Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(77)

His face hardened to stone. “Did you now?” He dropped the coat and reached for the oars. “Tell me,” he asked on a vigorous pull, “did you pause to consider those you would hurt?”

Sophia fell silent. All was silent, save for the oars slicing briskly through the waves. The sun was an orange ember sliding toward the horizon, fizzling through layers of ashy, striated clouds. She inhaled deeply, letting the fresh, salty scent of the ocean fill her lungs—a relief from the brackish odor of bilge.

She gazed at the man across from her. Her lover. His powerful shoulders worked beneath his shirt as he pulled on the oars. The display of strength and agility, set to a steady rhythm … memories of their lovemaking assailed her with quiet force.

In some other place, under some other circumstance, they might have been a courting couple. Rowing across a placid lake, caressed by a glowing sunset. From a distance, this could have been the picture of romance.

But the reality was confusion, and resentment, and pain. Did she feel sorry for misleading him? Sophia considered. She was not sure she could.

By his own admission, he would not have made love to her had she not. And she could not regret that exquisite pleasure; nor could she regret sharing it with him. She looked at the handsome, strong, charismatic, passionate, exhausted man across from her. Selfish and wicked though she might be, she could not feel sorry that he was now bound to her—that for good or ill, he had not left her behind.

Sophia was, however, unequivocally sorry for one thing.

“Gray,” she said, “I’m so sorry I’ve hurt you.”

His eyes flashed, and there was a slight hitch in his stroke. “Spare me your apologies. It’s not me I meant to discuss.”

“Then who?”

“Davy, of course. We’ll be on this ship for a week or more, and that boy’s suffered enough on both our accounts. You’re to let him be, do you understand? No flirting, no sketching. It won’t be easy for him, knowing why you’re aboard.”

Her heart lurched. “Davy knows?”

“Of course he knows. Everyone knows. There are no secrets on a ship, remember?” He gave her a wary, sidelong glance. “Well, evidently there are some.”

“I’ve told you, I’m sorry.” She bit her lip. “What more would you have me say?”

He stared at her for a long moment. Sophia resisted the impulse to look away. Would he question her in earnest now? Could she find the courage to answer?

“Nothing,” he said finally, shaking his head. “I told you, it doesn’t matter. What ever you’ve done, whoever you are … so long as there’s a chance you’re carrying my child, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

She swallowed hard. Of course, the possibility of conceiving had occurred to her—how could it not?—but hearing it spoken aloud was another thing altogether. “So that’s the reason you’re bringing me along?

Because I could be with child?”

He nodded. “When did you last have your courses?”

She blushed. No man had ever spoken to her of such things. “Just before we left England.”

“Then we ought to know soon enough.” The circular motions of the oars slowed, and his gaze burned into hers. “If you are breeding, I warn you now

—you will marry me. I’ll not allow you to run off and raise my child God knows where.”

Her mouth fell open. He could not have cut her more deeply had he skewered her with a bayonet. If she was breeding, he would force her to marry him? Because he assumed otherwise she’d “run off”? And if she did not conceive, what then? Did he plan to toss her overboard? Her jaw and hands worked as she tried to match words to her anger. If only she could have painted it instead, with slashes of purple and violent splatters of red-tinged black.

She finally managed, “I will not be forced into marrying you, or any man. I’ve escaped that fate once before, and I can do it again. I have the means to care for a child, if need be.” She patted the purse strapped beneath her stays. “And what does it signify to you, with your prodigious history? You probably have countless bastards, spread across four continents.”

“No, I don’t. My father brought enough bastards into the world, and I’ve never aspired to his example. That’s why I’ve always been careful.”

“Ah, yes. Caution and sheepgut, was it?”

“Precisely. Until yesterday.” He gave a vicious yank on one oar, turning the boat as they neared the Kestrel. “Yesterday was my first time making that mistake.”

“Well,” she said bitterly. “How special that makes me feel. I’m glad to have been your first in some regard, even if only your first mistake.”

He gave an exasperated sigh. From the Kestrel’s stern, someone tossed down a rope. Gray caught it and began securing it to the boat. “Yesterday was a first for me in many ways. I was … carried away. I wasn’t thinking.”

“You weren’t thinking.” Her heart was sinking faster than an anchor. God, could he make this any worse?

His gaze caught hers and held it. She felt searched, turned inside out. As though he could read some answer in her eyes, if only he looked hard enough. “No. I wasn’t thinking, I …” He cleared his throat. “I suppose I was hoping.”