“I am two-and-thirty this coming year. Miss Turner.”
“From whence do you hail?”
Gray eased back in his chair. “I was born and raised on Tortola, as you know. The Grayson family tree is rooted in Wiltshire. My grandfather was a gentleman of some standing, and my father was his typically wayward second son. For his sins, which were legion, my father was exiled to Clarendon—that was the name of our plantation—to mend his dissolute ways.”
“And did he?”
“What do you think?” He reclined in his seat, propping one boot on the table between them.
A smile tugged at her lips. “How many siblings have you, Mr. Grayson?”
“In truth, I could not say. My father’s acknowledged children number three. I have one brother, whom you have met, and one sister, whom you have not. We are all of different mothers. So to answer your earlier question, it would seem the West Indies proved an ineffective remedy for dissolution.” He watched her for signs of shock or displeasure. Her brow, however, remained as placid as this godforsaken sea.
“I know your father is …”
“Dead.”
She cleared her throat. “Yes, dead. Is your mother still living?”
“No. She died when I was an infant. I’ve no memory of her at all.”
A single crease scored her forehead. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
The words simply rolled off his tongue, uttered with no particular inflection or intent. But Miss Turner snapped to attention. Gray fought the urge to fidget under her scrutiny.
“Yes,” she said, a note of defiance in her voice. “I am sorry. It’s a tragic thing, to have no memory of your mother.”
Gray shrugged. “Better than having some memory of her, and feeling the pain of the loss.”
“Do you truly believe it’s better?”
He frowned and tugged at his ear.
“I didn’t think so.”
Gray put a hand on the armrest and shifted his weight. Perhaps allowing this interrogation hadn’t been such a brilliant idea after all. Miss Turner was supposed to be the one growing uncomfortable, not him.
“Brown or white?” She propped her chin in one hand and stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“Bread, Mr. Grayson. Given a choice, do you take brown bread or white?”
He chuckled. “Brown, if there’s butter. If not, white.”
“Ale or grog?”
“Ale. Chased with brandy.” Not a bad idea, he thought, reaching into his coat for his flask. He unscrewed the cap and lifted it to his lips.
“Have you ever stolen anything, Mr. Grayson?”
He froze, looking at her over the flask. With deliberate slowness, he tipped it back until the fiery liquor spread down his throat. Then he wiped his mouth, recapped the flask, and replaced it carefully in his breast pocket.
“Of course.”
She tilted her head and raised one eyebrow, inviting him to elaborate.
“Where shall I begin? With the typical childhood petty thievery?
Pineapples, chickens, my father’s stickpin … I could go on for several minutes there. Shall I detail for you all the dozens of ships I’ve boarded, the boatloads of precious cargo I’ve seized? Privateering is sanctioned thievery, perhaps, but theft nonetheless.” He drummed one finger lightly on the tabletop. “I’ve made stealing a way of life, Miss Turner. I could go on about it for hours. How much elaboration do you care to hear?”
She paused a moment, considering. “You’re not ashamed to own to it, then. Your thievery.”
“In most cases, no. I’m not.”
“Then in some cases, you are? What is it you’re ashamed of stealing, Mr. Grayson?”
Gray wrestled with her clear, unwavering gaze. Dare he make the confession? It would serve his purpose well, expose him for the blackguard he was. The girl ought to know just what sort of man she regarded. Then maybe she’d cease looking at him with those trusting eyes, expecting things of him she had no right to expect. Expecting things he had no way or means of giving.
Dropping his gaze to the floor, he rubbed a thumb across his lower lip. “I stole my brother’s inheritance.” His own voice sounded strange, oddly hollow. His whole body felt oddly hollow. “Twice.”
“Well,” she said. He glanced up to find that her expression held not disdain or shock, as he might have expected. As such an admission deserved. Rather, she looked intrigued.
“The pineapples and chickens, the dozens of ships …” She traced a groove in the tabletop with her finger. “All these I can easily imagine. But stealing an inheritance … twice? However did you manage that?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve no pressing engagements.”
“I was in England, on break from Oxford, summering in Wiltshire at my grandfather’s estate. We received word that my father had died. My grandfather took the news hard. I think the old man always held out hope that his prodigal son would one day make good, return to the fold. When that hope was extinguished …” Gray cleared his throat. “He suffered an apoplexy within the week and never recovered.”
She made a small, crooning noise in the back of her throat. “You lost your father and your grandfather in the space of one week?”
“No. My father had already been dead for two months.”
“Yes, but still. You’d only just learned of it.” She hugged herself. Gray frowned as she stroked her shoulder, inflaming his own long-buried hurt even as she soothed herself. Damn it, she was supposed to be reviling him, not pitying him. And certainly not sympathizing with him. “Do you want me to finish the story or not?”
“I’m sorry. Go on.”
He spoke briskly now, as if conducting a business transaction. “My grandfather left Clarendon to my father. In the event my father was no longer living, the lands were to be divided between my father’s male children.”
“You and Captain Grayson.”
“Yes.” He leaned forward over the table. “But you see, sweetheart, they didn’t know about Joss. I gather my father neglected to mention his half-African by-blow in his annual estate report. The solicitors had no idea.”
“But if he’s illegitimate … Would he have stood to inherit at all?”
He turned his hand palm side up and studied the blunt, clipped edges of his fingernails. “Perhaps not. No way to tell without explaining matters to the executors.”
“And you didn’t.” Her eyes turned from curious to piercing. “You accepted the lands, and then you sold them. Without asking your brother.”
Gray nodded.
“Did you divide the proceeds with him, after the fact?”
“No. I bought this ship and had it fitted for privateering. It was all in my name, but I promised him we would split the proceeds after the war.”
“And did you?”
Gray shook his head. “No. I gave him what share he earned as first mate, and not a penny more. I took the rest, bought a house in London, and started Grayson Shipping.”
“Grayson Shipping,” she repeated. “Not Grayson Brothers Shipping.”
“Grayson Shipping. The ships, the investment, the risks, the profit—it’s all mine. I am my brother’s employer, not his partner.”
“My goodness.” She sat back in her chair, still regarding him intently.
“Yes, I think you are rightly ashamed.” And there it was. The prim face of censure he’d been seeking. A strange sense of satisfaction descended on him. Divine justice, perhaps. Other men, better men, confessed their sins to priests and saints, but Gray had chosen for his confessor this governess. The most beautiful woman he’d ever set eyes on, in all his years of chasing pleasure from one horizon to the next. The only woman to stir this desperate yearning in his breast. And this was his penance—to watch her shrink back into her chair, to see those clear eyes glaze with mistrust as she at last recognized him for the devil he was.
Yes, this was his due. And she wasn’t finished yet, his petite, austere inquisitor. No, there was so much sin yet to be revealed.
“Go on, then,” he prompted.
She gave him a quizzical look.
“Conclude the interrogation, sweetheart. You’ve more questions to ask.”
She stared hard into a corner of the cabin. “Are you married, Mr. Grayson?”
“No. I’m not the marrying sort.”
“Have you had many sw—” She paused. “Many sweethearts, then?”
“Yes. Many.”
She winced, almost imperceptibly, but he felt it like a flick of the lash. Still, she turned to meet his eyes again. Brave girl.
Ask it, he urged silently. Make the confession complete.
“And how many lovers, Mr. Grayson?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I couldn’t say.”
“I’m afraid that answer’s not an option.” Sophia smiled and rapped the table with her fist, grateful for the chance to tease. “Truth or eels, Mr. Grayson.”
He did not smile back. “I tell you most truthfully, Miss Turner—I couldn’t say. I lost count years ago. It’s been fifteen years since I tumbled my first tavern wench. And in those fifteen years, I’ve traveled three seas and four continents, sampling the ladies in every port. If it’s a number you require, then you count them. I can’t.”
Sophia blinked, waiting for that devilish, teasing grin to appear. But it didn’t. He wasn’t teasing at all.
She hadn’t been under any illusions that he led a life of chastity. But for a shrewd tradesman, who lived his life by numbers and amounts, to lose count … the actual number must be great indeed. The man sitting across the table from her had bedded countless women, from every corner of the globe. The thought repulsed her and, in some shameful way, thrilled her. But most of all, it disappointed her. Regret stung her somewhere between the shoulder blades, and her spine stiffened.
“Well,” she said finally, unable to mask the bitterness in her voice. “It’s a miracle you’re not dead of the pox.”
“It’s not a miracle. It’s a combination of caution and sheepgut.”
“More to your credit, then. And here you’ve remained seemingly hale and stout, despite fifteen years of such strenuous exertion. A remarkable feat. No wonder you seem so proud of your exploits.”
“Do I?” His jaw tightened.
“With good health, you may have every expectation of de cades of further debauchery.”
“Sweetheart, that’s my greatest fear.”
“Which part? The good health, or the debauchery?”
“The de cades.”
Sophia studied his face. Fidgeting under her scrutiny, he lowered his gaze and scratched the thick growth of beard along his jaw. She’d been wrong, she realized. He did not take pride in his exploits at all. “What about love?”
He did not look up. “What about it?”
“The many sweethearts, the countless lovers … How many of them did you love, Mr. Grayson?”
He linked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. “Every last one of them, sweet. Every last one.”
Sophia rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s the same as saying none.”
He shrugged and continued to stare up at the ceiling. “Is it?”
Another question perched on the tip of her tongue. Sophia hesitated, then asked it anyway. “And did any of them love you?”
He leveled a cool gaze at her. “Only the fools.” There was such pride there in his eyes, mingled with such pain.
Then, suddenly, his fist crashed to the tabletop. Sophia jumped in her seat.
“I think it’s time I asked the questions, don’t you?” He rose to his feet and began pacing the cabin. “I know your name already, Miss Jane Turner.”