Surrender of a Siren

Page 8

“Then I suppose you know how to tend a goat.”
The boy hesitated, looking toward Joss.
“Well?” Gray asked. “Do you know a goat’s teat from her tail, or don’t you?” When the boy still paused, he added, “Speak up now, or I’ll ask you the same about girls.”
“I’ve tended goats, sir. It’s just … I wasn’t expecting to tend them at sea. I rather thought I was finished with that.”
Gray laughed. “A man can’t shake his past, Davy. And don’t I know it. Take them down to the gentlemen’s cabin, then. One to a berth.” He raised his voice and spoke in the direction of the hatch. “And rescue Miss Turner from that animal under her skirts.”
Davy stowed his coil of rope and grabbed a cannon rammer from the rack at the ship’s rail. He prodded one goat’s flank with the blunt end. “Get along, then.”
“So, if the goats are in the gentlemen’s cabin,” Joss asked, turning toward the helm, “where do you intend to sleep? Not curled up with your flock, I imagine.”
“No. There’s always the la—”
“The ladies’ cabin?” Joss stopped. His eyes narrowed. “Think again.”
“I suppose the for—”
“And don’t think about bunking in the forecastle. I’ll not have you in there carousing with the crew, undermining my authority.”
Gray shrugged. “Then that leaves steerage, it would seem. I’m certain Davy can spare some room for me amongst the barrels.” He shook his head. “I own the damn ship, and I’ll be bedding down in steerage with the green hand.”
“Don’t look to me for sympathy,” Joss said. “I didn’t want your bloody goats. Or their milk.”
“Oh, you’ll drink their milk. You’ll drink it, and you’ll thank me for it.” Gray teetered on the brink of anger, and his brother’s smirk pushed him over the edge. “Damn it, I’ve taken on risks for this business, Joss. I’ve made sacrifices. All so the family … so you can reap the benefits. I wish you’d cease throwing them back in my face.”
Gray knew instantly he’d gone too far. Lately, conversing with Joss was like swimming through shark-infested waters. And the steely glint in his brother’s eye signaled an imminent attack.
“You. Want to tell me. About sacrifices.” Joss took a step toward him, his voice rough. “I reap the benefits, do I? My family reaped the sugarcane that paid for this ship. They lived and died for it. And you may own the damn ship, but you don’t own me.”
Damn it to hell. Whenever Gray thought they’d finally moved past the inequity of their births, he found himself quite rudely corrected. It wasn’t as though Gray could change the fact that he’d been the first born, legitimate son. As the younger brother, Joss would never have had the same opportunities as Gray, whether he’d been born of a mistress, a wife, or in this case, a slave.
“Joss, that’s unfair. You know the fact we’re of different mothers didn’t matter to our father. It’s never mattered to me.”
“It matters to some. I’ve the scars to prove it.”
“As do I.”
Shaking his head, Joss studied the mainmast towering above them. “Go bugger one of your goats, Gray.”
“Joss.”
Ignoring Gray entirely, Joss turned to his second mate. “Mr. Wiggins!
Summon all hands. Prepare to weigh anchor.”
Gray walked away. There wasn’t anything more he could say. At least, there wasn’t anything more he knew how to say. He’d just have to keep quiet, he supposed. Keep quiet, and look after the money. There wasn’t any way he could change the past and little enough he knew to do in the present. He’d never had any talent for morality—that, he gladly left to Bel. But if he looked after the money, everything else would fall into place. Even the goats.
“Sir, you owe me a debt.”
Sophia dodged Mr. Grayson’s elbow as he wheeled to face her. She had him right where she wanted him. With the mast directly behind him, and rigging to either side, he had nowhere to escape.
“Mr. Grayson.” She took a deep breath and clenched one hand into a fist at her side. The other hand she raised into the space between them, brandishing a sheet of clean parchment. “You—and your goat—owe me two leaves of high-quality paper. Heavy stock, free of markings. I expect restitution.”
He rubbed one palm along his jaw, then slid it back to cup his neck. “
“Paper?” One eyebrow arched as he took in her disheveled appearance.
“You’re all worked up over a few sheets of paper?”
Suddenly self-conscious under his gaze, Sophia smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear. After the theft of her paper and the humiliation of landing in a farmyard tangle, she had relied upon her indignation to shield her from Mr. Grayson’s charms. Perhaps she had overestimated the protective quality of pique.
Although she still wore the same bedraggled garment she’d been wearing since the moment of their introduction, he’d changed his attire. His tailored navy-blue topcoat and buff trousers were the height of fashion. His unruly waves of hair had been tamed with a touch of pomade, and the light growth of beard only increased his roguish good looks. The sole defect in his appearance remained the scuffed boots, which had now suffered all manner of abuse, from saltwater to sickness.
He looked unforgivably handsome. The sheet of paper crumpled in Sophia’s grip. Drat him, now he owed her three.
“Paper,” he repeated.
“Yes, paper. It may be just ‘a few sheets of paper’ to you, but to me, it’s… well, it’s paper.” Sophia was painfully aware of how idiotic she sounded.
“I have a very limited supply, you see, and it’s simply too dear to be wasted on livestock.”
“I see.” His brows knit together as he stared at the sheet in her hand.
“No, you don’t.” Sophia felt tears pricking the corners of her eyes. Of all the absurd occasions to cry. She’d told herself she could leave everything else behind—her family, her friends, her belongings—so long as she had her art. Only now she found herself missing everything else a bit more than she’d planned, and to have her creative outlet threatened by this, this beast
—not to mention his goat … She sniffed fiercely. “Of course, you don’t see. How could you? You’re thinking it’s just a bit of paper, but it isn’t at all. It’s…”
“It’s paper.”
Blinking back her tears, Sophia turned to stare resolutely at the horizon.
“Yes, precisely.”
“Now, sweetheart, where’s that lacy little handkerchief when you need it?”
After a furtive swipe at her eyes, Sophia crossed her arms.
“Ho there, boy!” A sharp voice cut through their conversation. “Go aloft and set the fore royal.”
“Aye, aye, Mr. Brackett.”
A youth about Sophia’s height hurried between them and paused at the base of the rigging. She recognized him as the boy who’d removed the unwelcome goat from her cabin.
“First time then, Davy?” Mr. Grayson asked.
The youth swallowed audibly. “First time at sea, sir.”
Mr. Grayson clapped him on the shoulder. “Just take your time. The royal’s not nearly so tricky as the topgallant—it’s higher, but there’s no need to go out on the yardarm. Stick to the rigging. Keep your feet on the ropes and your eyes on your hands, and you’ll be fine.”
The lad nodded. He mounted a part of the rigging that formed a tarred, narrow ladder and began to climb, his face grim. Sophia watched, breathless, as he quickly gained the first of the perpendicular beams that held each of the Aphrodite’s square-rigged sails. There, some twenty feet above the deck, he reached a sort of railing that surrounded the mast, where he paused before resuming his climb.
“That’s it, Davy,” Mr. Grayson called. “Look lively, then.”
The boy moved on to a new set of tiered ropes and resumed climbing.
“How far up does he have to go?” Sophia cupped a hand over her eyes.
“To the royal yard.” Mr. Grayson met her puzzled expression. “All the way.”
She tilted her head back and let her gaze follow the mast skyward. She couldn’t discern whether she actually glimpsed the top, or whether the towering column simply faded into the distance. The prospect was dizzying.
“But that’s so high!” She blinked up at the mast again. “And on his second day at sea?”
“Exactly. If he’s to be a sailor, he must become accustomed to the feel of the rigging and the motion of the ship. The officers do him no favors if they coddle him at the outset.”
Sophia looked up again. Davy had reached the next yard. He paused there for some moments, clinging to the rigging. He was only halfway to the top of the mast, yet so high she could no longer distinguish the features of his face. The mast swayed back and forth with each pitch of the ship.
“What if he falls?” she asked, swallowing hard.
Mr. Grayson shrugged. “From where he’s at now? He’d be a mite banged up, but he’d live.”
“From the royal yard?”
“Well, then he’d likely die. Whether he hit the deck or the sea, it wouldn’t much matter. But don’t worry, sweetheart. He won’t fall.”
Just then, Davy’s boot slipped in its foothold. The boy caught himself quickly, but not before Sophia gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth. The sheet of crumpled paper fell from her grasp. It never hit the deck. Mr. Grayson snagged it easily between his first finger and thumb. He smoothed the sheet against his embroidered waistcoat before handing it back.
“Wouldn’t want to waste another sheet of paper,” he said with a slight smile. “But you see, sweetheart—we sailors catch on quickly. A sailor with slow reflexes is a dead sailor.”
Sophia looked back up to the rigging. She and Mr. Grayson weren’t the only ones watching Davy’s progress. From the mainmast, bow, helm—all eyes were fixed on the boy. The crewmen watched his ascent with great interest and whispered speculation, as though it were a horse race or a prizefight.
When Davy reached the next yard, a clamor of approval rose up from the deck. “That’s the topgallant now, boy,” a burly sailor called out. “Almost home!”
When the boy hesitated, clinging to the mast, Mr. Grayson cupped his hands around his mouth. “Get on with it then, Davy! The goats are getting lonesome!”
The youth began the last, most perilous section of his climb. Sophia could not bear to watch any longer. She focused on the planks beneath her feet instead, and then—when the suspense became too great to tolerate—she let her gaze slide to Mr. Grayson’s hand where it hung at his side. Sophia kept her eyes trained on that hand—the strong, sculpted fingers, the palm ridged with callus. With that hand, he’d caught her handkerchief, the paper, and Sophia herself on more than one occasion. If Davy stumbled, surely that hand would reflexively move to catch him. She stared at his hand because she knew—so long as it dangled loose at Mr. Grayson’s side, the boy was safe.
She was safe.
Oh, no. Where had that thought come from? An absurdity, that. He was dangerous, Sophia reminded herself. He could expose her deceits and force her back to a miserable existence, and she, who could recite falsehoods effortlessly to dukes and doormen alike, lost all power to dissemble whenever he drew near. And yet, despite all this—or perhaps because of it?—standing in his broad shadow, Sophia began to feel strangely safe. Protected.
She shook herself. It would seem seasickness or Mr. Grayson’s teasing, or most likely both, had rendered her completely nonsensical. Logic demanded she flee to the cabin that instant and remove herself from the influence of that potent, self-assured charm.