It took so long for him to answer.... she took hope from the fact that he hadn't attacked at once.  And he revealed himself to be a man who thought before he acted.  When he had time, at least.<br/><br/>Being handed her dress surprised her more than perhaps anything in her life.  But she still kept herself in hand, kept in control, too early to relax not yet, not yet.<br/><br/>"Ada, then.  Now that my memory is refreshed, I can well  understand."  Impulse made her tell him the truth.  "My name is Belinda Starr.  As to trust?'  She hesitated.  She had made no move at all towards donning her clothing.  She looked at the dress in her hands, folded it with precision and set it on the floor.  Then she sat down on the bed, flowing from kneeling to sitting cross legged.  "I have trusted and will trust you with my life.  You, you can denounce me at any time until we actually reach the camp.  The traditionalists will buy it.  They have to.  You are bitter, I know.  With good reason.  But you are a noble, I am a commoner.  And you have acquaintances. With the army who will want to believe you for their own reasons.<em>Not friends, I don't think you have many friends at all here, not any more.</em><br/><br/>"Turn around, Ada, look at me.  My eyes, dammit."  She grinned briefly.  "You really are a gentleman.  By nature not just by birth."<em> That's going to get you killed.  Civil Wars are never civil. </em>She leaned back against the wall, drumming her fingers on her legs.  "You can trust me in this.  If I wanted you dead, there are far less convoluted ways to get it done.  But."  And she took a deep breath.  "I lie.  I lie like most people breathe.  It's what I do, how I work.  I can pick locks, I can climb walls, it's part of my training.  But what I really am good at is using people, not picks or grappling hooks."  She stretched out her legs before her, and her feet crossed, stroking each other, her toes spreading and curling.  "I know men, they get together in taverns and homes and gripe about women and their deceitful ways.  Well, I'm the woman they gripe about and dread to meet."<br/><br/>She was starting to shiver, and it was not artifice, not at all.  Well, not mostly.  Reaction was beginning to set in.  Fear could be held, hidden, but it had to come out.  One way or another.  Fear could be channeled, turned to other things.  Like anger. Or....  Her nipples had turned into hard little hills.  Gooseflesh was prickling her arms, the hairs on the back of her neck was rising.  And her face was flushed.  Under pale clear skin, it looked like her whole body was flushing, just a little.<br/><br/>"I've just given you reason to trust me, then told me why you shouldn't.  Well,  not down the road after I see you safe, anyway, and now, I, I..."  Her hands were flat on the pallet and clenching, her fingers digging into the fabric.  "I'm not a whore."   She closed her eyes tightly.  "But I've been so badly frightened and I've got so much to let out of me that if you don't come over here and make me give out the sounds those listeners want to hear I'm going to lose my mind, or do it myself right in front of you."