Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(57)

Gray exhaled roughly. “For a host of reasons. But all of them had to do with money. Sugar prices were plummeting; tariffs kept increasing. West Indian plantations were no longer the profitable enterprises they’d once been. We would have been mired in debt within the year.” He shook his head. “It never would have worked. If I’d told the executors about Joss, it would have meant months of delay, and I couldn’t be certain he’d even agree to sell. I found a buyer for the land, and I had the opportunity to buy this ship and obtain a letter of marque, so I seized it. And then I seized over sixty ships in the name of the Crown.” Gray couldn’t keep a hint of pride out of his voice. “I’ve never regretted my decision. It was the only profitable course.”

She cast another scrutinizing glance at him, this time in the direction of his hairline. Gray’s own eyes rolled heavenward, as if he could follow the line of her gaze.

“Does this occur often, that the ship is becalmed?”

Gray shrugged. “Not every voyage. But often enough.”

“How long does it usually last?”

“There’s no way of telling. Hours. Days. A week.”

She brushed a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. “A week’s delay? That must affect your profit most adversely.”

“Aye, it does.”

He looked up at the skylight beseechingly. This must be hell. He was losing money by the hour, he was made to suffer the unattainable temptation of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and it was bloody hot. Without any fresh breezes to stir it, the air inside the cabin grew increasingly stale as the sun inched higher in the sky. It was barely mid-morning, and sweat was already beading under Gray’s cravat. He looked back at Miss Turner, admiring the graceful, dewy curve of her bare neck as she bent her head. The temperature inside the cabin increased another degree.

She sat back and tilted her head to one side, studying the canvas. “Surely it wasn’t the only profitable course, privateering. There are so many risks involved, such unpredictability. I mean, you might have married.”

“Married?”

“Yes, of course. That’s what most eligible gentlemen in financial straits do, isn’t it? You came from a good family and had some land to your name… surely you could have found a young heiress or wealthy widow to marry you, and then you might have done as you pleased. After all,” she said, her eyes meeting his, “it’s not as though you lack sufficient charm to woo ladies. And you’re certainly handsome enough, in your own way.”

“Handsome enough. In my own way.”

She bent her head again. “Oh, stop looking so smug. I’m not flattering you, I’m merely stating facts. Privateering was not your only profitable course of action. You might have married, if you’d wished to.”

“Ah, but there’s the snag, you see. I didn’t wish to.”

She picked up a brush and tapped it against her palette. “No, you didn’t. You wished to be at sea. You wished to go adventuring, to seize sixty ships in the name of the Crown and pursue countless women on four continents. That’s why you sold your land, Mr. Grayson. Because it’s what you wanted to do. The profit was incidental.”

Gray tugged at the cuff of his coat sleeve. It unnerved him, how easily she stared down these truths he’d avoided looking in the eye for years. So now he was worse than a thief. He was a selfish, lying thief. And still she sat with him, flirted with him, called him “charming” and “handsome enough.”

How much darkness did the girl need to uncover before she finally turned away?

“And what about you, Miss Turner?” He leaned forward in his chair. “Why are you here, bound for the West Indies to work as a governess? You, too, might have married. You come from quality; so much is clear. And even if you’d no dowry, sweetheart …” He waited for her to look up. “Yours is the kind of beauty that brings men to their knees.”

She gave a dismissive wave of her paintbrush. Still, her cheeks darkened, and she dabbed her brow with the back of her wrist.

“Now, don’t act missish. I’m not flattering you, I’m merely stating facts.”

He leaned back in his chair. “So why haven’t you married?”

“I explained to you yesterday why marriage was no longer an option for me. I was compromised.”

Gray folded his hands on his chest. “Ah, yes. The French painting master. What was his name? Germaine?”

“Gervais.” She sighed dramatically. “Ah, but the pleasure he showed me was worth any cost. I’d never felt so alive as I did in his arms. Every moment we shared was a minute stolen from paradise.”

Gray huffed and kicked the table leg. The girl was trying to make him jealous. And damn, if it wasn’t working. Why should some oily schoolgirl’s tutor enjoy the pleasures Gray was denied? He hadn’t aided the war effort just so England’s most beautiful miss could lift her skirts for a bloody Frenchman.

She began mixing pigment with oil on her palette. “Once, he pulled me into the larder, and we had a feverish tryst among the bins of potatoes and turnips. He held me up against the shelves while we—”

“May I read my book now?” Lord, he couldn’t take much more of this. She smiled and reached for another brush. “If you wish.”

Gray opened his book and stared at it, unable to muster the concentration to read. Every so often, he turned a page. Vivid, erotic images filled his mind, but all the blood drained to his groin.