“I couldn’t.”
“Let’s. And then, when you’re a little more yourself, I’ll escort you up onto the deck for some fresh air.” He folded the cloth, leaving it draped over her brow as he put his spectacles back on. “But first, for my own peace of mind, I think we’d better get you into a dressing gown.”
Much to Jenny’s relief, the first dose of tea remained firmly in her stomach. Encouraged by the result, Tom plied her with weak tea and toast throughout the day. He even tidied her cabin, causing no little amount of mutual embarrassment as he folded away her corset and stockings.
Jenny watched him from where she lay propped up in her berth. She’d never seen him in his shirtsleeves before. It seemed an extraordinary intimacy. Then again, considering he’d only this morning encountered her in her petticoats and chemise, they were already on rather intimate terms.
Still, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. He’d rolled up his sleeves, revealing leanly muscled forearms that were lightly dusted with hair. He appeared to be leanly muscled everywhere, from the broadness of his linen-clad shoulders down to the cloth waistcoat he wore buttoned over his trim midsection.
A gentleman who spent most of his day at a desk shouldn’t be in such fine form. He should be soft about the middle, gone to fat from too much sitting and self-indulgence.
“Do you take exercise?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re extraordinarily fit.”
“I don’t know that there’s anything extraordinary about it.” He closed her carpetbag after packing away a final stack of folded linens.
“For a solicitor?”
“Why not? We all of us are always running somewhere or other. I’ve spent the better part of my career chasing after hansom cabs and omnibuses, trying to get papers to Fothergill or to clients or to file them with the court.”
“I would think that’s what a clerk was for.”
“I don’t keep a clerk.”
“And you don’t box or fence or anything else to keep fit?”
His lips quirked. “Do I look like I box or fence?”
“You do, rather.”
“I shall take that as a compliment.” He crossed the cabin to stand over her berth. “How are you feeling? Any better?”
“Much better, thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I believe I do. It can’t have been pleasant to spend so much of your day in here with me. Not when I was so ill and being such a poor patient.”
“I’d far rather be here with you than socializing with Mrs. Plank and the rest of the Fishing Fleet.”
“Have you heard anything more about Mira?”
“She’s improving. Still a little feverish, but it doesn’t appear to be anything serious.”
“And Ahmad?”
“He’s camped outside the ship surgeon’s door, being completely unreasonable. She’s in no immediate danger. There’s nothing he can do for her now but allow her to get some rest.”
“I daresay he’s hoping to be of some use. To help Mira get well in the same way you helped me.”
“The difference being that you didn’t have a fever. If you had, I’d have—”
“What?” She stared up at him.
“I don’t know. Probably camped outside the surgeon’s door and been completely unreasonable.” He smiled wryly. “It’s stifling in here. Will you let me take you up on the deck?”
It sounded a lovely idea, but… “I’d rather not see anyone else. I’m still not steady enough to manage polite conversation.”
“It’s after sunset. We’ll be quite alone.” He held out his hand. “Come. You can lean on me if you need. I won’t even require that you talk.”
“Oh, very well.” She slipped her hand into his. It fit there perfectly. As if it had been made to settle in the warm curve of his palm, to be held fast by the strong clasp of his fingers. Her heart thumped hard. “I have to dress first.”
Tom helped her to her feet. “Do you need assistance getting into your gown?”
There was nothing suggestive in the tenor of his voice. Nevertheless, Jenny felt the thrill of his question all the way to her toes. She pulled her hand free. “What I need is a few moments of privacy.”
A hint of a smile touched Tom’s mouth. “As you wish.” He retrieved his coat from the back of the chair. “I’ll wait for you outside.”
Jenny watched him go, then made the speediest toilette of her life.
She rinsed her mouth in the basin and cleaned her teeth, raked a comb through her tangled tresses and bound them up in a hasty arrangement of plaits and pins, and—after a brief moment of indecision—slipped on her corset, closing the hooks with trembling fingers. There was no way to forego the dratted thing. Without it, none of her dresses would fit properly. Certainly not the fitted jacket bodice and skirt she chose.
When she was finished dressing, she swept up a shawl and exited her cabin, forgetting her gloves and bonnet in her haste. True to his word, Tom was waiting outside. He offered her his arm and Jenny took it gratefully. She wondered if she would ever become accustomed to the way the deck of the ship rolled beneath her feet. She braced for the motion to echo in her stomach, but—much to her relief—her tea and toast stayed down.
Tom led her up to the deck. The sea air was cold on her face, a delicious feeling after spending so much time in her cabin. It wasn’t dark yet. The sun was just sinking beyond the horizon, streaking the sky and the water below it in a dazzling array of oranges and reds. She stood at the rail, her arm still linked through his.
“It’s magnificent, isn’t it?”
She nodded, her gaze fixed on the endless prospect of the sea. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Nor have I.”
They watched the rest of the sunset in silence, saying nothing else to each other until it had slipped completely from view. Jenny heard the swell of far-off voices, the sounds of the crew shouting to each other, and passengers talking and laughing. She and Tom weren’t alone on the deck. It was impossible to be so on a ship of this size.
And yet, as they stood side by side at the rail, she had a sense of privacy. Of intimacy. As if they were the only two people on board.
Tom seemed to read her mind. “No one can see us here. Not now it’s dark.”
“It’s not that dark.” A full moon was coming up. It wouldn’t be long before it was shining, luminous in the sky above them, as bright as a line of oil lamps arrayed on the deck.
“No matter. There’s nothing untoward about a fellow standing at the rail with his sister.”
Jenny suppressed a grimace. She was beginning to hate that particular lie. “I don’t think I like being your sister.”
“No more than I like being your brother. But it’s a necessary fiction if we want to protect your reputation.” He nudged her. “What were your real brothers like? Were you fond of them?”
“If you must know, they were absolute pains in the backside.”
Tom was surprised into a bark of laughter.
“It’s true.” She let go of his arm, placing both of her hands on the railing. “They take after my father.”
His expression sobered. “They weren’t—”
“Drunkards? No. They weren’t bad men. They were just men. Selfish and dictatorial, never lifting a finger to look after themselves—or me.” She recalled the years she’d lived in her father’s house. All the time she’d spent praying that something would change. That someone would come and save her. “My brothers wanted to get away as much as I did. They had plans, you see. To marry and start families of their own. They expected I would stay at home forever, taking care of my father. It was my duty, they said.”
“Why yours and not their own?”
“Because I was an unmarried woman, and therefore, a burde
n on the family. To them, I was no more than a drudge. An unpaid housekeeper. They didn’t love me. Not like Giles loved Helena. I daresay I wasn’t very loveable.”
“And so you left.”
“Not without a plan, but yes. I wrote to Helena’s father, imposing on our tenuous familial connection to beg employment from him. He replied within the month, offering me a position as Helena’s companion. As soon as I had his letter in hand, I packed my case and boarded the next mail coach to London.” Pride rose within her at the memory of it. “One grows tired of waiting for knights in shining armor. Sometimes nothing will do but to rescue oneself.”
Tom looked at her, his face half-shadowed in the darkness. “How little I know of you.”
“Don’t you? And here I thought you knew everything about everyone.”
“As a general rule.”
“How do you usually find things out? By planting spies in people’s houses as you did with Helena’s uncle?”
“Sometimes.”
“I daresay, if you were interested enough, you could have found out plenty about me.”
“Who says I wasn’t interested?”
She gave him a weighted glance. “And yet you claim to know nothing.”
“It didn’t seem fair to delve into your past.”
“You considered it?”
“More than once.” He laughed at her expression. “I’m a curious man.”
“Not curious enough, it seems.”
His smile faded. “No.” He looked out at the roiling sea, his arms folded over the railing. “I was content to keep you a mystery.”
“There’s nothing mysterious about me.”
“Isn’t there? You’ve managed to surprise me a time or two since we left London.”
Jenny felt the beginning of a blush creeping up her neck. She was glad of the darkness. “Were you terribly shocked by what I said at the pier?”
They’d been to several piers since that first one in Dover, but Tom asked for no clarification. She didn’t suppose he needed one. The memory of her impulsive declaration was no doubt burnt into his brain. “A little.”
“Only a little?”
“Very well, it was more than a little.” He set his hand beside hers on the rail. “But you see…I already had an inkling that you cared for me.”
“As a friend.”
“As more than a friend.” His fingers brushed hers. “When I was falling asleep on the sofa at Half Moon Street, I felt you touch me.”
Jenny went still. Her bosom rose and fell on an unsteady breath. “Did you? How mortifying.”
“Please, don’t be embarrassed. The truth is…it meant a great deal to me. I haven’t had much tenderness in my life. There’s been no softness. No sweetness. Not even when I was a lad. Lately, I’ve begun to feel the lack of it.”
“You make it sound as though any female would fill the void.”
“Hardly. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have spent the past years living alone. I would have married or…”
“Or.”
“Quite. But I haven’t. It’s never been the right time. There was too much work to do. Too many commitments. It’s only these past months that something in me has changed.”
“Hence, the pangs of longing.” She sighed. “Oh, Tom, we’re both lonely, that’s all. And we’ve only come to realize it since Helena and Mr. Thornhill were married.”
“Is that what you think?”
“It must be, mustn’t it? Theirs is one of those great love affairs. It casts the rest of us in the shade. Makes us feel as though we’re missing something important in our lives. Or someone.”
“That’s not the reason.”
“It is,” she assured him. “An unmarried person always feels inadequate in such circumstances. It’s perfectly natural.”
“It’s not that.”
“What else could it—”
“It’s you, Jenny. All these feelings. They all started with you.”
She turned her head to look at him, brows knit in confusion. “What?”
“I felt something for you long before Thornhill and Lady Helena were married. Long before they even met.”
“I don’t understand how—”
“From the moment you walked into my office last year, inquiring after that blasted matrimonial advertisement in the Times, I felt something…” He took her hand in his and pressed it to his chest. “Here. This is where I felt the first pang for you.”
Jenny’s hand rested flat on the breast of his waistcoat. His heart thumped strong and fast beneath her palm. He was nervous. Surely as nervous and uncertain as she was herself.
“I’m not a romantic, Jenny. And I’m certainly no knight in shining armor. What I am is desperately fond of you. I believe I’d do anything in the world to make you happy.”
She swallowed hard. Her voice, when it came, was a mere thread of sound. “Oh, Tom, what am I to do with you?”
“For now? Just let me be with you. I don’t require anything else.”
“That’s easy enough. You’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.” She brought her hand up to cup his cheek. “Whatever possessed you to board that steamship in Dover? You might be in your office now, writing up one of your legal papers.”
“Do you know, at the moment, the prospect holds no appeal at all.” He gazed down at her. “May I kiss you?”
Jenny’s throat went dry. All she could do was nod.
He took a step forward and set one arm about her waist, drawing her against the leanly-muscled length of his body.
She was at once enveloped by the heat and strength of him. Caught up in the scent of bay rum, linen, and clean male skin. Her pulse fluttered as he touched her face.
“How extraordinary you are,” he murmured.
She trembled in his arms, too overwhelmed by the moment to speak. What in the world could she possibly say when every nerve ending in her body was firing with anticipation?
But Tom was in no hurry. He was slow and deliberate, his fingers tracing down the edge of her jaw to gently cup her chin. He tilted her face up to his.
She felt his breath whisper over her lips as he bent his head to kiss her. And then—
And then Mrs. Plank’s voice echoed down the deck, as unsubtle as a trumpet blast. “Mr. Finchley, is that you lurking about? And who’s that with you there? Is that your sister?”
Tom froze, his mouth hovering a fraction of an inch over her own.
For the barest instance, Jenny thought he might ignore the interruption. That he might actually press his lips to hers and kiss her.
But there was no chance of that.
He withdrew from her all at once, releasing her from his arms and moving a full two feet away from her.
Jenny suppressed a cry of frustration. Curse Mrs. Plank! The dratted busybody. “How long do you suppose she’s been there?”
“I don’t know.” Tom’s voice was grim. “Not long, I hope.”
She turned away from him, setting her hands on the rail of the ship to steady herself as he answered Mrs. Plank. The woman didn’t come and join them. That was something, at least. But not enough. Not when he’d come so close to kissing her only to draw back at the final moment.
It left Jenny feeling oddly off-kilter, awash in emotions she couldn’t begin to understand.
She didn’t hear Tom approach. Suddenly he was just…there, standing at her side, a great wall of masculine warmth. It took all of her will not to lean into him. Not to burrow back into his arms like some desperate, affection-starved spinster.
“Forgive me,” he said.
“For what, precisely?”
“My lack of foresight. When it comes to matters of importance, I usually plan things out a bit better.”
“Is kissing me important to you?”
“E
verything about you is important to me. I’d have thought that would be obvious by now.”
“Not to me it isn’t. That is—” She broke off. “I know you care for me, but…I don’t like to assume anything more.”
He brushed a curling lock of hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear with gentle fingers. “You’re so full of fire. So capable and confident. Sometimes I forget just how innocent you are.”
She huffed, even as she quivered at his touch. “I’m not a child, Tom.”
“I didn’t say you were a child. I said you were an innocent.”
“I’m not—”
“You are. The worst sort. The kind that doesn’t even realize how innocent she is.”
Jenny did look at him then. How could she not? “I know I’m inexperienced. Dreadfully so. That’s what all this is about. This journey so far from home. I mean to broaden my understanding. To have experiences out of the common way. But I don’t intend to make myself ridiculous in the process.”
Tom’s gaze held hers. “I see.”
“I don’t know that you can.” Her hands gripped the rail as she tried to explain. “There’s a kind of woman in my world. An unmarried female of a certain age. The sort who imagines that every gentleman who does her the smallest service is in love with her. People laugh at her behind their hands. Such a sad, dried-up old dear with her foolish romantic fancies.”
Tom didn’t say anything. Didn’t give any sign he objected to her characterization—or agreed with it, either. His silence prompted her to continue.
“There’s an opposite to that pathetic spinster. A young lady whose fate is far more common. She gives in to the expectations of her family—of society—and signs her life away in marriage.” A gust of wind off of the sea rustled Jenny’s hair and skirts, filling her lungs with the scent, the very taste, of an adventure that lay just beyond her grasp. “I feel I’ve spent all of my life caught between those two poles. Struggling to maintain some semblance of independence. But society’s expectations are a powerful force. Almost as powerful as the romantic fancies of a spinster.”
“You fear you’ll succumb.”
“More than anything.”
A Modest Independence Page 12