With a curse, he let her go. She stumbled backward and tripped over the empty chair. Instead of letting her tumble to the floor, he shot out his free hand to steady her.
Heart thudding hard in her chest, Georgina righted herself. She folded her arms close to her person. The greens of his eyes conveyed regret and some other indefinable emotion. She swallowed, uncomfortable. People did not worry about her and yet the remorse etched in the aquiline lines of his face indicated he cared. And no one cared of her or about her. Not her father, not Jamie, nor the men brought here as captors or captives. The stranger’s concern pierced Georgina’s soul. She cringed. What a silly, pathetic creature she was.
“Are you all right?” His quiet words slashed through her musings.
Well, my father is a traitor. I’m stealing his secrets and sending them off to the British government. Oh, and you nearly strangled me. How could I ever be better?
Georgina walked a wide path around him and paused at the small, chipped, wood table in the corner of the room. “I’m well enough,” she said, with a touch of impatience. She planted her hands on the edge of the hard surface and used her hip to shove the piece of furniture over to the prisoner. All the while her skin burned under the intensity of his gaze. Studiously avoiding his gaze, Georgina picked up the tray and slid it toward him.
“You should eat.” Georgina spun on her heel and hurried to the doorway. She’d come to help him, but this man had stirred a maelstrom of emotions beneath her breast that she didn’t care to examine.
“Don’t go!” His entreaty stopped her. “Please. I’m sorry…” He looked down, shame coloring his neck. “I would never have hurt you.”
Georgina turned around and once more took in his battered features. The truth was etched in painful lines on his face. He wouldn’t have hurt her, but that did not mean she had escaped danger. The longer she stayed here and talked to him, the more compelled she was to help him and risk her father’s wrath.
Leave, Georgina. Leave.
Yet she moved to the empty chair next to him. “I am so sorry about what they’ve done to you.” Even as the words left her lips, she flinched with the uselessness of them.
He arched a golden brow. “But not enough to free me?”
She poured a glass of water into the crystal tumbler and handed it to him.
The powerful man eyed it as though it contained witches’ brew. A strangled laugh escaped his lips. “You’re mad if you believe I would trust you.”
He was right. This man didn’t know about the previous prisoner she’d freed. Or the notes she dashed off to members of the Home Office. No one suspected the truth. This man only saw her as complicit in the ugliness that went on here. “You’ve no reason to trust me,” she said at last. Georgina thrust the glass toward him.
Apparently, his thirst won out over his skepticism for he reached for the glass. His fingers brushed hers.
Georgina’s skin heated at the brief meeting of flesh.
He drained the glass in one long, slow swallow. “What is your name?”
She stiffened and leaned forward in her chair, poised to flee. “Georgina Wilcox.”
He gave no outward reaction to her admission. “I am Adam Markham.”
Her shoulders relaxed as she realized he did not know who she was. Guilt niggled at her. She reminded herself she was not to blame for Father’s crimes, but the thought rang hollow in her heart.
“I am sorry to meet you under such circumstances, Mr. Markham.” Or really under any circumstances. There was no good in the world in which she dwelled.
He studied her intently and Georgina shifted in her seat. His gaze set a small flame alight in her bosom. The instinct for survival warred with her empathy. Except there was something more—some inexplicable feeling she didn’t understand nor care to analyze. No good could come in any kind of connection with the men taken as prisoners here. She reached for his bindings then stopped. If she were ever to help this man, she’d have to plan carefully. After all she’d learned the perils in thwarting Father and Jamie’s plans long ago.
The stranger’s beautiful lips turned down. “So, tell me. What manner of woman would leave me tied here at the mercy of those bastards—” As if sickened by the mere sight of her, he jerked his gaze away.
She leaned forward. “If I free you, there is a guard outside who will shoot you dead. If that isn’t enough, I will pay the price for your death. A price with my own flesh.” Georgina let the weight of this dark truth sink in.
Silence reigned between them. They sat in uneasy silence until his stomach gave a rebellious rumble reminding her of why she’d come above stairs. Eager to give her fingers something to do, she reached for a sliver of apple and held it to his lips.
Something in his gaze softened. “Are you Eve?”
She angled her head. “Georgina.”
A sharp bark of laughter burst from his chest. The explosion of mirth seemed to rob him of breath. He coughed in obvious pain. “Christ, either you’re an excellent actress or the most na?ve woman I’ve ever met.”
“Oh.” Heat flooded her cheeks. “That Eve. Which, of course, makes you Adam.”
“Adam and Eve,” he murmured. He cast an almost empty gaze around the room. “And it would appear we’ve both been cast into hell.”
Georgina’s gut clenched at the all-too-familiar sentiment uttered by this man, Adam Markham. She cleared her throat. “Do you want the apple or not?” She waved it in his direction.
His lips parted, displaying an even row of pearl-white teeth. Georgina hesitated a moment, feeling a bit like a rabbit feeding a wolf, then slipped the fruit into his mouth.
He bit into the succulent fruit, all the while watching her as if he could divine her secret yearnings. When he opened his mouth again, she brought another piece of the apple to his lips.
“Why are you here?” he asked, after he finished his next bite.
Their gazes caught and held. “I have no choice.”
Adam Markham’s flinty stare threatened to bore through her. “They have you captive as well?”
In a way, she’d been trapped from the moment of her birth. “I am a victim of my circumstances, Mr. Markham.”
Understanding dawned in his eyes. “You are a servant.”
At his erroneous assumption, she stilled. She should tell him the truth. Confess who she was. What does it matter? a niggling voice whispered at the edge of her mind. It is your father who is hell bent on an Irish revolution—not you. “Why are you here?” She turned his question around on him, uncomfortable with his assumption.
“I, too, am a victim of my circumstances.” A veil fell across his eyes, indicating he intended to say nothing further.
Georgina glanced over her shoulder at the closed door. “I should go.” She stood.