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

“Cut the bloody line!” he commanded, tightening his arms around her slender frame and jamming his boot down on top of hers.

The rope cinched like a noose about their ankles, yanking their feet out from under them. She screamed as together they fell to the deck, then skidded toward the rail, tugged by their intertwined legs. In a matter of seconds, they would either be pulled overboard entirely, or have their legs torn off. Neither alternative sounded particularly pleasant. Gray shoved his free boot against the bulwark, bracing himself for what he knew would be a futile, and brief, wrestling match with a shark. He gritted his teeth.

“Someone. Cut. The. Damn. Line.”

Thwack.

Someone did.

Gray lifted his head to spy Levi’s hand on an ax handle, and the blade several inches deep in the rail. “Thank you,” he huffed, letting his head fall back against the deck.

And now here he lay on the forecastle, holding Miss Turner as if they were two spoons in a drawer. The crown of her head tucked neatly under his chin, and her round little bottom nestled between his thighs. She was damp with sweat, and panting for breath. Gray was struck by the ridiculous notion that he’d had a dream the other night, very much like this. Except they’d been wearing fewer clothes. And there hadn’t been a half-dozen gawking seamen standing about.

And what did she say, his dream girl? This exquisite, rose-scented siren who would smile as she pulled him to his death?

“Well,” she said. “That was exciting.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“That”—Mr. Grayson slammed the door of the captain’s cabin—“was the most breathtaking display of stupidity I have ever witnessed in my life.”

Sophia cringed in her chair as he plunked a basin of water on the table. Liquid sloshed over the side, trickling toward the floor. With jerky motions, he removed a flask from his breast pocket, unscrewed the top, and added a splash of brandy. Then he threw back a healthy swallow, himself. She’d never seen him so agitated. He took everything as a joke, laughed off confrontation, deflected insult with a roguish smile.

“You’re angry,” she said.

“Damn right, I’m angry. I’d like to string every one of those bloody idiots up to the yardarm and shout them deaf.”

“So why are you here, shouting at me?”

He yanked open a drawer and removed a box. When he flung it on the table and flipped the latch, the box proved to be a medicine kit, crowded with brown glass vials and plasters and rolls of gauze.

“Because …” With a sullen sigh, he dropped into the other chair.

“Shouting the crew deaf is the captain’s privilege. And I’m not the captain. So I’m here instead, playing nursemaid. Give me your hands.”

She lifted her clenched hands to the table and slowly uncurled her fingers. Across each palm was painted a wide, angry swath of red. Swearing under his breath, he gingerly lifted one of her hands and laid it across his own. His tanned, weathered fingers dwarfed hers. With his free hand, he dipped a piece of gauze into the basin. “This will hurt.”

“It already hurts.”

“It will hurt more.”

Sophia winced as he sponged the wound. Yes, it did hurt more. It hurt worse when she looked at it, so instead she looked at him. She hadn’t come this near to him in days, not since they watched Davy Linnet climb the mast. Now she drank in every detail of his rugged, handsome face: the strong jaw sporting several days’ growth of beard, that thin scar tracing a path to his sensuous lips, the faint creases at the corners of his eyes, the result of weather or laughter or both. His was a face sculpted by real life, and it wasn’t pretty.

It was captivating.

“Do you realize you could have died?” he asked gruffly.

Sophia bit her lip. She did understand, in some way, that together they had just cheated death. Perhaps she ought to be rattled now, shaking with terror—but instead, she felt nothing but alive. Gloriously alive, and connected to this man, as though that rope were still binding her ankle to his.

He dipped the gauze again. “Why didn’t you let go of the line when I told you to?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”

“That’s obvious. For a governess, you don’t have much sense.” He blew lightly across her palm, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. His gray-green eyes locked with hers. “For a governess, you don’t make much sense.”

And now a shiver swept down to her toes.

He released the one hand and took up the other, dunking a fresh piece of gauze. Swabbing at her wound, he said, “You’re a puzzle, Miss Turner, but none of the pieces fit. That abhorrent gown cannot have been made for you. Your gloves were a gift. The loss of two sheets of paper has you in tears, and even your handkerchiefs bear someone else’s monogram.”

Panic coursed through her body, drawing every nerve to attention. He blew over her palm again, and this time the sensation nearly undid her.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said.

“You’ve been avoiding me, too.”