“I see.” Joss looked around at the assembled sailors, his demeanor suddenly grave. He rose to his feet, pulling his cuffs straight. “Stubb, tend to Quinn.” He turned to the shirtless sailors. “Levi, O’Shea. Show Mr. Brackett his new quarters in the brig. Gray—” He tilted his head toward Sophia. “Get her belowdecks. And keep her there.”
Mr. Grayson nodded.
Levi and O’Shea took the snarling Brackett between them, one on either arm, and together they herded him down into the hold. As they passed, Sophia gasped. Levi’s back was a gnarled mass of healed scars, braided one over the other in the middle, branching out toward both shoulders. She wondered, were they the result of his permanent silence, or the cause?
“Come, sweetheart. You need to rest.” Mr. Grayson’s hand pressed against the small of her back.
Sophia shook her head. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horror that was Levi’s back. Not until he disappeared belowdecks. “I thought you said you don’t permit flogging.”
“I don’t. That’s why.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Miss Turner went limp in his arms. Gray thought for a moment she’d swooned. But when he looked down at her, he found only thick-fringed eyes gazing back up at him, swimming with confusion and unshed tears. She hadn’t fainted at all. She’d simply fallen against him and trusted him to catch her.
Behind him, Joss barked orders to the crew, and to Mr. Wiggins, now first mate. The men scurried back to their stations. Still, the two of them stood there, her back pressing flat and warm against his chest. Gray wrapped his arms about her and steered her toward the companionway. Shoring up her slender frame with an arm about her waist, he guided Miss Turner down the stairs and into the ladies’ cabin.
And then came the moment to ease her into a chair. But he found he didn’t want to release her. She fit so perfectly against him, and he suddenly allowed himself to feel how very much he’d been yearning to do exactly this. Hold her close. Hold her tight. Not let go.
Together they leaned against the doorframe. One of them was shaking, and Gray worried it might be him.
She leaned her head against his arm. “I knew you’d put a stop to it. I tried, but I only made matters worse. But I knew they’d listen to you. They all listen to you. And I knew you’d never allow such a thing to continue.”
Good Lord, Gray thought. Here he held this woman in his arms while she made him out to be some sort of … not a saint, exactly, but a man possessing a shred of honor. And all the while she trembled against his body, soft and damp and warm, never suspecting the dozens of ways in which he longed to dishonor them both.
Would she still allow him to hold her like this, encircled in his arms, her backside pressed against his swelling groin, if she could read his thoughts?
If she knew that when she tilted her head to bury her face in his sleeve, she gave him a direct view of the alabaster curve of her neck, the carved ivory of her collarbone, and the exquisite image that would haunt his dreams—the soft, rose-scented valley between her breasts?
God, what a lecherous bastard he was.
He’d been ashamed of many things in his life, but never before had he felt so ashamed simply to be a man, a part of this violent, brutish race of creatures who flogged one another, beat helpless boys with marline-spikes, and lusted after unsuspecting governesses while they were overset with emotion. This woman was bred for better things, deserved better things. Better than this ship, this life. Better than a base, craving creature like him.
“You should sit down.” He brought his hands to her shoulders and guided her to a chair.
She sank into it slowly, folding her hands on the table in front of her. Well, and now what? He certainly couldn’t leave her alone in this state. Her eyes were dark hollows in an ashen face; her lips quivered.
Gray paced the cabin. He couldn’t comfort her without mauling her. He couldn’t go abovedecks and put his crew to rights, because they weren’t his crew to command.
Impotent. He’d been rendered impotent, in more ways than one. Gray nearly laughed with the realization. It was not a sensation he’d ever thought to experience, in any sense of the word. Coupled with this heat … he would go mad with frustration. He rubbed his hand under his collar, then made a fist and punched the wall.
“What will happen to Mr. Brackett?” Her voice was flat, remote.
“He’ll stay in the ship’s brig until we dock.”
She gave him a blank look.
“It’s a jail,” he explained. “More of a cage, really. Down in the hold.”
“A cage? How horrible.”
“It’s for his own safety, as much as anything. What he did … it wasn’t any worse than what officers on other ships do every day. But now that he’s no longer an officer, the sailors might be tempted to exact revenge.”
“Why did you dismiss him from duty, then? Why not let him remain an officer until we reach Tortola?”
“Even if Brackett’s actions had been justified, I couldn’t have kept him in the post. He’s lost all authority with the crew now. My interference assured that.”
“It’s all my fault.” Her voice shrank. “I’m so sorry.”
“No.” She jumped, and Gray bit the inside of his cheek. Bloody hell. Hadn’t she seen enough coarseness today, without him losing all sense of civility? He forced his emotions back down to a simmer. “Don’t be sorry. You were right to help. You were right to fetch me.”
She relaxed, and Gray resumed prowling the cabin. “What the devil was Davy doing up there with a marlinespike? That’s what I’d like to know. It’s a sailor’s duty.”
She put her head in her hands. “I’m afraid that’s my fault, too. I’d been talking to him about moving up to the forecastle, and I … I think he wanted to impress me.”
Gray choked on a laugh. “Well, of course he did. You ought to take care how you bat those eyelashes, sweetheart. One of these days, you’re likely to knock a man overboard.”
The legs of her chair scraped the floor as she stood. The color returned to her cheeks. “If Davy was trying to impress me, it’s as much your fault as mine.”
“How is that my fault?” Gray’s frustration came right back to a boil. He hated himself for growling at her, but he couldn’t seem to help it.
“You’re the one who humiliated him in front of the crew, with all those questions. You goaded him into saying he … well, you know what he said.”
“Yes, I know what he said.” Gray stepped toward her until only the table separated them. “I know what he said. And don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it. Don’t pretend you don’t use those men to feed your vanity.”
“My vanity? What would you know about feeding my vanity? You don’t so much as breathe in my direction. At least the sailors speak to me. And if that entire ‘King of the Sea’ display wasn’t one long exercise in feeding your own vanity, I’m sure I don’t know what is.” She jabbed one finger on the tabletop and lowered her voice. “Those men may flirt with me, but they worship you. You know it. You wanted to feel it. Bask in it. And you did so at Davy’s expense.”
“At least I only teased the boy. I’m not the one poised to break his heart.”
She blinked. “It’s only infatuation. He’s not really in love with me.”
He pounded the table. “Of course the boy’s in love with you! They all are. You talk to them, you listen to their stories—even Wiggins’s prattling, God only knows why. You draw them little sketches, you make them paintings for Christmas. You remind them of everything they’ve left behind, everything they pray they’ll one day hold again. And you do it all looking like some sort of Botticelli goddess, surely the most beautiful thing they’ve ever laid eyes on. Damn it, how’s a man to keep from falling in love with you?”
Silence.
She stared at him.
She blinked.
Her lips parted, and she drew a quick breath.
Say something, Gray silently pleaded. Anything. But she only stared at him. What the hell had he just said? Was it truly that bad? He frowned, reliving the past minute in his mind.
Oh, God. Gray rubbed his face with one hand, then gave a sharp tug on his hair. It was that bad. Damn it to hell. If Joss were here, he’d have a good laugh at his expense.
“Have you …”
“Have I what?” Gray prompted, promptly kicking himself for doing so. God only knew what she’d ask now. Or what damn fool thing he’d say in response.
“Have you ever seen a Botticelli? Painting, I mean. A real one, in person?”
The breath he’d been holding whooshed out of him. “Yes.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “What was it like?”
“I …” His hand gestured uselessly. “I haven’t words to describe it.”
“Try.”
Her eyes were too clear, too piercing. He swallowed and shifted his gaze to a damp lock of hair curling at her temple. “Perfect. Luminous. So beautiful, your chest aches. And so smooth, like glass. Your fingers itch to touch it.”
“But you can’t.”
“No,” he said quietly, his gaze sliding back to meet hers. “It isn’t allowed.”
“And you care what others will allow?” She took a step toward him, her fingers trailing along the grooved tabletop. “What if you were alone, and there was no one to see? Would you touch it then?”
Gray shook his head and dropped his gaze to his hands. “It’s not …” He paused, picking over his words like fruits in an island market. Testing and discarding twice as many as he chose. “There’s a varnish, you see. Some sort of gloss. If I touched it with these rough hands, I’d mar it somehow. Make it a bit less beautiful. Couldn’t live with myself then.”
“So—” She leaned one hip against the table’s edge, making her whole body one sinuous, sweeping curve. Gray sucked in a lungful of heat. “It isn’t the rules that prevent you.”
“Not really. No.”
Silence again. Vast and echoing, like the long, marble-tiled galleries of the Uffizi.
And then, at last: “It’s still your fault.”
“What is?”
“Everything. Davy. Of course he wants to prove himself now. How did you expect him to react, asking him all of those questions? Grilling him in front of all the crew, in front of me?” She wilted into the chair. “You should have known better. You should have done better.”
There she went again, appealing to his hypothetical sense of honor. Pulling at her neckline as she did it, sending jolts of desire straight to his groin. Confirming he’d no true honor at all.
“I mean, how would you feel, your whole life exposed like that in front of all those men?”
“The men respect me because they know I’ve been through it, too. Just like all of them received the same treatment once. No secrets between sailors, Miss Turner. Unlike some”—he threw her a glance—“I’ve nothing to hide.”
“Is that so?” Her gaze sharpened.
Gray nodded.
“Well, then. What is your name?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. So this was her game, was it? Very well. If she wished to question him, he would answer. She was free to learn every vile, brutish thing about him. That would teach her to appeal to some imaginary sense of decency. “Benedict Adolphus Percival Grayson. The same as my father’s.”
“I thought you said there was only one woman permitted to address you by your Christian name.”
“And it’s still the truth. Don’t get excited, sweetheart. I’ve not given you leave to use it. You may, however, call me Gray.” Please, he added silently. She shook her head. “What is your age, Mr. Grayson?”