Surrender of a Siren

Page 5

She didn’t ask which type of sickness he referred to. Both, she suspected. “Are the waves always this large?”
But when she turned to him, he’d disappeared. A shout drew her gaze heavenward. Above her, sailors called to one another as they ascended the rigging again. Her stomach churned, just watching them sway back and forth against the backdrop of greenish sky. Sophia clutched the rail and shut her eyes.
“Be reasonable. It’s just a few clouds,” came a low murmur, behind her.
“Aye, a few big, black clouds to the West. You know as well as I do, a storm’s coming.”
“A bit of a blow, perhaps. The Aphrodite’s weathered far worse. Reef the topsails, keep all hands at the ready.”
There was a pause, thick with enmity.
“Not in the Downs,” came the terse reply. “I’ll not risk springing a mast our first night at sea. We’ll drop anchor and furl the sails, and we’ll wait it out.”
“Joss, you’re behaving—”
“I’m behaving as the captain of this ship, Gray. If you don’t start affording me the respect that deserves, I’ll order you below.” The voice sank deeper still. “And if you dare contradict me in front of my crew, I’ll throw your arse in the brig.”
A burst of spray hit Sophia’s face again, startling her eyes open. With droplets of seawater clinging to her eyelashes, she slowly rotated her neck until the two brothers came into focus.
The men glared at each other, and the fog swirling around them took on the charged heat of steam. Apparently, the Grayson brothers shared no more affection than Sophia and her sister did.
The captain turned toward the ship’s bow, calling, “Mr. Brackett!”
A third man joined them. The fog and spray obscured the features of his face, but Sophia could see he was tall and lean, standing ramrod straight despite the waves.
“Mr. Brackett,” said the captain, “see that all passengers”—he shot another glance at his fuming brother—“are returned to their cabins. Furl the topsails and prepare to drop anchor.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Mr. Brackett strode forward, sharp cheekbones and blade-thin nose slicing through the fog. He began barking orders, and the crew exploded into activity.
“Come along then, Miss Turner.” Stubb took her elbow and urged her toward the companionway hatch. They crossed the deck in a lurching gait as the waves rolled beneath.
Once they were safely below, Stubb left her alone, only to return a few moments later with a bucket threaded over his arm. Behind him followed another of the sailors—an impossibly tall and broad-shouldered black man whose size required him to nearly double over and turn sideways just to thread his body through the compartment entry.
“Levi ’ere will be putting up the deadlights.” Stubb tilted his hoary crown toward the black man as he bent to lash the chair legs to the table’s bolted base.
“Deadlights?” Just the sound of the word left Sophia cold, and she braced herself against the table to receive its meaning.
“Shutters for the cabin windows,” the steward explained. “To keep out the storm and sea.”
Levi nudged past her, squeezing into her berth. He carried a circular plate, drilled ’round with screw holes.
Stubb passed the bucket to Sophia. “You’re like to have need of this.”
She looked down at the leather pail. “Am I to bail out the seawater, then?”
Stubb cackled with laughter. “Levi! The lovely miss thinks she’ll be put to work, bailing out the bilge!” Levi made no reply as he emerged from her berth, but Stubb laughed twice as loudly to compensate. “Nay, miss. If we take on some sea, there’s a pump in the hold.”
“Then why the bucket?” Sophia asked. The ship dropped suddenly, and her stomach rolled with it. “Oh. That.”
“Now don’t be worried about the waves, miss. Save your concerns for the lightning.”
“Lightning?” She didn’t like the sound of that.
“Aye. Strange things occur when lightning strikes a ship. That electric fluid bounces all through the hull, and woe to the sailor caught holding a bit of metal.” Stubb fluffed his whiskers. “What do you think turned this beard of mine to white?” He flashed a toothless grin. “Had me a whole set of gold teeth. All melted to slag.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“I am not,” the steward said, though he threw Sophia a sly wink. “Just ask Levi here. He won’t speak a word to contradict me.”
Neither would he speak a word to support you, she surmised. The black man hadn’t broken his silence since entering. But arms crossed and face stony, he looked capable of supporting the London Bridge.
“Don’t you know?” the old man continued. “That’s why they call me Stubb. Before the lightning struck, I used to have a wooden leg.”
“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 heassumes we are nearly of an age. I am Emily, his eldest, recently turned sixteen, and I 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 ourfondest hopes for your happiness. Would that I could invite you and your new husband tovisit us here in the West Indies, but Papa threatens daily that we shall soon depart forAmerica, as soon as he finds a buyer for our land. How desolate I shall be, to bid farewellto our beloved home, Eleanora, where I have been born and bred and lived so manyhappy years.
Forgive me, I must end. I hear the telltale clanging that informs me young George andHarry 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.