" But whether I’m on deck or below it, I’ll never be far.”
“Shall I take that as a promise? Or a threat?”
She sauntered toward him, hands cocked on her hips in an attitude of provocation. His eyes swept her body, washing her with angry heat. She noted the subtle tensing of his shoulders, the frayed edge of his breath.
Even exhausted and hurt, he still wanted her. For a moment, Sophia felt hope flicker to life inside her. Enough for them both.
And then, with the work of an instant, he quashed it all. Gray stepped back. He gave a loose shrug and a lazy half-smile. If I don’t care about you, his look said, you can’t possibly hurt me. “Take it however you wish.”
“Oh no, you don’t. Don’t you try that move with me.” With trembling fingers, she began unbuttoning her gown.
“What the devil are you doing? You think you can just hike up your shift and make-“
“Don’t get excited.” She stripped the bodice down her arms, then set to work unlacing her stays. “I’m merely settling a score. I can’t stand to be in your debt a moment longer.” Soon she was down to her chemise and plucking coins from the purse tucked between her breasts. One, two, three, four, five…
“There,” she said, casing the sovereigns on the table. “Six pounds, and”-she fished out a crown-“ten shillings. You owe me the two.”
He held up open palms. “Well, I’m afraid I have no coin on me. You’ll have to trust me for it.”
“I wouldn’t trust you for anything. Not even two shillings.”
He glared at her a moment, then turned on his heel and exited the cabin, banging the door shut behind him. Sophia stared at it, wondering whether she dared stomp after him with her bodice hanging loose around her hips. Before she could act on the obvious affirmative, he stormed back in.
“Here.” A pair of coins clattered to the table. “Two shillings. And”-he drew his other hand from behind his back-“your two leaves of paper. I don’t want to be in your debt, either.” The ivory sheets fluttered as he released them. One drifted to the floor.
Sophia tugged a banknote from her bosom and threw it on the growing pile. To her annoyance, it made no noise and had correspondingly little dramatic value. In compensation, she raised her voice. “Buy yourself some new boots. Damn you.”
“While we’re settling scores, you owe me twenty-odd nights of undisturbed sleep.”
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “We’re even on that regard.” She paused, glaring a hole in his forehead, debating just how hateful she would make this.
Very.
“You took my innocence,” she said coldly-and completely unfairly, because they both knew she’d given it freely enough.
“Yes, and I’d like my jaded sensibilities restored, but there’s no use wishing after rainbows, now is there?”
He had a point there. “I suppose we’re squared away then.”
“I suppose we are.”
“There’s nothing else I owe you?”
His eyes were ice. “Not a thing.”
But there is, she wanted to shout. I still owe you the truth, if only you’d care enough to ask for it. If only you cared enough for me, to want to know.
But he didn’t. He reached for the door.
“Wait,” he said. “There is one last thing.”
Sophia’s heart pounded as he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a scrap of white fabric.
“There,” he said, unceremoniously casting it atop the pile of coins and notes and paper. “I’m bloody tired of carrying that around.”
And then he was gone, leaving Sophia to wrap her arms over her half-naked chest and stare numbly at what he’d discarded.
A lace-trimmed handkerchief, embroidered with a neat S.H. "

― Tessa Dare , Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2)