Surrender of a Siren Read Online Free PDF

anchored ship seemed insufficient to occasion this amount of dizziness. The whole vessel was a study in contradictions. The captain who wasn’t a captain. The governess who wasn’t a governess. Two men—one white, one black—claiming the close kinship of brotherhood.
    Strangely enough, she believed the last. Something about their square-tipped ears, and the way their angular jaws balanced those arrogant grins … They were like two garments cut from the same pattern, but fashioned from different cloth.
    Ah, yes. They were half brothers, of course. This overdue realization of the obvious gave Sophia a bit of peace. Apparently, her flow of comprehension had not been dammed entirely. Merely slowed, to the trickling rate of syrup.
    She knew what—or rather, whom —to blame for that.
    Him, and his insufferable teasing. Coming to her rescue in the tavern, only to humiliate her further. Deliberately misleading her about the captain’s identity simply to gather amusement from her befuddlement. And possessing the unmitigated gall to do it all looking so handsome, with that roguish smirk and the mocking scar beneath it.
    How did he get it, that scar? So thin and straight, slanting from the cleft of his chin to the corner of his mouth. From a blade of some sort, most definitely. Perhaps a stray swipe of a knife in a bawdy-house brawl. Or maybe a more honorable man had called him out in a duel, to avenge his callous acts of insolence toward unsuspecting ladies. A flick of the rapier could make such a scar. But if he had walked away from the duel with a scratch, what had become of his opponent?
    Her imagination ran wild with the notion, painting a vivid scene in her mind. She could visualize the knot of muscle in his arm, sketch the straining sinew in his wrist as he loomed over his trembling rival, lifting the sword for a lethal blow—
    “ ’Ere we are, then.”
    Sophia’s head jerked up.
    Stubb reappeared in an aura of grizzled hair, followed by two sailors each balancing one end of her stacked trunks. The steward directed, “It’s berth seven, what’s marked for the lovely miss.”
    Her trunks deposited, Sophia stood to offer her thanks. At that moment, however, the ship gave a sudden lurch, and she found herself tossed right back in the chair.
    “Anchors aweigh!” The call came echoing through the grated skylight. “All hands! All hands!”
    The three men hurried back the way they’d entered, and Sophia followed them up the narrow staircase and onto the deck.
    What a glorious commotion awaited her there—the sailors shouting and hauling and climbing into the rigging like spiders scaling webs. She craned her neck to watch their progress, shading her eyes with one hand. One by one, the square sails unfurled, four apiece on each of the two soaring masts. The wind quickly found and filled the sails, puffing them out like frogs’ throats.
    She went to the rail and stayed there for hours, watching the river widen beneath them and the dense clamor of Gravesend diffuse into pastoral calm. Before she expected it, the Thames spat them out into a wide basin of churning water. They had yet to reach the open sea, but the arms of land on either side grew increasingly distant, as the tide tugged the Aphrodite free of England’s embrace. Daylight was fading, and tendrils of fog wound over her neck and before her eyes, obscuring her view of the low, chalky banks.
    Sophia fought the childish impulse to wave farewell. She clung to the lip of wood instead—for strength, and for stability, as the vessel’s pitching grew increasingly violent. The ship crested a large swell, then dipped into a gray-green valley. Cold, salty spray rushed up to sting her eyes and cheeks.
    It must be the fog, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut and wiping her cheeks. Or the steady rocking of the ship, like a cradle. Perhaps it was the encroaching darkness and the muted roaring of the sea that made her feel, for the first time in many years, so very