Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(73)

“Christ.” Hiking his trousers to his waist, he stood and turned to face her. The look in his eyes was not quite revulsion, but rather an expression of utter disbelief. “I told you things. About myself, about my family. I told you things I’ve never told another soul. Now I learn you’re no more than a stranger to me.” He swore again.

“Must you persist in swearing?”

“Yes, I think I must. Damn it, I thought I was done bedding nameless women.”

Now Sophia was growing angry, too. “I see. And now I suppose you intend to continue?”

He froze, arm extended to retrieve his shirt. For a long moment, Sophia stared at him. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Finally, he pulled the shirt over his arms and head, tucking it into his trousers with motions that bespoke controlled fury. “You’re right,” he said coolly, buttoning his falls. “After what we just did … it doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t matter?” Sophia swallowed around the lump in her throat.

“The truth? Or me?”

He pierced her with an icy look, one boot poised on the ladder leading up  to the hatch. “How can you even ask me that?”

How can you be so cruel? A sob smothered the question. She hugged her arms across her chest, blinking away tears.

“Sweet.” The slight rasp in his voice tugged her eyes back up. His gaze deepened, made room to hold hers. “Right now, there are dead and dying men up there, and a disabled ship in need of repair. At the moment, they are what matters. Stay here. I will come back.” He mounted the ladder. “We

’ll deal with this later.”

Then he was gone.

Sophia fell back onto the bed, curling into herself like the head of a fern. We’ll deal with this later? How hateful that sounded. How final. She didn’t want to be dealt with. She wanted to be comforted. She wanted to be held. She wanted something she hadn’t felt in so long, she scarcely remembered how to name it—but she dared to imagine she deserved it, just the same. She wanted to be loved.

He didn’t come back that night. Her only visitors were Gabriel, who politely ignored her bedraggled, tear-stained appearance when he brought her evening tea and biscuit, and Stubb, who delivered her trunks to the captain’s cabin. Evidently, the ladies’ berths had been appropriated as a makeshift hospital for the Kestrel’s wounded.

Unfamiliar voices and late-night activity obscured the Aphrodite’s usual nocturnal symphony—bells and creaking wood and the reedy whistle of the breeze. Huddled in the center of the bed, Sophia drifted in and out of shallow sleep, straining her ears to catch any echo of his rich baritone, or the squeaking hinges of the hatch. If Gray did come to her, she wanted to be awake. But she kept watch in vain, and exhaustion finally claimed her with the first rays of dawn.

When she woke, it was to full daylight. Sophia bolted straight up in bed, her heart pounding. An argument was brewing directly above her, near the ship’s helm. Even with the hatch closed, she could make out not only Gray’s voice, but the captain’s, as well as O’Shea’s thick brogue. And a few unfamiliar voices as well. Although he was not addressing her, the timbre of Gray’s voice was as hollow and unforgiving as a bell struck on a winter morning—just the way she’d heard it last.

She rose from bed and went to the tiny round looking glass attached to the cabin wall, realizing with wonder that she hadn’t looked in a mirror since leaving England. The image reflected there was greatly altered. Her skin was a shade or two darker—resembling bone more than porcelain—and lightly freckled from the sun. Some of the curves had sharpened to angles; her features caught more shadows now. When she squinted, faint lines pleated at the corners of her eyes, and even when she relaxed her expression, the lines had the audacity to linger. She was still beautiful, Sophia told herself, with no false or undue modesty. But it was no longer a pampered debutante’s face that stared back at her.

She was a woman now. A fallen woman in truth, alone in the world, responsible for her own choices. She had to pull herself together, be strong. No more tears, she admonished herself, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. Gray could not ignore her forever. He would come to her eventually, most likely to hurl further angry accusations. When the time came, she would not weep or make excuses. She most certainly would not beg.

But by God, she would look pretty.

She washed her face and dabbed cold tea under her eyes to relieve the puffiness. Rifling through her trunks, she located her hairbrush and dusting powder. At least her hair, which had grown stiff with salt over the past three weeks, had been rinsed clean by yesterday’s storm. Now dry, it tumbled about her shoulders in golden waves.

She’d washed out her sprigged muslin a few days ago, and it was as clean as it could get. When she reached into the trunk to retrieve the frock, however, her fingers lingered over a bundle at the bottom. Crisp tissue crackled under her touch, sliding over the silk beneath. She was tempted to unwrap the dress, to draw the fine fabric over her limbs and bathe her whole body in elegance as she hadn’t done in weeks.

She resisted the temptation, reaching for the sprigged muslin instead. That tissue-wrapped dress was her best, and she was not yet sure Gray deserved her best. She was not convinced he even wanted it. Powdered and dressed, her hair neatly coiled and pinned atop her head, Sophia peered into the mirror once again and pinched her cheeks to a high blush before mounting the ladder. The sounds of men arguing had grown louder.