“Not at all. You’re a fair young maiden. I have no doubt you could have had any number of fine men, rather than sailing to a new land and marrying a stranger.”

The trace of smile disappeared. She pressed her lips together and stared out at the sea again. Her fingers tightened around the mug.

He was being forward. “I have spoken too freely. I do apologize—”

“Shouldn’t you be married by now too, Doctor?” She turned her full gaze upon him. Her eyes churned with something he couldn’t quite identify. . . . Was it guilt?

Before he could probe, she spoke again. “A rich gent and fine-looking fellow like yourself could have any woman he wanted.”

He reclined further in his chair. “Fine-looking fellow, am I?”

She dropped her attention to the mug, stared at it a moment, and then lifted it and took a drink as though to hide behind it. “I’m only repeating what I heard them fancy ladies saying.”

“Then you don’t agree?”

The spot of color that rose into her cheeks gave her answer. So she thought he was handsome? He crossed his arms, allowing himself a smile.

“You’ll have to be right careful, sir,” she said. “If the fancy ladies have their way, you’ll end up wed to one of them before the voyage’s end.”

“You needn’t worry yourself over my welfare.” He’d rebuffed plenty of advances of well-meaning friends who’d attempted to negotiate marriage unions. He’d had enough practice in saying no to hold him in good stead. “If God so pleases, someday I shall have a wife and many children. But at the present, I am a free spirit and wish to travel the world.”

“I’ve never stepped a foot outside London in all my life,” she admitted.

He wasn’t sure why such a fact should surprise him, even more that it should dismay him. He wasn’t so oblivious to the plight of the poor not to know that most had no means to go beyond their neighborhoods. Even so, the thought that this angel of mercy had never experienced anything but the squalor of the London slums made his heart ache.

“The fancy ladies are sayin’ our new home’ll be real nice and pretty,” she rushed to say as if to cover the embarrassment of her previous statement. “Being close to Australia, I suppose it’ll be warm all the year long?”

He almost chuckled at her assumption. But when she turned her eyes upon him, the vulnerability, openness, and sweetness within them stopped him. He took for granted so much of his upbringing, education, the privileges of his status, the means and ability to go wherever he wanted. How could she be expected to know where Vancouver Island and British Columbia were when she’d likely never seen a map?