Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(41)

Then she extended her slender wrist to reach for the teacup, and Gray remembered the reason for this entire display.

He wanted to see her eat.

“Where’s Stubb?” he growled, tetchy with hunger. All sorts of hunger.

“Right behind you, sirs and madam.” Stubb shuffled in, bearing a steaming tureen. “First course, soup.” He moved around the table, beginning with Miss Turner, ladling generous helpings of creamy chowder into their bowls.

Silence reigned, save for the light clink of silver on china. Gray ate his soup quickly, scarcely tasting it, scalding the roof of his mouth in the process. Then he sat back and sipped Madeira from his teacup, trying not to stare at her as she daintily spooned chowder to her lips. Perhaps he was going mad.

Next to him, Wiggins cleared his throat. “You must forgive us, Miss Turner. We seamen are poor dinner companions, I fear. We are accustomed to eating quickly, efficiently, with little conversation. And we are certainly unused to the company of a beautiful lady.”

Gray coughed, setting his teacup down on its saucer with a crack. Miss Turner swallowed slowly and laid down her spoon. “I am most grateful for company this evening, even of the quiet variety. I am no great conversationalist, myself.”

Gray snorted. Not a conversationalist. The girl had coaxed the life story out of every sailor on this ship.

She had just picked up her spoon again when Joss spoke.

“You do not find the voyage too tedious, Miss Turner?” Joss asked. “I regret that you are left to entertain yourself, being the sole passenger.”

She laid down her spoon. “Thank you, Captain, but I find sufficient activity to occupy my hands and my mind. Reading, sketching, walking the deck for fresh air and healthful exertion. I’m surprisingly content, living at sea.”

Gray’s heart gave an odd kick.

“But it’s Christmas, Miss Turner. You are away from your home.” Brackett’s voice was cool. “Surely you must miss your family?”

“Yes, of course. I do.” She folded her hands behind her half-full bowl of chowder. “I miss … Oddly enough, I miss oranges. We always had oranges at Christmas, when I was a child.”

“Yes,” said Joss, his lips curving in the rare hint of a smile. “Yes, so did we. Didn’t we, Gray?”

Oranges. They wanted oranges. As if it could be so simple, to go back to the time when happiness came in a knobby round package and fit in the palm of one’s hand. And yet, were there oranges to be had at that moment, Gray would have traded the ship for a crate of them. He watched as Miss Turner lifted a spoonful of soup to her lips with agonizing slowness. He stared, fascinated, as her lips parted, revealing the tip of her tongue …

“I say, Miss Turner—” Wiggins again.

Her spoon paused in mid-air.

Gray crashed his fist on the table. “Christ, man! Can’t you see the lady is trying to eat?” Crossing his arms, he slumped back in his chair. Its wooden joints creaked in protest.

And now everyone put down their spoons.

Gray felt their eyes on him. He kicked the table leg, frustrated with himself, with her, with his goddamned boots. They still pinched his feet. Stubb shuffled in, accompanied by Gabriel this time. “Main course,” the old steward called.

“There’s meat-and-kidney pie,” Gabriel announced proudly, setting the dish in the center of the table. “Made the crust from biscuit meal. Thought my arm would fall off from pounding.”

“And here’s the roast!” Stubb lowered his offering to the table, a well-browned haunch that smelled of grease and savory. Olives and small, white rounds of goat’s-milk cheese ringed the meat.

“Thank you, gentlemen.” Joss wrenched the carving knife from the roast, and a trickle of rich juices flowed forth.

Conversation was adjourned, by unanimous decree.

Generous helpings of meat and pie, along with second and third cups of Madeira, did much to improve the general mood. Seemingly gripped by holiday nostalgia, Wiggins prattled on and on about his children. During a particularly inane monologue on little Master Wiggins’s affinity for his schoolmaster, Brackett pushed back from the table and excused himself to resume his watch on deck. Gray helped himself to more roast, taking the opportunity to slide an extra slice onto Miss Turner’s plate. She glanced up at him, her expression a mixture of shock and reproach. And this was his reward for generosity.

He gave a tense shrug by way of excuse, then replaced the knife and fork and busied himself with his own food. He felt her staring at him. That was it. If she was entitled to stare at him, he was damned well going to stare back. And if this governess was going to reprimand him like an incorrigible charge … well, then Gray was going to misbehave. Letting his silver clatter to the china, he balled his hands into fists and plunked them down on either side of his plate. “You say you miss your family, Miss Turner? I wonder at it.”

Her glare was cold. “You do?”

“You told me in Gravesend you’d nowhere to turn.”

“I spoke the truth.” Her chin lifted. “I’ve been missing my family since long before I left England.”

“So they’re dead?”

She fidgeted with her fork. “Some.”

“But not all?”

He leaned toward her and spoke in a low voice, though anyone who cared to listen might hear. “What sort of relations allow a young woman to cross an ocean unaccompanied, to labor as a plantation governess? I should think you’d be glad to be free of them.”