Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)

After untying the boat, Mr. Grayson wedged himself onto the narrow plank across from her and gathered the oars.

“You don’t have a boatman?” she asked. Their knees were practically touching, they sat so close together. She sat up a bit, widening the gap.

“Not at the moment.” Levering one oar, he pushed off from the dock. She frowned. Surely it wasn’t usual, for the ship’s owner and principal investor to row himself to and from the quay. Then again, surely it wasn’t usual for the ship’s owner and principal investor to have the shoulders of an ox. As he began to row in earnest, the bold, rhythmic power of his strokes entranced her. The soft splash of the oars cutting through the water, the confident motions of his hands, the way strength rippled under his coat again, and again, and again …

Sophia shook herself. This was precisely the sort of observation she ought to avoid.

With reluctance, she dragged her gaze from his muscled shoulders and settled it on a more benign prospect.

Burnt sienna. To capture the color of his hair, she would start with a base of burnt sienna, mixed with a touch of raw umber and—she mentally added, as the boat drifted through a shaft of sunlight—the faintest trace of vermillion. More umber at the temples, where sideburns glossed with pomade slicked back toward his slightly square-tipped ears. A controlled touch would be needed there, but the breeze-tossed waves atop his head invited loose, sinuous brushstrokes, layered with whispers of amber. Indian yellow, she decided, lightened with lead white.

The mental exercise calmed her nerves. These wild, mutinous passions that ruled her—Sophia might never master them, but at least she could channel them into her art.

“Was it a convent you escaped, Miss Turner?” He turned the boat with a deft pull on one oar.

“Escaped?” Her heart knocked against her hidden purse. “I’m a governess, I told you. I’m not running away, from a convent or anywhere else. Why would you ask that?”

He chuckled. “Because you’re staring at me as though you’ve never seen a man before.”

Sophia’s cheeks burned. She was staring. Worse, now she found herself powerless to turn away. What with the murky shadows of the tavern and the confusion of the quay, not to mention her own discomposure, she hadn’t taken a good, clear look at his eyes until this moment.

They defied her mental palette utterly.

The pupils were ringed with a thin line of blue. Darker than Prussian, yet lighter than indigo. Perhaps matching that dearest of pigments—the one even her father’s generous allowance did not permit—ultramarine. Yet within that blue circumference shifted a changing sea of color—green one moment, gray the next … in the shadow of a half-blink, hinting at blue.

He laughed again, and flinty sparks of amusement lit them. Yes, she was still staring.

Forcing her gaze to the side, she saw their rowboat nearing the scraped hull of a ship. She cleared her throat and tasted brine. “Forgive me, Mr. Grayson. I’m only trying to make you out. I understood you to be the ship’s captain.”

“Well,” he said, grasping a rope thrown down to him and securing it to the boat, “now you know I’m not.”

“Might I have the pleasure, then, of knowing the captain’s name?”

“Certainly,” he said, securing a second rope. “It’s Captain Grayson.”

She heard the smirk in his voice, even before she swiveled her head to confirm it. Was he teasing her? “But, you said …”

Before Sophia could phrase her question—or even decide exactly which question she meant to ask—Mr. Grayson shouted to the men aboard the ship, and the rowboat lurched skyward. A splinter gouged her palm as she gripped the seat. The boat made a swift, swaying ascent. As they reached deck level, Mr. Grayson stood. With the same sure strength he’d exhibited on the dock, he grasped her by the waist and swung her over the ship’s rail, setting her on deck and releasing her an instant too soon. Her knees wobbled. She put out a hand to grab the rail as a pair of crewmen hoisted her trunks aboard. She, and everything she owned in the world, now resided on this creaking bowl of timber and tar. The ship jogged with a passing wave, and dizziness forced her eyes closed.

“Miss Turner?”

She turned back to face Mr. Gr … or Captain … Him, whoever he was. Instead, she found herself staring into the starched cravat of a different man. A very different man.