Surrender of a Siren by Tessa Dare Read Free Book Online Page B

flick of a fan. “You shouldn’t tease, Mr. Grayson. It isn’t at all charitable.”
    “Ah, but I’m a tradesman. I’m interested in profit, not charity. And I asked you to call me Gray.” He leaned closer, and now—at this diminished distance—Sophia would have sworn his eyes were not green at all, but a pale blue.
    Piercing blue.
    “You have money, don’t you?”
    Her mouth went dry. He knew . From the handkerchief? It must be too fine, too embellished. Obviously it belonged to a lady of wealth. Curse it. If only Sophia had had more time to plan her escape, she would have managed a better disguise. It had been difficult enough to leave her painstakingly selected trousseau behind and take only her everyday linens.
    She hadn’t had time to assemble a coarser wardrobe, nor even any notion of where the poorer classes shopped.
    “I beg your pardon?” Her fingers tightened around the rapidly cooling tankard.
    “Money. You do have money, don’t you? You never paid your fare yesterday. It’s six pounds, eight. If you haven’t the coin, I’ll have no choice but to hold you for ransom once we reach Tortola.”
    Her fare . Sophia sipped her tea with relief. If Mr. Grayson was this concerned over six pounds, he surely had no idea he was harboring a runaway heiress with nearly one hundred times that amount strapped beneath her stays. She suppressed a nervous laugh. “Yes, of course I can pay my passage. You’ll have your money today, Mr. Grayson.”
    “Gray.”
    “Mr. Grayson,” she said, her voice and nerves growing thin, “I scarcely think that my moment of … of indisposition gives you leave to make such an intimate request, that I address you by your Christian name. I certainly shall not.”
    He clucked softly, wrapping the handkerchief around his fingers. With hypnotic tenderness, he reached out, drawing the fabric across her temple.
    “Now, sweetheart—surely my parents can be credited with greater imagination than you imply. Christening me ‘Gray Grayson’?” He chuckled low in his throat. “Everyone aboard this ship calls me Gray. Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s no particular privilege. There’s but one woman on earth permitted to address me by my Christian name.”
    “Your mother?”
    He grinned again. “No.”
    She blinked.
    “Oh, now don’t look so disappointed,” he said. “It’s my sister.”
    Sophia slanted her gaze to her lap, cursing herself for playing into his charm. If the sight of him drove the wits from her skull, the solution was plain. She mustn’t look.
    But then he pressed the handkerchief into her hand, covering her fingers with his own, and Sophia could not retrieve the small, defeated sigh that fell from her lips. His touch devastated her resolve completely. His hand was like the rest of him. Brute strength, neatly groomed. She heartily wished she ’d thought to put on gloves.
    He leaned closer, his scent intruding through the pervasive smell of seawater—wholly masculine and faintly spicy, like pomade and rum.
    “And sweetheart, if I did make an intimate request of you”—his thumb swept boldly over the delicate skin of her wrist—“you’d know it.”
    Sophia sucked in her breath.
    “So call me Gray.” He released her hand abruptly.
    Disappointment—unbidden, imprudent, unthinkable emotion—cinched in Sophia’s chest. Distance from this man was precisely what she wished. Well, if not precisely what she wished, it was exactly what she needed. He looked at her as though he’d laid all her secrets bare, and her body as well.
    She pushed the tankard back at him, leaving him no choice but to take it from her hands. “I shall continue to address you as propriety demands, Mr. Grayson.” She cast him a sharp look. “And you certainly are not at liberty to call me ‘sweetheart.’”
    He donned an expression of wide-eyed innocence. “That isn’t what it stands for, then?” Teasing the handkerchief from her clenched fist, he ran his thumb over the