Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(95)

He frowned. “It’s so odd now, to remember how I envied him. He had all the same privileges I enjoyed, with none of the expectations. To me, Joss seemed at home everywhere. It was only much later that I realized the opposite was true.”

Pausing, he scrubbed a hand over his freshly shaven face. “It should not have been surprising, I suppose, that he grew to resent me. But it was. When my father talked of sending me back to England, to university—all I wished was to trade places with Joss and stay at home. All he wished was to have the chance to go. We argued all the time, and came to blows more than once.”

“But such is the way between siblings,” she interjected. “My sister and I quarreled constantly at that age.”

“I suppose you’re right. In the end, it was another fight that drew the line between us. On his way home from town one night, Joss found himself on the wrong side of some drunken louts. They decided it was time to put my brother in his place, so they beat and branded him.”

Her hand froze in his hair. “Branded him?”

“It was done to slaves at one time, burning the owner’s mark into their shoulder. A repulsive practice—not that slavery itself is not a repulsive practice in its own right. Branding has been out of favor on Tortola for generations, but Joss’s attackers decided to resurrect the tradition.” A wave of nausea rolled through him at the memory of his brother lying prostrate in his recovery bed for days on end. The odor of charred flesh giving way to the sickly smell of infection, then the sweet stench of laudanum overpowering all. These parts of the story, he would not share.

“Dear God.” She resumed stroking his hair.

“I was due to leave for England before he’d fully recovered. I sat by his sickbed and promised him, when I had my own money I would come back for him and Bel, and we would all have the same luxuries, the same opportunities. We would share everything.”

“Did that make him feel better?”

Gray smirked. “He told me to go to the devil. Mind, he was drugged and in pain, but it still killed me. I got roaring drunk, wildly sick, and then roaring drunk again. I didn’t know how to convince him and remind myself that despite everything, we were brothers.”

She gave a little gasp. Her hand left his hair and went to cover the scar.

“Oh, Gray. You did this to yourself?”

He blew out a sigh. “Never underestimate the power of liquor and maudlin sentiment on an adolescent boy. I was so stupid. Botched the whole business. It had to be my chest, since I couldn’t very well reach my own shoulder. Didn’t heat the iron long enough, and of course my hand shook like a palm frond in a hurricane.” He pushed her hand aside and traced the blurred, irregular pattern with his own fingertips. “God, did it hurt. Hurt all the way to England. It reminded me, all right. Reminded me that I should never have left. I felt so damned guilty for leaving him behind, I couldn’t even bring myself to go to Oxford when we arrived. Stayed on that ship for more than a year.

“When I did finally go to England, it only made matters worse. I saw the life my father’s family should have had. Society, wealth, rank, privilege. Not some nigh-on-biblical exile in a land of slavery and pestilence. I wanted—needed—to rebuild the fortune our father squandered. I hadn’t a clue how to atone for his moral failings, much less correct my own. But I knew how to make a profit, and that’s what I did. I wanted to give my brother and sister all the comforts and security they’d been denied.”

His hand curled into a fist over his heart. “And how did I go about it? By breaking every promise I’d ever made. By denying my brother, taking his inheritance, selling his family’s home out from under them, and dragging Joss out on the sea with me.”

“To become privateers.”

“We did have an unholy good time.” Gray’s lips curved in a cold smile.

“We were like boys again, only armed with men’s weapons: cannons, cynicism, anger at the world. France and England and America could blow one another to bits. We were there to collect the spoils. Toward the end of the war, we started planning Grayson Brothers Shipping. We’d set up offices in England, build more ships—bring Bel to London for her schooling and debut. We were supposed to be equal partners.”

“So what happened?”

“Love, inconvenient thing that it is. Joss married Mara, got her with child. They didn’t want to travel, so I went ahead to England and started building the business, gathering investors. Came back just in time to witness Jacob’s birth, then Mara’s death. Suddenly, Joss wanted nothing to do with the shipping business. Demanded his share of the prize to buy land on Tortola, of all places, and then just give it away.”

Sophia frowned. “Give it away?”

“It was Bel’s idea, a sugar cooperative. This is what happens when a girl’s only friends are missionaries. The Quakers and Methodists have been buying up plantations and dividing them into smaller farms, for freedmen to make their own livelihood. The cooperative bit was Joss’s notion—by sharing the cost and labor of refining the sugar, they might be able to eke out a profit.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

“No, it doesn’t. It sounds like a bloody saintly idea. But in practice … it’s a tremendous risk. And the farming life—it’s hard, it’s poor. It’s less than they deserve.” Gray swore into the night. “After all that time, all that work and sacrifice—to end right back where we’d started? I couldn’t let Joss do it. I left.”