Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(28)

“So that leaves me doing what? Circling the quarterdeck?”

“Yes.” He slammed the drawer shut. “But only at designated times. Noon hour and the dogwatch. The rest of the day, you’ll remain in your cabin.”

Sophia leapt to her feet, incensed. She hadn’t fled one restrictive program of behavior, just to submit to another. “Who are you, to dictate where I can go, when I can go there, what I’m permitted to do? You’re not the captain of this ship.”

“Who am I?” He stalked toward her, until they stood toe-to-toe. Until his radiant male heat brought her blood to a boil, and she had to grab the table edge to keep from swaying toward him. “I’ll tell you who I am,” he growled.

“I’m a man who cares if you live or die, that’s who.”

Her knees melted. “Truly?”

“Truly. Because I may not be the captain, but I’m the investor. I’m the man you owe six pounds, eight. And now that I know you can’t pay your debts, I’m the man who knows he won’t see a bloody penny unless he delivers George Waltham a governess in one piece.”

Sophia glared at him. How did he keep doing this to her? Since the moment they’d met in that Gravesend tavern, there’d been an attraction between them unlike anything she’d ever known. She knew he had to feel it, too. But one minute, he was so tender and sensual; the next, so crass and calculating. Now he would reduce her life’s value to this cold, impersonal amount? At least back home, her worth had been measured in thousands of pounds, not in shillings.

“I see,” she said. “This is about six pounds, eight shillings. That’s the reason you’ve been watching me—”

He made a dismissive snort. “I haven’t been watching you.”

“Staring at me, every moment of the day, so intently it makes my … my skin crawl and all you’re seeing is a handful of coins. You’d wrestle a shark for a purse of six pounds, eight. It all comes down to money for you.”

“Yes.” He slammed a fist, knuckles-down, on the table. Everything in the cabin rattled, from the glass-paned cabinet to Sophia’s teeth. The brute strength in the gesture was a tiny bit frightening and wildly arousing, and he glared at her mouth so hard, she was almost certain he would kiss her. She was very certain she wanted him to.

But then he stepped back, doubling the distance between them, and gave her a lazy shrug. That smile—that damnable arrogant grin—tipped his mouth and sent that ghost of a kiss sliding right off his lips. The insolent scoundrel was back.

“It all comes down to money, sweet. Anyone who tells you different is lying. If it didn’t all come down to money, you wouldn’t be headed for a governess post in Tortola, would you?”

He had her there. “No. I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“This is business. Strictly business. Mind you don’t give me more trouble than you’re worth, or I’ll strand you in some Azorean fishing village and never look back.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“You don’t think?” He paused in the door and lifted a brow. “Well, sweetheart, somewhere there’s a French captain’s widow who’d correct that assumption.”

* * *

Gray spent an endless afternoon in steerage, turning pages of a book he lacked the concentration to read. No matter how hard he stared at the blocks of dark print swimming on the pages, he couldn’t see words. He could only see her.

As the afternoon light faded, he let the book fall against his chest. He shut his eyes and tried to sleep.

He could only see her.

When the bells rang for the second dogwatch, he gave up. Tossing the book aside with a curse, he rose from his hammock and prepared to go abovedecks. If the image of her lovely face was going to haunt him no matter what he did, he might as well suffer the torment in person. Ah, but it wasn’t just her lovely face that haunted him. Nor the soft, lush body he was increasingly desperate to see liberated from that woolen cocoon. It was the way she’d so willingly owned up to the truth. The way her spirit had sparked when he’d told her to put aside her art. The way she’d practically made sweet, innocent love to him with her eyes when he’d said he cared if she lived or died.

Good Lord. The laughable irony of it. He’d wasted weeks of his adolescence memorizing sonnets, spent years perfecting little murmured innuendos. Only to learn the most seductive phrase in the English language was something akin to: All things being equal, I’d rather not see you mauled by a shark.

Business, he admonished himself as he shrugged back into his topcoat. This was strictly business. He promised Joss he’d watch out for the girl. After today, there was no doubt she needed watching over. And watching over her was a great deal easier when she was in his sights. When he gained the quarterdeck, however, he found it deserted. All the sailors were knotted at the ship’s bow. The volume of their laughter told Gray the rum was flowing freely. The officers stood sober at the helm. In the middle, there was no one. She’d stayed below.

Gray joined his brother at the stern, propping one elbow on the rail. “It’s a fair wind tonight.”

“Aye. Is Miss Turner well?”

“She was well enough when I left her.”

In silence, they watched the sun slide over the curve of the earth. A loud whoop rose up from the crew at the other end of the ship. Gray shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re allowing the men to drink, after what they did today.”