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

“I don’t need your help.”


“Yes, you do.” She ceased stirring and leveled the ladle at him, wielding it like a sword. “You’ve eight men on this ship, performing the work of a dozen. I hear everything from that cabin. Do you think I don’t know how hard you’re working? That you’re only resting every third watch, and sometimes not even that?”

Her voice lost its sharp edge, and she flung the ladle aside before wiping her brow with the back of her wrist. “If I run the galley, it frees Davy to stand a watch. If Davy’s able to stand watch, you can get more rest.”

Gray stared at her. He slowly shook his head. “Sweetheart—”

“Don’t.” Her voice tweaked. “Don’t call me that when you don’t mean it.”

“What am I to call you, then? Miss ‘Turner’? Jane?”

“You’re to call me Cook.” With an impatient gust of breath, she blew a wisp of hair from her face. “If I knew how to reef a sail or splice a line, you’d be chasing me down from the rigging right now. I can’t do a sailor’s work, but I can do this. I’ve spent every morning with Gabriel since the Aphrodite left England, and I know how to pound a piece of salt pork.”

“I can’t allow you to do this sort of menial labor.”

“You can’t expect me to sit idly by and read or sketch in that cabin while you’re working yourself to bones.” She grabbed a smaller spoon from a hook on the wall and thrust it at him, handle-first. “I made you food, and you’re going to eat it.”

He accepted the spoon. It was that, or accept a spoon to the skull. She kicked a stool toward him. “Now sit down.”

Gray gave in. He did need rest, and having Davy on deck would be a boon. And, his stomach reminded him loudly, he’d scarcely tasted more than a biscuit in days. He’d avoided her since they boarded this ship, but she’d sensed these things somehow—his fatigue, his hunger. She’d sensed something else as well. He’d been giving orders for three solid days, and he needed a bit of ordering around. Given a choice between eating and working, his duty as captain demanded that work take priority. She left him no choice, so he sat and ate.

Still, he couldn’t let her get away with it so easily. “If you’re the cook,” he said between mouthfuls, “I’m your captain. You can’t continue speaking to me that way.”

“You aren’t dressed like a captain.”

Gray looked down at his homespun tunic and the loose-fitting trousers cinched with a knotted cord. The clothes of a common seaman, borrowed from a sailor now dead. He hadn’t the luxury of fine attire on the Kestrel. With the ship so undermanned, he had to be everywhere—climbing the rigging, down in the hold.

“Don’t look apologetic. They suit you.” Her gaze glanced off his shoulders, then dropped to the floor. “But I see you’ve kept the detested boots.”

He shrugged, spooning up another bite of chowder. “I’ve broken them in now.”

“And here I hoped you were keeping them for sentimental reasons.”

She set a tankard of grog before him, the moment before he became aware of his own thirst. Gray reached for it, shaking his head. A long swallow of watered-down rum added fuel to his resentment. He’d allowed himself to become so transparent to her, while she remained an enigma to him. Her talents fit no logical pattern—sketching, painting, deceit, seduction, thievery … now the ability to pound biscuit and salted meat into a fair-tasting chowder? It was enough to make him abandon all hope of ever comprehending her.

Perhaps he never would. But it was another thought that had him hurrying through his food, desperate to put some distance between them. He might never understand her, Gray realized, but he could get dangerously accustomed to this other feeling.

Being understood.

“Just hold her steady, that’s it. Don’t lean too close, she might kick. Now firmly grasp her … her …”

Sophia was beginning to doubt the brilliance of this enterprise she’d suggested. She cleared her throat and affected a brisk, business-like tone.

“Her teat?”

“Er, yes.”

Thankfully, there was a brown-and-white nanny goat blocking her view of Davy’s face, but she could hear the fierce blush in his voice.

“Take her teat,” he said haltingly. “Like so.”

She tilted her head to view the goat’s underside, where Davy’s thumb and forefinger curled around one knobby teat. Cautiously, she reached out to follow suit on her side. At the first brush of her fingers against the milk-swelled udder, the animal gave an annoyed shiver. Sophia snatched her hand back.

“Don’t let her frighten you, Miss Turner. You can’t be timid with a goat.”