Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)

“Stay still.” Her fingers ran lightly over his face, as if testing for any rough spots she’d missed. She traced the thin scar from his chin to his mouth.

“So if this scar was self-inflicted, occasioned by vanity”—her hand slid down to the scar on his chest—“what of this? Not vanity, I think.”

He shook his head, laying one hand over hers. “Pure stupidity, that one. But self-inflicted, just the same.”

“It looks like a burn.”

“It is.”

Silence. His heart thumped against her palm.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she finally whispered.

“I want to,” he replied, surprised to find it was the truth. How could he expect her to share her own secrets, if he withheld his? “But it’s a long  story.”

“We have all night.” He cocked his head and frowned up at her. “When I went to the galley, I told O’Shea you were ill,” she admitted through a grin.

“He’ll not disturb us until they sight land.”

He rolled onto his side and propped himself on one elbow, uncertain whether to scold or kiss her. She solved the dilemma by kissing him first, then nestling into the bed beside him.

“You need rest,” she whispered, drawing his head to her shoulder.

“Between keeping watch and keeping a mistress, you’ve scarcely slept in a week.”

“You’re not my mistress, you’re my future wife.”

“We’re not married yet. And don’t spoil my fun. It’s my last chance to be anyone’s mistress.”

A savage joy swelled his heart. He wrapped an arm about her waist. “Yes, it is.”

Gray held her in silence, considering the story he meant to tell. It was a story he scarcely understood himself, and he realized he would be relating it for his own benefit more than for hers. “You will have gathered that Joss’s mother was my father’s mistress. One of his mistresses, at any rate. She was a slave.”

“I see.” She stroked his hair.

“From the beginning, my father acknowledged Joss openly as his son. This was after my own mother’s death, and before his bastards numbered so many as to make acknowledging them impractical. We were raised as brothers, during the day. Played together, dined together, took our lessons together. By night I stayed in the house, and Joss went to his mother in her quarters.”

He frowned. “It’s so odd now, to remember how I envied him. He had all the same privileges I enjoyed, with none of the expectations. To me, Joss seemed at home everywhere. It was only much later that I realized the opposite was true.”

Pausing, he scrubbed a hand over his freshly shaven face. “It should not have been surprising, I suppose, that he grew to resent me. But it was. When my father talked of sending me back to England, to university—all I wished was to trade places with Joss and stay at home. All he wished was to have the chance to go. We argued all the time, and came to blows more than once.”

“But such is the way between siblings,” she interjected. “My sister and I quarreled constantly at that age.”

“I suppose you’re right. In the end, it was another fight that drew the line between us. On his way home from town one night, Joss found himself on the wrong side of some drunken louts. They decided it was time to put my brother in his place, so they beat and branded him.”

Her hand froze in his hair. “Branded him?”

“It was done to slaves at one time, burning the owner’s mark into their shoulder. A repulsive practice—not that slavery itself is not a repulsive practice in its own right. Branding has been out of favor on Tortola for generations, but Joss’s attackers decided to resurrect the tradition.” A wave of nausea rolled through him at the memory of his brother lying prostrate in his recovery bed for days on end. The odor of charred flesh giving way to the sickly smell of infection, then the sweet stench of laudanum overpowering all. These parts of the story, he would not share.

“Dear God.” She resumed stroking his hair.

“I was due to leave for England before he’d fully recovered. I sat by his sickbed and promised him, when I had my own money I would come back for him and Bel, and we would all have the same luxuries, the same opportunities. We would share everything.”

“Did that make him feel better?”

Gray smirked. “He told me to go to the devil. Mind, he was drugged and in pain, but it still killed me. I got roaring drunk, wildly sick, and then roaring drunk again. I didn’t know how to convince him and remind myself that despite everything, we were brothers.”

She gave a little gasp. Her hand left his hair and went to cover the scar.