mind beneath the tingling scalp. Of all the times and places to go distracted over a man! During her Season, she’d been courted by no fewer than nine of the ton’s most eligible bachelors. No dukes or earls among them, to her parents’ dismay, but she had become engaged to the most coveted catch of the ton—the supremely charming Sir Toby Aldridge. And never, not once, in all those waltzes and garden strolls and coy conversations, had Sophia’s perfect composure been shaken. She knew how to manage attractive men; or rather, she knew how to manage herself around them.

  She knew nothing. She was an idiot, an imbecile, a simpleton, and a ninny. Boarding a ship under an assumed name, then whipping a monogrammed handkerchief from her cloak?

  Sophia yanked and twisted her hair into a severe style, then stabbed the coiled knot with several hairpins.

  Foolish, foolish girl. If Mr. Grayson learned about that money, he would know her instantly for a fraud. He could take her purse away, or hold her captive in hopes of extorting more. Worse, he could turn out to be a gentleman after all, and simply return her to her family.

  Be calm, she bade herself, taking a deep breath.

  Considering his friendship with the Walthams, Mr. Grayson was bound to discover her deceit eventually. But by the time the ship reached Tortola, she would be just weeks from her twenty-first birthday. Just weeks away from freedom. If Mr. Grayson possessed some shred of gentlemanly honor that might compel him to return a ruined debutante to England—and Sophia doubted he did—it would already be too late. By then, her trust and her future would belong to her alone.

  Her anxiety somewhat allayed, Sophia reached for her dress. It pained her to put on the same wrinkled gown, but she had no choice. Her trunk accommodated only four dresses in addition to the one she wore. Two were last summer’s muslin frocks, to wear once they reached the tropics. The third was not a dress at all, but rather a smock for painting, and the fourth … the fourth was pure folly.

  Once dressed, she turned her attention to the smaller trunk, which held her dearest treasures. Paints, charcoal, pastels, palette, brushes—and one hundred sheets of heavy paper, divided into two parcels, each wrapped tightly in oilcloth. One hundred sheets to ration over a month, perhaps longer.

  Although she might have allowed herself three, Sophia withdrew only two sheets of paper. She gathered up a small drawing board and a stub of charcoal before neatly repacking her artist’s cache. As she replaced the oilcloth packet, her hand brushed against the worn leather cover of a small book. Smiling, she lifted the volume to the top of the trunk.

  The Book.

  Given to her by her friend Lucy Waltham, now the Countess of Kendall, this tiny volume had proved an invaluable source of both information and inspiration. The Memoirs of a Wanton Dairymaid, the title read. Its contents were, as one might expect, ribald accounts of a dairymaid’s trysts with her gen
tleman employer. As a whole, Sophia had found The Book shocking, titillating, and woefully lacking in illustrations. This last, she had set out to remedy.

  She flipped through the first half of the book, now painstakingly embellished with pen-and-ink sketches of the wanton dairymaid and her gent in various states of undress. She had planned to return it to Lucy when she finished, but now … A pang of loneliness pinched in her chest. Even if she did see Lucy again, her friend would be forced to cut her. A countess didn’t consort with fallen women.

  A sudden image sprang to her mind. A frenzy of colors, textures, tastes … Snow-white petticoats bunched at her waist. Straw strewn on a stable floor. The warm gush of an overturned pail of milk. Miles of smooth, bronzed skin. The taste of salt on her tongue and the scrape of rough whiskers against her neck.

  She threw the book back in her trunk and shut it quickly. Irrepressible dreamer she might be, but Sophia was not a wanton dairymaid. And Mr. Grayson, as he was so fond of reminding her, was no gentleman.

  The air inside the cabin had grown uncomfortably close. She needed to clear her mind. She needed to draw. To gather all this diffuse, unruly sensation within her and force it through the tip of her pencil, onto paper where it could be caged by four margins. Safe. She tucked charcoal and paper under her arm and mounted the ladder, intending to sketch on deck.

  The instant her head emerged through the hatch, however, Sophia’s plans changed.

  She found herself face-to-face with a goat.

  With a rude bleat, the goat snatched a sheet of paper from her grasp and crumpled it between its jaws. Sophia watched in confounded outrage as the goat casually masticated and swallowed her precious parchment. When the animal extended its long, narrow tongue in every indication of lunching on her second sheet, Sophia startled into action. She grabbed her drawing board with both hands and smacked the impertinent animal on the nose.

  “Easy there, sweetheart.” Mr. Grayson’s deep voice carried from somewhere above. “That’s my investment you’re bludgeoning.”

  Sophia stared at the goat. She paused a half-second to imagine Mr. Grayson’s handsome features superimposed on that furry, blunt-nosed visage. Then she whacked it over the head again.

  My, but that felt good.

  Evidently, the goat did not agree. It grasped the corner of Sophia’s board with its teeth and pulled. Sophia tugged back with all her strength. She lost her footing on the stair and tumbled backward into the cabin. The goat fell with her. Or rather, the goat fell on top of her.

  Drat.

  Bleating indignantly, the goat scrambled to its feet, its forelegs and hindlegs on either side of Sophia’s midsection. Sophia struggled to raise herself up on her elbows. Her serge skirt had flipped up, exposing her stockings. The powerful stench of farm animal smothered her like a goat-hide blanket. Two pendulous teats dangled before her eyes, swaying gently with every motion of the ship.

  “Well, well.” Mr. Grayson’s teasing tone carried down the staircase. The remaining sheet of paper fluttered to a rest near Sophia’s elbow. The goat ingested it with alacrity. “This is a very pretty picture. What a fetching dairymaid you make, Miss Turner.”

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  “Goats.” Joss swore. “Why did it have to be goats?”

  “Can’t have empty space on a merchant vessel.” Gray tore his gaze from the rustic tableau belowdecks. Now there was an image that would haunt his dreams. The girl already owed him one night’s rest. “Space wasted is money lost. And we’ll have fresh milk all the way to Tortola. You’ll be thanking me soon enough.”

  “And when you purchased them, did you pause to consider just where we’d house the bloody beasts?”

  “No need to be disparaging, Joss.” Gray tugged the ear of the brown-and-white nanny. “These bloody beasts are from Hampshire’s finest stock. They’ll fetch a good price. And I thought they’d stay put in the hold.”

  “Evidently, you thought wrong.”

  “Must have chewed through their ropes last night.” Gray paused, considering. “We’ll put them in the gentlemen’s cabin. Damned berths are too small for human habitation anyway.”

  “I see.” Joss tapped the toe of his boot against the deck. “And I suppose you’re going to look after them there? Clean up after them? Milk them?”

  “Don’t be absurd. Stubb and Gabriel can share the milking. As for the tending … That green hand of yours is fresh off the farm, isn’t he? Ah, there he is.” He whistled through his teeth. “Boy!”

  A pale-faced youth trotted across the deck, a thick coil of rope threaded over his arm.

  “What’s your name, again?”

  “Davy Linnet, sir.”

  “How old are you, Davy?”

  “Fifteen, sir.”

  “Come from the farm, have you?”

  The lad shifted his feet. He regarded the goats warily. “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I suppose you know how to tend a goat.”

  The boy hesitated, looking toward Joss.

  “Well?” Gray asked. “Do you know a goat’s teat from her tail, or don’t you?” When the boy still paused, he added, “Speak up now, or I’ll ask you the same about girls.”

  “I’ve tended goats, sir. It’s just … I wasn’t expecting to tend them at sea. I rather thought I was finished with that.”

  Gray laughed. “A man can’t shake his past, Davy. And don’t I know it. Take them down to the gentlemen’s cabin, then. One to a berth.” He raised his voice and spoke in the direction of the hatch. “And rescue Miss Turner from that animal under her skirts.”

  Davy stowed his coil of rope and grabbed a cannon rammer from the rack at the ship’s rail. He prodded one goat’s flank with the blunt end. “Get along, then.”

  “So, if the goats are in the gentlemen’s cabin,” Joss asked, turning toward the helm, “where do you intend to sleep? Not curled up with your flock, I imagine.”

  “No. There’s always the la—”

  “The ladies’ cabin?” Joss stopped. His eyes narrowed. “Think again.”

  “I suppose the for—”

  “And don’t think about bunking in the forecastle. I’ll not have you in there carousing with the crew, undermining my authority.”

  Gray shrugged. “Then that leaves steerage, it would seem. I’m certain Davy can spare some room for me amongst the barrels.” He shook his head. “I own the damn ship, and I’ll be bedding down in steerage with the green hand.”

  “Don’t look to me for sympathy,” Joss said. “I didn’t want your bloody goats. Or their milk.”

  “Oh, you’ll drink their milk. You’ll drink it, and you’ll thank me for it.” Gray teetered on the brink of anger, and his brother’s smirk pushed him over the edge. “Damn it, I’ve taken on risks for this business, Joss. I’ve made sacrifices. All so the family … so you can reap the benefits. I wish you’d cease throwing them back in my face.”

  Gray knew instantly he’d gone too far. Lately, conversing with Joss was like swimming through shark-infested waters. And the steely glint in his brother’s eye signaled an imminent attack.

  “You. Want to tell me. About sacrifices.” Joss took a step toward him, his voice rough. “I reap the benefits, do I? My family reaped the sugarcane that paid for this ship. They lived and died for it. And you may own the damn ship, but you don’t own me.”

  Damn it to hell. Whenever Gray thought they’d finally moved past the inequity of their births, he found himself quite rudely corrected. It wasn’t as though Gray could change the fact that he’d been the first born, legitimate son. As the younger brother, Joss would never have had the same opportunities as Gray, whether he’d been born of a mistress, a wife, or in this case, a slave.

  “Joss, that’s unfair. You know the fact we’re of different mothers didn’t matter to our father. It’s never mattered to me.”

  “It matters to some. I’ve the scars to prove it.”

  “As do I.”

  Shaking his head, Joss studied the mainm
ast towering above them. “Go bugger one of your goats, Gray.”

  “Joss.”

  Ignoring Gray entirely, Joss turned to his second mate. “Mr. Wiggins! Summon all hands. Prepare to weigh anchor.”

  Gray walked away. There wasn’t anything more he could say. At least, there wasn’t anything more he knew how to say. He’d just have to keep quiet, he supposed. Keep quiet, and look after the money. There wasn’t any way he could change the past and little enough he knew to do in the present. He’d never had any talent for morality—that, he gladly left to Bel. But if he looked after the money, everything else would fall into place.

  Even the goats.

  “Sir, you owe me a debt.”

  Sophia dodged Mr. Grayson’s elbow as he wheeled to face her. She had him right where she wanted him. With the mast directly behind him, and rigging to either side, he had nowhere to escape.

  “Mr. Grayson.” She took a deep breath and clenched one hand into a fist at her side. The other hand she raised into the space between them, brandishing a sheet of clean parchment. “You—and your goat—owe me two leaves of high-quality paper. Heavy stock, free of markings. I expect restitution.”

  He rubbed one palm along his jaw, then slid it back to cup his neck. “Paper?” One eyebrow arched as he took in her disheveled appearance. “You’re all worked up over a few sheets of paper?”

  Suddenly self-conscious under his gaze, Sophia smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear. After the theft of her paper and the humiliation of landing in a farmyard tangle, she had relied upon her indignation to shield her from Mr. Grayson’s charms. Perhaps she had overestimated the protective quality of pique.

  Although she still wore the same bedraggled garment she’d been wearing since the moment of their introduction, he’d changed his attire. His tailored navy-blue topcoat and buff trousers were the height of fashion. His unruly waves of hair had been tamed with a touch of pomade, and the light growth of beard only increased his roguish good looks. The sole defect in his appearance remained the scuffed boots, which had now suffered all manner of abuse, from saltwater to sickness.