“A wooden …” Sophia stared at the steward’s bare, furred feet for a moment before Stubb broke into loud, toothless laughter.
“No, don’t worry yerself about a little blow like this one, miss,” Stubb said, backing his way out of the cabin. “We’ll come through it fine.”
Once the men had left, taking the lamp along with them, Sophia fumbled her way into her berth. It was dark as a pocket, and even if she had some light by which to undress or unpack her trunks, the boat’s turbulent motions made it difficult just to remain upright.
She settled for removing her gloves, and then her cloak, reaching into the folds to retrieve her “letter of employment.” This she tucked beneath her bodice, where it curled around her purse. She groped with her feet until she located her trunks. Then, climbing atop them and clinging to the edge of the bunk for balance, she spread her cloak across the high, flat plank and—between groaning tilts of the ship—managed to scramble into bed.
That letter—it was a stroke of good fortune that neither Captain nor Mr. Grayson had been inclined to examine it. Her handiwork could easily deceive someone unacquainted with either party, but Mr. Grayson possessed intimate knowledge of the Waltham family. He would be certain to notice something amiss.
It all had begun as a lark, a joke. While tucked away at a country house party, Sophia had amused her friend Lucy Waltham by drafting a nonsense letter to Lucy’s cousins in Tortola, whom she had never met. At the time, Sophia’s sole motive had been to needle Lucy about her suitor, Jeremy Trescott, the Earl of Kendall. But the romance of it all, the idea of her scribblings floating across the sea to a tropical clime, had gripped Sophia and refused to let go. She posted the letter on a whim, signing Lucy’s name but giving her own London address. Then Lucy had married Jeremy, and Sophia had become engaged, and Tortola had been forgotten. Until a week ago, when Sophia received a reply.
My dear cousin Lucy, the letter read.
Although your kind letter arrived addressed to Papa, he has bade me reply, since he assumes we are nearly of an age. I am Emily, his eldest, recently turned sixteen, and I am happy to oblige his request. Compared to the hardships I am typically made to endure, such as minding my four incorrigible siblings, penning a letter is a true delight.
At any rate, I extend to you our entire family’s felicitations on your marriage and our fondest hopes for your happiness. Would that I could invite you and your new husband to visit us here in the West Indies, but Papa threatens daily that we shall soon depart for America, as soon as he finds a buyer for our land. How desolate I shall be, to bid farewell to our beloved home, Eleanora, where I have been born and bred and lived so many happy years.
Forgive me, I must end. I hear the telltale clanging that informs me young George and Harry have taken to fencing on the veranda again.
Fondest regards from your cousin,
Miss Emily Waltham
On first reading, the letter was merely a welcome source of amusement, during a week that held levity in short supply. But that was before Sophia learned that her dowry was actually a trust, and only her twenty-first birthday stood between her and complete financial independence. Before she wandered into that gallery in Queen Anne Street and saw that magnificent painting of a ship braving a stormy sea, and dared to imagine that she, too, could brave the world. Before everything changed—or, more accurately, before Sophia realized she never would.
Then the letter became a plan. A new sheet affixed to the original envelope, some doctoring of the address, and Sophia Hathaway—or rather, Miss Jane Turner—had an offer of employment. An escape.
And she had to escape. She’d been escaping for years now, through clever lies and wicked fantasies. Surely Sophia was the only girl at school who kept a secret folio of naughty sketches buried beneath the obligatory watercolor landscapes. The only debutante at Almack’s who mentally undressed unsuspecting gentlemen between dainty sips of ratafia. Surely none of the other young ladies in the Champions of Charity Junior Auxiliary lay abed at night with their shifts hiked to their waists, dreaming of pirates and highwaymen with coarse manners and rough, skillful hands.
She was a perfect fraud. And no one saw the truth. Least of all the dear, deluded man who had wished to marry her.
Now she’d done it. She’d run away, in the most scandalous fashion imaginable, ensuring she could never return. Thanks to her farewell notes, by now half of London would be under the impression she’d eloped with a French painting master named Gervais. Fabricated or no, her ruin was complete. No longer was Sophia the pretty ribbon adorning a twenty-thousand-pound dowry, a trinket to be bartered for connections and a title. At last, she’d be her own person, free to pursue her true passion, experience real life.
Well. If she’d wished to experience real life, she’d gotten her wish indeed. A very real storm howled around her, the thunder rumbling in rebuke, as if the world had conspired to put her bravery to the test. She huddled into her cloak and took deep, slow breaths, as if by calming her inner tempest of emotions, she might tame the storm without. It didn’t work, in either respect.
Gray seethed with anger.
Having been ordered belowdecks in such insulting fashion, he thundered his way down to the gentlemen’s cabin. Once inside his tiny berth, he wrestled out of his coat. Between the cramped size of the room and the rolling of the ship, the experience was like tumbling a chambermaid in a closet, only far less pleasurable. One particularly impatient yank on his sleeve earned him bloodied knuckles when his fist banged the low ceiling.
When he’d ordered the Aphrodite converted to accommodate passengers, the builder had given him an option. Did he want four gentlemen’s cabins, similar to the ladies’? Or would he prefer to squeeze six smaller berths into the same space?
Gray’s answer? Six, of course. No question about it. Two extra beds meant two extra fares. He hadn’t dreamed he’d one day occupy one of these cramped berths.
Six feet of angry man, lashed into a five-foot bunk, in the midst of a howling gale—it wasn’t a recipe for a good night’s sleep. Gray craved the space and comfort of his former quarters aboard the Aphrodite—the captain’s cabin. But as his brother had so officiously pointed out, Gray wasn’t the captain of this ship anymore.
Throw his arse in the brig, had Joss threatened? Gray tossed indignantly, his chest straining against the ropes that held him in the child-sized bed. The ship’s brig didn’t sound so bad right now. He’d put up with a few iron bars, the rancid bilgewater and rats, if it meant he could stretch his legs properly. Hell, this room was so damned small, he couldn’t even get his blasted boots off.
He kicked the wall of his berth, no doubt scuffing the shine on his new Hessians. He hated the cursed things anyway. They pinched his feet. Why the devil he’d thought it a brilliant notion to get all dandified for this voyage, Gray couldn’t remember. Just who was he trying to impress? Stubb?
No, not Stubb.
Bel. It was all for Bel.
Gray couldn’t forget the way she’d looked at him when he’d left last year. The disappointment welling in those big eyes, as dark and doleful as any medieval icon’s. Hadn’t she learned by then to stop expecting so damned much of him? He’d never lived up to his little sister’s ideal. He wasn’t sure any man could.
But now Gray could show her he’d changed. As much as it was within his power to change, at any rate. He’d given up the reckless, albeit far more entertaining, life of a privateer and become a successful tradesman. The owner of a shipping concern, with two new vessels in construction besides the Aphrodite, and investors lining up to back more. Able to offer her a home in London, a comfortable life, whatever else she might desire.
Bel might have preferred he grow a conscience, rather than build a fortune. But Gray knew better than to waste his time. If a scoundrel like him had any hope of Heaven, it rested solely on the strength of Isabel Grayson’s prayers.
Prayer wouldn’t help him tonight. From Gray’s experience, the best ward against seasi
ckness was to turn one’s mind to sin.
Surprising, then, that his thoughts drifted to Miss Turner.
He thought he’d outgrown admiring her sort, those delicate English roses. Give him an exotic orchid. A voluptuous woman with unbound hair and bold, dark eyes, who knew what she was about. Girlish blushes, demure smiles—they’d lost their allure for Gray years ago.
But still he thought of her. He could no more rid his mind of her than command the storm to cease. Tossing fitfully in his bunk, he recalled her near-breakable beauty, her delicate scent. And the feel of her body pressed against his for those few seconds in the rowboat. Not just the enticing sensation of her soft, pillowy breasts flattening against his chest, but beneath them, a pulse racing like a bird’s, pounding against his torso through all those layers of womanly flesh and wool. As if something caged inside her was clamoring for escape. Begging him to set it free.
It was then he discovered an unhappy consequence to all his tossing and turning. One of the ropes binding him to his bed had drifted south—and now cinched his body at a most unfortunate latitude.
Damn it to hell.
He undid the ropes and wrestled out of the bed. What the devil was happening to him? His little brother had him confined to his cabin. A prim governess had him tied in knots. And worst—he’d been off the sea so long, he was losing his instincts. Joss had been right; the storm was growing violent.
Arms braced against either side of the corridor, Gray made his way from the gentlemen’s cabin to the companionway. He needed to see the storm for himself, judge how the ship’s new rigging and spars were weathering the gale.
But when he reached the stairs, his plans changed. There was a girl in his way.
Miss Turner stood perched on the third rung of the ladder, straining on tiptoe to peek through the half-open hatch. Had Gray been the superstitious sort, he might have thought her a ghost. Her fingers were white, delicate webs where she clutched the handle of the hatch with one hand and the ladder with the other. Flashes of luminous beauty alternated with darkness. Each fork of lightning illuminated her finely wrought features and the droplets of spray clinging to her hair and eyelashes.
No, she wasn’t a ghost. But she was a vision just the same.
“Miss Turner,” he said, bracing one shoulder against the wall.
She didn’t turn around.
Gray cleared his throat and tried again. “Miss Turner.”
Now she startled, nearly losing her grip on the ladder. “Mr. Grayson. I …” Her voice caught, and she dabbed her face with her sleeve. “I wanted to see the storm.”
“And how do you find it?”
“Wet.”
Gray chuckled, surprised.
“And beautiful,” she continued, as another bolt of lightning threw her features into relief. “Out here on the water, with no solid land beneath—it’s so different. As though there’s no boundary between sky and sea, and we’re simply at Nature’s mercy. It’s so wild and gothic.”
“It’s dangerous, is what it is.”
“Yes, precisely.” Another bright flash revealed the curve of a smile.
Gray frowned. What was she doing, smiling at him in a storm? Sending electric pulses through his blood with each glimpse of her pale, haunting beauty? She ought to be huddled in her bunk, fearing for her life.
He crossed the small space in one stride, gripping the ladder with one hand and offering her the other, to assist her descent. “Wise passengers wait out a storm in their berths.”
“Do they?” she whispered, taking his hand. “What does that make us, then?”
Now this, this was danger. He didn’t miss the coy lilt in her voice, nor the tremor of her rain-dampened shoulders, an unconscious shiver that all but begged for his embrace. No, she didn’t even realize the invitation she’d made, but the signs were unmistakable to Gray. He’d seen this reaction, many times before, and he knew better than to be flattered by it. It was nothing more than instinct.
Any port in a storm.
“It doesn’t make us anything,” he said, helping her down. The feel of her chilled, slender fingers in his triggered all manner of instincts. “It makes me a concerned investor. And it makes you a girl with an overactive imagination. Go back to your berth.”
The lightning had ceased, but her eyes sparked with a fire all their own. “But I—”
“You’re not safe here.” He wrenched open the door to the ladies’ cabin and waved her through it. “Go to bed, Miss Turner.”
Yes, go to bed, he thought, as she wordlessly swept through the door and he drew it shut behind her. Go to your bed, before I sweep you off to mine.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Sophia woke with a start, alone and disoriented in the dark. Her pulse responded first, pumping panic through her veins at a furious rate. She pressed her hand to her heart, and her fingers curled around her purse. Awareness returned in a dizzy rush.
A faint silvery glow leaked under the door of her berth. It was morning. And if it was morning, that must mean she’d survived the night.
She turned onto her side. Every muscle screamed with pain. Her skirt and cloak were still heavy with damp, resisting her feeble attempts to rise. Perhaps she didn’t need to move, after all.
Oh, but she did. She drew a deep breath, then wished she could spit it out. The air was thick with humidity and rank with the odors of sickness and bilge. She slid from her bunk, ignoring the protestations of her aching limbs, and flung open the door of her berth.
She lunged for the staircase, scrambling up on her hands and knees. A salty breeze nipped at her ears as she emerged headfirst into the gray dawn. She inhaled a deep, bracing breath of fresh air. The thought of returning below held no appeal whatsoever. Yet neither could she remain like this, head and neck protruding from a hole in the deck, like some species of seafaring marmot.
She climbed abovedecks and struggled into an upright position, planting her feet in a wide stance to buffer the ship’s rolling. Sophia closed her eyes. Either the ship was caught in a whirl pool, or her head was spinning like a top. She looked toward the nearest rail—only five paces away, perhaps six. Beyond it, the English coastline appeared to teeter on a fulcrum. She bowed her head, focused her gaze on the deck beneath her, and took one step. Two.
Then the deck pitched suddenly, and her locked knees buckled. She was falling, spinning, out of control.
She was caught.
“Steady there.” Two large hands gripped her elbows. Her fingers instinctively closed over two strong arms. Sophia barely had time to register the feel of superfine wool and hard muscle beneath her fingertips, a brief instant to catch a glimpse of two gray-green eyes.
And then she vomited all over two slightly scuffed, tassel-topped Hessians.
“I …” She coughed and sputtered. Mr. Grayson’s iron grip on her elbows refused to relax, preventing her from turning away. “Sir … Release me, I beg you.”
“Absolutely not. You’re not steady on your feet. This way, then.” He guided her sideways, nudging her to take small steps and twirl slightly right—the most mortifying waltz Sophia had ever endured. He backed her against a small crate. “Sit down.”
She obeyed, sinking onto the rough wooden slats gratefully. Still holding her fast by the elbows, he crouched before her. She could not bear to meet his eyes.
“Stay here,” he ordered. “I’ll come back presently.”
Oh, please don’t. Sophia cringed as his soiled boots carried him away. The instant his footsteps faded, she pulled a handkerchief from her cloak and wiped her brow. She willed her head to stop spinning, so she could rise to her feet unaided and make her escape. But he was too fast for her. Within the space of two minutes, he was back, boots rinsed—with seawater, she supposed—and steaming tankard in hand.
“Drink this.” He wrapped her trembling hands around the tankard. Delicious warmth prickled through her chilled fingers.
“What is it?”
“Tea, with treacle an
d lemon. And a touch of rum.” When she merely stared at the drink, he added, “Drink it. You’ll feel better.”
Sophia raised the mug to her lips and sipped carefully. Fragrant steam warmed her from the inside out. The syrupy sweetness coated her throat, masking the bitter taste of bile. She sipped again. “Thank you,” she finally managed, keeping her eyes trained on the liquid sloshing in the tankard. “I’m … I’m sorry about your boots.”
He laughed. “You should be sorry.” He crouched beside her. Sophia stubbornly stared into her tankard. “I despise these boots,” he continued. “I’d just been contemplating yanking them off my feet and tossing them overboard. But now it seems I’ll have to keep them.” Surprise tugged her gaze up to his. He grinned. “For sentimental reasons.”
Don’t do it, she told herself. Don’t smile back.
Too late.
“Mr. Grayson …”
“Please.” His elbow nudged her thigh. An accident? He did not apologize. “After that, I believe you can call me Gray.”
His gaze sparked—a hint of silver flashing in murky green—and Sophia became suddenly, painfully aware of the picture she must present. Soiled, wrinkled dress still damp at the hem, flax-colored hair teased loose from its pins. The pale, wan complexion of illness.
And yet …
His eyes did not merely skim her surface. Instead, they focused some distance beneath her stained garments, plumbing the depths of her appearance in a most disconcerting way.
Despite the chill, a light sheen of perspiration bloomed over her thighs.
“Mr. Grayson. I thank you for the tea.” Sophia shifted the tankard to one hand and shook out the handkerchief she’d kept in her palm. A sudden puff of wind wrenched it from her grasp.
His hand darted out, and he caught the fluttering scrap of white effortlessly, as though it were a dove trained to fly to his hand.
Sophia reached for it. “Once again, I thank you.”
He whisked it out of her grasp. “Save your thanks. I haven’t given it back.” He fingered the eyelet trim. “Perhaps I’ll decide to keep it. For sentimental reasons.”
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