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

Bawdy murmurs chased one another until a ripple of laughter caught them up. Gray stepped back, lifting his own mug to his lips. If the girl was determined to humiliate herself, who was he to stop her? Who was he, indeed?

Swaying a little in her boots, she raised her tankard. “To Gervais. My only sweetheart, mon cher petit lapin.”

My dear little rabbit? Gray sputtered into his rum. What a fanciful imagination the chit had.

“My French painting master,” she continued, slurring her words, “and my tutor in the art of passion.”

The men whooped and whistled. Gray plunked his mug on the crate and strode to her side. “All right, Miss Turner. Very amusing. That’s enough joking for one evening.”

“Who’s joking?” she asked, lowering her mug to her lips and eyeing him saucily over the rim. “He loved me. Desperately.”

“The French do everything desperately,” he muttered, beginning to feel a bit desperate himself. He knew she was spinning naïve schoolgirl tales, but the others didn’t. The mood of the whole group had altered, from one of good-natured merriment to one of lust-tinged anticipation. These were sailors, after all. Lonely, rummed-up, woman-starved, desperate men. And to an innocent girl, they could prove more dangerous than sharks.

“He couldn’t have loved you too much, could he?” Gray grabbed her arm again. “He seems to have let you go.”

“I suppose he did.” She sniffed, then flashed a coquettish smile at the men. “I suppose that means I need a new sweetheart.”

That was it. This little scene was at its end.

Gray crouched, grasped his wayward governess around the thighs, and then straightened his legs, tossing her over one shoulder. She let out a shriek, and he felt the dregs of her rum spill down the back of his coat.

“Put me down, you brute!” She squirmed and pounded his back with her fists.

Gray bound her legs to his chest with one arm and gave her a pat on that well-padded rump with the other.

“Well, then,” he announced to the group, forcing a roguish grin, “we’ll be off to bed.”

Cheers and coarse laughter followed them as Gray toted his wriggling quarry down the companionway stairs and into the ladies’ cabin. With another light smack to her bum that she probably couldn’t even feel through all those skirts and petticoats, Gray slid her from his shoulder and dropped her on her feet. She wobbled backward, and he caught her arm, reversing her momentum. Now she tripped toward him, flinging her arms around his neck and sagging against his chest. Gray just stood there, arms dangling at his sides.

Oh, bloody hell.

She stared up at him, with those wide, searching eyes. Fair glossed over with rum, those eyes, but beautiful nonetheless. And those lips—soft, swollen, pouting, just begging to be kissed. God, he wanted to kiss her. Kiss her long and slow and deep, until he was drunk on her sweet, rum-scented breath.

She pursed those lovely lips together—

And then she laughed. She bent her head and buried her face in his coat and laughed, long and loud, until her shoulders shook with it.

“This isn’t funny,” he said weakly. Weakly, because he didn’t truly want her to stop. So stupid, this small thrill of triumph. At last, he’d made the pretty girl laugh.

“Oh, but it is. Those men up there … What do you think they think we’re doing down here?”

It took Gray a moment to follow her through that labyrinth of a question.

“They’ll think we’re lovers,” she cooed, bursting into laughter again.

“Sweetheart, you’d better pray they do.” He put both hands on her waist and pushed her away. But she wouldn’t release his neck. They did a strange imitation of a Russian dance as he walked her backward, until she collided with a wall. He pinned her to the paneling with his hands on her hips and his most intimidating glare drilling into her eyes. “You’d better pray that they think I’m down here rogering you within an inch of your precious life. Because that’s the only way you’ll sleep undisturbed tonight. They won’t try a thing, if they think you’re mine.”

Her fingers curled into the locks of hair at his nape. She toyed with them idly, letting her fingernails rake over his skin. Her bandaged palm brushed his neck.

“Stop that,” he said hoarsely.

She didn’t. A muscle in his thigh began to quiver.

“Stop that,” he repeated. “You’re not supposed to be using your hands.”

“I’m not using them much.” She rested her chin on his chest and peered up at him. “How many teeth does a shark have, I wonder? It seemed like hundreds.”

“I have no … no idea.” He groaned as her finger traced the sensitive groove behind his ear. His eyelids fluttered.

“No, don’t close your eyes,” she said. “I like the way you look at me. So hungry. So dangerous. As if you’re a pirate … and I’m a prize worth far more than six pounds, eight shillings.”

“You’re drunk is what you are.”