Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(50)

“At least I only teased the boy. I’m not the one poised to break his heart.”

She blinked. “It’s only infatuation. He’s not really in love with me.”

He pounded the table. “Of course the boy’s in love with you! They all are. You talk to them, you listen to their stories—even Wiggins’s prattling, God only knows why. You draw them little sketches, you make them paintings for Christmas. You remind them of everything they’ve left behind, everything they pray they’ll one day hold again. And you do it all looking like some sort of Botticelli goddess, surely the most beautiful thing they’ve ever laid eyes on. Damn it, how’s a man to keep from falling in love with you?”

Silence.

She stared at him.

She blinked.

Her lips parted, and she drew a quick breath.

Say something, Gray silently pleaded. Anything. But she only stared at him. What the hell had he just said? Was it truly that bad? He frowned, reliving the past minute in his mind.

Oh, God. Gray rubbed his face with one hand, then gave a sharp tug on his hair. It was that bad. Damn it to hell. If Joss were here, he’d have a good laugh at his expense.

“Have you …”

“Have I what?” Gray prompted, promptly kicking himself for doing so. God only knew what she’d ask now. Or what damn fool thing he’d say in response.

“Have you ever seen a Botticelli? Painting, I mean. A real one, in person?”

The breath he’d been holding whooshed out of him. “Yes.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. “What was it like?”

“I …” His hand gestured uselessly. “I haven’t words to describe it.”

“Try.”

Her eyes were too clear, too piercing. He swallowed and shifted his gaze to a damp lock of hair curling at her temple. “Perfect. Luminous. So beautiful, your chest aches. And so smooth, like glass. Your fingers itch to touch it.”

“But you can’t.”

“No,” he said quietly, his gaze sliding back to meet hers. “It isn’t allowed.”

“And you care what others will allow?” She took a step toward him, her fingers trailing along the grooved tabletop. “What if you were alone, and there was no one to see? Would you touch it then?”

Gray shook his head and dropped his gaze to his hands. “It’s not …” He paused, picking over his words like fruits in an island market. Testing and discarding twice as many as he chose. “There’s a varnish, you see. Some sort of gloss. If I touched it with these rough hands, I’d mar it somehow. Make it a bit less beautiful. Couldn’t live with myself then.”

“So—” She leaned one hip against the table’s edge, making her whole body one sinuous, sweeping curve. Gray sucked in a lungful of heat. “It isn’t  the rules that prevent you.”

“Not really. No.”

Silence again. Vast and echoing, like the long, marble-tiled galleries of the Uffizi.

And then, at last: “It’s still your fault.”

“What is?”

“Everything. Davy. Of course he wants to prove himself now. How did you expect him to react, asking him all of those questions? Grilling him in front of all the crew, in front of me?” She wilted into the chair. “You should have known better. You should have done better.”

There she went again, appealing to his hypothetical sense of honor. Pulling at her neckline as she did it, sending jolts of desire straight to his groin. Confirming he’d no true honor at all.

“I mean, how would you feel, your whole life exposed like that in front of all those men?”

“The men respect me because they know I’ve been through it, too. Just like all of them received the same treatment once. No secrets between sailors, Miss Turner. Unlike some”—he threw her a glance—“I’ve nothing to hide.”

“Is that so?” Her gaze sharpened.

Gray nodded.

“Well, then. What is your name?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. So this was her game, was it? Very well. If she wished to question him, he would answer. She was free to learn every vile, brutish thing about him. That would teach her to appeal to some imaginary sense of decency. “Benedict Adolphus Percival Grayson. The same as my father’s.”

“I thought you said there was only one woman permitted to address you by your Christian name.”

“And it’s still the truth. Don’t get excited, sweetheart. I’ve not given you leave to use it. You may, however, call me Gray.” Please, he added silently. She shook her head. “What is your age, Mr. Grayson?”

“I am two-and-thirty this coming year. Miss Turner.”

“From whence do you hail?”

Gray eased back in his chair. “I was born and raised on Tortola, as you know. The Grayson family tree is rooted in Wiltshire. My grandfather was a gentleman of some standing, and my father was his typically wayward second son. For his sins, which were legion, my father was exiled to Clarendon—that was the name of our plantation—to mend his dissolute ways.”

“And did he?”

“What do you think?” He reclined in his seat, propping one boot on the table between them.

A smile tugged at her lips. “How many siblings have you, Mr. Grayson?”