A Modest Independence

by Mimi Matthews

  Tom felt a burgeoning sense of unease. He didn’t know what to say. Not when they were in company with Ahmad. And even if they weren’t, how the devil was he supposed to comfort her? To cushion the loss of a man who—

  But that was the crux of the matter. Tom didn’t know who Giles had been to Jenny. Not anymore.

  He dropped his voice. “Is there anything I can—”

  “Could we not discuss it at the moment?” She wafted her fan. “I can’t think straight in this heat.”

  Ahmad fixed his gaze out the opposite window, effectively withdrawing himself from the conversation.

  Tom appreciated the man’s efforts at invisibility, but it made it no easier to speak with Jenny. She didn’t say another word until they arrived at their hotel, and only then to take her leave of him.

  “I need some time to myself,” she said upon entering her room. “A few hours rest until tiffin.”

  He stood at the door, one hand resting on the doorframe, the other clutching his hat. “You’re worrying me.”

  She gave him a weak smile. “Don’t worry. Nothing that’s happened today is any worse than what we expected all along. We both of us knew there was little chance we’d find Giles alive.”

  Then why do you look so ravaged? he wanted to ask. Why do you look as if your heart has been broken into a million pieces?

  “You’ll summon me if you need me?”

  She promised she would, and then slowly, and quite firmly, shut the door in his face.

  Tom entered his own room on a muttered curse, hurling his hat at the bed in a flare of frustration. It bounced against a panel of mosquito netting and ricocheted onto the marble floor. “Blast it.”

  Ahmad emerged from the dressing room, a pile of shirts draped over his arm. “Is Miss Holloway unwell?”

  “I don’t know.” It was the honest truth. Tom had no idea how she was feeling, physically or otherwise.

  Good God, but he hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t anticipated that Jenny would be genuinely grieved at the loss of the man. She wasn’t Lady Helena. She hadn’t spent the past years hoping and praying that Giles was alive. She’d said herself that she had no reason to doubt the initial reports of his death. That the kiss she and Giles had shared wasn’t enough to spark an affinity between them.

  But that wasn’t all she’d said.

  Tom stopped where he stood. His stomach turned over on a wave of apprehension. Hell and damnation. How could he have overlooked it? How could he have failed to recognize—

  He turned sharply to Ahmad, his heart thumping hard in his chest. “I must speak with Miss Holloway.”

  Ahmad’s brows lifted. “Now?”

  “Yes, now. In her room. If you’ll take Mira away awhile, for a cup of tea or a—”

  “Mira isn’t there,” Ahmad said. “She’s gone on an errand.”

  “What?” Tom shot him a look. “By herself?”

  Ahmad shrugged. “She knows the city better than a gharry-wallah.”

  “Nonsense. She was a child when she left Delhi.”

  “One doesn’t forget the streets where one was born. Mira hasn’t.” Ahmad paused. “I haven’t.”

  “Then you must go and find her.”

  “And leave you here, alone with Miss Holloway?”

  “Miss Holloway will be safe enough with me.”

  Ahmad didn’t look convinced. Though he’d been acting as Tom’s valet for the better part of their journey, he clearly hadn’t forgotten to whom he owed his allegiance. “What about gossip? You might be observed going into her room.”

  “I won’t be,” Tom promised.

  For once, the fates seemed to be on his side. The hall that led between his room and Jenny’s was empty. There were no nosy guests peeking out of their rooms and no busy servants trotting up the marble corridor with trays of food and drinks.

  He rapped softly on Jenny’s door.

  She didn’t answer. Not immediately. It was only some moments later, after Tom knocked again, that he heard the sound of starched petticoats swishing as she made her way to the door.

  The bolt was unlatched and the door slowly cracked open to reveal Jenny’s tear-streaked face.

  Tom’s breath stopped in his chest. Every instinct urged him to reach out to her, to take her in his arms and offer his shoulder to cry on. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. At the sight of her tears for the late Earl of Castleton, something within him froze.

  She didn’t invite him in, merely turned and walked back into the confines of her hotel room.

  He slowly followed after her, shutting the door behind him and drawing the latch back into place. At the scrape of the bolt, she stopped to face him, a question trembling at her lips.

  The draperies were closed against the midday heat. It was dim and cool, the net curtains over her bed drawn open to reveal a rumpled coverlet and linens. As if she’d lain there, only seconds before, sobbing into her pillow.

  “‘Such events loom large in the life of a young woman,’” he said.

  She blinked up at him, her eyes swollen from weeping. “What?”

  “That’s what you told me about Giles’s final letter. The one in which he wrote that his kissing you meant nothing. In which he told you he didn’t wish to marry you. That’s how you explained crumpling it up and throwing it into the coal scuttle. ‘Such events loom large in the life of a young woman.’” Tom stared down at her, his voice steady even as his heart fractured. “You loved him, didn’t you?”

  Jenny thought she must be hearing things. It wouldn’t surprise her. From the instant Colonel Anstruther had concluded his gruesome tale, she’d felt an odd detachment. It had all been far too much to take in—not only the indisputable fact that Giles was dead, but what that fact meant to her and her own future. Her own happiness. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s why we’re here. Why you wanted so badly to find him. It’s because you loved him.” Tom was still and solemn as he looked at her. He was also more controlled than Jenny had ever seen him. As if he were holding himself together by sheer force of will. “Do you deny it?”

  “You make it sound as though I’m on trial.”

  “Do you?”

  She wiped at her face with her hands. “Of course I deny it. I didn’t love Giles. Not in the way I think you mean.”

  “You’re weeping over the loss of him.”

  “You idiot.” Or, at least, it’s what she’d meant to say. It came out in a choked sob on another flood of tears. “I’m not weeping for Giles. Not entirely. I’m weeping because it’s over. You’ll go home now. Back to England. And I’ll n-never see you again.”

  Tom stared down at her, dumbstruck. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, and then again. “Jenny…”

  It was only her name, but it was enough to make her face crumple. She hadn’t mastered the art of attractive feminine weeping. She was too noisy—too red and blotchy and prone to puffiness about the eyes and nose. “I told you I needed time to compose myself. Why didn’t you listen to me?” She fumbled about herself to no avail. “Oh, where is my handkerchief?”

  Tom pressed his own into her hands. It was large and clean and smelled of him—of bay rum, fresh linen, and the ink and parchment of his dratted legal papers. Another sob broke as she buried her face into it.

  She didn’t fight it. Rather the opposite. She sank down in a chair beside the bed and gave herself up to it, crying until her throat burned and her chest ached.

  When at last she opened her eyes, Tom was crouched in front of her on his haunches, one hand on his knee, the other hand resting on the arm of her chair. The coldness in his face was gone. He was still solemn and self-controlled. But there was something else there now, too. A tenderness in his weary blue eyes that she’d never seen before.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  She snuffled
into his handkerchief, wishing there was a more ladylike way to blow one’s nose. “What? Where?”

  “Home,” he said. “To England. This doesn’t have to be the end.”

  “Lord, I must look a fright.”

  “Jenny, are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, but—” Her face contorted in a spasm of grief. “I can’t go with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not who I am. It isn’t what I want. Not England. Not the life I had before.”

  “And not me.”

  “That isn’t true. I do want you. I’ve been crying my heart out, wanting—” She broke off, blinking back another swell of tears. “I do want you,” she said again, feeling young and foolish and in extraordinarily poor control of her emotions. “I’d kiss you if I wasn’t in such a dreadful state.”

  “You’re beautiful,” Tom said gruffly. He took his handkerchief from her hands and used it to dry her face. “You’re always beautiful.”

  “Don’t dare be kind to me. I’ll never stop weeping.”

  “I can be nothing but kind to you. You’re my dearest girl. Don’t you know that?”

  Jenny looked into his eyes as he dried her tears. Her heart ached to the point of pain. “You’re no less dear to me.”

  His lips quirked. “Which is why you called me an idiot.”

  He was trying to make her laugh, but Jenny didn’t feel much like laughing. She exhaled a trembling breath. “When will you leave Delhi?”

  Tom drew back. His expression was grim. “I don’t know.”

  Tears rose in her eyes once more. “Oh, drat,” she muttered. “Is there no end to this humiliation?”

  He didn’t reply. Instead he reached for her, pulling her into his arms. She buried her face in his neck as he stood, lifting her as if she weighed no more than a feather, and carried her to the bed.

  Jenny made no objection, not even when he sat down amidst her pillows, his back propped against the wall, and cradled her as she wept.

  But she should have. She should have.

  It was scandalous. Wanton and reckless. The very opposite of how she’d promised herself she’d behave once they arrived in Delhi. Gracious, they were in bed together! He did nothing to initiate greater intimacy, but he might have done. And she might have done. All it wanted was a bit of encouragement. A grain in the balance to tip the scales.

  “We can’t,” she said.

  “We won’t. Just let me hold you awhile.”

  His breath was soft on her hair, the pressure of his hand a soothing weight as it stroked up and down over the curve of her spine.

  She was an independent lady now. A spinster of eight and twenty, responsible for her own life. Her own happiness. But, oh—! It was so wonderful to be taken care of by him. So restful and easy after so many tears.

  Her eyes grew heavy. “I’ve never wept so much over anything before.”

  “It’s been a difficult day. For both of us.”

  “You’re not weeping. I don’t suppose you ever have. Not over a woman.”

  “You’d suppose wrong.” His voice dropped to a low rumble. “When I was a very young boy in the orphanage, I often wept for my mother.”

  “But you didn’t know you had a mother then, did you?”

  “Everyone has a mother.”

  She drew her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, gently, ever so gently. “Why did you weep for her? Did you hope she might come for you one day?”

  “I knew she wouldn’t.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because…even though I’d never known her, I felt the loss of her. The emptiness inside that comes from being abandoned by the person who’s meant to love you first and best.” Tom’s hand moved over her back. “Tears are a rather fatiguing business, but necessary on occasion, I can attest. I never slept so deeply as I did after a good cry. And when I woke, I was famished. As if I’d swum a mile.”

  “I’m not going to sleep.”

  “You can if you like.”

  “I can’t. I’ve so much to do. Letters to write and plans to make.”

  “There’ll be time enough after tiffin.”

  “There isn’t enough time in the world. Not for us. It’s all run out. We knew—”

  He hugged her closer. “Let me worry about all of that.”

  She gulped noisily as fresh tears clogged her throat. “I am grieved about Giles,” she admitted. “I didn’t believe he was alive, not truly. But I was beginning to hope. And now…the thought of him suffering as he did. Of his body being thrown into a pit. How will I ever tell Helena?”

  “Leave it with me,” he said. “You rest now. You’ll feel better when you wake, I promise.”

  Jenny didn’t want to sleep. She couldn’t. But Tom’s body was so warm and he held her so tenderly in his arms. Weeping was exhausting, especially when one hadn’t wept in a very long time. Despite her resolve to remain awake—to tackle their problems as expeditiously as possible—her limbs grew heavy and her eyes drifted shut.

  And she must have slept. She must have, for when she opened her eyes, Tom was gone. She was alone in her bed, hot and miserable, her head resting on a pillow instead of his shoulder.

  “Madam?” Mira’s voice sounded from across the hotel room.

  Jenny pushed her hair from her face. It was no longer tightly plaited and coiled. Someone had removed all of the pins. She blinked bleary eyes, unable to see anything through the white mosquito netting that shrouded her bed. “Where is everyone?”

  “Mr. Finchley has gone off with Ahmad to the railway depot.”

  “What?” Jenny struggled to a sitting position. Her sleeves and skirts were tangled around her, binding her limbs. “He’s left Delhi? Already? But he didn’t say goodbye or—”

  “Oh no, madam.” Mira hurried to the bed. “He hasn’t gone away for good. He said I was to tell you that he would return in time for dinner.”

  The jolt of panic that had torn through Jenny’s breast slowly subsided. “What time is it? Have I slept the whole day away?”

  “It’s six o’clock. You missed tiffin. I have a tray for you.”

  “Thank you, but I’m not hungry.” Which was a miracle in itself. Emotional dilemmas always made Jenny ravenous. She never ate so much as when she was sad, worried, or angry. But not now. Not after learning about Giles’s death. And not when faced with the imminent loss of Tom.

  He might not have left her yet, but he was certainly wasting no time in making preparations for his journey home. Nor why should he? He had his work to consider, his clients and his cases and his obligations to Mr. Fothergill and Mrs. Culpepper. Was it any wonder he’d gone straight to the railway station to book his passage?

  She allowed Mira to help her up and assist her in straightening her tangled gown. “How long ago did they leave?”

  “Shortly after tiffin.” Mira tugged Jenny’s skirts into order. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you returned from your outing.”

  “What?” Jenny cast Mira a distracted glance. “Oh, yes. I hadn’t thought. Where had you gone? Shopping, or—”

  “Not shopping.” Mira’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I went to see the place where I lived with my mother before I was brought to England. I expected to be back before you returned, but…I got lost in the city. Ahmad found me.”

  A flicker of alarm sounded at the back of Jenny’s brain. “Goodness, Mira. You should have taken him with you to begin with. Anything might happen to a young woman wandering about a strange city.”

  “I was safe.”

  “You just said you got lost. If Ahmad hadn’t found you—”

  “But he did. He always knows where I am. He’d let no harm come to me.”

  Jenny felt somewhat mollified. A little jealous as well. Her own brothers had never done much to protect
her. “You’re very close with him, aren’t you?”

  “He’s the only family I have now. There is no one left. No one who remembers me.” Mira smoothed a self-conscious hand over her own fashionable bodice and skirts. Fashionable because Mira altered them herself. “The neighbors didn’t recognize me.”

  “Did you remember them?”

  “Not very well.”

  Jenny nodded in understanding. “England is your home now.”

  Mira’s face tightened almost imperceptibly. “England isn’t my home. I thought Delhi was. That I would feel something for the place and for the people. I don’t feel anything. It isn’t at all like what I dreamed of.”

  Jenny contemplated her maid with a furrowed brow. “I shouldn’t have brought you here, should I? It’s only made you unhappy. It’s made all of us unhappy. Better we had stayed in Calcutta. Or better still, that we remained in Egypt. We didn’t spend near enough time in Cairo. We didn’t even get to see the pyramids. Not properly anyway.” The prospect of a new adventure perked her spirits a little. “Would you like to go back to Cairo? We could take a house there for a while. There must be something suitable to let at this time of year.”

  “If it pleases you, madam.”

  “You don’t have any preference at all?”

  “So long as Ahmad and I remain together, I shall be content.”

  “Of course you’ll remain together. I wouldn’t employ one of you without the other. You must put that worry straight out of your head.”

  Mira smiled. “You are very kind.”

  “Rubbish,” Jenny scoffed. She gave another tug to her dress before abandoning her efforts. “It’s no use, Mira. It’s wrinkled beyond repair. I’d better change into something else.” Her fingers worked at the hooks of her bodice. “Do you suppose it’s too late to have a bath before dinner?”

  Mira helped her to strip off her sleeves and then to unfasten her skirts. “There’s time. Shall I call for hot water?”

  “Yes, if you—”

  A brisk knock sounded at the door.

  Jenny’s hands froze on the tapes of her crinoline. It was Tom. It must be.