A Modest Independence

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A Modest Independence Page 36

by Mimi Matthews


  “I’m not talking about morality. I’m saying that I was fool to believe I could ever be satisfied with half of you. This thing between us, it’s all or nothing, Jenny. It’s always been all or nothing. I realized it from the moment we kissed that night on the deck of the Indus. It scared the devil out of me. I should have known then that I was in over my head. Feelings like these…one can’t dip in and out of them as one pleases. They mean too much. To me, anyway.”

  She blinked rapidly, her eyes stinging worse than ever. “To me as well.”

  “Then you understand.”

  “Yes, but…I didn’t expect…”

  “Nor did I.” He gave an eloquent grimace. “If you only knew the tortuous turn my thoughts have taken of late. It’s lucky you exacted that promise from me on the train to Marseilles. If you hadn’t…”

  “What?”

  “I’ve thought of hundreds of ways of manipulating you into coming home. Of trapping you and forcing your hand. Why else do you think I encouraged you to go to Jhansi? I never really expected we’d find Giles alive. The odds seemed too slight. All I wanted was more time with you. I thought—”

  “You thought that I’d change my mind.”

  “Yes.” He gave her a bleak look. “That you’d decide I was worth it.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “It has nothing to do with your worth. It never has. It has to do with mine. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering who I might have been if only I’d had a little time on my own. A chance to exert myself in a manner of my own choosing without reference to the expectations of a father or a brother or an employer. Without that, how could I ever commit myself to anyone? It wouldn’t be fair to you or to myself.”

  He turned his face from her, taking a discreet swipe at his cheek. “I do understand.”

  Jenny’s chest tightened. The thought of him shedding even a single tear over her was enough to splinter her already broken heart into a million pieces.

  “I’ve been thinking of our dilemma the whole of this last month,” he said, his deep voice roughened with emotion. “Imagining all the different ways I could fight to win you. It’s a rather romantic daydream. Fighting for the woman you care about. But somewhere between Darjeeling and Suez I came to a rather depressing realization. If I fought, I wouldn’t be fighting for you. I’d be fighting against you. Because staying here—remaining unmarried and independent—is a course you’ve chosen of your own free will.”

  “It is.” She reminded herself that it was what she wanted. What she’d always wanted. To be free and beholden to no one. “But I never meant to hurt you.”

  “We’ve hurt each other. If I had it to do over again, I—” He broke off. “But there’s no turning back the clock. I can only go forward.”

  “Back to London.”

  “It’s where I belong.” His blue eyes glistened. “I’ll be there if you need me. If a problem arises—something with the house or with your letter of credit—you’ve only to send me a wire.”

  “I will, I promise. And I’ll write to you as well. Unless…unless you don’t wish it.”

  He swallowed hard. “Perhaps we should give it some time.”

  “Yes, of course.” Her voice quavered. But though a sob rose in her throat, she wouldn’t permit herself to make a scene. “We should take a while to get our bearings.”

  He held her gaze. For a long moment it seemed as though he would say something else—something important—but when he spoke there was a stark finality to his words. “The train leaves early. I’d better…”

  “Yes, you’d better go.”

  He gave the hotel room an unseeing glance. “I hate to leave you on your own. Will Ahmad and Mira—”

  “They’ll be back soon.”

  “Good.” He collected his attaché case, taking the moment to give another irritated swipe at his face. His voice deepened. “You’ll keep them with you, I trust.”

  “I will.”

  “And you won’t wander about the city on your own or take any unnecessary risks?”

  “I’ll be fine. You can stop worrying about me.”

  He met her eyes one last time. His mouth hitched in a brief smile. “Impossible.”

  She dashed a spill of hot tears from her cheeks with her hands. But she didn’t beg him to stay. She wouldn’t. “Goodbye, Tom.”

  “Goodbye, Jenny,” he said. “I wish you well. Most sincerely.”

  And with that, he was gone. Gone from her room and gone from her life.

  She sank down on the edge of the bed and wept.

  North Devon, England

  May, 1860

  It took nine days to reach Dover, and another day by train to reach North Devon. Tom and Giles emerged onto the platform at the railway station in Abbott’s Holcombe to find Justin Thornhill’s elderly steward, Mr. Boothroyd, waiting for them with a carriage and four.

  Small, gray-haired, and bespectacled, Boothroyd had once been secretary to Sir Oswald Bannister. He wasn’t a sentimental man, but he’d nevertheless done his best to make up for the evil of his former employer. It was he who had arranged for Tom to be articled to Mr. Fothergill. He’d even arranged for apprenticeships for Neville, Justin, and Alex Archer—all to no avail.

  The fact that Boothroyd now worked for Justin was yet another aspect of his penance. Tom should have honored him for it. At least the man was trying to right the wrongs of the past. But the sight of Boothroyd did nothing but remind him of things he’d rather forget.

  Indeed, in his present mood, Tom would have preferred to have gone straight to London. The sights and sounds of North Devon only served to exacerbate the heavy weight of melancholy he’d been bearing since parting from Jenny in Cairo.

  It was the lowest he could remember feeling since he was a boy in the orphanage. The sense of powerlessness—of utter desolation—was so acute that the entirety of the steamship journey from Alexandria to Marseilles had passed in a blur. So too had the rail journey to Calais and the Channel crossing to Dover. Nothing served to rouse Tom from his black mood.

  What he needed was work, and lots of it.

  But that was going to have to wait a few days longer. For now, duty required that he remain in North Devon.

  “Who is this, then?” Giles muttered to him.

  Tom performed the necessary introductions, too preoccupied with his own unhappiness to feel any amusement when Boothroyd did all but tug his forelock to the newly resurrected earl.

  “It’s an honor to welcome you to Devon, my lord,” he said, rising from a deep bow. “Lady Helena and Mr. Thornhill would have come to meet you personally, but Mr. Thornhill anticipates an emotional reunion. He thought it best such a scene be reserved for the privacy of the Abbey.”

  “Wise of him.” Giles glanced over his shoulder to address Hossein in brief Hindustani. The manservant had stuck to him like glue throughout their journey. Tom didn’t know what Giles would have done without the fellow. He relied on him to an unimaginable degree. “My valet, Hossein,” Giles said, turning back to Boothroyd. “He’ll attend to my bags.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  They waited while a burly footman from the Abby lashed their trunks to the outside of the carriage with sturdy ropes. When finished, he held the door while Tom, Boothroyd, Giles, and Hossein climbed in.

  “Is it far from here?” Giles asked.

  “Thirteen miles of good road.” Tom withdrew his pocket watch from his waistcoat and checked the time. “We’ll be there in time for luncheon.”

  The weather was cool and brisk off of the sea, with strong northerly winds that buffeted the carriage as they traveled. It was a newer vehicle, glossy black with a green velvet and leather interior. Nothing like the ramshackle carriage Justin had been using when Tom last visited the Abbey.

  Jenny had said that Lady Helena had made several improvements there. New pain
t, paper, and furnishings. Tom couldn’t imagine it. The Abbey had always been such a stark place. As cold and unwelcoming as the bleak cliffs that lined the coast from the resort town of Abbott’s Holcombe to the small village of King’s Abbott.

  “Mr. Thornhill only just received your wire from Egypt three days ago,” Boothroyd said. “When your wire from Dover came this morning, the house went into an uproar. We were all of us at sixes and sevens, as you can imagine.”

  Giles gazed out the window at the passing scenery, seemingly unperturbed by the chaos his arrival might have caused. Whatever emotions he felt at the prospect of reuniting with his sister were concealed behind the same cold, aristocratic mask he often wore in times of stress.

  Tom leaned back in his seat as Boothroyd continued talking. He was tired, drained of every ounce of energy or will. It made sudden sense to him now what it was that compelled lovelorn gentlemen to drink to excess—to brawl and carouse and generally make pathetic fools of themselves.

  Pity he hadn’t that to look forward to, at least. A few weeks of drunken oblivion. But Tom didn’t do anything to excess, not drinking and certainly not brawling. The only matters in his life on which he’d ever exerted an overabundance of zeal were those with some relation to the law. In every other aspect of his life he’d been careful. Cautious. Never daring to make himself vulnerable.

  Until Jenny.

  There was nothing careful about his feelings for her. He loved her, fully and too well. If he didn’t, he’d have had no compunction about forcing her to come back with him. Instead, he’d let her go. It was the most difficult thing he’d ever done in his life.

  Tom didn’t regret his decision. It had been the right thing to do. The only thing to do. But that didn’t stop him from revisiting their final meeting—reviewing it over and over—torturing himself with the memory of it until his heart was bruised from the constant pummeling.

  If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the soft curve of her hands as they framed his face. Could still hear her words, so fierce and tender.

  You don’t have to change anything about yourself to earn my regard.

  But it wouldn’t do to dwell on such things. He’d fixated on them enough over the past nine days. It was past time for him to move on. Not to forget her. How could he? But to stop brooding over what might have been and look to his future.

  “Will you be staying long with us, Mr. Finchley?” Boothroyd asked.

  Tom roused himself to answer. “A day or two at most. I’m needed in London straightaway. I’d like to catch the morning train if possible.”

  It was the last thing he said until an hour and a half later when the carriage turned onto the narrow cliff road that led up to Greyfriar’s Abbey.

  “Rather reminds one of the road to Senchal,” Giles remarked.

  Tom cast a fleeting glance out the window. The wheels of the carriage were mere inches from the edge, stones crumbling and falling beneath them to the foaming surf below. Dangerous as it was, it was nothing like the road to Senchal Ridge. Then, he’d had Jenny by his side. “The Abbey isn’t the most accessible of places,” he said. “When the rains come, this road often washes out entirely.”

  “And my sister doesn’t mind it?” Giles snorted. “Singular.”

  Boothroyd hastened to defend his master’s home. “Lady Helena is quite content at the Abbey, I assure you, my lord. She and Mr. Thornhill prefer it to residing in London.”

  “Have they a home in town?” Giles asked.

  “They have a house on lease in Half Moon Street,” Tom said. “They stayed there for a time during the business with your uncle.”

  Giles grunted in response before resuming his silent stare out the carriage window.

  The cliff road was the only point of access to the Abbey. It ascended along a track just wide enough for a coach and four, curving as it went beneath the branches of trees and shrubs that grew at all angles from the cliff face. It was a good half an hour before they reached even ground. When they did, the coachman urged the horses to a faster pace. The well-sprung carriage rolled smoothly behind them, veering to the left through a sparse woodland before finally slowing as it rounded the curve of the drive.

  Greyfriar’s Abbey stood in the distance, only a stone wall protecting it from a sheer drop down to the open sea. It had been built on the remains of a twelfth-century monastery, and with its steeply pitched roof, pointed arches, and Gothic tower, it was as bleak and gray as the barren landscape that surrounded it.

  The last time Tom had visited, it had been surrounded with heaps of stone—evidence of the repairs Justin had been making to the antiquated structure. Now, however, there were no signs of ongoing construction. The drive was comprised of newly laid stones, and the steps leading to the front entrance were flanked by beds of flowers, rife with blooms of blue, red, and yellow.

  Greyfriar’s Abbey no longer looked like an abandoned relic. It looked like a home. A rather dramatic home, to be sure, but a home nonetheless.

  The carriage came to a halt at the front steps, and the footman leapt down from the box to open the door. Tom climbed out after Boothroyd. The roar of the sea and the incessant squawking of seagulls circling overhead briefly drowned out the sound of the front doors of the Abbey opening. It took a moment for him to realize that Justin and Lady Helena had come out onto the steps.

  Ex-army captain Justin Thornhill was a tall man, his lean, broad-shouldered frame towering over Tom’s more moderate height. With his black hair, gray eyes, and strongly chiseled features, he might have been handsome if he wasn’t so damnably intimidating. The burn scars on his face and neck—souvenirs of the torture he’d suffered while being held prisoner in India—didn’t help to soften his appearance.

  What helped was the presence of his wife, Lady Helena. She stood at his side, her hand tucked in his, as beautiful and elegant as Justin was piratical. Her wide hazel eyes were riveted to the open door of the carriage.

  Giles emerged from the interior of the cab, climbing down the carriage steps with the help of Hossein. At first he didn’t seem to register his sister’s presence.

  And then he raised his head and looked up.

  The instant he set eyes on her, his aristocratic mask fell away.

  Helena dropped Justin’s hand, clutching her skirts as she ran down the steps and threw her arms around her brother’s neck.

  Tom couldn’t hear what she said to him. Whatever it was, it made tears spill from Giles’s eyes.

  “There, there, love,” he murmured, his arm coming around her waist. “I’m home now. I’m home.”

  Tom climbed the steps to join Justin. He hadn’t made any move to interfere with his wife greeting her long-lost brother. He only watched the pair of them, brows lowered in a frown.

  “You don’t approve,” Tom said.

  Justin glanced at him. “Where the hell has he been?”

  “Hiding in India.”

  “Hiding from what?”

  “Reality, I assume.”

  Justin’s expression darkened. “I could break him in half for what he’s put her through.”

  “Probably not the best idea.” Tom paused. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Lady Helena turned her brother toward the steps. “Giles, may I present my husband, Mr. Justin Thornhill?” She looked up at Justin, tears of joy glistening in her eyes. “Justin? This is my brother, Giles Reynolds, 6th Earl of Castleton.”

  Justin descended the steps and extended his hand to Giles. “Welcome to Greyfriar’s Abbey.”

  Giles shook Justin’s hand. “I believe I owe you a debt of gratitude for looking after my sister.”

  “Helena is my wife. You owe me nothing.”

  Lady Helena found Tom’s eyes. “How can I ever thank you for what you’ve done?”

  Tom smiled. “It wasn’t me. It was all Jenny.”

  “Jenny?” Just
in echoed under his breath.

  A dull flush heated Tom’s neck. “Miss Holloway, I mean.” He endeavored to keep his tone businesslike. “This is all her doing. I was merely there in my capacity as her solicitor.”

  Lady Helena exchanged an unreadable glance with her husband before meeting Tom’s eyes once more. “Where is she?”

  “In Cairo, if you can believe it.” Giles thrust his hand into his waistcoat and withdrew a folded scrap of paper. “She tasked me with giving you this letter.”

  Tom jerked to attention. A letter? When had Jenny given Giles a letter? And, more importantly, what the devil did it say?

  Helena cracked open the seal. As she read the missive, a smile brightened her tearstained face. When she’d finished, she folded it back together. After a moment of hesitation, she extended it to Tom. “Would you care to read it?”

  He should decline. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do. But he was too hungry for news of Jenny to do anything but take it.

  As Giles and Lady Helena made their way up the steps, Giles introducing his sister to Hossein and Thornhill ordering the servants about, Tom trailed behind them, opening Jenny’s letter and devouring it in one go.

  My dearest Helena,

  Against your wishes, I have decided to remain abroad for a time. But I trust you won’t be too unhappy with my decision, for I have sent you a gift in care of Mr. Finchley that I think will please you beyond measure.

  To that end, you should know who was ultimately responsible for returning your brother to you. Mr. Finchley will doubtless say it was I who found Giles. The truth is, it was my manservant, Ahmad Malik, who discovered the vital clue that led us to Darjeeling and it is to him you should convey a reward—if reward there be.

  By the by, Mr. Malik has a distinct talent for dressmaking. I do believe, if set up in his own London establishment, he could one day rival Charles Frederick Worth. Do consider it, Helena. I believe Mr. Malik and his cousin, Mira, are worth the investment.

  As for me, I shall be content here for a while. Write to me when you can and I shall do the same. Until then, I remain your friend and most obedient servant,

 

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