Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(11)

Although your kind letter arrived addressed to Papa, he has bade me reply, since heassumes we are nearly of an age. I am Emily, his eldest, recently turned sixteen, and I happy to oblige his request. Compared to the hardships I am typically made to endure,such as minding my four incorrigible siblings, penning a letter is a true delight. At any rate, I extend to you our entire family’s felicitations on your marriage and ourfondest hopes for your happiness. Would that I could invite you and your new husband tovisit us here in the West Indies, but Papa threatens daily that we shall soon depart forAmerica, as soon as he finds a buyer for our land. How desolate I shall be, to bid farewellto our beloved home, Eleanora, where I have been born and bred and lived so manyhappy years.

Forgive me, I must end. I hear the telltale clanging that informs me young George andHarry have taken to fencing on the veranda again. Fondest regards from your cousin,

Miss Emily Waltham

On first reading, the letter was merely a welcome source of amusement, during a week that held levity in short supply. But that was before Sophia learned that her dowry was actually a trust, and only her twenty-first birthday stood between her and complete financial independence. Before she wandered into that gallery in Queen Anne Street and saw that magnificent painting of a ship braving a stormy sea, and dared to imagine that she, too, could brave the world. Before everything changed—or, more accurately, before Sophia realized she never would.

Then the letter became a plan. A new sheet affixed to the original envelope, some doctoring of the address, and Sophia Hathaway—or rather, Miss Jane Turner—had an offer of employment. An escape.

And she had to escape. She’d been escaping for years now, through clever lies and wicked fantasies. Surely Sophia was the only girl at school who kept a secret folio of naughty sketches buried beneath the obligatory watercolor landscapes. The only debutante at Almack’s who mentally undressed unsuspecting gentlemen between dainty sips of ratafia. Surely none of the other young ladies in the Champions of Charity Junior Auxiliary lay abed at night with their shifts hiked to their waists, dreaming of pirates and highwaymen with coarse manners and rough, skillful hands. She was a perfect fraud. And no one saw the truth. Least of all the dear, deluded man who had wished to marry her.

Now she’d done it. She’d run away, in the most scandalous fashion imaginable, ensuring she could never return. Thanks to her farewell notes, by now half of London would be under the impression she’d eloped with a French painting master named Gervais. Fabricated or no, her ruin was complete. No longer was Sophia the pretty ribbon adorning a twenty-thousand-pound dowry, a trinket to be bartered for connections and a title. At last, she’d be her own person, free to pursue her true passion, experience real life.

Well. If she’d wished to experience real life, she’d gotten her wish indeed. A very real storm howled around her, the thunder rumbling in rebuke, as if the world had conspired to put her bravery to the test. She huddled into her cloak and took deep, slow breaths, as if by calming her inner tempest of emotions, she might tame the storm without. It didn’t work, in either respect.

Gray seethed with anger.

Having been ordered belowdecks in such insulting fashion, he thundered his way down to the gentlemen’s cabin. Once inside his tiny berth, he wrestled out of his coat. Between the cramped size of the room and the rolling of the ship, the experience was like tumbling a chambermaid in a closet, only far less pleasurable. One particularly impatient yank on his sleeve earned him bloodied knuckles when his fist banged the low ceiling. When he’d ordered the Aphrodite converted to accommodate passengers, the builder had given him an option. Did he want four gentlemen’s cabins, similar to the ladies’? Or would he prefer to squeeze six smaller berths into the same space?

Gray’s answer? Six, of course. No question about it. Two extra beds meant two extra fares. He hadn’t dreamed he’d one day occupy one of these cramped berths.

Six feet of angry man, lashed into a five-foot bunk, in the midst of a howling gale—it wasn’t a recipe for a good night’s sleep. Gray craved the space and comfort of his former quarters aboard the Aphrodite—the captain’s cabin. But as his brother had so officiously pointed out, Gray wasn

’t the captain of this ship anymore.

Throw his arse in the brig, had Joss threatened? Gray tossed indignantly, his chest straining against the ropes that held him in the child-sized bed. The ship’s brig didn’t sound so bad right now. He’d put up with a few iron bars, the rancid bilgewater and rats, if it meant he could stretch his legs properly. Hell, this room was so damned small, he couldn’t even get his blasted boots off.

He kicked the wall of his berth, no doubt scuffing the shine on his new Hessians. He hated the cursed things anyway. They pinched his feet. Why the devil he’d thought it a brilliant notion to get all dandified for this voyage, Gray couldn’t remember. Just who was he trying to impress? Stubb?

No, not Stubb.

Bel. It was all for Bel.

Gray couldn’t forget the way she’d looked at him when he’d left last year. The disappointment welling in those big eyes, as dark and doleful as any medieval icon’s. Hadn’t she learned by then to stop expecting so damned much of him? He’d never lived up to his little sister’s ideal. He wasn’t sure any man could.

But now Gray could show her he’d changed. As much as it was within his power to change, at any rate. He’d given up the reckless, albeit far more entertaining, life of a privateer and become a successful tradesman. The owner of a shipping concern, with two new vessels in construction besides the Aphrodite, and investors lining up to back more. Able to offer her a home in London, a comfortable life, whatever else she might desire. Bel might have preferred he grow a conscience, rather than build a fortune. But Gray knew better than to waste his time. If a scoundrel like him had any hope of Heaven, it rested solely on the strength of Isabel Grayson’s prayers.