A Modest Independence

by Mimi Matthews

  She swallowed. “I remember, one day when I first came to live at Greyfriar’s Abbey, I saw Mr. Thornhill and Helena coming up from the beach together. They were holding hands. Except that Helena had removed one of her gloves and Mr. Thornhill had removed one of his. It seemed the most intimate thing. And I thought—”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I was glad, I suppose. Glad that they’d found that connection with each other. After what they’ve been through, they deserve all the happiness in the world.”

  “Do you think we don’t?”

  She didn’t know what to say. Of course she believed that they deserved happiness. But one couldn’t have everything they wanted, could they? Life was a series of choices—of sacrifices. In order to have Tom, she’d have to give up her freedom. The very independence she’d dreamed of for so many years. It was a price she wasn’t willing pay. Not for him. Not for anyone.

  But she was tempted.

  So very, dreadfully tempted.

  “I want to ask you something,” he said.

  Every nerve in her body jangled in warning. It was all she could do to keep her voice steady. “Yes?”

  “If Giles agrees to return to England, will you go with him?”

  It wasn’t the question she’d anticipated. She should have been relieved. And she was. Truly, she was. But along with that relief came disappointment. It settled inside her, a heavy weight lodged somewhere between her heart and her stomach. She endeavored to ignore it. “I’ve been asking myself that very question for the last four days.”

  “Have you come to an answer?”

  “After a fashion. I think I must go with him part of the way, but…I’m not ready to go back to England. I still need time and I—”

  “How far?” The edge was back in his voice. “To Calcutta? To Suez?”

  “To Cairo, I think. I’d like to settle there awhile. And it’s not so remote that Giles won’t mind leaving me. Or so I hope. I haven’t discussed that part of the plan with him yet.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “I can’t stay here much longer, Jenny.”

  Her heart lurched.

  “I’ve spent too long away from London. It’s past time I got back. If you’d like me to travel with you as far as—”

  “Of course I would.” Her hand tightened on his. “I’m not ready to say goodbye to you.”

  His gaze found hers. He was still missing his spectacles. How very different he looked without them. Younger and almost vulnerable. “Do you anticipate that you’ll be ready when we reach Cairo?”

  “No,” she said. “But I won’t make a fuss. There’ll be no tears. No dreadful scenes like the one in Delhi. You may rely on it.”

  Tom’s mouth hitched in a tight, humorless smile. “How disappointing. I was rather looking forward to a dramatic goodbye.”

  Tom spent the next two days in a state of perpetual frustration. There were no more opportunities to be alone with Jenny. Giles had seen to that. When they’d returned from their walk together the previous morning, he’d met the pair of them at the door, a look of keen disapproval in his eyes. “We’ve had to wait breakfast for you,” he said.

  And then he’d offered his arm to Jenny, escorting her inside with all the authority of an overbearing elder sibling.

  Since then, Giles had commanded all of Jenny’s time.

  It was time that Jenny put to good use.

  “Giles has agreed to go home,” she said the following evening at dinner. They were seated at the rectangular wooden table in the bungalow’s small dining room. A branch of candles stood at its center, silver serving dishes of spiced meats, curry, and rice arrayed around it.

  “For a short time,” Giles clarified. “Just long enough to sort things out with my sister and my uncle.”

  Tom refrained from commenting. He wasn’t entirely unsympathetic to Giles’s plight. The man plainly suffered from some degree of melancholy. However, Tom had seen firsthand the consequences of Giles’s actions. The consequences to Lady Helena and even to Jenny.

  Could Giles have foreseen that his sister would come to harm? That Jenny would lose her position and be thrown out into the streets? Perhaps not. But he might have anticipated Lady Helena’s grief at the loss of him. He might have known how deeply she would suffer. Nevertheless, he’d decided that it was preferable to let her believe him dead.

  Tom couldn’t muster a great deal of patience with the man in the wake of such a decision.

  “We’d be wise to go before the monsoon sets in,” Giles said. “Unless the pair of you intend on putting up here until November.”

  Jenny lowered her glass of wine from her lips. “November? Heavens, no. Mr. Finchley must be back in London before the summer.”

  “Must he?” Giles fixed Tom with a cool stare. “Are the summer months particularly busy in your line of work?”

  Tom looked back at him steadily. “No more than reason.”

  Jenny frowned at Giles from across the table. “Mr. Finchley has a friend in poor health. He’s needed back sooner rather than later.”

  “How much sooner?”

  Tom speared a piece of curried chicken with his fork. “If we leave in two days’ time, we can meet the bullock train and be back in Siliguri by midweek. From there, it’s less than four hundred miles to Calcutta. We can wire ahead to book passage on a steamship to take us to Port Suez.”

  Giles’s own fork froze halfway to his mouth. “Have it all planned out, do you?”

  In fact, Tom had. He’d been talking it over with Ahmad for days, and Ahmad had—in turn—been speaking to the dak drivers and the grooms. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “None at all. I’m glad to leave the travel arrangements in your capable hands. So long as you understand that Hossein must remain with me at all times. My injury demands it.”

  “Of course.” Tom had observed the way Giles’s servant assisted him. Hossein was equal parts valet, cook, companion, and nursemaid. He even cut Giles’s meat into bitesize portions to save him the ignominy of asking for assistance at the table.

  Tom couldn’t imagine what it must be like adjusting to life with only one arm. It wasn’t merely the aesthetics of it, though to a gentleman as handsome as Giles, that surely must be a concern. It was the more mundane aspects of the condition that inspired Tom’s compassion. The fact that basic tasks—the things one did each day without even thinking, like unbuttoning a button or slicing into a roast—must now seem a struggle.

  Doubtless, Giles was still coming to terms with the injury. Tom wondered if it was one of the reasons he hadn’t gone home.

  “I don’t know about Hossein,” Jenny said, “but Ahmad and Mira will be glad to leave India. They haven’t enjoyed it here as much as I’d hoped they might. It’s not at all the way they remember it being when they were children.”

  Giles glanced up at her from his plate. “They’re from Delhi, aren’t they? They’d feel differently if they’d lived here.”

  “Is life so much better in Darjeeling?” Tom asked.

  “On the ridge it is. One rarely encounters the tension one feels in the cities.”

  Jenny helped herself to more curry. “It seems to me that one rarely encounters anything here. It’s all trees and mountains and empty fields.”

  “One of its many benefits.” Giles refilled his glass. He looked to Jenny, brows lifted in question, as he held the bottle of wine. She gave him a short nod. He tipped the bottle over her glass, filling it to the brim. “The new location in the valley is less isolated. It will be better for the tea. Less so for my own peace of mind. I’d prefer to remain up here.”

  “It’s not very convenient,” Tom said.

  “For whom? For visitors to Senchal? That’s never been a pressing concern. You’re the first I’ve had since I arrived here. N
o one has called since the cholera outbreak. They’ve no reason to.”

  Tom didn’t wonder. “A Khansama at one of the stations told us that the isolation was unhealthy. That many of the soldiers brought to the convalescent depot after the uprising didn’t recover.”

  Giles resumed eating. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  Jenny exchanged a worried look with Tom.

  Catering to Giles was taking its toll on her. He wasn’t the easiest of gentlemen to interact with. He was subject to moods and prone to sharp words and cold silences.

  Was this how he’d been when he was younger? When Jenny had first come to work as Lady Helena’s companion? If so, Tom could understand why she’d been so desirous to get away.

  “You’ve lived alone here far too long with only Hossein for company,” Jenny said. “It won’t be easy to come back into society, but in time—”

  “I won’t be staying in England for any length of time,” Giles replied. “And I’ve certainly no intention of going about in society.”

  “You plan to come back here?” Tom asked. “To the ridge?”

  “I do. It will be enough to see my sister. To satisfy myself that she’s well settled with this husband of hers. As for my uncle…” Giles’s fingers tightened on his wineglass. “He and I must have words, obviously.”

  A long silence hung between the three of them.

  When conversation at last resumed, it was nothing of the personal. They spoke of the food and the weather, discussing India in general terms until the candles burned down and the room drifted into darkness.

  Jenny moved to rise. “Shall we go into the parlor for tea? Or would the two of you prefer I leave you to a glass of port?”

  Tom and Giles both stood. Tom expected they’d join Jenny. There was no reason to stand on ceremony.

  But Giles had other ideas. “Yes, let’s share a bottle, by all means, Finchley.”

  Jenny exchanged another wary glance with Tom. “Well, I’ll leave the pair of you to it.”

  When she’d gone, Giles summoned Hossein to clear the table and bring them a bottle of port and two glasses. “You don’t smoke, do you, Finchley?” he asked when the servant had withdrawn.

  “I don’t.” Tom regarded Giles over the sputtering candles. He had no illusions about the man wishing to bond with him over tobacco and port. “Is there something you’d like to say to me?”

  “There is.” Giles filled both glasses, pushing one across the table to Tom with the tip of his finger. “Miss Holloway appears to be rather fond of you.”

  “I count her as a friend.”

  “A dear friend, she says.”

  Had she? The knowledge sent a frisson of warmth through Tom’s veins. “We’ve been traveling together for some time. It’s only natural that we’ve become close.”

  “I trust that nothing untoward has happened between the two of you?” Giles gave a thin smile. “I’m not blind, Finchley, whatever my failings. I’ve seen the way you look at each other. It’s all very romantic, I’m sure, but I’m afraid I must put a stop to it. You see, despite the intervening years, I still consider Miss Holloway my responsibility.”

  Tom didn’t flinch. He’d spent decades dealing with high-handed men who sought to dictate terms to him. “And I consider that you abdicated that responsibility.”

  “When I failed to return home?”

  “No,” Tom said. “When you took advantage of her.”

  Giles went still. “She told you about that, did she?” He downed a swallow of port. “A youthful impulse. There was no harm done.”

  “I’ve read the letter of apology you sent. Clearly you knew you’d crossed a line.”

  “Are you always so puritanical, Finchley? One would think you’d never stolen a kiss from a pretty girl before. Not every embrace ends at the altar, you know. If it did, the lot of us would be wed at a much younger age—and to females of far less desirable pedigree.”

  “She was your sister’s companion. An employee in your household.”

  Giles exhaled. “It was a long time ago. And it isn’t as if Miss Holloway holds a grudge. If she did, she’d hardly have come all this way to find me, would she?”

  “What she’s done, she’s done for Lady Helena, not for you.”

  “I see. You’ve appointed yourself her protector. Very admirable of you, I’m sure, but if you’re intending to seek some manner of satisfaction on her behalf—to challenge me to fisticuffs or a duel over her honor—you’re well out of luck. Unless, that is, you’d stoop to fight a one-armed man.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve no intention of fighting you.” The very idea was ludicrous, as well as completely lacking in imagination. Tom had never been one to rely on brute physical strength to achieve his ends. “But I do expect that there will be no repeat of your misconduct with Miss Holloway. No more affectionate familiarities. No more casual disrespect.”

  “Or else?”

  Tom said nothing. He didn’t have to.

  “Ah.” Giles set his glass back on the table. “In other words, if I meddle with Miss Holloway, you’ll treat me to a taste of the hell you visited on the Earl of Warren.” He gave a sudden laugh. “And here I thought I was the one who was going to be issuing you a warning.”

  “There’s no need,” Tom said. “Miss Holloway has nothing to fear from me.”

  Giles reached for the bottle of port. “Doesn’t she?”

  Cairo, Egypt

  May, 1860

  “Shepheard’s Hotel looks different than I remember,” Jenny remarked as she crossed through the arched lobby at Giles’s side.

  It was a now familiar refrain. She must have uttered a similar sentiment dozens of times during the course of their journey from Darjeeling to Cairo. The bullock train was different. The dak carts were different. The three-week steamship voyage from Calcutta to Suez was different.

  And it had been different, in the most acutely painful way. There’d been no romance. No hand-holding or stolen kisses. There were none of the private talks she’d had with Tom during the journey to India. No moonlit walks on the spar deck or shared confidences in her cabin.

  During the past four weeks they’d had no privacy. Indeed, Jenny didn’t think she’d spent a single moment alone with Tom. How could she with Giles there? It wasn’t so much that she cared what Giles thought of her conduct, but that he made her visible in a way she hadn’t been before. Everything about him and about the party with whom he traveled was worthy of notice. Details of how they looked, what they said, and what they did would no doubt be related in London for the next year or more.

  The 6th Earl of Castleton had returned from the dead.

  It was an extraordinary event. Even those who had never known him—those on the ship with only a peripheral connection to the aristocracy—had feted him like a conquering hero.

  And Jenny was all at once no longer Tom’s make-believe half sister. She was Giles’s cousin. Not his sister’s companion. Not an employee in his household. But a family member worthy of respect.

  “My cousin, Miss Holloway,” as he’d taken to introducing her.

  It had had the desired effect.

  As for Tom, he’d still been there to look at and to talk to, as dear to her as ever, but the intimacy between them was gone. It had ended that day in the clearing on Senchal Ridge. They’d left it behind in the mist and fog. After four weeks, the memory of it seemed so much a dream.

  Did Tom feel the same?

  Jenny couldn’t tell. He walked along at her side, clad in a plain gray suit, his hands clasped behind his back. She hadn’t taken his arm in a very long while. It was Giles who escorted her now. Everything right and proper and stifling to her very soul.

  “It’s no wonder it looks different,” Tom said. “The last time we were here, we arrived in the dead of night.”

  “And wh
en we left the next morning, it was dawn. I remember.” She smiled at him. “You told me I could sleep all the way to Port Suez.”

  Tom held her gaze for a heartbeat longer than necessary. His blue eyes were solemn. Was he thinking of their journey to Suez? How he’d held her in his arms as she slept? How they’d kissed each other with such desperation? “You won’t be leaving with us in the morning this time,” he said.

  “No.” She tried to keep her voice light. “Unlike the two of you, when dawn breaks tomorrow, I shall remain comfortably abed.”

  On that score, she was at least partially assured. Shepheard’s was nothing if not comfortable. The lobby was testament enough to that with its floors carpeted in soft Oriental rugs and its plush chairs, couches, and inlaid taborets half-hidden by strategically placed palms.

  Here and there a porter garbed in magnificent green and gold livery rushed to assist a guest or to murmur instructions to one of the Arab servants—gentlemen who were no less impressively clad in starched white linen with broad red girdles at their waists.

  The whole of Shepheard’s was an oasis from the heat. Quiet and cool, every private nook and cranny beckoning one to relax and take one’s ease.

  “Are you still certain you wish to remain here?” Giles asked. “Cairo isn’t the ideal city for a lady to—”

  “We’ve discussed this already,” she said under her breath. “You know my feelings on the matter.”

  “Yes, yes, but a female has the prerogative to change her mind.”

  “My mind is quite made up, thank you.”

  “Can’t you talk her out of it, Finchley?” Giles asked.

  Tom didn’t answer.

  Jenny chewed her lower lip. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was angry at her. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. It was merely that his distant behavior felt like coldness when compared to the closeness they’d shared only last month.

  He accompanied them as far as their rooms—all three adjoining on the third floor. But as the porter unlocked Jenny’s door, Tom withdrew.

  “I’ve a few letters to post and a wire to send to Thornhill,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me?”