“It is.”
Silence. His heart thumped against her palm.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she finally whispered.
“I want to,” he replied, surprised to find it was the truth. How could he expect her to share her own secrets, if he withheld his? “But it’s a long story.”
“We have all night.” He cocked his head and frowned up at her. “When I went to the galley, I told O’Shea you were ill,” she admitted through a grin. “He’ll not disturb us until they sight land.”
He rolled onto his side and propped himself on one elbow, uncertain whether to scold or kiss her. She solved the dilemma by kissing him first, then nestling into the bed beside him.
“You need rest,” she whispered, drawing his head to her shoulder. “Between keeping watch and keeping a mistress, you’ve scarcely slept in a week.”
“You’re not my mistress, you’re my future wife.”
“We’re not married yet. And don’t spoil my fun. It’s my last chance to be anyone’s mistress.”
A savage joy swelled his heart. He wrapped an arm about her waist. “Yes, it is.”
Gray held her in silence, considering the story he meant to tell. It was a story he scarcely understood himself, and he realized he would be relating it for his own benefit more than for hers. “You will have gathered that Joss’s mother was my father’s mistress. One of his mistresses, at any rate. She was a slave.”
“I see.” She stroked his hair.
“From the beginning, my father acknowledged Joss openly as his son. This was after my own mother’s death, and before his bastards numbered so many as to make acknowledging them impractical. We were raised as brothers, during the day. Played together, dined together, took our lessons together. By night I stayed in the house, and Joss went to his mother in her quarters.”
He frowned. “It’s so odd now, to remember how I envied him. He had all the same privileges I enjoyed, with none of the expectations. To me, Joss seemed at home everywhere. It was only much later that I realized the opposite was true.”
Pausing, he scrubbed a hand over his freshly shaven face. “It should not have been surprising, I suppose, that he grew to resent me. But it was. When my father talked of sending me back to England, to university—all I wished was to trade places with Joss and stay at home. All he wished was to have the chance to go. We argued all the time, and came to blows more than once.”
“But such is the way between siblings,” she interjected. “My sister and I quarreled constantly at that age.”
“I suppose you’re right. In the end, it was another fight that drew the line between us. On his way home from town one night, Joss found himself on the wrong side of some drunken louts. They decided it was time to put my brother in his place, so they beat and branded him.”
Her hand froze in his hair. “Branded him?”
“It was done to slaves at one time, burning the owner’s mark into their shoulder. A repulsive practice—not that slavery itself is not a repulsive practice in its own right. Branding has been out of favor on Tortola for generations, but Joss’s attackers decided to resurrect the tradition.” A wave of nausea rolled through him at the memory of his brother lying prostrate in his recovery bed for days on end. The odor of charred flesh giving way to the sickly smell of infection, then the sweet stench of laudanum overpowering all. These parts of the story, he would not share.
“Dear God.” She resumed stroking his hair.
“I was due to leave for England before he’d fully recovered. I sat by his sickbed and promised him, when I had my own money I would come back for him and Bel, and we would all have the same luxuries, the same opportunities. We would share everything.”
“Did that make him feel better?”
Gray smirked. “He told me to go to the devil. Mind, he was drugged and in pain, but it still killed me. I got roaring drunk, wildly sick, and then roaring drunk again. I didn’t know how to convince him and remind myself that despite everything, we were brothers.”
She gave a little gasp. Her hand left his hair and went to cover the scar. “Oh, Gray. You did this to yourself?”
He blew out a sigh. “Never underestimate the power of liquor and maudlin sentiment on an adolescent boy. I was so stupid. Botched the whole business. It had to be my chest, since I couldn’t very well reach my own shoulder. Didn’t heat the iron long enough, and of course my hand shook like a palm frond in a hurricane.” He pushed her hand aside and traced the blurred, irregular pattern with his own fingertips. “God, did it hurt. Hurt all the way to England. It reminded me, all right. Reminded me that I should never have left. I felt so damned guilty for leaving him behind, I couldn’t even bring myself to go to Oxford when we arrived. Stayed on that ship for more than a year.
“When I did finally go to England, it only made matters worse. I saw the life my father’s family should have had. Society, wealth, rank, privilege. Not some nigh-on-biblical exile in a land of slavery and pestilence. I wanted—
needed
—to rebuild the fortune our father squandered. I hadn’t a clue how to atone for his moral failings, much less correct my own. But I knew how to make a profit, and that’s what I did. I wanted to give my brother and sister all the comforts and security they’d been denied.”
His hand curled into a fist over his heart. “And how did I go about it? By breaking every promise I’d ever made. By denying my brother, taking his inheritance, selling his family’s home out from under them, and dragging Joss out on the sea with me.”
“To become privateers.”
“We did have an unholy good time.” Gray’s lips curved in a cold smile. “We were like boys again, only armed with men’s weapons: cannons, cynicism, anger at the world. France and England and America could blow one another to bits. We were there to collect the spoils. Toward the end of the war, we started planning Grayson Brothers Shipping. We’d set up offices in England, build more ships—bring Bel to London for her schooling and debut. We were supposed to be equal partners.”
“So what happened?”
“Love, inconvenient thing that it is. Joss married Mara, got her with child. They didn’t want to travel, so I went ahead to England and started building the business, gathering investors. Came back just in time to witness Jacob’ s birth, then Mara’s death. Suddenly, Joss wanted nothing to do with the shipping business. Demanded his share of the prize to buy land on Tortola, of all places, and then just give it away.”
Sophia frowned. “Give it away?”
“It was Bel’s idea, a sugar cooperative. This is what happens when a girl’s only friends are missionaries. The Quakers and Methodists have been buying up plantations and dividing them into smaller farms, for freedmen to make their own livelihood. The cooperative bit was Joss’s notion—by sharing the cost and labor of refining the sugar, they might be able to eke out a profit.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”
“No, it doesn’t. It
sounds
like a bloody saintly idea. But in practice … it’s a tremendous risk. And the farming life—it’s hard, it’s poor. It’s less than they deserve.” Gray swore into the night. “After all that time, all that work and sacrifice—to end right back where we’d started? I couldn’t let Joss do it. I left.”
“And took the money with you.”
“He’ll thank me eventually. Mara’s death made my brother too cautious, that’s all. Once he’s been out on the sea long enough, he’ll come around.” He sat up in bed. “And I don’t care if my sister claims she’s happy dressing in rags and playing ministering Quaker. She is going to London for the most extravagant debut the
ton
has ever seen, and she will wear silk in every damned color of the rainbow. I didn’t spend the past ten years lying, cheating, and stealing just so my brother and sister could continue on in the same miserable exile our father gave us. Damn it, I sold my soul for this.”
“Shhh.” She sat up behind him, draping her arms around his shoulders. “It ’s all right.”
“It’s not. Nothing’s right. I’ve never done a right thing in my life, it seems.”
“That makes a pair of us then.” Her lips pressed against the spot under his ear. “But I believe we are right together, don’t you? People like us … we have no talent for following rules. We can only follow our hearts. I’ve wronged people as well, but is it horribly wicked that I can’t bring myself to regret it? It brought me to you.”
He took one of her hands and kissed it. “You’re so young, you can’t know the meaning of true regret. It’s never what you’ve done, love, it’s what you’ ve left undone.”
He leaned against her, sighing into the comforting heat of her breasts. “I’ll take you to Italy, sweetheart, I promise it. To Egypt and India, too, if you like. But it will have to wait until after Bel’s season. I’ve put aside a dowry for her, enough to offset our provenance. We do come from gentry, and her mother was my father’s second wife, so Bel isn’t illegitimate. My aunt’s agreed to help bring her out. And if being the well-dowered niece of a duchess isn’t enough to turn heads, there is the fact that she’s the second-most beautiful lady in the world.”
Sliding from her embrace, Gray turned to face her. His compliment seemed to have bounced off her puzzled expression.
“Your aunt is a duchess?” she asked, her brow creasing. “Which one?”
“Oh, not a royal one. Camille Marie Augusta Glaston D’Hiver, Her Grace, the Duchess of Aldonbury. You’re forgiven for never having heard of her.” He leaned forward to kiss her neck. “Talent or no, it’s time for me to follow the rules. I’ll go to London and play their little game, attend their balls and parties, host a few of my own. Dress head to toe in the latest fashions, whether they suit me or not.”
“What about me?”
“Oh, I’ll be unfashionably faithful to you.” He brushed her elegantly sloped nose with one fingertip. “Don’t vex yourself, sweet. We’ll tell everyone you’ re the daughter of a West Indian planter. I don’t suppose you’ll have much difficulty adopting the role.”
She did not return his smile. “But Gray … what if I told you I don’t want to go to London, don’t want to play their little game?”
“Then I’d convince you otherwise.” Giving her his best devilish grin, he leaned in to kiss her.
She put a hand to his chest, stopping him. “What if I told you I
can’t?”
“Of course you can.” He pressed a firm kiss to her lips, shushing her objections. “And you will, for me. I must ask it of you. After Bel’s settled and Joss assumes the partnership, then the world is ours to explore. But I have to see this through first, or …” He stroked her cheek. “Or I’ve done it all for nothing.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Not for nothing, Gray. You did it for them. And no matter what occurs, I’m certain they know it.”
“I wish I had that certainty.”
“You may borrow mine.” She laid a hand on his cheek, her eyes dewy. “I’ m certain they know how much you love them.”
For a moment, he feared she would cry. For a moment, he was mortally terrified that if she did, he would join her.
Then she cocked her head, and a knowing smile balanced out her poignant gaze. With a cheerful sniff, she straddled his lap and pushed back on his shoulders.
“Now.” The word was a promising murmur as she pushed him back against the bed. “Let me show you how much I love you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The dawn was cruel.
Sophia watched daylight creep across her beloved, stealing him from her with rosy fingers, one inch at a time. Sitting in the captain’s chair, legs folded under her shift, she regarded Gray as he slept. He lay prostrate on the bed, the linens twisted about his body, one forearm draped over his eyes. It was the same position he’d lain in all night, since their lovemaking sent him into sleep.
When his seed had filled her, she’d sent up a silent prayer that it would take root. If she conceived, all choice would be taken from her. She couldn’ t leave him if she carried his child; she knew he wouldn’t leave her. He would be forced to reconsider his plans in London, but the joy of a child might mitigate his disappointment. Life would write a different ending for them than either had imagined, but it might have been a happy one.
If only she’d conceived.
She’d held him inside her until she felt his gentle snores lifting his chest under hers. Then, leaving him to his well-earned rest, she rose quietly to perform her ablutions. And that was when she’d begun to bleed.
An hour’s worth of silent, racking sobs later, Sophia curled into the chair and attempted to think.
Whatever was she going to do? How could she begin to tell Gray the truth? Perhaps she might start with that amusing tale of the red-faced bank clerk, how she’d charmed him into releasing five hundred pounds from her trust. She still suspected he’d have a good laugh at that.
But then she would have to tell him the source of her remaining one hundred. That it had been won at cards, and a fair bit of it at the Duchess of Aldonbury’s own table. Should she tell Gray she’d been at school with his cousins? Stayed as a guest more than once in their family home? By now, Her Grace would have heard the sordid, albeit false, story of her elopement. She, like every other lady of the
ton
, would cut Sophia from her acquaintance as a matter of social necessity.
For Sophia, there could be no pretending, no adopting the role of a West Indian planter’s daughter. Even if she could stomach the thought of further deceit—and she was not certain she could, even for Gray—if ever she returned to London, she would be a pariah. Her ruin would be a contagion to anyone connected with her.