“Wouldn’t that be the captain’s duty?”
Gray narrowed his eyes.
“And I know my duty well enough,” Gabriel continued. “It’s not as though I’m denying her food, now is it? I’m thinking Miss Turner just isn’t accustomed to the rough living aboard a ship. Used to finer fare, that one.”
Gray scowled at the hunk of cured pork under Gabriel’s mallet and the shriveled, sprouted potatoes rolling back and forth with each tilt of the ship.
“Is this the noon meal?”
“This, and biscuit.”
“I’ll order the men to trawl for a fish.”
“Wouldn’t that be the captain’s duty?” Gabriel’s tone was sly. Gray wasn’t sure whether the plume of steam swirling through the galley originated from the stove or his ears. He didn’t care for Gabriel’s flippant tone. Neither did he care for the possibility of Miss Turner’s lush curves disappearing when he’d never had any chance to appreciate them. Frustrated beyond all reason, Gray turned to leave, wrenching open the galley door with such force, the hinges creaked in protest. He took a deep breath to compose himself, resolving not to slam the door shut behind him. Gabriel stopped pounding. “Sit down, Gray. Rest your bones.”
With another rough sigh, Gray complied. He backed up two paces, slung himself onto a stool, and watched as the cook grabbed a tin cup from a hook on the wall and filled it, drawing a dipper of liquid from a small leather bucket. Then Gabriel set the cup on the table before him. Milk.
Gray stared at it. “For God’s sake, Gabriel. I’m not six years old anymore.”
The old man raised his eyebrows. “Well, seeing as how you haven’t outgrown a visit to the kitchen when you’re in a sulk, I thought maybe you’d have a taste for milk yet, too. You did buy the goats.”
Gray shook his head. He lifted the cup to his lips and sipped cautiously at first, paused, then drained the cup quickly, as if it held rum rather than goat’s milk. It coated his tongue, tasting bland and creamy and smooth. Innocent. Gray looked down at the empty cup ruefully. He wished he’d made it last a bit longer.
Gabriel took up his mallet and started pounding again, and Gray looked up sharply, about to ask the old man to leave off and find some quieter occupation. A task more conducive to … to Gray’s pondering, or yearning, or regretting, or what ever damn fool thing he’d sat down to do. But a glimpse of something fluttering behind the cook’s shoulder stole the complaint from his lips.
Another sketch—this one of Gabriel—hung on the wall above the water cask. It swiveled gently on a single tack; or rather, the paper hung plumb with gravity while the whole ship swiveled around it. She’d captured Gabriel’s toothy, inoffensive grin and the devilish gleam in his eye, and the effect of the paper’s constant, subtle rocking was to make the image come alive. Softly, strangely—the portrait of Gabriel was laughing. Gray shook himself. Laughing at him, most likely.
“She comes here?” he asked.
“Aye. That she does. Every morning.” Gabriel straightened his hunched spine and adopted a cultured tone. “We take tea.”
Gray frowned. One more place he’d have to avoid—the galley at morning teatime. “See to it that she eats something. Slip more milk in her tea. Make her treacle duff every day, if she cares for it. Are you giving her a daily ration of lime juice?”
Gabriel smiled down at the salt pork. “Yes, sir.”
“Double it.”
“Yes, sir.” Gabriel’s grin widened.
“And stop grinning, damn it.”
“Yes, sir.” The old man practically sang the words as he pounded away at the meat. “Never thought I’d live to see the day.”
CHAPTER TEN
It was Christmas Eve morning, and Sophia’s mood could only be described as morose. She sat in the cabin, which felt incongruously warm considering the holiday. Paper, inkwell, and quill sat before her on the table. By now, she’d adapted her artistic technique to the ocean’s ceaseless rolling. Her inkwell she affixed to the tabletop with a large dab of melted wax, so it could not easily be dislodged into her lap. The paper she braced under straps of leather she’d removed from her trunk and stretched over the tabletop. And as she laid quill to paper, she kept the joints of her arm and wrist loose to buffer any sudden lurch of the ship.
She’d illustrated three-quarters now of The Book, meticulously documenting the wanton dairymaid and her lover in each of their amorous attitudes. This morning, however, lewdness did not excite her. She flipped to the epilogue, wherein the gentleman proposed marriage to his lover and together they embarked on a long and fruitful union. Without any excess of concentration, Sophia began sketching a scene of the couple picnicking together beneath the shade of a willow tree. The dairymaid, now dressed in a lady’s finery, sat on a blanket, legs extended before her, ankles crossed, her gaze searching the horizon. The gentleman lay with his head in her lap, looking up at the sky. They did not regard each other, but the easy intimacy of their postures gave them the air of a couple very much in love.
“Ahoy! Ship ahoy! Larboard bow! All hands!”
The ship bustled into activity, and Sophia recognized the familiar sounds of the off-watch sailors thundering up from the forecastle, the mainsail being backed against the mast. The boat slowed and swung around. She recapped her inkwell and wiped her hands on her apron hurriedly.
“Speaking” with another ship could take minutes or hours, depending on the circumstance. Sometimes the captains merely exchanged names and destinations in a friendly “how-do” fashion, like two ladies crossing paths in the park. In other instances, long conversations and trade might take place. The other day, Mr. Grayson had boarded a Portuguese trader and returned with a crate of bartered goods.
But whether the encounter lasted minutes or hours, Sophia—like everyone else aboard—did not want to miss it. Nothing rivaled the sight of a sail approaching. It served as a comforting reminder that the Aphrodite was not simply drifting the globe alone. A promise that civilization and society awaited them at the end of this journey, somewhere.
She hastened abovedecks, shielded her eyes with her hand, and performed a slow circle. There was no ship to be seen, not even a single puffed sail hugging the horizon. Yet the men were all assembled on deck, buzzing with anticipation. All the sailors, at least. Mr. Grayson was notably absent, as were the captain, his officers, and Stubb.
Confused, Sophia approached Quinn. “I thought we were to speak with another ship.”
A wide grin split Quinn’s weathered face. “That we are, miss.”
“But …” Sophia scanned the distance again, and her voice trailed out to sea.
“Oh, ’tisn’t a ship coming across the sea,” Quinn said. “Nay, we’re expecting a visitor come up from the sea. We’ve crossed the Tropic of Cancer. And that means we’ve got to appease old Triton before we go any further.”
Sophia looked around at the milling crewmen. “Triton? Up from the sea? I don’t understand.”
“It’s a sailors’ tradition, miss.” O’Shea approached, his thick brogue cutting through Sophia’s confusion. “The Sea King himself comes aboard to have a bit of sport with those crossing the Tropic for the first time, like the new boy there.” He nodded toward Davy, who stood to the side, looking every bit as confused as Sophia but unwilling to own to it. Quinn crossed his massive forearms over his chest, stacking them like logs. “And Triton always collects his tax, of course.”
“His tax?” Sophia asked.
O’Shea gave her a sly look. “Best be ready with a coin or two, Miss Turner. If you can’t pay his tax, old Triton just might sweep ye down to the depths with him and keep ye there forever.”
Quinn chuckled, shooting the Irishman a knowing look. “Knowing old Triton, it wouldn’t be surprising if he did just that.”
O’Shea winked at the crewman. “Could hardly blame him.”
Sophia’s heart pounded, and with every wild thump it slammed against the purse secured beneath her stays. Was this “Triton” the seafaring equivalent of a highwayman, then? Some sort of pirate?
“Where are the officers?” she asked Quinn. “Doesn’t the captain greet any approaching vessel?”
“The captain and his mates tend to steer clear of Triton. Sailors’business, this is.”
Well, if Sophia had been looking for an excuse to flee belowdecks, she’d just been handed one. But before she could move, a voice called out, “All hands at attention! Prepare to greet yer king! The ruler of the ocean depths himself, and with him today comes his fair mistress, the Queen!”
Coarse laughter rippled through the crowd. None of the sailors seemed the least bit distressed at receiving this visitor, Sophia noted. Of course, none of them had much to lose.
Two sailors hauled on ropes, hoisting the jolly boat up to the ship’s side, revealing two apocryphal figures standing in the center of the small craft. At first glance, Sophia only saw clearly the shorter of the two, a gruesome creature with long tangled hair and a painted face, wearing a tight-fitting burlap skirt and a makeshift corset fashioned from fishnet and mollusk shells. The Sea Queen, Sophia reckoned, a smile warming her cheeks as the crew erupted into raucous cheers. A bearded Sea Queen, no less, who bore a striking resemblance to the Aphrodite’s own grizzled steward. Stubb.
Sophia craned her neck to spy Stubb’s consort, as the foremast blocked her view of Triton’s visage. She caught only a glimpse of a white toga draped over a bronzed, bare shoulder. She took a jostling step to the side, nearly tripping on a coil of rope.
“Foolish mortals! Kneel before your king!”
The assembled sailors knelt on cue, giving Sophia a direct view of the Sea King. And even if the blue paint smeared across his forehead or the strands of seaweed dangling from his belt might have disguised him, there was no mistaking that persuasive baritone.
Mr. Grayson.
There he stood, tall and proud, some twenty feet away from her. Bare-chested, save for a swath of white linen draped from hip to shoulder. Wet locks of hair slicked back from his tanned face, sunlight embossing every contour of his sculpted arms and chest. A pagan god come swaggering down to earth.
He caught her eye, and his smile widened to a wolfish grin. Sophia could not for the life of her look away. He hadn’t looked at her like this since …
since that night. He’d scarcely looked in her direction at all, and certainly never wearing a smile. The boldness of his gaze made her feel thoroughly unnerved, and virtually undressed. Until the very act of maintaining eye contact became an intimate, verging on indecent, experience. If she kept looking at him, she felt certain her knees would give out. If she looked away, she gave him the victory. There was only one suitable alternative, given the circumstances. With a cheeky wink to acknowledge the joke, Sophia dropped her eyes and curtsied to the King. Mr. Grayson laughed his approval. Her curtsy, the crew’s gesture of fealty
—he accepted their obeisance as his due. And why should he not? There was a rightness about it somehow, an unspoken understanding. Here at last was their true leader: the man they would obey without question, the man to whom they’d pledge loyalty, even kneel.
This was his ship.
“Where’s the owner of this craft?” he called. “Oh, right. Someone told me he’s no fun anymore.”
As the men laughed, the Sea King swung over the rail, hoisting what looked to be a mop handle with vague aspirations to become a trident.
“Bring forth the virgin voyager!”
Sophia’s stomach gave a panicked flutter. What in God’s name did Mr. Grayson intend to do to her? She half-feared, half-yearned to find out. Then the flutter spread pleasantly downward, and the balance tipped in favor of yearning.
