Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(12)

Prayer wouldn’t help him tonight. From Gray’s experience, the best ward against seasickness was to turn one’s mind to sin.

Surprising, then, that his thoughts drifted to Miss Turner. He thought he’d outgrown admiring her sort, those delicate English roses. Give him an exotic orchid. A voluptuous woman with unbound hair and bold, dark eyes, who knew what she was about. Girlish blushes, demure smiles—they’d lost their allure for Gray years ago.

But still he thought of her. He could no more rid his mind of her than command the storm to cease. Tossing fitfully in his bunk, he recalled her near-breakable beauty, her delicate scent. And the feel of her body pressed against his for those few seconds in the rowboat. Not just the enticing sensation of her soft, pillowy br**sts flattening against his chest, but beneath them, a pulse racing like a bird’s, pounding against his torso through all those layers of womanly flesh and wool. As if something caged inside her was clamoring for escape. Begging him to set it free. It was then he discovered an unhappy consequence to all his tossing and turning. One of the ropes binding him to his bed had drifted south—and now cinched his body at a most unfortunate latitude.

Damn it to hell.

He undid the ropes and wrestled out of the bed. What the devil was happening to him? His little brother had him confined to his cabin. A prim governess had him tied in knots. And worst—he’d been off the sea so long, he was losing his instincts. Joss had been right; the storm was growing violent.

Arms braced against either side of the corridor, Gray made his way from the gentlemen’s cabin to the companionway. He needed to see the storm for himself, judge how the ship’s new rigging and spars were weathering the gale.

But when he reached the stairs, his plans changed. There was a girl in his way.

Miss Turner stood perched on the third rung of the ladder, straining on tiptoe to peek through the half-open hatch. Had Gray been the superstitious sort, he might have thought her a ghost. Her fingers were white, delicate webs where she clutched the handle of the hatch with one hand and the ladder with the other. Flashes of luminous beauty alternated with darkness. Each fork of lightning illuminated her finely wrought features and the droplets of spray clinging to her hair and eyelashes.

No, she wasn’t a ghost. But she was a vision just the same.

“Miss Turner,” he said, bracing one shoulder against the wall. She didn’t turn around.

Gray cleared his throat and tried again. “Miss Turner.”

Now she startled, nearly losing her grip on the ladder. “Mr. Grayson. I …”

Her voice caught, and she dabbed her face with her sleeve. “I wanted to see the storm.”

“And how do you find it?”

“Wet.”

Gray chuckled, surprised.

“And beautiful,” she continued, as another bolt of lightning threw her features into relief. “Out here on the water, with no solid land beneath—it’s so different. As though there’s no boundary between sky and sea, and we’re simply at Nature’s mercy. It’s so wild and gothic.”

“It’s dangerous, is what it is.”

“Yes, precisely.” Another bright flash revealed the curve of a smile. Gray frowned. What was she doing, smiling at him in a storm? Sending electric pulses through his blood with each glimpse of her pale, haunting beauty? She ought to be huddled in her bunk, fearing for her life. He crossed the small space in one stride, gripping the ladder with one hand and offering her the other, to assist her descent. “Wise passengers wait out a storm in their berths.”

“Do they?” she whispered, taking his hand. “What does that make us, then?”

Now this, this was danger. He didn’t miss the coy lilt in her voice, nor the tremor of her rain-dampened shoulders, an unconscious shiver that all but begged for his embrace. No, she didn’t even realize the invitation she’d made, but the signs were unmistakable to Gray. He’d seen this reaction, many times before, and he knew better than to be flattered by it. It was nothing more than instinct.

Any port in a storm.

“It doesn’t make us anything,” he said, helping her down. The feel of her chilled, slender fingers in his triggered all manner of instincts. “It makes me a concerned investor. And it makes you a girl with an overactive imagination. Go back to your berth.”

The lightning had ceased, but her eyes sparked with a fire all their own.

“But I—”

“You’re not safe here.” He wrenched open the door to the ladies’ cabin and waved her through it. “Go to bed, Miss Turner.”

Yes, go to bed, he thought, as she wordlessly swept through the door and he drew it shut behind her. Go to your bed, before I sweep you off tomine.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sophia woke with a start, alone and disoriented in the dark. Her pulse responded first, pumping panic through her veins at a furious rate. She pressed her hand to her heart, and her fingers curled around her purse. Awareness returned in a dizzy rush.

A faint silvery glow leaked under the door of her berth. It was morning. And if it was morning, that must mean she’d survived the night. She turned onto her side. Every muscle screamed with pain. Her skirt and cloak were still heavy with damp, resisting her feeble attempts to rise. Perhaps she didn’t need to move, after all.

Oh, but she did. She drew a deep breath, then wished she could spit it out. The air was thick with humidity and rank with the odors of sickness and bilge. She slid from her bunk, ignoring the protestations of her aching limbs, and flung open the door of her berth.