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

Her gaze lifted to his. “And … ?”


And what? What could he possibly say? That her sketches filled him with envy and yearning? That they revealed to him hidden qualities in men he’d worked alongside for years, and showed him more than he’d ever wanted to know of her heart? That he’d spurned this same request—and her— weeks ago, precisely because he dreaded the moment she turned that artist’s eye on him and perceived the true quality of his soul? Irony tugged the corner of his mouth into a half-smile. Let her see it, then. Her supply of black pigment would be exhausted completely. She’d never burden him with that trusting look again.

He drained his mug of tea and threw it down like a gauntlet. “Very well.”

Smiling, she propped a canvas on the easel. “Very well.”

“What am I to do?”

“Just be at ease.” She threw him an amused glance. “Much as I’d rejoice to feel the sea rolling beneath us, I don’t believe you’re in any imminent danger of being thrown to the floor.”

Gray followed her gaze to his hand where it clenched the arm of his chair. Annoyed with his own transparency, he folded his hands across his chest, sliding one boot along the floorboards as he reclined in the chair. “I am perfectly at ease.”

“How is it,” she asked, scratching with a pencil as her narrowed gaze alternated between him and the canvas, “that the son of a dissolute gentleman, raised on a West Indian sugar plantation and educated at Oxford, after inheriting land and an income, decides to make his life at sea?”

Gray stared at her.

She ceased sketching and cast him an expectant look, tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her ear.

“What? You want me to talk? I thought I was supposed to remain still.”

“You are supposed to be at ease. And reminiscing, I find, usually puts a subject at ease.”

Not this subject.

She turned back to her sketch. “Did you dream of becoming a sailor as a boy?”

Gray laughed. “No. I’d never been aboard a ship until I was sent off to Oxford. I was sick and miserable for the whole first week at sea. Couldn’t eat a thing. A stroke of luck, as it turned out, for the sailors caught and ate a tainted fish. Nearly all of the crew fell ill; four of them died.”

“Good Heavens.”

“I offered my assistance to the captain. He put me to work, and I just took to it, somehow. By the time we crossed the Tropic, I was setting and furling sails like an able seaman. Between shifts in the rigging, I learned everything the captain had to teach me about windpower and navigation. When we reached England, I asked him if I could stay on, and he made me second mate. Didn’t make it to Oxford for another year and a half.”

“I wonder that you bothered to go at all.”

“I nearly didn’t.” He scratched his chin. “But the war was brewing. And a letter finally caught up with me, saying my father had taken ill—that sobered me. Both Joss and Bel were still underage, and I knew there’d be no one to look after them if he died. Figured I’d best stay put for a while, so they’d know where to find me if they needed me. Oxford seemed as good a place as any. Only finished three terms, as it happened.”

“Because your father did die.” Catching the pencil between her teeth, she wiped her hands on the apron of her smock.

“Yes.”

She removed the pencil from her mouth and turned her head to stare at him. Her eyes did not meet his, however. Rather, Gray fancied that she studied his ear, or perhaps the line of his jaw. He scratched his neck self-consciously, feeling his whole body heat under her unabashed appraisal.

“And that’s when you sold the land,” she said, returning her attention to the canvas. “And became a privateer?”

He nodded.

“But if you were concerned for your brother and sister, why did you not simply go home? Keep running the plantation?”

Gray exhaled roughly. “For a host of reasons. But all of them had to do with money. Sugar prices were plummeting; tariffs kept increasing. West Indian plantations were no longer the profitable enterprises they’d once been. We would have been mired in debt within the year.” He shook his head. “It never would have worked. If I’d told the executors about Joss, it would have meant months of delay, and I couldn’t be certain he’d even agree to sell. I found a buyer for the land, and I had the opportunity to buy this ship and obtain a letter of marque, so I seized it. And then I seized over sixty ships in the name of the Crown.” Gray couldn’t keep a hint of pride out of his voice. “I’ve never regretted my decision. It was the only profitable course.”

She cast another scrutinizing glance at him, this time in the direction of his hairline. Gray’s own eyes rolled heavenward, as if he could follow the line of her gaze.

“Does this occur often, that the ship is becalmed?”

Gray shrugged. “Not every voyage. But often enough.”

“How long does it usually last?”