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She sighed and answered honestly, because she could not think of anything else, “We had no choice.” She just couldn’t snub him by not answering. He had stopped and helped her with Scott. Without his help, she didn’t know what she would have done.
Besides that, there was something about him that drew on her and not beat, but gently stroked, her natural independence into sweet submission. Ludicrous that such a notion should pop into her head, but it had.
He said, “No choice? But, my dear, why is that?”
She dimpled at him and went kitten-like into her large, comfortably upholstered chair, tucking her legs beneath her. “Shall I trust you, sir?”
His gaze almost made her swoon. She felt safe and coddled with the look he gave her. It was a glance that said she could trust him with her life. But he was a stranger. She should be careful.
He said, “You don’t wish to be thought of as a child, yet here you are, an enchanting ragamuffin, asking a total stranger if you should trust him. In my case, yes, so I hope you have an instinct for such things.”
She laughed. “Well, I have never been lectured for wanting to be honest before.” Were her instincts on the mark? Could she trust him?
She shouldn’t. He was a stranger—and quite devilishly attractive.
* * *
Imperceptibly he looked her over, and noted that her long black hair framed a face that was exquisite. Her eyes, lush in their color green, were full with innocence.
He tried not to stare, but when she removed her soiled riding jacket, he could see her full breasts pushing out at her tightly fitted lace blouse, and his manhood came to attention.
She seemed to trust him. Should she? He wasn’t sure he could trust himself.
He said, “Well then, you want to know if you should trust me? A question that draws a many-faceted answer. You are an imp, a beautiful one, but an imp, and you may trust me for the time being to look out for you … but I shan’t use your judgment but my own to do so.”
“Fair enough, but when you know the whole, you may be so shocked you will only want to wash your hands of us and be off,” she said on a whisper.
“You do not know me, and I do not shock easily,” he answered ruefully.
“Very well, I must tell you, then, that Scott and I … well, we are running away,” she told him conspiratorially.
“That much I surmised,” he answered, as it was precisely what he suspected. “From whom? Your parents?”
She blushed again, and he narrowed his gaze. Ah, she did not wish to give details. Why was that? What more could there be?
She offered, “I … lost both my parents in the last two years … only a bit apart from one another.” She looked down at her clasped hands and then took in air to add, “The guardian their joint will installed to look out for me was unconcerned with me. Well, at least he has been unconcerned with me until recently. I simply thought he was sickly, and since I was happy going on as I was …” She hesitated.
Was she afraid of telling him too much? “What has changed to make you take this drastic step?”
She chewed her bottom lip. “Well … he has decided to scurry me off to an outlandishly terrible place.”
“Why would he do that suddenly?”
“Well … we suspect he wants to marry me to one of his relatives before I come of age.”
He watched her and believed some of what he heard was truth. He rather thought he could see her busy mind at work, perhaps ready to fabricate a tale from some truth. He wasn’t yet sure just what was truth and what wasn’t. He said, “Why would he want to do that all of a sudden?”
“That is the thing. I don’t know,” she said and frowned.
That, he decided was a truth, at least in her eyes. “It seems odd that he should suddenly, just before you reach your majority, decide to force you into marriage.”
“It does, and yet that was what his recent letter advised me … in so many words. He wrote that he would soon arrive to collect me and take me off and settle me securely. That says it all, doesn’t it? He wants to marry me off to some horrible person—a total stranger, in fact.”
Ah, another truth. Perhaps her guardian was in need of funds suddenly and saw this as a way to it. Blackguard. Well, he was not about to allow such a thing from occurring on his watch.
Would she, he wondered, trust him with her true identity? He didn’t think so. He leaned towards her and asked, “Just who are you, Felicia? Who are your people? Tell me, and let me help you.”
“I can’t. You are too good, and I don’t wish to drag you into this. Scott will see to me as soon as he recovers, and we shall manage,” she said, her chin up proudly.
