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

Understanding lit his brother’s eyes. “And the best way to discourage privateers from turning pirate …”

“Is to capture the most successful privateer of them all. And hang him.”

Gray turned and paced away from the door. “This Fitzhugh plans to make his career on my neck. Goddamn it.”

“Dolly, please don’t curse.” Bel’s voice cracked as she spoke. “We need God on our side now.”

“Seems no one else is,” Joss added.

“There’s to be a sort of hearing tomorrow,” Bel said. “The judge will hear testimony and decide whether he has sufficient evidence to convene a court of piracy.”

“A court of piracy?” Joss repeated.

“Yes,” Gray said, “in order to charge us, he has to summon representatives of the governor, all the way from Antigua. It’s no small undertaking. He won’t go to the trouble if he’s not certain we’ll hang.”

“I see,” Joss said. “It would seem much hinges on tomorrow.”

“Everything hinges on tomorrow.” If he didn’t walk free tomorrow, she’d be too far away. He might truly lose her. Damn.

Bel reached for his hand through the bars. Gray accepted the comfort of her small, chilled fingers wrapped around his own.

“Mr. Wilson will try to intercede for you,” she said. “The rest of us will pray.”

Gray squeezed her fingers. “You do that.” If Bel prayed, God might actually listen. “What of Miss Turner?” The question was out before Gray could stop it.

“Who?” A strange look crossed Bel’s face. “I don’t know any Miss Turner.”

“The lady from the dock, Bel. What happened to her?”

Bel frowned. “I don’t know,” she whispered, eyes downcast. “She said someone would be meeting her, and then Mr. Wilson found me, and …”

“And she left.” Gray pressed his forehead to the bars. Christ. She’d truly left. She’d truly left him. Until that moment, he hadn’t believed she could do it.

He must have done something wrong. Perhaps he ought to have demanded her secrets. Perhaps he should have held back some of his. Or maybe … God, maybe she’d been playing him for a fool all along.

“I’m sorry,” Bel said. “I suppose she just slipped away.”

“I can’t believe I lied to him,” Miss Grayson said, opening the green plantation shutters to admit a sultry breeze. “I’ve never lied to my brother in my life.”

Cringing, Sophia sat on the edge of the bed. As if all her own lies to him weren’t bad enough, now she’d gone and corrupted Gray’s sister. “I’m sorry to ask it of you,” she said. “But it was for his benefit. If my name reached the judge’s ears today, he might not believe my story tomorrow.”

“But how could the judge not believe the truth?”

How, indeed. Sophia’s lies were growing so numerous, even she couldn’t keep them straight. But when she’d assumed Sophia to be a missionary, Miss Grayson had handed her the perfect way to help Gray, as well as the perfect escape. One more day of deceit—in this, her most challenging role yet—and she would be done.

Miss Grayson sat down beside her. “I suppose it was in service of the greater good. But the look on Gray’s face when I told him you’d gone … He was—”

“Furious, I’d imagine.”

“No,” Miss Grayson said, surprised. “Not angry at all, just … disappointed, I think. His face went very grim. For all his initial resistance to the sugar cooperative, he must be attached to the idea now.” She beamed at Sophia.

“That must be your good influence, Miss Turner.”

Sophia thought it best to change the subject. “This isn’t your bedchamber, is it? I couldn’t put you out, you’ve been so kind.”

Gray had not been exaggerating when he described his sister’s kind nature. Indeed, Bel seemed to Sophia some kind of saint. While Bel had visited her brothers in jail, Sophia had been offered a series of small miracles: a bath in fresh, fragrant, heated water; a feast of tropical fruits and risen bread and unsalted meat; a freshly laundered dress; a soft, clean bed in this bright, airy chamber. If Gray had only been with her, Sophia would have felt welcomed into Heaven.

“No, this isn’t my bedchamber,” Bel answered. “It was once my mother’s, but no one has used it in years.”

“Has your mother been gone so long, then?” From what Gray had told her, she’d thought Bel’s mother had died more recently.

“She died a little over a year ago. But we had to move her from this room several years earlier, when she first took ill.” Bel opened a door between the windows, and beckoned Sophia. “Come have a look.”

Sophia stepped through the door and emerged onto a stone-tiled portico framed by a Grecian colonnade. Beyond the railing, a lush, green valley fell away from the house, the hillsides blanketed with fields. In the distance, two craggy mountains framed a wedge of ocean blue. “How beautiful,” she breathed. “I can see all the way to the harbor.”