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

“Please,” she whispered. “Kiss me.”


“I can’t.” For the second time that day, he pulled her hand away from his face. For the first—and, he suspected with distressing certainty, the last—time ever, he slid his hand from her breast. “I just can’t.”

The pain in her eyes devastated him. “Then I suppose you’d better leave.”

The bell clanged through the silence, insistent and ceaseless. An alarm to match the frantic pounding of Gray’s heart. Did the whole ship know the danger he was in?

But as his consciousness filtered back, he became aware that the dull thunder in his ears wasn’t his pulse. It was real thunder. And the roar of breath rushing in and out of his lungs was drowned out by the howl of distant wind. The ship gave a lazy tilt, and a small cake of pigment rolled the length of the table before crashing to the floor. Then a wild lurch cleared the rest of her paints and had them both grasping the bolted table for balance.

“All hands! All hands!”

Gray pushed back in his chair, glancing up through the ventilation grate. As he rose to his feet, another sudden dip swept the chair out from under him. “Sweetheart, I—”

“I understand, Mr. Grayson.” Her voice was weak. “Go. Please, just go.”

And with one last look in her welling eyes … God help him, he left. Gray emerged from the companionway to a scene eerily similar to the one on Miss Turner’s canvas. The Aphrodite hurdled over white-capped swells, and a bank of forbidding black clouds clung to the horizon. As he made his way to the helm, seawater dashed over his linen-clad shoulders, reminding him he’d left his coat belowdecks. Regret hollowed out his chest. His coat was the least of what he’d left there. Any shred of courage or decency he possessed. His heart, the shriveled, black thing it was.

And her.

Above him, a pair of sailors were deftly reefing the main topsail. Gray envied them. That was what he needed: He needed to work. He needed to perform hard, physical labor until he was numb to the fingertips and blind with exhaustion. He needed to sweat her out of his system. He met Joss at the ship’s wheel. “Seems we’ve got our wind back.”

“Aye,” Joss said. “And then some. I don’t like the look of those clouds.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Nor the sound of them,” Gray added.

Joss lifted a spyglass to his right eye, squeezing the left shut. “There’s a sail approaching to windward. I’ve given orders to lie-to and hail her, see what they can tell us about the squall. Perhaps they’ve just come through it.”

“Or around it.”

Joss lowered the spyglass to give him an enigmatic look. “What are you doing abovedecks, anyhow?”

“The cry went up for all hands.”

“You’re not a hand. You’re a passenger.”

“I may not be a hand, but I’ve got two perfectly good hands, and if I sit on them a second longer, I’ll go mad.”

Joss stared at Gray’s open collar, where his cravat should have been knotted. “She’s really getting to you, isn’t she?”

“You have no idea,” Gray muttered.

“Oh, I think I do.”

Gray ignored his brother’s smug tone. “Damn it, Joss, just put me to work. Send me up to furl a sail, put me down in the hold to pump the bilge … I don’t care, just give me something to do.”

Joss raised his eyebrows. “If you insist.” He lifted the spyglass to his eye and began scanning the horizon again. “Batten the hatches, then.”

Gray tossed a word of thanks over his shoulder as he descended to the quarterdeck and went to work, dragging the tarpaulins over the skylights and securing them with battens. As he labored, the ship’s motions grew more violent, hampering his efforts. He saved the vent above the ladies’ cabin for last, resisting the urge to peer down through the grate. Instead, he first secured one end, then blanketed the entire skylight with one strong snap on the canvas.

“Ahoy! Ahoy!” Wiggins leaned forward over the prow, hailing the approaching ship, its puffed scudding sails a stark contrast against the darkening sky.

Gray moved to cover the companion stairs, reaching inside the gaping black hole and groping for the handle to draw the hatch closed. Something—or someone—groped him back.

When the skylight was battened, the cabin went instantly black. Sophia felt the sudden, suffocating darkness, even though her eyes were clamped shut, the heels of her hands pressed flat against them to stem the tide of tears.

What was happening?

She stood up on shaky legs, smoothing her frock over her hips and adjusting her bodice in the dark. Fumbling in the darkness, she felt her way toward the cabin door and opened it. A square of light pierced the darkness overhead—the companionway hatch.

She moved toward the stairs and placed a foot on the bottom riser. When she reached forward to grab hold of the ladder’s edge, however, her hand met instead with something warm, solid, and strong.

An arm.