A Modest Independence

by Mimi Matthews

  Jenny’s hand settled firmly on Tom’s arm as they strolled among the fray. “Could you ever have imagined, when you were a little boy, that one day you’d be strolling down a gaslit road in Calcutta of all places?”

  “With an auburn-haired beauty on my arm?”

  Jenny burst into laughter. An unladylike reaction that was, fortunately, muted in comparison to the general noise of the street. “Rubbish. No one else would describe me thus.”

  “No one else knows you as I do.” Tom looked down at her, his eyes smiling. “Could you have imagined it? Being here like this?”

  “In Calcutta? No. When I was a little girl, I never dreamed of a specific city. All I knew was that I wanted adventure. Somewhere far away from home. I’d have taken any chance to get it.”

  “I felt the same way about stability. The boring day-to-day toil of a clerk’s life in London. That was my dream.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “When a boy spends his childhood never knowing from one day to the next whether he’ll have food to eat or a roof over his head, the prospect of steady work and dependable wages is something to dream about. Even if taking that work means your life is less adventurous than it otherwise might have been.”

  “I’ve never had the impression that your life was lacking excitement. Not with all of your mysterious secrets and dark dealings.”

  “You make me sound far more interesting than I am.”

  “You are interesting. I could talk with you all day and never get bored.”

  His mouth quirked up at the corner. “A rare compliment.”

  “I mean it. I wish…”

  “What?”

  “That we had more time together.”

  His smile faded. “We have to be careful. For your sake, Jenny.”

  “Yes, I realize, but…” She gave him a speaking glance. “Had I known that evening in my cabin would be our last moment alone, I wouldn’t have been so preoccupied with arranging my hair for dinner.”

  Tom regarded her with a solemn frown, his blue eyes lit with a peculiar intensity. “What would you have done instead?”

  The street was noisy—everyone too consumed with their own business to trouble with eavesdropping. Jenny nevertheless sunk her voice. “Kissed you, probably.”

  “As you did on the train to Suez?” He covered her gloved hand with his. “If you had, we’d never have made it to the saloon for dinner.”

  A shivery thrill ran through Jenny’s midsection. “What a scandal that would have caused.”

  “The worst kind of scandal.” His words took on a husky edge. “You’d have had no choice but to marry me.”

  “Because I’d be ruined? I daresay that’s one way to trap a husband.”

  “Or a wife.”

  Jenny wished the thought of it didn’t stir so many emotions within her. “But we’d never do that to each other, would we? No matter what anyone said.”

  “You may feel differently if the gossip about us worsens.”

  “If it does, I shall simply keep traveling until I reach the farthest edge of the world.”

  Tom guided Jenny around a pair of bickering Indian shopkeepers. They were shouting at each other, gesticulating wildly. “A place where gossip doesn’t exist? Best of luck with that plan.”

  “Must you be so grim?” She tugged at his arm. Ahead of them was what had to be the most dazzling storefront on the entire road. It was all twinkling glass and sparkling wares of gold and silver. A jewelers’ shop with a distinguished Bengali gentleman waiting at its door to receive them. He caught Jenny’s eye and made her an elaborate bow. “Oh, do let’s go in, Tom,” she said. “Please.”

  “If you like.”

  For the next half hour or more, Jenny stood at one of the tall counters as the proprietor, Mr. Chowdhury, showed her glass bangles, gold and silver bangles, and bangles set with precious gemstones. Tom stayed at her side awhile before wandering off to speak with the shop assistant. When he was out of earshot, Jenny bent her head closer to Mr. Chowdhury. “Do you have anything a gentleman might wear?”

  Another half hour and she and Tom were back on the street, her purchases tucked securely into her reticule. She’d never spent so much money in one place in her entire life. It wasn’t going to bankrupt her. Not by any means. Still…

  “You’ve gone pale,” Tom said, searching her face. “Is it the heat?”

  “It’s not the heat.” She gave him a weak smile. “I bought a jeweled bangle. It was terribly expensive.”

  “Ah.”

  “Would you like to see it?”

  His hand came to rest on the small of her back, guiding her along the pavement. “Not on the street. You can show me in the gharry.”

  “Did you find anything you liked?”

  “In the jeweler’s shop? I’m afraid not. However, the shop assistant did give me the name of a cobbler at the end of the street. Claims he makes better boots than Hoby.”

  “Do you need new boots?”

  “I don’t need anything.”

  “I see. Just gathering information, were you?”

  He smiled. “About boots, Jenny?”

  “Who knows when such knowledge might be valuable?”

  Tom endured her teasing with good grace even as he hailed a gharry to take them back to Mr. Vidyasagar’s hotel. It was a sagging contraption with windows curtained against the heat. Tom helped her into it before climbing in himself and shutting the door.

  Jenny settled back on the shabbily cushioned seat as the gharry sprung into motion. An oil lamp swung from the corner of the cab, casting an intermittent light over Tom’s face.

  She opened her reticule and withdrew a small wooden box, extending it to him in her suddenly trembling hand.

  He took it, still half smiling from all of her teasing. “The jeweled bangle, I presume.”

  She watched with growing anxiety as he opened it.

  Tom went still.

  “It’s a pin,” she said. “For your cravat.”

  He continued to look at it, his face wiped of all expression.

  “I know it’s not proper to be giving gifts to a gentleman, but I thought…that is…I wanted you to have something special to remember all of this by.” She was rambling and couldn’t seem to stop herself. “It’s quite understated. Nothing too gaudy. And look…” She rummaged in her reticule, pulling out the second box and removing the wooden lid. “Mr. Chowdhury said it was made from a chip of the same sapphire used to make my bangle.”

  Tom looked at her bangle and then back at his pin before, finally, lifting his gaze to her face. “Jenny…”

  “Do you hate it? Is it too awfully sentimental? You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to. I promise it won’t hurt my feelings.”

  “I don’t hate it,” he said, his voice gone gruff.

  “Don’t you?”

  “No, I…” He swallowed hard. “I shall treasure it.”

  Jenny’s heart swelled with warmth—and no little relief. “You were so quiet. I was afraid I’d presumed too much.”

  “You surprised me, that’s all.”

  “And you’re not easy to surprise, are you?” She smiled at him. “I shall consider it an accomplishment.”

  What she would consider it was an unmitigated success. She’d never given a gentleman a gift before. It simply wasn’t done. Not by unmarried ladies. Who knew how such things were meant to proceed? Her pulse had been pounding since she climbed into the gharry, the little voice in her head warning her that she was risking too much. Revealing too much.

  But it was dark and they were alone together, side by side in the little cab, their legs touching through the vast thickness of her petticoats, crinoline, and linen skirts. She took the small box from his hands and removed the elegant little cravat pin. It was nothing
more than a single sapphire chip atop a needle of gold.

  He cleared his throat. “The same stone, did you say?”

  “That’s what Mr. Chowdhury told me. I trust it wasn’t just a ruse to get me to buy both pieces.” She leaned closer to him, the sapphire glittering between her gloved fingers. “May I?” When he nodded, she reached up to his throat and carefully stuck the pin through the folds of his neckcloth. “There.” Her hands brushed over his shirt and waistcoat. “Not too garish at all.”

  Tom stared down at her. When she would have pulled away from him to move back to her seat, he stopped her by the simple expedient of framing her face with his hands. “Do you have any notion how difficult you make this?”

  A blush rose warmly in her cheeks. “What?”

  “Being with you.”

  Her own hands rested flat on his chest. She could feel his heart thumping heavily beneath them. Almost as heavily as her own. “Because I gave you a gift?”

  “Because you’re you. Because I can’t be near you without losing all of my good sense.”

  “You’ve behaved perfectly well since we left Egypt.”

  He bent his head to hers. “When I brushed your hair in your cabin? When I kissed your hand?”

  Jenny stretched up to nuzzle her nose against his. “Both of which were lovely.”

  “You’re lovely,” he said. And then he leaned down and kissed her, his lips capturing hers so softly and so sweetly that she could do nothing more than melt against him and kiss him back.

  The gharry-wallah kept the horse to a walk. Anything faster would have been unconscionable in the heat. It gave Tom ample time to enfold Jenny into his strong embrace, to press tender kisses to her cheeks and temple, and to murmur to her the most delicious things she’d ever heard in her life.

  “My dear girl,” he said. “You’ll drive me mad with wanting you.”

  She slid her arms around his neck, returning his kisses with anything but passivity. “I don’t care,” she murmured back. “I don’t care.”

  Which wasn’t true in the slightest, but in that moment—safe in his arms—nothing of the world seemed to matter. She had no thought for respectability or for keeping up appearances. There was only Tom and an ache for him so acute that nothing would do but to kiss him and hold him and burrow deeper into his embrace.

  He pressed his face into her hair. “You will if I harm your reputation any further. We both will.”

  She smoothed a hand over the back of his head. “I hate gossip, I do. And I’ve no desire to be ostracized, but really…I can’t see that any of it matters much anymore.”

  Tom slowly drew back from her to look her in the eye. His hair was rumpled, his face flushed high at his cheekbones. “What are you saying?”

  “Only that we’ve already suffered our fair share of talk. Knowing that, what difference can it possibly make if we—”

  “What?” He searched her face, his fingers tightening at her waist, pressing into the hard bones of her corset. “Surely you’re not suggesting—”

  “Not that.” A rush of heat swept up Jenny’s neck, setting her face aflame. “I’m not lost to all propriety.” Her hands slid down to the front of his waistcoat. “All I’m suggesting is that…” She plucked at one of his buttons. “Perhaps we might consider traveling to Delhi in the same way we traveled across Egypt?”

  “Alone. In a private compartment.”

  It was the very thing she’d resolved against that morning on the deck of the Bentinck, the shock of Mrs. Plank’s accusations still fresh in her mind. Gossip was dangerous to a single woman, even more so to one traveling alone in a strange land. Jenny had promised herself then she’d do nothing to exacerbate the situation.

  But now, in the darkened cab of the gharry, her lips still swollen from Tom’s kisses, such concerns carried no weight at all.

  “Yes,” she said. And then again, more softly, “Yes. I want to be with you like this. I’m not ready for it all to end.”

  “Nor am I, but…we’re playing with fire, Jenny. This attraction between us is strong. Stronger than anything I’ve ever experienced.”

  “Which is why it’s no use fighting it all the time.”

  “We haven’t fought it enough. I know I haven’t.”

  “It isn’t only you.” She gave him a look, half embarrassed and half foolishly tender. “I’ve tried, but I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  His own expression softened. “You never show it.”

  “Don’t I? I feel as if it must be plain for the whole world to see.”

  “Perhaps it is. Perhaps it’s just me who’s too stupid to recognize it.” The color in his cheeks heightened, his voice deepening on a husky admission. “I haven’t much experience with any of this.”

  “And you think I have?”

  “What I think is that neither of us have exercised any restraint since we left England.”

  “Not for lack of trying.”

  “But we haven’t tried very hard, have we? And it’s my fault. I’m the one who proposed that we explore this attraction between us.” He exhaled a frustrated breath. “I suppose I thought I could exert some control over it. That I could manage these feelings for you the way I manage everything else.”

  “Do you regret coming with me?”

  “I should.”

  “But do you?” she pressed.

  “No. And that’s the devil of it. I don’t enjoy feeling powerless any more than you do. I’ve spent the past two decades of my life crafting a world in which I’m always in control. Not only of myself, but of my work and my environment. And now, here I am, halfway round the globe, with no control of anything.”

  “You’re out of your element, that’s all.”

  “To put it mildly.”

  “But so am I.”

  He smiled. “The difference being, you relish it.”

  “Not without reason.” She smoothed his waistcoat. “Up until now, my entire life has been a study in self-control. Of biting my tongue and blending into the background. The same rigid rules and expectations that give you strength were a prison to me. They didn’t make me feel as if I had power. They robbed me of my power. Perhaps it’s so for all women. Our lives are a series of cages: daughter, wife, mother. It isn’t a structure designed for being oneself. For discovering what truly makes one happy.”

  His hand moved gently over the curve of her spine. “Could you never be happy in any of those roles? As a wife or a mother?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t lived enough yet as a whole person. I haven’t experienced enough.”

  “How much is enough?”

  “I don’t know,” she said again. “But it must be something longer than a few months abroad looking for Giles, mustn’t it? I’ve yet to lose this restless feeling in my chest. And it’s all mixed up with my feelings for you, making everything a wretched tangle.”

  “What do you anticipate will calm your restlessness?”

  “More travel, I expect.”

  Tom’s voice lowered, making her pulse throb and the butterflies in her stomach soar. “And what about your restlessness for me?”

  She slid her arms around his waist, bringing her cheek to rest on his lapel. Tom’s arms encircled her firmly in return. “More of this.”

  His lips brushed over her temple in the barest whisper of a kiss. “It’s not wise to continue in this manner. You said so yourself.”

  “I never did.”

  “On the train to Cairo, you said that the more time we spend together, the harder it’s going to be to say goodbye.”

  “Which is true, but still no reason we can’t—”

  “Your reputation seems a good enough reason to me.”

  “Rubbish. We’ll simply have to be more careful.”

  “By sharing a private compartment all the way to Delhi? It will
never do.”

  He was right. She knew he was. And yet his pronouncement felt like a rejection not only of her travel suggestions, but of herself and the tenderness she bore for him. “Don’t you want—?”

  “My God, yes. But we daren’t risk it. You know that as well as I do. If we continue on as we are, it will only be a matter of time before there’s more talk. Before your reputation is damaged beyond all hope of repair.”

  “Mrs. Plank would claim that it already is. She’d say I was ruined from the moment we boarded the ship together in Dover. If it wasn’t for—”

  Tom abruptly set her away from him. His blue eyes were no longer weary. They were sharp and clear, regarding her with an unsettling solemnity. “Do you believe I’ve ruined you?”

  Her mouth tilted upward. “I don’t feel ruined.”

  “It’s no joke, Jenny.”

  She could see that it wasn’t. Not to him. “I know that, but I don’t understand how—”

  “If you feel—if you suspect for even a moment—that our journey together has irrevocably harmed your reputation, then I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?”

  “I’ll redeem it,” he said.

  Jenny’s breath stopped in her chest. She moistened lips that were suddenly dry. “How do you propose to do that?”

  He gave her a wry look. “How do you think?”

  As marriage proposals went, it was an unmitigated disaster. Especially when made after she had so passionately explained her need for more travel and more independence—and so eloquently expressed her lack of interest in the roles of wife and mother. Had it been a legal strategy, Fothergill would have decried it as being impetuous, poorly thought out, and destined for failure from the first word.

  Tom couldn’t disagree.

  This was what came of sharing kisses in the darkened cab of a Calcutta gharry thousands of miles away from the rigid certainty of his life in London. A man forgot how to plan things properly. How to strategize for a successful outcome.

  As if a man could think at all while holding Jenny Holloway in his arms.