Disappointment shadowed his face as he sat back against the worn leather. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what trouble you flee.”
“You are helping me.” Charis blinked back the mist that appeared in front of her eyes. He deserved better return for his generosity than deceit.
She tried to tell herself he was a man, and, for that reason alone, she couldn’t trust him. The insistence rang hollow. Her father had been a good man. Everything told her Sir Gideon Trevithick was a good man too.
She forced a stronger tone. “It’s my turn for a question.”
He folded his arms across his powerful chest and surveyed her from under lowered black brows. “Ask away.”
It frightened her how much she yearned to know about him. Curiosity raged like a fever. But to her utter mortification, the first question that emerged was, “Are you married?”
His laugh held a harsh edge. “Good God, no.”
Shock at his emphatic answer overwhelmed her embarrassment. “You make it sound an impossibility.”
“Believe me, it is.” He looked out the window at the dark landscape.
Helpless to resist, she stared at his profile, perfect as a cameo or a face on a coin. Thick dark hair sprang back from a high forehead. The straight, commanding nose. The proud chin and angular jaw. His physical splendor struck her like a blow.
He turned and caught her studying him. Her color mounted higher. Thank goodness the dim light and her bruises hid her blush.
For a long moment, she stared into turbulent dark eyes. He was in turmoil, and she wasn’t vain enough to imagine she was the cause. No, her little drama briefly intersected with his life and would just as quickly veer away. She stifled the pang of senseless regret that knowledge aroused.
The thick dark eyelashes that veiled his eyes were the only remotely feminine feature on his face. Yes, he was beautiful, but he was also uncompromisingly male.
“My turn. Where are your parents?”
“Dead,” she said starkly before she thought to lie.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked down at where her good hand clenched in her lap. “My father died when I was sixteen. My mother died three years ago.”
“How old are you now?” She was grateful he didn’t pursue the subject. After all this time, it still hurt to talk about her parents.
“Twenty. Almost twenty-one.” Just saying the words reminded her that on the first day of March, she reached her majority. And safety. If she stayed free for the next three weeks, her stepbrothers couldn’t touch her. Or her fortune. “That’s two questions.”
The conversation was odd, prickly. Like a dangerous game. “You can have two now.”
“Tulliver calls you Sir Gideon. Were you knighted by the King?”
“Yes.”
She waited for him to elaborate, perhaps boast of whatever feats brought about his elevation. But he remained silent.
“So it’s not an old title?”
“That too. I’m a baronet for my sins. Although I wasn’t expected to inherit.”
“Penrhyn is the family seat?”
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t you there now?”
“I was in London.” He paused. “My turn well and truly. Carlisle to Portsmouth is a long journey. Especially for a woman on her own. What prompted it?”
“My circumstances changed.” That at least was the truth.