Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(22)

His angel, Toby had always called her. His innocent dove. He would wax nearly poetic about how perfect she was, how beautiful and pure. He had no idea.

“Forgive me,” he’d whisper after each kiss, swallowing hard between ragged breaths. “You’re so lovely, I can’t help myself. But don’t be frightened, my angel. I shan’t press you further. I’m so sorry.”

But Sophia hadn’t been sorry, or frightened in the least. She recited the demure deferrals that come as naturally as embroidery to any young lady of accomplishment, but she left these encounters feeling frustrated and curious. She longed to be pressed further. Pressed further, harder, and in unspeakably intimate places.

A lifetime of playing Toby’s perfect angel had loomed before her like a living hell. She had no use for purity; Sophia wanted passion. So she’d run away. She’d fled the dream wedding—and dream groom—of every young lady in England, on the slim hope of finding it.

But at the moment, she would settle for some tea, and a morsel of bread.

“I apologize for cursin’ at you like that.” He put a kettle on the stove. “I thought you were one of the sailors, come looking for extra food. Can’t let ’em have a morsel more than their allotment, the greedy beggars. You give them one biscuit extra, and they’ll expect the same every day until we make port.” He set a hunk of bread before her. “That’s the last of the bread, miss. Enjoy it.”

Sophia bit into it gratefully. Stale bread had never tasted so delicious. “I’d gladly forgive you anything for a cup of tea. But what if,” she asked, swallowing, “what if I had been Captain Grayson? Or Mr. Grayson?”

Gabriel made a dismissive wave of his hand. “I been chasing Gray and Joss out of one kitchen or another since they was boys. They know better than to run afoul of old Gabriel.” He reached for a canister of tea and paused. “But it might have been that Mr. Brackett. And something tells me he’d not take kindly to being told to bugger off.” He shrugged, scooping tea into a tin pot. “Lots of changes for an old man like me. Not used to men of Brackett’s type aboard this vessel. Nor beautiful young misses like yourself.”

“But you can’t be old,” Sophia insisted. Gabriel laughed, and she peered through the steam at his face. Smooth, unwrinkled skin with the sheen of polished mahogany stretched over high cheekbones and a flat nose. His laughter revealed a full set of straight, white teeth. Only the faintest dusting of white in his close-cropped hair hinted at advancing age. The kettle whistled.

“And what do you mean, you’re not accustomed to passengers?” Sophia propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand, entranced by the steaming trickle of water from kettle to teapot. “Are all the berths typically occupied by goats, then?”

Gabriel chuckled. “Now don’t disparage the goats, Miss Turner. They’ll give you milk for your tea, and a taste of chowder on Sundays.” He set a tin mug on the table before her and ladled a generous amount of treacle into it.

“But these cabins are all new, miss. Used to be just steerage all through, from galley to forecastle. The Aphrodite is a whole new ship inside. It’s like her maiden voyage.

“We needed all that space during the war,” he continued, pouring tea into her cup. “For extra crewmen and guns. Powder and cannonballs, too. And the ship had to leave port half-empty at least, so we’d have room for prize cargo and prisoners.”

Sophia blinked at him, ignoring the delicious-smelling tea before her.

“Cannonballs? Prisoners? Was the Aphrodite a warship, then?”

“No, miss.” He smiled and went back to his pot of potatoes on the stove.

“This crew, falling in with the British Navy? No, the Aphrodite was a privateer vessel. Brought in three-and-sixty prizes—French ships, American ships. And she brought Gray more money in five years at sea than the old Mr. Grayson lost in thirty years of farming sugarcane.”

Sophia’s hand plunked down on the table. “But privateers … aren’t they nearly the same as pirates?”

“No, miss. There’s a world of difference between the life of a privateer and a pirate.”

“Less violent?”

Gabriel shook his head. “About the same, there.”

“More honorable.”

“Not necessarily. That would depend on the particular privateer and the particular pirate.”

“Then how is it different?”

“Why, privateering’s legal, of course. Sanctioned by the Crown. Can’t be hanged for a privateer.”

“I see.”

“ ’Course, the war’s over now.” Gabriel sprinkled the dish with pepper before removing the pot from the stove. “No more privateering to be had. So we’ve got to turn respectable, Gray says. It was either that, or turn pirate.” Gabriel winked at her. “And I’m rather attached to my neck.”

Sophia sipped her tea, amazed. She was the lone female passenger—the lone passenger, really—aboard a ship crewed entirely by men who might as well be pirates, except that they couldn’t be hanged. And Mr. Grayson, with his arrogant swagger and mercantile lust, was their erstwhile, unhangable pirate king.

Mercy.

She drained the rest of her tea in one long draught, capped with an audible swallow. “Thank you for the refreshment,” she said, rising to her feet. Blood rushed from her head, leaving her dizzy. The steam was suddenly too thick to breathe. “I … I believe I’ll go take some fresh air.”