Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(42)

She blinked.

He picked up his fork and jabbed at a hunk of meat. His voice a low murmur, he directed the next question at his plate. “Or perhaps they’re glad to be free of you?”

Something crushed his foot under the table. A pointy-heeled boot. Then, just as quickly, the pressure eased. But her foot remained atop his. The gesture was infuriating, and somehow wildly erotic.

He met her gaze, and this time found no coldness, no reproach. Instead, her eyes were wide, beseeching. They called to something deep inside him he hadn’t known was there.

Please, she mouthed. Don’t.

She bit her lip, and he felt it as a visceral tug. That unused part of him stretched and ached. And at that instant, Gray would have sworn they were the only two souls in the room. In the world.

Until Wiggins spoke again, confound the man.

“How strange you must find it, Miss Turner,” the second mate said,

“celebrating the holiday in this tropical climate. Not a typical English Christmas, is it?”

Sophia cleared her throat. “No indeed.” God bless Mr. Wiggins. She extricated herself from Mr. Grayson’s enigmatic gaze and reached for her Madeira. Loath to field further questions of any variety, she passed the burden of conversation like a hot serving dish. “Would you agree, Captain Grayson?”

Beneath the table, she allowed her foot to slide back down to the floor. That was a mistake. In the next heartbeat, his boot clamped over hers like a trap.

Sophia kept her gaze trained on the captain. His thin black eyebrows rose. “I’m afraid I couldn’t say, Miss Turner. All of my Christmases have been spent at sea, or on Tortola.”

Sophia wriggled her foot madly, but it was no use. Mr. Grayson’s Hessian pinned her nankeen half boot to the cabin floor. She shot him an angry glare, but he had taken a sudden interest in searching the depths of his Madeira.

“Yes, of course,” Sophia replied to the captain. “Mr. Grayson,” she said pointedly, hoping to draw the scoundrel’s attention, “mentioned to me that your father owns a plantation there. What crop did you tell me your father raises, Mr. Grayson?”

He refused to look up. Shrugging, he set down his cup and began worrying his thumbnail. “I didn’t tell you.”

“Sugar,” the captain answered. “It was a sugar plantation, Miss Turner, but our father died several years ago.”

“Oh.” Sophia forced herself to turn to the captain, though her gaze wanted to linger on Mr. Grayson’s face, study the shadows that flickered there. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Are you?” The words were a low, casual murmur. So faint, Sophia wondered if she’d imagined them. She looked around the table. If anyone else had heard the remark, they gave no sign.

Her foot stopped struggling beneath the weight of his boot, and the pressure eased. The contact remained.

“Who manages the property now?” She pushed an olive around her plate.

“Have you an older brother, or a land agent?”

The two brothers exchanged a strange look.

“The land is no longer in the family,” Captain Grayson said tersely. “It was sold.”

“Oh. That must have been a difficult decision, to sell your boyhood home.”

Captain Grayson rested one elbow on the table. “Once again, Miss Turner, I couldn’t say. Was it, Gray?”

“Was it what?” Mr. Grayson clearly wished to evade the question. Sophia knew he’d been heeding the conversation, and she winced with discomfort as his leg tensed, crushing her toes once more.

“Pudding!” With his usual flourish, Stubb swept through the cabin door and added the dish to the table. As he uncovered the dome-shaped pudding, the aromas of figs and spices and brandy mingled with the familiar comfort of treacle-scented steam. A Christmas miracle, indeed. Sophia’s mouth watered.

“The lady asked a question, Gray.” The captain leaned forward, ignoring both Stubb and pudding. His voice took on a steely edge. “Was it a difficult decision, to sell our boyhood home? I’ve told her I couldn’t say, seeing as how I wasn’t involved in that decision. So the question falls to you. Was it difficult?”

Mr. Grayson clenched his jaw. His eyes narrowed as he regarded his brother. “No. It wasn’t difficult in the least. It was the only profitable course.”

The captain’s mouth quirked in a humorless smile, and he sat back.

“There’s your answer, Miss Turner. Decisions never give my brother pause, so long as the profitable course is clear. He keeps his conscience in his bank account.”

Sophia’s gaze darted back and forth from brother to brother. The men warred silently, a battle of stony glares and firmed jaws and tight grips on silver. Then Mr. Grayson’s posture suddenly relaxed, and, as Sophia had seen him do on so many occasions, he took the advantage with a roguish smile. Charm was always his weapon of choice.

“So that’s why Gray’s never married.” Mr. Wiggins gave an easy chuckle. He leaned over the table to slice into the pudding, dispelling the tension between the brothers. “A rich man may keep his conscience in a vault, but we poor men have to marry ours.”

Mr. Grayson made a show of smiling at the jest. But his grin faded, for a moment Sophia saw what she had never before noticed, in those dozen occasions. It cost him something, that roguish smile. Behind it, he looked … weary. Empathy gripped her before she could push it away. She’d spent many evenings in many ballrooms, struggling under the weight of feigned levity. Fooling everyone but herself.