A Modest Independence

by Mimi Matthews

  “There’s only one problem.”

  She cast him a glance. “Which is?”

  “Your whole concept is wrongheaded. You’re no more likely to make yourself ridiculous over a gentleman than you are to bow to the dictates of society.”

  “Oh, but I am. Indeed, I already have. Do you remember the first letter you wrote to me? It wasn’t even truly a letter, only a note to fix the time and day we’d meet to discuss Mr. Thornhill’s matrimonial advertisement. There was nothing at all familiar about it. And yet I kept it as surely as any love token.”

  He gave her a look that was hard to read. “Did you?”

  “After we first met face-to-face, I couldn’t bring myself to discard it. How kind he is, I thought. Surely the attention he paid me must be out of the ordinary. Surely he was as moved by me as I was by him.” She smiled bitterly. “A spinster’s yearnings.”

  “But I was moved by you. I fancied you from the first moment I set eyes on you.”

  “Perhaps that’s only because bachelors of a certain age are subject to a similar tension.”

  “Societal pressure versus private desperation? Rubbish. You’re putting too much thought into this. And that’s coming from me, a fellow who puts too much thought into everything.”

  Jenny opened her mouth to respond, but there was no opportunity. Another shout from Mrs. Plank put an end to their conversation, this time for good.

  “Do come and join us, Mr. Finchley,” she called out. “We’re woefully short of gentleman.”

  The sounds of the ship swelled in the background. The call of the sailors and the laughter of the Fishing Fleet. With the dinner hour over, many of the passengers had come up on deck for a breath of air or a stroll in the moonlight. Any semblance of privacy was gone.

  “I suppose we’d better do as she asks,” Tom said. “It would be odd of us not to, all things considered.”

  “Yes.” Jenny took his arm as they reluctantly moved to join the others. “We must keep up appearances.”

  P & O Paddle Steamer Indus

  Malta to Alexandria

  February, 1860

  There was no storm in the Strait of Bonifacio and no rough water to pitch them onto the reef. They made port in Malta a mere fifty-five hours after leaving Marseilles. The prospect of the capital city, with its magnificent domed church, steepled cathedral, and ancient fortifications, beckoned to them from the harbor. But there was no opportunity for exploring. Their stop in Malta was brief, only long enough to change ships. Within an hour, they were settled on the Indus—a larger and far more comfortable vessel on which they would make the journey to Alexandria.

  Unlike the Valetta, the Indus boasted English stewards and stewardesses, comfortable cabins with sweet-smelling sheets, and a well-appointed saloon with plenty of good food served at table, including a generous selection of oranges, grapes, and other fresh fruits taken on board at Malta. It was the closest thing Tom could imagine to a pleasure liner, and the British subjects on board treated it as such. There was music and laughter and games of cards and charades. One might think they were in attendance at a country house party rather than on board a ship steaming toward Egypt.

  Tom and Jenny were obliged to take part in some of the activities, if for no other reason than to show themselves sociable and prove that their relationship as brother and sister was aboveboard. After their inauspicious meeting with Mrs. Plank on the deck of the Valetta, Tom sensed some doubt about the latter. It didn’t help that he and Jenny were as opposite in appearance as two people could be. With her flaming auburn hair and sea-colored eyes, she looked nothing at all like his half sister, nor even his cousin or second cousin once removed.

  “Where did you say the pair of you are from again?” Mrs. Plank asked on their second evening on board the Indus. The wine served at dinner had loosened her tongue to an unfortunate degree. “I don’t recall having met any Finchleys in London, nor any Holloways.”

  Tom was seated next to Mrs. Plank and her daughters at the table, half-finished plates of mutton and potatoes still poised in front of them. Jenny sat across from him, her face a studied blank.

  He took a swallow of his wine, well aware how much she disliked it when he lied. “We’re from Devon, originally.”

  “Whereabouts in Devon?”

  “Abbot’s Holcombe.” In Tom’s experience, the best lies were the ones that adhered closest to the truth.

  “A resort town, isn’t it? And the pair of you live there together?”

  “I reside in London, ma’am. My sister’s only recently come up from Devon.”

  “Your sister still looks a bit peaked,” Mrs. Plank said. “Not in poor health, is she?” She raised her voice to address Jenny. “India isn’t the place for people in poor health, my dear. They sicken and die there at an alarming rate. Why, I know of a lady who’s been twice widowed since she arrived in Calcutta five years ago.”

  “I’m perfectly well, ma’am,” Jenny said.

  Mrs. Plank took no notice. “This gentleman you’re looking for in Delhi. Went missing, did he? During the mutiny?”

  “At the siege of Jhansi,” Tom said. “He was reported dead.”

  “And does this gentleman have a name?”

  Jenny looked at Tom, a question in her eyes.

  Tom was silent. In truth, he didn’t know how useful it would be to share the subject of their search with someone like Mrs. Plank. There was, of course, a small chance it might generate more information about Giles. However, there was a better chance it would result in gossip about Jenny. Once her connection to Giles and Lady Helena was revealed, it wouldn’t take much effort to deduce who she was—and who she wasn’t.

  “Come now,” Mrs. Plank prompted. “It’s a small world in India, Mr. Finchley, as you’ll soon find out. We’re a tight-knit group when we’re in residence—far more so than when we’re at home. A proper English village, Mr. Plank liked to call it. We none of us have any secrets there.”

  Jenny’s chin lifted a fraction. “His name was Giles Reynolds. He was the 6th Earl of Castleton.”

  Was.

  Tom hadn’t any wish to damn the man before they’d even begun their search, but in the deepest recesses of his heart, he hoped that Jenny’s tense was correct. It was selfish of him, he knew. Lady Helena would be delighted to find her brother alive, as would Justin, by association.

  But Tom could see nothing positive about the late earl’s resurrection from the dead. Not for himself, at any rate.

  Giles had kissed Jenny. He’d written to her. He’d referenced marriage, for God’s sake. Granted, the reference had been in the negative. There was no real indication he’d ever wanted to wed his sister’s companion. But he’d kissed her.

  Tom couldn’t get the thought out of his head.

  He recognized it for what it was. It was possessiveness. A masculine instinct of the most primitive kind. He was reacting as if Jenny belonged to him. As if he had some claim over her heart—and her body. The impulse unsettled him deeply.

  “The Earl of Castleton!” Mrs. Plank’s voice carried throughout the saloon. The other guests turned to stare, craning their necks in curiosity. “Why, I never. Do you mean to say that you knew his lordship? That you have reason to believe him alive?”

  “His body was never recovered after the siege,” Tom said.

  “Oh.” Mrs. Plank visibly deflated. “Is that all.”

  Jenny’s own face fell. “You think it makes no difference?”

  “It was madness during the mutiny,” Mrs. Plank replied, as if that explained all.

  “Are you acquainted with the earl’s family, sir?” one of the Plank girls asked in timid tones. She was seated at Tom’s left. A sparrow-faced girl who couldn’t have been any older than seventeen.

  “After a fashion,” Tom said.

  “No need to be coy, sir.” Mrs. Plank pointed her fork at h
im. “We shall get the story out of you one way or another.”

  “There’s no story to tell, I’m afraid. We had a passing acquaintance before he left for India. My sister and I hope to question those who knew him there. With any luck we may discover something to put the matter to rest for his family.”

  “A great expense of time and money with little chance of success. But it needn’t be a wasted journey. You must visit us in Delhi after we’ve settled. Any acquaintance of the Earl of Castleton will be most welcome.”

  Tom exchanged a glance with Jenny. He hadn’t realized Mrs. Plank and her daughters were traveling all the way to Delhi. He’d hoped to part ways with them earlier. “You’re very kind, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Plank gave a dismissive wave of her fork. “Nonsense. We must stick together. It isn’t safe to be striking out on your own. Even if you have brought a pair of natives with you.”

  Jenny’s fingers tightened on her glass. “My servants are from London. They’re as English as you or I.”

  “Oh, my dear.” Mrs. Plank laughed heartily. “You fool no one by dressing them in frock coats and gowns. Mark my words, the instant we step foot into Calcutta, they’ll shed their clothes like any savage. The natives loll about in Egypt and India in a frightful state of undress. One must accustom oneself.”

  Tom went still. He was grateful that Ahmad and Mira weren’t present. Not that he could hope to shield them from such opinions for long. Indeed, the closer they got to India, the more pronounced the English passengers’ prejudice. It was as if they’d crossed some invisible line. A through point after which anyone who wasn’t a British colonial was—as Mrs. Plank had claimed—a savage.

  “I don’t believe,” he said, “that one can accurately be called a savage if one is inhabiting one’s own country.”

  Mrs. Plank’s smile turned thin. “It is not their country, sir. It is ours. But I will not argue the point. This is your first visit to India. You will see for yourself soon enough.”

  “I met the Earl of Castleton once,” the younger Plank girl said.

  Everyone at the table turned to look at her.

  “Don’t boast, Ursula,” Mrs. Plank warned.

  “I wasn’t boasting, Mama. I only said I’d met him. Which is true. It was last summer. He was walking down Bond Street—”

  “That would be the current earl, not the young one who died in India.” Mrs. Plank resumed cutting her meat. “The sixth Earl of Castleton left England before you were out of the schoolroom.”

  “The gentleman I met was quite elderly. But very civil. He bid me good morning—”

  “Mr. Finchley,” the older Plank girl interrupted. She was as sparrow-faced as the first, albeit sporting a bit more town bronze. “Why are you not married?”

  Tom’s glass froze in the air, midway to his mouth. Being together on a ship conveyed a false impression of intimacy between the passengers, it was true, but it was unheard of for an eligible young lady to be so bold with a single gentleman.

  “Lydia,” Mrs. Plank said sharply. “Mind your tongue.”

  Miss Plank continued, unperturbed. “I would think it a fine thing to be a London solicitor’s wife. Especially if that gentleman had an acquaintance with the Earl of Castleton.”

  “Lydia has no wish to settle in India,” the younger Plank girl said.

  “I’d rather settle in London. I cannot abide the heat.” Miss Plank looked at him from beneath her lashes. “Do you intend to remain in India, sir? Or will you be returning to London?”

  Jenny stood abruptly, her chair scraping back on the floor. “I beg your pardon. I’m not feeling at all well.”

  Tom rose to assist her, but he wasn’t quick enough. No sooner had he gained his feet than Jenny was striding out of the room.

  “Oh dear,” Mrs. Plank said with a laugh. “She doesn’t have the stomach for travel, does she? What a shame. When I was last in India…”

  Tom didn’t remain to hear the rest of Mrs. Plank’s tale. He lingered only long enough to make his excuses before setting off after Jenny. However, upon exiting the saloon, there was no sign of her anywhere.

  In the end, he found her in the most logical place. She was inside her cabin.

  Mira cracked open the door. The young maid’s fever had broken before they changed ships in Malta. Only the faint blue shadows under her eyes attested to the fact that she’d ever been ill in the first place. “Good evening, sir.”

  “Good evening, Mira. May I speak with Miss Holloway?”

  Jenny’s voice rang out from within. “Oh, do come in, Tom. You needn’t stand on ceremony.”

  Tom remained at the door.

  After a moment, Jenny joined him there. She was still dressed in the pale green gown she’d worn at dinner.

  His gaze drifted over her. “Are you unwell?”

  “Not unwell, merely tired of spending day after endless day listening to Mrs. Plank spout her odious opinions and watching those insufferable Plank girls flirt with you.” She paused. “Will you not come in?”

  “It’s not a good idea. I—” He broke off, realization dawning slowly. Good lord. Was she jealous?

  “Because we might be observed? Very well. But I must say, if I were an interfering busybody, it would seem less suspicious to me if a brother entered his sister’s cabin on occasion than if he made a point of never entering it at all.” She moved to close the door.

  Tom stopped it with his hand. “They weren’t flirting with me.”

  Jenny snorted.

  “And even if they were…” He sank his voice. “Do you think it would matter to me one jot?”

  Her own voice dropped to a whisper. “It matters to me. And if they intend to continue casting out lures for you, I’d just as soon spend the rest of this voyage in my cabin.”

  “Under the auspices of seasickness.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’d like to see you now and then. You’re the only reason I’m here.”

  “And yet you won’t step one foot into my cabin.”

  Tom lowered his voice yet again. “And have a repeat of what happened on the deck of the Valetta? No thank you.”

  Jenny drew back as if he’d struck her. “Well! If that’s how you feel—”

  Tom held the door firm against her further attempts to shut it in his face. “Don’t be absurd. I’m not referencing our embrace. I’m referencing the possibility of being caught. Of stirring up a shipboard scandal. I should think that was abundantly clear.”

  She didn’t reply, merely looked at him, a mulish expression on her face.

  He was at a loss for how to proceed. No woman had ever found him worthy of a jealous temper. At least, none that he’d been aware of.

  In truth, it had never even occurred to him that Jenny could be jealous, of the Plank girls or anyone. There wasn’t a female on board the Indus who could hold a candle to her. Indeed, next to Jenny Holloway every other lady he encountered seemed colorless and insipid. He was beginning to suspect that that was going to be the case for the remainder of his life. Who could possibly come after her? The short answer was no one.

  “Do you want to argue?” he asked. “To rip up at me?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To get off this ship. I didn’t come all the way to wherever it is we are to endure a battalion of British mamas and their hopeful daughters. This isn’t at all what I—”

  “Somewhere off the coast of Egypt,” he said.

  She blinked up at him. “What?”

  “That’s where we are. Somewhere in the Mediterranean, closer to Alexandria than to Malta by this point.”

  “Not close enough.” She folded her arms at her waist. Some of the tension left her face, leaving in its wake a vague expression of desolation. “Is this all a fool’s errand, Tom? Do you think Giles died at the
siege just like Colonel Anstruther said?”

  “I don’t know.” It was the only answer he had and one he knew was wholly inadequate. “Fetch your shawl, Jenny.”

  “Why?”

  “Just because I won’t come into your cabin, doesn’t mean we can’t talk. Come with me for a walk on the upper deck. We can have a little privacy there.”

  “What about the risk of stirring up a scandal?”

  “I think I can manage to resist you for the space of a walk.” He added dryly, “Providing it’s a short one.”

  As they strolled along the deck of the Indus, Jenny had to wonder if Tom had accounted for the moonlight. Or the stars. Or the way the cool evening breeze whispered over them from atop the rippling, deep blue waves of the Mediterranean. It was dreadfully romantic. Like something out of a lady’s novel. The sort of scene inhabited by beautiful, raven-haired young heroines with melting voices and alabaster brows.

  It was definitely not the setting for a hardened spinster of eight and twenty. Not one with auburn hair that, in some lights, could pass for red—a thoroughly unfortunate shade. And certainly not one with a short temper and a streak of stubbornness as wide as the Thames.

  She tilted her head back to gaze at the stars. There were fashionable fortune-tellers in London who claimed that a lady’s future was written there. Either there or in tea leaves or among the lines in the palm of her hand. At the moment, Jenny would have paid a great deal to know what her future held.

  Despite the more than two thousand miles they’d already traveled, she still had the sense that she was on the cusp of an adventure. That it hadn’t quite started yet. Indeed, with each stage of their journey, it receded farther beyond the horizon, shimmering there just out of her grasp. On the train to Marseilles, Tom had called it a mirage. What if it was? A terrible thought. Because then she would be forced to admit that the dissatisfaction she had with her life had little to do with the setting of it and everything to do with herself.

  She refused to believe it. If she was dissatisfied with her adventure it was only because of her bout of seasickness. And because of the dratted Fishing Fleet. All those mamas and daughters, so very British and proper—and so very interested in the marital status of one Tom Finchley.