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.”
Something cinched in her chest, constricting her lungs. She reached out to catch his hand in hers. “What about now, Gray? Are you still hoping now?”
Another rope fell from stern to boat. He reached for it, breaking their contact. Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t even know what to think of you now.”
“I see.” Sophia drew her knees up and hugged them to her chest, burying her face in her stacked arms.
He sighed noisily. “Sweet.” A light touch fell on her arm. Sniffing back tears, she looked up at him. “Do the hoping for us both, if it makes you feel better. At the moment, I’m just too damned tired.”
The boat lurched into its ascent, startling a little gasp from her throat. His fingers latched protectively over her wrist. The embrace lasted only a moment, and then he let her go.
When the boat reached deck level, Sophia helped herself over the rail of the Kestrel. The light thud of her slippers hitting deck announced her presence to the ship at large. O’Shea and the other men turned to her, some offering curt words of greeting or nods. She tilted her head to examine the new jury-mast—a thin pole lashed to the charred, jagged stump of the mainmast. It gave the ship the look of a pruned rosebush, with a slender, green shoot branching out from old growth.
Davy stood some paces away on the quarterdeck, studiously testing the new mast’s rigging. He did not turn her way.
“Davy,” Gray called from behind her.
“Aye, Captain.” The youth did not raise his head.
“I understand you’ve slung your hammock in the steerage compartment.”
Davy’s glance flicked toward them, and he gave a puzzled, “Aye.”
“You’re to move it to the forecastle at your first opportunity.” Gray rounded Sophia and walked toward the boy. “On this ship, you’re a sailor. You’ll be expected to do a sailor’s work, and you’ll sleep where the sailors sleep. Do you understand?”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Davy’s pale cheeks colored. With a quick nod, he went belowdecks. But not before throwing Sophia a wounded glance that drove a spear of pain straight into her heart. This should have been a momentous occasion for him, his promotion to the forecastle; a day of celebration and pride. And because of her, it was ruined.
Davy’s wasn’t the first young man’s heart she’d broken. Nor was Gray the first grown man she’d hurt. She’d always been a selfish girl; she had no illusions otherwise. But this was the first time she’d been forced to bear witness to the consequences. She couldn’t run away from this ship as she’d run from her wedding. Neither could she distract herself with thoughts of new ribbons or exhibitions or the Duchess of Aldonbury’s card party Wednesday next. She had a front-row seat for the little tragedy she’d set in motion, and there would be no intermission.
There was a justice to it, she had to allow.
“And you”—Gray laid a hand on the small of her back and steered her down into the captain’s cabin—“will stay here.”
Sophia surveyed the cabin. Bed tucked into one corner, cabinets lining the other. In the center, a table and captain’s chair. A thin slice of window spanning the stern. Much the same as the Aphrodite’s, if a bit more cramped.
“It’s been cleaned and aired for you,” Gray continued, his tone detached. “The linens are fresh, brought over from the Aphrodite.”
“Thank you.” She paced to the center of the cabin and turned to face him. “That was thoughtful.”
“I’ll have your trunks brought down. You’re to stay here, do you understand?”
She nodded.
“No traipsing about the ship. And you’ll keep this door bolted.”
“Should I fear for my safety?”
He shook his head. “Brackett’s confined below; he won’t bother you. The Kestrel’s crew seem pleased with our change of course. But I don’t know these men. And I can’t trust those I don’t know.” He gave her a meaningful look as he turned to leave.
“Wait,” she called after him. He paused in the door. “Where are you sleeping?”
“When I sleep, which I imagine will be infrequently, I’ll bed down in the first mate’s berth, just there.” He nodded toward a small door just outside the entrance to her cabin. “But whether I’m on deck or below it, I’ll never be far.”
“Shall I take that as a promise? Or a threat?”
She sauntered toward him, hands cocked on her hips in an attitude of provocation. His eyes swept her body, washing her with angry heat. She noted the subtle tensing of his shoulders, the frayed edge of his breath.
Even exhausted and hurt, he still wanted her. For a moment, Sophia felt hope flicker to life inside her. Enough for them both.
And then, with the work of an instant, he quashed it all. Gray stepped back. He gave a loose shrug and a lazy half-smile. If I don’t care about you, his look said, you can’t possibly hurt me. “Take it however you wish.”
“Oh no, you don’t. Don’t you try that move with me.” With trembling fingers, she began unbuttoning her gown.
“What the devil are you doing? You think you can just hike up your shift and make—”
“Don’t get excited.” She stripped the bodice down her arms, then set to work unlacing her stays. “I’m merely settling a score. I can’t stand to be in your debt a moment longer.” Soon she was down to her chemise and plucking coins from the purse tucked between her breasts. One, two, three, four, five …
“There,” she said, casting the sovereigns on the table. “Six pounds, and”—she fished out a crown—“ten shillings. You owe me the two.”
He held up open palms. “Well, I’m afraid I have no coin on me. You’ll have to trust me for it.”
“I wouldn’t trust you for anything. Not even two shillings.”
He glared at her for a moment, then turned on
his heel and exited the cabin, banging the door shut behind him. Sophia stared at it, wondering whether she dared stomp after him with her bodice hanging loose around her hips. Before she could act on the obvious affirmative, he stormed back in.
“Here.” A pair of coins clattered to the table. “Two shillings. And”—he drew his other hand from behind his back—“your two leaves of paper. I don’t want to be in your debt, either.” The ivory sheets fluttered as he released them. One drifted to the floor.
Sophia tugged a banknote from her bosom and threw it on the growing pile. To her annoyance, it made no noise and had correspondingly little dramatic value. In compensation, she raised her voice. “Buy yourself some new boots. Damn you.”
“While we’re settling scores, you owe me twenty-odd nights of undisturbed sleep.”
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “We’re even on that regard.” She paused, glaring a hole in his forehead, debating just how hateful she would make this.
Very.
“You took my innocence,” she said coldly—and completely unfairly, because they both knew she’d given it freely enough.
“Yes, and I’d like my jaded sensibilities restored, but there’s no use wishing after rainbows, now is there?”
He had a point there. “I suppose we’re squared away then.”
“I suppose we are.”
“There’s nothing else I owe you?”
His eyes were ice. “Not a thing.”
But there is, she wanted to shout. I still owe you the truth, if only you’d care enough to ask for it. If only you cared enough for me, to want to know.
But he didn’t. He reached for the door.
“Wait,” he said. “There is one last thing.”
Sophia’s heart pounded as he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a scrap of white fabric.
“There,” he said, unceremoniously casting it atop the pile of coins and notes and paper. “I’m bloody tired of carrying that around.”
And then he was gone, leaving Sophia to wrap her arms over her half-naked chest and stare numbly at what he’d discarded.
A lace-trimmed handkerchief, embroidered with a neat S.H.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Gray left the cabin and went to work. He worked for days. He worked until he couldn’t think, couldn’t feel. His life became flips of the hourglass, clangs of the bell—increments of time too brief to allow anxiety for the future or regrets about the past. It was simply, always now. He concentrated on the task of each moment: the sail that wanted reefing, the brace gone slack. Getting the Kestrel from the crest of one wave to the next.
All the while, a deep, insidious current pulled on his heart. Resentment, confusion, fear. Uncertainty, in all its most sinister forms. By sheer force of will, he kept it at bay. A mere hint of uncertainty was all it required to taint authority in irrevocable fashion.
But for all his intensity of purpose, a mere moment in her presence was all it required to scatter his wits completely—he feared, in irrevocable fashion. In the clang of a bell, Gray was undone.
“What are you doing?”
The words fired from his mouth, like a salvo of rifle shots. She flinched with each one. But great God, he felt under attack.
What the devil was she doing in the galley? The galley was not where she ought to be. She ought to be in the captain’s cabin, where she’d remained squirreled away for the past three days. Where he didn’t have to look at this exquisite face, breathe this intoxicating fragrance, suffer these small earthquakes in his chest that left him reeling in his boots whenever she drew near.
“I’m serving dinner.” She held out a deep wooden plate ladled with steaming chowder. “Are you always this late to mess?”
Gray stared at the plate. Then he stared at her. Which was a mistake.
Because he was starving, and she looked … delicious.
The galley was steamy and hot, as galleys tend to be. A high flush painted her cheeks and throat. Loose wisps of hair frizzled to tight curls at her hairline. Tiny beads of perspiration glittered on her décolletage, where her breasts pressed up like twin mounds of risen dough. Her skin glowed, and her eyes … God, her eyes positively sparkled. Plump lips curved in a self-satisfied, feline smile.
She had the look, the air—even the scent—of a recently-bedded, thoroughly-pleasured woman. And Gray’s senses were under siege. All the desire that he’d been forcing down for the past three days tore free. It raced hot through his veins, swelled in his groin.
He resented it, resented this power she had over him. This was why she needed to stay where he’d put her, out of sight.
“What are you doing?” he growled again. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m helping,” she bit out, her smile fading to a tight line. Her eyes dulled in the space of a blink, and she slung the plate onto the table.
Gray slouched against the door and massaged his temples with one hand. Damn it, he was always the one to erase that smile from her face, douse that sparkle in her eyes. But he needed her to stay in that cabin. He could not look on her, be near her, think of her, and keep the Kestrel afloat at the same time. No red-blooded man could.
“Go back to your cabin.”
“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll go mad if I spend another day in that cabin, with no one to talk to and nothing to do.”
“Well, I’m sorry we’re not entertaining you sufficiently, but this isn’t a pleasure cruise. Find some other way to amuse yourself. Can’t you find something to occupy your mind?” He made an open-handed sweep through the steam. “Read a book.”
“I’ve only got one book. I’ve already read it.”
“Don’t tell me it’s the Bible.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “It isn’t.”
He averted his gaze to the ceiling, blowing out an impatient breath. “Only one book,” he muttered. “What sort of lady makes an ocean crossing with only one book?”
“Not a governess.” Her voice held a challenge.
Gray refused the bait, electing for silence. Silence was all he could manage, with this anger slicing through him. It hurt. He kept his eyes trained on a cracked board above her head, working to keep his expression blank.
What a fool he’d been, to believe her. To believe that something essential in him had changed, that he could find more than fleeting pleasure with a woman. That this perfect, delicate blossom of a lady, who knew all his deeds and misdeeds, would offer herself to him without hesitation. Deep inside, in some uncharted territory of his soul, he’d built a world on that moment when she came to him willingly, trustingly. Giving not just her body, but her heart.
Ha. She hadn’t even given him her name.
“Are you ever planning to talk to me?” she asked. “Don’t you have questions you want to ask?”
“Just one. Have you had your courses?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Then we’ve nothing further to discuss.”
“Not yet,” she said meaningfully.
In truth, Gray wasn’t certain how many answers he wanted, whether she carried his child or no. He knew he preferred silence to lies. It didn’t matter one whit to him who she was, or what she’d done. Whether or not she’d taken lovers before, whether she had six shillings or six thousand pounds. It mattered that she’d lied. That even with her arms around him, her lips pressed to his mouth, her tight, virgin body yielding to his—she had always been holding something back.
In those dark, solitary watches over the past three nights, it had driven him quietly mad, wondering just how much of her he’d ever seen, ever held. He’d opened himself to her completely, and she’d been lying to him since the moment they’d met. In all those days aboard the Aphrodite, was a single one of her smiles ever truly for him? What fraction of her heart had she revealed to him, in all their conversations? When he’d held her, caressed her, entered her—had he finally reached some layer of her being where the lies ended and
the real woman began?
Gray didn’t even want to ask. Because he already knew the only answer that mattered. How much of her was his? Less than all.
And therefore, not enough.
“Sketching.” He croaked the word. Clearing his throat, he continued, “Go to your cabin and draw, or paint. It kept you busy enough before.”
“I’ve tried. I can’t.”
“What, no more paper?”
“No more inspiration. I … I’ve lost my heart for it, I think.” With a shrug, she turned back to the stove and began stirring lazy figure eights in a bubbling pot. “Gray, be angry with me if you must. You’ve a right to be hurt. Call me vile names, think all the vengeful thoughts you wish. But you must allow me to do this. I want to help.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, you do.” She ceased stirring and leveled the ladle at him, wielding it like a sword. “You’ve eight men on this ship, performing the work of a dozen. I hear everything from that cabin. Do you think I don’t know how hard you’re working? That you’re only resting every third watch, and sometimes not even that?”
Her voice lost its sharp edge, and she flung the ladle aside before wiping her brow with the back of her wrist. “If I run the galley, it frees Davy to stand a watch. If Davy’s able to stand watch, you can get more rest.”
Gray stared at her. He slowly shook his head. “Sweetheart—”
“Don’t.” Her voice tweaked. “Don’t call me that when you don’t mean it.”
“What am I to call you, then? Miss ‘Turner’? Jane?”
“You’re to call me Cook.” With an impatient gust of breath, she blew a wisp of hair from her face. “If I knew how to reef a sail or splice a line, you’d be chasing me down from the rigging right now. I can’t do a sailor’s work, but I can do this. I’ve spent every morning with Gabriel since the Aphrodite left England, and I know how to pound a piece of salt pork.”
“I can’t allow you to do this sort of menial labor.”
“You can’t expect me to sit idly by and read or sketch in that cabin while you’re working yourself to bones.” She grabbed a smaller spoon from a hook on the wall and thrust it at him, handle-first. “I made you food, and you’re going to eat it.”
Tessa Dare Page 24