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

She set to work on her sketch, keeping Quinn occupied with questions about his childhood, his home, his service in the war. Asking a man to recall his past invariably caused him to look away, as though his memories marched along the horizon. And while Quinn focused on that far-off time, Sophia could study his features openly without making him ill at ease. She noted the small divot between his eyebrows that appeared likely to become a furrow with time. She observed the tar embedded under his fingernails and in the creases of his palms; stains that would likely never wash off. And when he spoke of his nephew, she caught the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of his eyes.

How different it was, to draw people— real people with lives of sweat and labor, each a unique challenge. A far cry from sketching the same old vases of flowers and copies of copies of great masterworks. It gave Sophia a surprising amount of pleasure to simply talk with the men and gain their confidence. When they sat down before her, they trusted her to collect all their weathered features and tiny imperfections and commit them to paper, to assemble them into likenesses for their wives, their sweethearts, themselves. It felt somehow important. When she handed them the completed sketch, she gave them something of value that came from her talent, not from her fortune or her pretty face.

Of course, it also helped pass the time. And it kept Sophia, for those few hours a day, from thinking of him.

He was everywhere on the ship; there was no escaping him. Even if she remained in her cabin most of the day, the skylight was always open, and through it flowed steady streams of sunshine and fresh air and his voice. Mr. Grayson, as she’d learned from the first, was not a quiet man. He spoke often. He spoke loudly. And when he spoke, people listened. Including her.

The coarse shouts of the sailors, their muttered curses… the periodic clanging of the ship’s bell, the scrape of chains across the deck, the creaking of the ship’s wooden joints … All these sounds had blended into a flotsam of sound that now floated beneath Sophia’s consciousness. But never his voice. Mr. Grayson’s baritone rang out over all, assailing her at the most awkward moments.

She would be dressing in her chamber, bared to the waist, lacing her stays with a newly gained efficiency, and Mr. Grayson would choose that particular moment to linger above the cabin and scandalize young Davy Linnet with a ribald joke. It irritated Sophia beyond reason, that he could bring her ni**les to tight peaks without even occupying the same room. Without even knowing he did so.

At least, she prayed he did not know he did so. Sometimes she wondered.

She might have been the sole person Mr. Grayson aroused with a simple laugh or phrase, but she certainly wasn’t the only one he affected. When the crew fell idle on a calm afternoon and the sluggish silence grew thick, those were the times Mr. Grayson chose to sing. As though he’d been waiting for Nature herself to grow still in anticipation of his performance. He’d burst out with a song—some bawdy, coarse sailor’s shanty, sung with all the reverence of a hymn—and by the time he’d reached the end of the first verse, the entire crew would have joined him. The chorus would ring from every mast, and down in the cabin, Sophia would smile despite her best efforts not to.

At other times, he’d smooth over a brewing argument with a jest, delivered in a smooth, disarming tone. Or his casual comment about the wind would be followed by swift adjustments in the rigging. With that clear, pleasing baritone, Mr. Grayson directed the crew just as surely as the rudder steered the ship.

“I know what you’re thinking, Gray.” O’Shea’s brogue lilted down through the skylight one warm morning, while Sophia was hard at work. Mr. Grayson responded, a raw longing in his voice. “Aye. It would be so easy to take her.”

Sophia nearly dropped her quill.

“We’ve the advantage of the wind,” O’Shea said.

“And a faster ship,” Gray replied. “We’d be on her stern in no time.”

Ships. Sophia breathed again. They were speaking of ships.

“Those were the days.” O’Shea gave a low whistle. “One cannonball to the rudder …”

“Wouldn’t even need that. She’d accept our terms with little more than a signal shot and a smile.”

She could hear that smile in his voice.

He continued, “Cannons are for amateurs. Seizing a ship intact … it’s all in the approach. From the moment that sail appears on the horizon, you act as though it’s already yours. All that remains is to inform the other captain.”

Now Sophia smiled with him. She knew exactly what he meant. It was the same attitude she’d carried with her into the bank that day. A half-hour later, she’d walked out with six hundred pounds. She wished she could tell Mr. Grayson that story. He would find it amusing, no doubt. She could almost hear the ringing laugh he’d give when she described the red-faced clerk and the way she’d …

How curious.

She’d barely spoken with Mr. Grayson in over a week. How could she have done, after that horrid night? But somehow, through these overheard conversations and stray remarks, she’d come to know him quite well. She’d come to like him.

She’d come to think of him as a friend. He’d saved more than her life that day.