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

Her spoon paused in mid-air.

Gray crashed his fist on the table. “Christ, man! Can’t you see the lady is trying to eat?” Crossing his arms, he slumped back in his chair. Its wooden joints creaked in protest.

And now everyone put down their spoons.

Gray felt their eyes on him. He kicked the table leg, frustrated with himself, with her, with his goddamned boots. They still pinched his feet. Stubb shuffled in, accompanied by Gabriel this time. “Main course,” the old steward called.

“There’s meat-and-kidney pie,” Gabriel announced proudly, setting the dish in the center of the table. “Made the crust from biscuit meal. Thought my arm would fall off from pounding.”

“And here’s the roast!” Stubb lowered his offering to the table, a well-browned haunch that smelled of grease and savory. Olives and small, white rounds of goat’s-milk cheese ringed the meat.

“Thank you, gentlemen.” Joss wrenched the carving knife from the roast, and a trickle of rich juices flowed forth.

Conversation was adjourned, by unanimous decree.

Generous helpings of meat and pie, along with second and third cups of Madeira, did much to improve the general mood. Seemingly gripped by holiday nostalgia, Wiggins prattled on and on about his children. During a particularly inane monologue on little Master Wiggins’s affinity for his schoolmaster, Brackett pushed back from the table and excused himself to resume his watch on deck. Gray helped himself to more roast, taking the opportunity to slide an extra slice onto Miss Turner’s plate. She glanced up at him, her expression a mixture of shock and reproach. And this was his reward for generosity.

He gave a tense shrug by way of excuse, then replaced the knife and fork and busied himself with his own food. He felt her staring at him. That was it. If she was entitled to stare at him, he was damned well going to stare back. And if this governess was going to reprimand him like an incorrigible charge … well, then Gray was going to misbehave. Letting his silver clatter to the china, he balled his hands into fists and plunked them down on either side of his plate. “You say you miss your family, Miss Turner? I wonder at it.”

Her glare was cold. “You do?”

“You told me in Gravesend you’d nowhere to turn.”

“I spoke the truth.” Her chin lifted. “I’ve been missing my family since long before I left England.”

“So they’re dead?”

She fidgeted with her fork. “Some.”

“But not all?”

He leaned toward her and spoke in a low voice, though anyone who cared to listen might hear. “What sort of relations allow a young woman to cross an ocean unaccompanied, to labor as a plantation governess? I should think you’d be glad to be free of them.”

She blinked.

He picked up his fork and jabbed at a hunk of meat. His voice a low murmur, he directed the next question at his plate. “Or perhaps they’re glad to be free of you?”

Something crushed his foot under the table. A pointy-heeled boot. Then, just as quickly, the pressure eased. But her foot remained atop his. The gesture was infuriating, and somehow wildly erotic.

He met her gaze, and this time found no coldness, no reproach. Instead, her eyes were wide, beseeching. They called to something deep inside him he hadn’t known was there.

Please, she mouthed. Don’t.

She bit her lip, and he felt it as a visceral tug. That unused part of him stretched and ached. And at that instant, Gray would have sworn they were the only two souls in the room. In the world.

Until Wiggins spoke again, confound the man.

“How strange you must find it, Miss Turner,” the second mate said,

“celebrating the holiday in this tropical climate. Not a typical English Christmas, is it?”

Sophia cleared her throat. “No indeed.” God bless Mr. Wiggins. She extricated herself from Mr. Grayson’s enigmatic gaze and reached for her Madeira. Loath to field further questions of any variety, she passed the burden of conversation like a hot serving dish. “Would you agree, Captain Grayson?”

Beneath the table, she allowed her foot to slide back down to the floor. That was a mistake. In the next heartbeat, his boot clamped over hers like a trap.

Sophia kept her gaze trained on the captain. His thin black eyebrows rose. “I’m afraid I couldn’t say, Miss Turner. All of my Christmases have been spent at sea, or on Tortola.”

Sophia wriggled her foot madly, but it was no use. Mr. Grayson’s Hessian pinned her nankeen half boot to the cabin floor. She shot him an angry glare, but he had taken a sudden interest in searching the depths of his Madeira.

“Yes, of course,” Sophia replied to the captain. “Mr. Grayson,” she said pointedly, hoping to draw the scoundrel’s attention, “mentioned to me that your father owns a plantation there. What crop did you tell me your father raises, Mr. Grayson?”