It was captivating.
“Do you realize you could have died?” he asked gruffly.
Sophia bit her lip. She did understand, in some way, that together they had just cheated death. Perhaps she ought to be rattled now, shaking with terror—but instead, she felt nothing but alive. Gloriously alive, and connected to this man, as though that rope were still binding her ankle to his.
He dipped the gauze again. “Why didn’t you let go of the line when I told you to?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s obvious. For a governess, you don’t have much sense.” He blew lightly across her palm, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. His gray-green eyes locked with hers. “For a governess, you don’t make much sense.”
And now a shiver swept down to her toes.
He released the one hand and took up the other, dunking a fresh piece of gauze. Swabbing at her wound, he said, “You’re a puzzle, Miss Turner, but none of the pieces fit. That abhorrent gown cannot have been made for you. Your gloves were a gift. The loss of two sheets of paper has you in tears, and even your handkerchiefs bear someone else’s monogram.”
Panic coursed through her body, drawing every nerve to attention. He blew over her palm again, and this time the sensation nearly undid her.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said.
“You’ve been avoiding me, too.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
I didn’t think I had. Her heartbeat pounded as he dressed her wounds, winding the bandage tightly around her palm. “I told you, I—”
“You told me you’d pay your fare that day, and you’ve been avoiding me ever since. I know why, Miss Turner.”
“You do?”
“I do.” He bandaged her other hand.
Oh, God. How much did he truly know? Should she stick with her old story? Invent a new one? Normally, Sophia could weave an entire web of lies with the same effortless talent of a spider spinning silk. But he’d always thrown her off balance, from their very first meeting, and now … now she was wounded and in pain, and he was caring for her so tenderly. And when she closed her eyes, she saw the angry, gaping maw of a shark—but she felt his arms around her, holding her fast. Protecting her. All she could think of was how right it felt, and how much she wanted to feel it again.
“You’ve been lying to me all along, haven’t you?”
She couldn’t answer. Her voice simply wouldn’t work.
“Look at you,” he said, his gaze running over her face. “Gone white as sailcloth. I knew it. You never intended to pay your fare. You don’t have a shilling to your name, do you?”
Sophia blinked at him. What to say? She needed to keep her money—which meant she needed to keep it secret. He was offering her a gift, with his ridiculous, wrongheaded, oh-so-male assumption. She would be a fool not to take it.
“Do you?” he repeated, his thumb tightening over her wrist.
Casting her eyes to her lap, Sophia released a breathy, dramatic sigh. “What will you do with me?”
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he said, his voice growing curt with anger again. “Deceitful little minx. I’m of half a mind to put you to work, milking the goats. But that’s out of the question with these hands, now isn’t it?” He curled and uncurled her fingers a few times, testing the bandage. “I’ll tell Stubb to change this twice a day. Can’t risk the wound going septic. And don’t use your hands for a few days, at least.”
“Don’t use my hands? I suppose you’re going to spoon-feed me, then? Dress me? Bathe me?”
He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes. “Don’t use your hands much.” His eyes snapped open. “None of that sketching, for instance.”
She jerked her hands out of his grip. “You could slice off my hands and toss them to the sharks, and I wouldn’t stop sketching. I’d hold the pencil with my teeth if I had to. I’m an artist.”
“Really. I thought you were a governess.”
“Well, yes. I’m that, too.”
He packed up the medical kit, jamming items back in the box with barely controlled fury. “Then start behaving like one. A governess knows her place. Speaks when spoken to. Stays out of the damn way.”
Rising to his feet, he opened the drawer and threw the box back in. “From this point forward, you’re not to touch a sail, a pin, a rope, or so much as a damned splinter on this vessel. You’re not to speak to crewmen when they’re on watch. You’re forbidden to wander past the foremast, and you need to steer clear of the helm, as well.”
“So that leaves me doing what? Circling the quarterdeck?”
“Yes.” He slammed the drawer shut. “But only at designated times. Noon hour and the dogwatch. The rest of the day, you’ll remain in your cabin.”
Sophia leapt to her feet, incensed. She hadn’t fled one restrictive program of behavior, just to submit to another. “Who are you, to dictate where I can go, when I can go there, what I’m permitted to do? You’re not the captain of this ship.”
“Who am I?” He stalked toward her, until they stood toe-to-toe. Until his radiant male heat brought her blood to a boil, and she had to grab the table edge to keep from swaying toward him. “I’ll tell you who I am,” he growled. “I’m a man who cares if you live or die, that’s who.”
Her knees melted. “Truly?”
“Truly. Because I may not be the captain, but I’m the investor. I’m the man you owe six pounds, eight. And now that I know you can’t pay your debts, I’m the man who knows he won’t see a bloody penny unless he delivers George Waltham a governess in one piece.”
Sophia glared at him. How did he keep doing this to her? Since the moment they’d met in that Gravesend tavern, there’d been an attraction between them unlike anything she’d ever known. She knew he had to feel it, too. But one minute, he was so tender and sensual; the next, so crass and calculating. Now he would reduce her life’s value to this cold, impersonal amount? At least back home, her worth had been measured in thousands of pounds, not in shillings.
“I see,” she said. “This is about six pounds, eight shillings. That’s the reason you’ve been watching me—”
He made a dismissive snort. “I haven’t been watching you.”
“Staring at me, every moment of the day, so intently it makes my … my skin crawl and all you’re seeing is a handful of coins. You’d wrestle a shark for a purse of six pounds, eight. It all comes down to money for you.”
“Yes.” He slammed a fist, knuckles-down, on the table. Everything in the cabin rattled, from the glass-paned cabinet to Sophia’s teeth. The brute strength in the gesture was a tiny bit frightening and wildly arousing, and he glared at her mouth so hard, she was almost certain he would kiss her.
She was very certain she wanted him to.
But then he stepped back, doubling the distance between them, and gave her a lazy shrug. That smile—that damnable arrogant grin—tipped his mouth and sent that ghost of a kiss sliding right off his lips. The insolent scoundrel was back.
“It all comes down to money, sweet. Anyone who tells you different is lying. If it didn’t all come down to money, you wouldn’t be headed for a governess post in Tortola, would you?”
He had her there. “No. I suppose I wouldn’t.”
“This is business. Strictly business. Mind you don’t give me more trouble than you’re worth, or I’ll strand you in some Azorean fishing village and never look back.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“You don’t think?” He paused in the door and lifted a brow. “Well, sweetheart, somewhere there’s a French captain’s widow who’d correct that assumption.”
* * *
Gray spent an endless afternoon in steerage, turning pages of a book he lacked the concentration to read. No matter how hard he stared at the blocks of dark print swimming on the pages, he couldn’t see words.
He could only see her.
As the afternoon light faded, he let the book fall against his
chest. He shut his eyes and tried to sleep.
He could only see her.
When the bells rang for the second dogwatch, he gave up. Tossing the book aside with a curse, he rose from his hammock and prepared to go abovedecks. If the image of her lovely face was going to haunt him no matter what he did, he might as well suffer the torment in person.
Ah, but it wasn’t just her lovely face that haunted him. Nor the soft, lush body he was increasingly desperate to see liberated from that woolen cocoon. It was the way she’d so willingly owned up to the truth. The way her spirit had sparked when he’d told her to put aside her art. The way she’d practically made sweet, innocent love to him with her eyes when he’d said he cared if she lived or died.
Good Lord. The laughable irony of it. He’d wasted weeks of his adolescence memorizing sonnets, spent years perfecting little murmured innuendos. Only to learn the most seductive phrase in the English language was something akin to: All things being equal, I’d rather not see you mauled by a shark.
Business, he admonished himself as he shrugged back into his topcoat. This was strictly business. He promised Joss he’d watch out for the girl. After today, there was no doubt she needed watching over. And watching over her was a great deal easier when she was in his sights.
When he gained the quarterdeck, however, he found it deserted. All the sailors were knotted at the ship’s bow. The volume of their laughter told Gray the rum was flowing freely. The officers stood sober at the helm. In the middle, there was no one. She’d stayed below.
Gray joined his brother at the stern, propping one elbow on the rail. “It’s a fair wind tonight.”
“Aye. Is Miss Turner well?”
“She was well enough when I left her.”
In silence, they watched the sun slide over the curve of the earth. A loud whoop rose up from the crew at the other end of the ship.
Gray shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re allowing the men to drink, after what they did today.”
“It’s Saturday. Wives and sweethearts, you know.”
“I don’t care if it’s the devil’s own birthday. If this ship were under my command, they’d not taste a drop until the Tropic.”
Joss made a derisive sound. “Fortunate thing she’s not under your command, then. You know as well as I, what a fool decision that would be. In fact, after what you did today, you ought to go join them.”
Gray sighed. He knew his brother was right. Brushes with death were commonplace at sea, and a true sailor learned to shrug them off with a laugh or a smile. One moment, a man could be scaling the rigging—a false move, a soft splash, and the next moment, he’d be gone. Lives were gambled and lost on the whims of fate. When fortune did work in a man’s favor and he survived a narrow scrape, it was bad form to brood. Made the crew tense, and even more prone to accidents.
No, the only thing for it was to go on with life. To smile, to joke, to drink and make merry. To toast wives and sweethearts, just as they did every Saturday.
Funny, for Joss to remind him of this. Of all the men who needed to smile, laugh, and just get on with life.
“Come have a drink with me then,” Gray said, nudging his brother with his elbow.
Joss shook his head. “No sweetheart to toast. No wife, either.”
“So raise a glass to her memory.”
“Not tonight.” Joss pushed off the rail and headed for the hatch, only pausing long enough for one last remark—a remark that summed up just about every word Joss had spoken to Gray since the day Mara died: “Go on without me.”
And Gray still hadn’t figured out how to argue back.
Once his brother had disappeared belowdecks, Gray ambled toward the bow of the ship, to join the weekly celebration. In fact, he began the celebration a bit early by pausing to take out his flask and toss back a large swallow.
He froze, flask tilted to his lips, when the music stopped and he heard a light, flirtatious, most distinctly feminine laugh coming from the assembled crew.
It had to be her. He knew this simply because she was the only female aboard—not because he recognized her laugh. And that had him tossing back another draught of brandy, to think that he’d been several days in a beautiful woman’s proximity and not yet made her laugh. How utterly unlike him.
How depressing.
A few paces more, and one glance confirmed his suspicion. There Miss Jane Turner sat, balancing a tankard between her fingertips, the skirts of her ill-fitting gown draped across an overturned crate. Damn it, hadn’t he just told the chit she was to stay aft of the foremast?
Bailey struck a few notes on the pipes, and the crew launched into another rousing song. Gray waited a full verse before approaching her, prowling around her periphery and coming to rest behind her right shoulder. A few of the men gave him friendly nods, but most were too absorbed in their spirits and song to pay him any mind.
“What are you doing?” she asked, flicking him a glance through the swaying lamplight.
“Who, me?” he murmured. “I’m simply leaning against the foremast. You know, this tall bit of timber you weren’t to go past.”
She sipped her drink.
Gray pushed off the mast and crouched at her side. If she’d turn and look at him, they would be eye-to-eye. But she didn’t. “The better question is, what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m enjoying myself,” she said lightly, taking another drink. “I suggest you do the same.” She passed the tankard to him and applauded with wild enthusiasm as the song came to its tuneless end.
Gray peered at the half-empty tankard, then lifted it to his nose and sniffed. Straight, unadulterated rum, the girl was drinking. That would explain the enthusiasm. Her applause concluded, she snatched the tankard back and downed a swallow to do a sailor proud.
Bloody hell. Gray suspected the only thing worse than watching over a prim governess would be watching over a soused one.
“Gray!” O’Shea pushed through the crowd and thrust a brimming mug into his hand. “Just in time for another round of toasts.” O’Shea lifted his own cup high. “To the fair Maureen, and her lovely bits. She’s firm in the arse, and soft in the—”
“Head,” Gray interrupted, prodding the Irishman’s bulk with his shoulder. “Got porridge for brains, if she dallies with the likes of you.”
While the men laughed and drank “To fair Maureen,” Gray reached for Miss Turner’s elbow. “Come along, then. You don’t belong here.”
“I was invited here,” she ground out. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
“It’s no place for ladies.” He squeezed her elbow firmly and lifted her to her feet.
“Your turn, Gray,” O’Shea said.
He shook his head. “I’m not here to drink. I’m here to see our little Miss Turner back to her cabin. It’s past her bedtime.”
She glared at him. He glared right back.
“Come on, Gray,” another sailor called. “Just one toast.”
Miss Turner raised her eyebrows and leaned into him. “Come on, Mr. Grayson. Just one little toast,” she taunted, in the breathy, seductive voice of a harlot. It was a voice his body knew well, and vital parts of him were quickly forming a response.
Siren.
“Very well.” He lifted his mug and his voice, all the while staring into her wide, glassy eyes. “To the most beautiful lady in the world, and the only woman in my life.”
The little minx caught her breath. Gray relished the tense silence, allowing a broad grin to spread across his face. “To my sister, Isabel.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. The men groaned.
“You’re no fun anymore, Gray,” O’Shea grumbled.
“No, I’m not. I’ve gone respectable.” He tugged on Miss Turner’s elbow. “And good little governesses need to be in bed.”
“Not so fast, if you please.” She jerked away from him and turned to face the assembled crew. “I haven’t made my toast yet. We ladies have our sweethearts too, you know.”
B
awdy murmurs chased one another until a ripple of laughter caught them up. Gray stepped back, lifting his own mug to his lips. If the girl was determined to humiliate herself, who was he to stop her? Who was he, indeed?
Swaying a little in her boots, she raised her tankard. “To Gervais. My only sweetheart, mon cher petit lapin.”
My dear little rabbit? Gray sputtered into his rum. What a fanciful imagination the chit had.
“My French painting master,” she continued, slurring her words, “and my tutor in the art of passion.”
The men whooped and whistled. Gray plunked his mug on the crate and strode to her side. “All right, Miss Turner. Very amusing. That’s enough joking for one evening.”
“Who’s joking?” she asked, lowering her mug to her lips and eyeing him saucily over the rim. “He loved me. Desperately.”
“The French do everything desperately,” he muttered, beginning to feel a bit desperate himself. He knew she was spinning naïve schoolgirl tales, but the others didn’t. The mood of the whole group had altered, from one of good-natured merriment to one of lust-tinged anticipation. These were sailors, after all. Lonely, rummed-up, woman-starved, desperate men. And to an innocent girl, they could prove more dangerous than sharks.
“He couldn’t have loved you too much, could he?” Gray grabbed her arm again. “He seems to have let you go.”
“I suppose he did.” She sniffed, then flashed a coquettish smile at the men. “I suppose that means I need a new sweetheart.”
That was it. This little scene was at its end.
Gray crouched, grasped his wayward governess around the thighs, and then straightened his legs, tossing her over one shoulder. She let out a shriek, and he felt the dregs of her rum spill down the back of his coat.
“Put me down, you brute!” She squirmed and pounded his back with her fists.
Gray bound her legs to his chest with one arm and gave her a pat on that well-padded rump with the other.
“Well, then,” he announced to the group, forcing a roguish grin, “we’ll be off to bed.”
Cheers and coarse laughter followed them as Gray toted his wriggling quarry down the companionway stairs and into the ladies’ cabin.
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