Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(24)

“Now, Davy. It’s bad form, and generally a bad idea, to run afoul of O’Shea. Or any of the crewmen, for that matter. You’re together on this ship for the next month, you realize. Life at sea isn’t all grog and sunshine. Your mates hold your life in their hands, and you don’t want to give them any reason to lose their grip.”

“Yes, sir,” came the boy’s sullen reply. “It’s just …” He gestured toward the crumpled paper in Gray’s hand. “Have a look at it, sir.”

Gray smiled. “What is it, then? A love letter from your girl back on the farm?” He released Davy’s sleeve and smoothed the paper against his chest before glancing down at it.

He nearly dropped the page.

It was a charcoal sketch of young Davy Linnet. And it was a revelation.

“Miss Turner done it,” Davy said simply.

She had, indeed. The boy’s likeness was rendered in deft, light strokes, and in stunningly faithful detail. It wasn’t anything like the schoolgirl sketches most

young

ladies

produced—generic,

blocky

human

figures

distinguishable only by the shade of the subject’s hair, or the line of his nose. Every inch of this sketch was inimitably Davy. The restless energy in his stance and rumpled tufts of dark hair. The awkward ears and too-large hands he’d eventually grow into. The spark of youthful optimism in his eye, hedged by the self-conscious, lopsided quirk of his lips, a shadow of future irony. In a single sketch, the artist—for this was most certainly the work of an artist—had captured the boy Davy was and the man he would one day become. It wasn’t merely a likeness; it was a portrait. It made Gray feel wistful for his boyhood. It made him feel strangely humbled and alone. It made him want to garrote the bloody goat that had eaten Miss Turner’s two sheets of paper and turn the ship around just to buy her more.

And most of all, it made Gray greatly curious—and a little bit afraid—to know what Miss Turner saw when she looked at him.

“Thought I’d save it for my mum,” Davy said, “so she’ll not forget what I look like. Miss Turner only worked on it while I was off-watch, Mr. Grayson. Said I was doing her a favor, giving her a subject to practice on.” The boy scrubbed at his face with his sleeve and craned his neck to look over Gray’s shoulder. “Never had a portrait of myself before. Is it like me enough?”

“Very like,” Gray said quietly. Then he cleared his throat and forced a grin.

“You’re a handsome devil, Mr. Linnet. Give it a few years, and you’ll be breaking the ladies’ hearts on two continents.”

“Oh, no,” Quinn called from the crow’s nest. “Lad’s up to his ears in love with Miss Turner. Aren’t ye, boy? She’s all he can talk about, Gray. Don’t go tempting him with talk of other girls. There’ll be no other lady for him—not this voyage, anyway.”

Davy colored and stammered. “I … It’s not …”

Gray laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t fault your choice, Davy. She’s a beautiful woman, and talented at that.”

Davy shifted his weight awkwardly. “Well, and of course she won’t look at me. I do know that, sir. I just …”

“You’re just a normal lad of fifteen. I was one once myself, you realize. And I never caught the eye of a lady half so fine as Miss Turner.” He gave the sketch one more lingering gaze before returning it to Davy.

“And she must think a great deal of you, Davy,” he said, chuckling. “She’s given you a whole sheet of paper.”

As Sophia emerged from the hatch, she immediately recognized Mr. Grayson’s roguish laughter, coming from somewhere to her right. She turned left.

An overnight rain had scrubbed the inverted basin of sky to a bright, cloudless blue. The sun shone down with unmitigated audacity, and the crest of each wave gleamed. Their collective brilliance was almost painful to behold; like a sea of diamonds.

This should have been her wedding day.

Sophia wondered if the sun was shining on a small, picturesque chapel in Kent. What had happened, she wondered, to the hundreds of hot house flowers especially cultivated for the occasion? She thought of the wedding breakfast, so carefully planned to the last gilt demitasse spoon. Was the pastel pyramid of almond-and rose-flavored ices waiting stoically for her return, a fashionably Egyptian monument to her betrayal?

Even if they’d managed to keep her disappearance concealed until now… when she failed to appear for her own wedding, the secret would be out. Rumors of her elopement with the mysterious Gervais would leap from lady to lady like fleas in a church pew. She’d be the talk of the ton—although not quite the way her social-climbing parents would have hoped. What an elaborate joke she’d played on them all. What a laugh. So why did she feel like crying?

Standing on tiptoe and clutching the wooden pins, she leaned over the ship’s side, staring hard into endless waves and swirling trails of foam. A single tear fell from the corner of her eye, dropping into the seawater with all the significance of a grain of sand strewn in a desert. A flash beneath the waves caught her gaze. A smooth dart rose up from the blue-green depths, then sank beneath the surface again. Sophia waited, holding her breath. It surfaced once more, a bolt of quicksilver slicing through the waves, pacing the Aphrodite’s brisk progress. A sailor nearby called to another, and the two men joined her at the rail, marking the elegant creature’s course.