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

He refused to look up. Shrugging, he set down his cup and began worrying his thumbnail. “I didn’t tell you.”


“Sugar,” the captain answered. “It was a sugar plantation, Miss Turner, but our father died several years ago.”

“Oh.” Sophia forced herself to turn to the captain, though her gaze wanted to linger on Mr. Grayson’s face, study the shadows that flickered there. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Are you?” The words were a low, casual murmur. So faint, Sophia wondered if she’d imagined them. She looked around the table. If anyone else had heard the remark, they gave no sign.

Her foot stopped struggling beneath the weight of his boot, and the pressure eased. The contact remained.

“Who manages the property now?” She pushed an olive around her plate.

“Have you an older brother, or a land agent?”

The two brothers exchanged a strange look.

“The land is no longer in the family,” Captain Grayson said tersely. “It was sold.”

“Oh. That must have been a difficult decision, to sell your boyhood home.”

Captain Grayson rested one elbow on the table. “Once again, Miss Turner, I couldn’t say. Was it, Gray?”

“Was it what?” Mr. Grayson clearly wished to evade the question. Sophia knew he’d been heeding the conversation, and she winced with discomfort as his leg tensed, crushing her toes once more.

“Pudding!” With his usual flourish, Stubb swept through the cabin door and added the dish to the table. As he uncovered the dome-shaped pudding, the aromas of figs and spices and brandy mingled with the familiar comfort of treacle-scented steam. A Christmas miracle, indeed. Sophia’s mouth watered.

“The lady asked a question, Gray.” The captain leaned forward, ignoring both Stubb and pudding. His voice took on a steely edge. “Was it a difficult decision, to sell our boyhood home? I’ve told her I couldn’t say, seeing as how I wasn’t involved in that decision. So the question falls to you. Was it difficult?”

Mr. Grayson clenched his jaw. His eyes narrowed as he regarded his brother. “No. It wasn’t difficult in the least. It was the only profitable course.”

The captain’s mouth quirked in a humorless smile, and he sat back.

“There’s your answer, Miss Turner. Decisions never give my brother pause, so long as the profitable course is clear. He keeps his conscience in his bank account.”

Sophia’s gaze darted back and forth from brother to brother. The men warred silently, a battle of stony glares and firmed jaws and tight grips on silver. Then Mr. Grayson’s posture suddenly relaxed, and, as Sophia had seen him do on so many occasions, he took the advantage with a roguish smile. Charm was always his weapon of choice.

“So that’s why Gray’s never married.” Mr. Wiggins gave an easy chuckle. He leaned over the table to slice into the pudding, dispelling the tension between the brothers. “A rich man may keep his conscience in a vault, but we poor men have to marry ours.”

Mr. Grayson made a show of smiling at the jest. But his grin faded, for a moment Sophia saw what she had never before noticed, in those dozen occasions. It cost him something, that roguish smile. Behind it, he looked … weary. Empathy gripped her before she could push it away. She’d spent many evenings in many ballrooms, struggling under the weight of feigned levity. Fooling everyone but herself.

He looked up suddenly and caught her staring. Sophia blushed, feeling as though she’d walked in on him in his bath.

And that thought made her blush deeper still.

Mr. Wiggins rescued her again. “Without my wife, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I can’t even decide what color waistcoat to order at the tailor

’s.” He gave Sophia a playful glance, his eyes merry with wine. “Do tell, Miss Turner, how is it such decisions come naturally to the fairer sex?”

Sophia smiled. “For you, Mr. Wiggins, the choice is clear. With your dark coloring, an ivory waistcoat would definitely suit you best.”

The man beamed, tucking into his pudding. A trickle of brandy sauce dribbled down his lapel. Cursing, he dabbed it with his sleeve.

“But then, ivory does show stains most dreadfully.” She looked down at her plate, testing the pudding’s texture with her fork. “You see, sir, there are some of us for whom decisions are no trial. Living with those choices …

now that is our burden.” She gave Mr. Grayson a cautious glance. His boot released hers, and Sophia felt oddly bereft. She wiggled her toes inside her stocking. After all that time, she worried they might never regain sensation.

She need not have been concerned. For Mr. Grayson did not retract his foot. He merely moved it to the floor, to rest alongside hers. And then he stretched his leg and slid that foot forward, so that the edge of his boot caressed her from toe to heel.