Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(27)

She lifted her clenched hands to the table and slowly uncurled her fingers. Across each palm was painted a wide, angry swath of red. Swearing under his breath, he gingerly lifted one of her hands and laid it across his own. His tanned, weathered fingers dwarfed hers. With his free hand, he dipped a piece of gauze into the basin. “This will hurt.”

“It already hurts.”

“It will hurt more.”

Sophia winced as he sponged the wound. Yes, it did hurt more. It hurt worse when she looked at it, so instead she looked at him. She hadn’t come this near to him in days, not since they watched Davy Linnet climb the mast. Now she drank in every detail of his rugged, handsome face: the strong jaw sporting several days’ growth of beard, that thin scar tracing a path to his sensuous lips, the faint creases at the corners of his eyes, the result of weather or laughter or both. His was a face sculpted by real life, and it wasn’t pretty.

It was captivating.

“Do you realize you could have died?” he asked gruffly.

Sophia bit her lip. She did understand, in some way, that together they had just cheated death. Perhaps she ought to be rattled now, shaking with terror—but instead, she felt nothing but alive. Gloriously alive, and connected to this man, as though that rope were still binding her ankle to his.

He dipped the gauze again. “Why didn’t you let go of the line when I told you to?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”

“That’s obvious. For a governess, you don’t have much sense.” He blew lightly across her palm, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. His gray-green eyes locked with hers. “For a governess, you don’t make much sense.”

And now a shiver swept down to her toes.

He released the one hand and took up the other, dunking a fresh piece of gauze. Swabbing at her wound, he said, “You’re a puzzle, Miss Turner, but none of the pieces fit. That abhorrent gown cannot have been made for you. Your gloves were a gift. The loss of two sheets of paper has you in tears, and even your handkerchiefs bear someone else’s monogram.”

Panic coursed through her body, drawing every nerve to attention. He blew over her palm again, and this time the sensation nearly undid her.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said.

“You’ve been avoiding me, too.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

I didn’t think I had. Her heartbeat pounded as he dressed her wounds, winding the bandage tightly around her palm. “I told you, I—”

“You told me you’d pay your fare that day, and you’ve been avoiding me ever since. I know why, Miss Turner.”

“You do?”

“I do.” He bandaged her other hand.

Oh, God. How much did he truly know? Should she stick with her old story? Invent a new one? Normally, Sophia could weave an entire web of lies with the same effortless talent of a spider spinning silk. But he’d always thrown her off balance, from their very first meeting, and now … now she was wounded and in pain, and he was caring for her so tenderly. And when she closed her eyes, she saw the angry, gaping maw of a shark—but she felt his arms around her, holding her fast. Protecting her. All she could think of was how right it felt, and how much she wanted to feel it again.

“You’ve been lying to me all along, haven’t you?”

She couldn’t answer. Her voice simply wouldn’t work.

“Look at you,” he said, his gaze running over her face. “Gone white as sailcloth. I knew it. You never intended to pay your fare. You don’t have a shilling to your name, do you?”

Sophia blinked at him. What to say? She needed to keep her money—which meant she needed to keep it secret. He was offering her a gift, with his ridiculous, wrongheaded, oh-so-male assumption. She would be a fool not to take it.

“Do you?” he repeated, his thumb tightening over her wrist. Casting her eyes to her lap, Sophia released a breathy, dramatic sigh.

“What will you do with me?”

“I don’t know what to do with you,” he said, his voice growing curt with anger again. “Deceitful little minx. I’m of half a mind to put you to work, milking the goats. But that’s out of the question with these hands, now isn’t it?” He curled and uncurled her fingers a few times, testing the bandage. “I’ll tell Stubb to change this twice a day. Can’t risk the wound going septic. And don’t use your hands for a few days, at least.”

“Don’t use my hands? I suppose you’re going to spoon-feed me, then?

Dress me? Bathe me?”

He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes. “Don’t use your hands much.” His eyes snapped open. “None of that sketching, for instance.”

She jerked her hands out of his grip. “You could slice off my hands and toss them to the sharks, and I wouldn’t stop sketching. I’d hold the pencil with my teeth if I had to. I’m an artist.”

“Really. I thought you were a governess.”

“Well, yes. I’m that, too.”

He packed up the medical kit, jamming items back in the box with barely controlled fury. “Then start behaving like one. A governess knows her place. Speaks when spoken to. Stays out of the damn way.”

Rising to his feet, he opened the drawer and threw the box back in. “From this point forward, you’re not to touch a sail, a pin, a rope, or so much as a damned splinter on this vessel. You’re not to speak to crewmen when they’re on watch. You’re forbidden to wander past the foremast, and you need to steer clear of the helm, as well.”