A Modest Independence

by Mimi Matthews

  “Then why…?”

  “You needed time.”

  “I’ve had it.”

  His heart thumped hard. “And?”

  “And…here I am.”

  Tom was silent for a long while. “How long are you staying for?”

  “There’s a question.”

  He touched her arm, bringing her to a halt on the wet sand. “Do you have an answer?”

  She turned to face him. “Partly. But it isn’t complete.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What I mean to say is…what I do next very much depends on you.”

  He looked at her, unwilling to hope. But hope flickered nonetheless.

  Jenny sighed. “I’ve thought of a hundred things I might say to you since you left me in Cairo. In my imagination, I’m always much more eloquent. But now I’m here…” She gave him a rueful look. “The inadequacy of words.”

  “You have something you’d like to tell me?” He scarcely recognized the sound of his own voice.

  “Yes, though heaven knows I’m going to make a mull of it. You know me, Tom. I’m not comfortable with poetic declarations or grand romantic displays.” She took a step toward him. “But if I were…”

  Tom’s gaze was riveted to hers.

  She set both hands on his waistcoat. “If I were…I’d tell you that I can’t live without you. I’d say that the mountains of India—even the pyramids of Egypt—are nothing without you by my side. That I’d give it all up to have you back with me. For one moment longer in your arms.” Her lips tilted in a faint smile, even as a warm blush swept up her neck and into her face. “That’s what I’d say, anyway, if I were a romantic sort of female.”

  His throat bobbed on a swallow. “What would the unromantic Jenny Holloway say?”

  Tears brightened her blue-green eyes. Her voice, when it came, was husky with emotion. “Only that she loves you. And that she’s sorry—so dreadfully sorry—that she hurt you.”

  Jenny waited for Tom to say something. Anything. In truth, he looked rather shaken. Her hands slid up the front of his black woolen waistcoat a fraction of an inch. She felt him inhale an uneven breath.

  “I see.” He regarded her steadily. His eyes were bluer than she remembered. There was an expression in them that was hard to read. “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind?”

  Her pulse beat a throbbing rhythm at her throat. She suddenly wished she hadn’t permitted Mira to lace her corset so tightly this morning. Was it any wonder that fashionable ladies often swooned in situations like these? Between her racing pulse and the rioting butterflies in her stomach, she felt as though she’d soon follow their example.

  Had she said too much? Dared too much? She was fraught with sudden uncertainty.

  And then, in the loosened folds of his cravat, she saw a glint of sapphire.

  Her heart took flight.

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” she said. “Not about you. I’ve loved you for months.”

  Heat flared in his gaze. “Have you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I believe I fell in love with you on the Valetta, somewhere between Marseilles and Malta.”

  “When you were seasick.”

  “When you came to my cabin and took such good care of me. I’d never before seen a gentleman fold a pair of stockings.” She leaned closer to him, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And I thought…he’s perfect. Handsome and intelligent and always capable of doing precisely what’s required.”

  His mouth hitched briefly. “Folding your underthings?”

  “And all the rest of it. Kissing me. Listening to me. Being my friend.” A rogue tear slipped down her cheek. “My best friend, who I’ve missed so very much.”

  Tom raised a hand to gently wipe her face. “I’ve missed you as well.” His voice went gruff. “When I left Cairo, I was in a wretched state.”

  “I know.” More tears spilled.

  He brushed them away. “I love you, Jenny. I’ve loved you since you kissed my cheek on the pier at Dover. These last months without you have been hell. A day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t wanted to give everything up and go back to you. And I will. If that’s what it takes—”

  “Don’t say such things.”

  “I mean it. It was wrong of me to leave you there. I should have stayed with you. I should have—”

  “You’d have been miserable in Cairo. You’re meant to be in London.”

  “What about you?”

  She slid her hands further up his waistcoat. “I’m meant to be with you.”

  “Jenny—”

  “I mean it, Tom.”

  “Before…” He searched her face. “You were so certain that you didn’t want to make a life here.”

  “Yes, well…I’ve had a great deal of time to consider our situation.”

  “You’ve decided that independence isn’t as valuable a commodity as you’d originally thought?” His thumb moved gently over the damp curve of her cheek. “My dear girl, forgive my skepticism, but I can’t imagine you’ve changed your mind to that degree—not about something so important to you.”

  “I haven’t. I still want my independence. But I don’t believe you’ll take it from me.”

  “I won’t. Upon my honor.”

  She swallowed back another surge of tears. “You were right about my being afraid. I was afraid to trust you. Not because of anything you’ve done, but because of my father and all the other people who’ve let me down. I didn’t even give us a chance. I sent you away—”

  “You weren’t the only one who was afraid.”

  “You?” She blinked. “What did you have to be afraid of?”

  “The same things as you, I imagine. Being powerless. Having no control over what happens. Trusting someone you love not to hurt you.”

  And she had hurt him. The knowledge of it squeezed at her conscience. “I’m so sorry, Tom.”

  “Hush, love.” He smoothed her hair. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You’re here now. That’s all that matters to me. The rest we can work on.”

  “Yes.” She took a tremulous breath. “I’m still a little scared to give a man so much power over my life. It would be foolish not to be. But you’re not just any man, are you? You’re the man I love.”

  A spasm of emotion crossed over his face.

  “Besides,” she went on, “it’s lately occurred to me that you and I have exhibited an infinite capacity for solving other people’s problems. Surely, we can use a fraction of that ingenuity to solve our own. There must be a way we can both have what we want. We’ve only to set our minds to finding it.”

  “At this point,” Tom said, “all I want is you.”

  Her fingers tightened on the front of his waistcoat. “That’s rather convenient because I feel the precise same way where you’re concerned.”

  Tom bent his head to hers. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” It hadn’t been an easy decision. There would be consequences to giving up her freedom. She’d have to adjust. Adapt. But the alternative was no longer an option. A life without Tom would be no life at all. She loved him too much. Needed him too much. “It won’t be easy, but…if I have you by my side, I feel I could endure anything.”

  “You won’t have to endure. And you won’t have to take it all on faith. There are things that can be done to protect your money. Legal safeguards. I’m still your solicitor. I can draw up documents. Set up a trust. It won’t be the same as remaining wholly independent, but it would give you some sense of autonomy.”

  Her heart swelled. She hadn’t thought it was possible to love him more. “And you’d do that for me?”

  “Anything it takes,” he swore. “If you’ll stay with me, I’ll make it my life’s work to see that you’re happy.”

  “If,” Jenny repeated. “As though ther
e’s any doubt when I’ve traveled all the way here from Egypt just to see your handsome face.”

  “It’s hardly that.”

  “Isn’t it? To me it’s the dearest sight in the whole world.”

  He stared down into her eyes. His gaze was no longer unreadable. It shone with tenderness and rare vulnerability. “I confess I still can’t believe you’ve come back. I thought you were an apparition standing up there on the path. Something conjured out of my desperate imagination.”

  “Would you like proof that I’m real? Evidence that I mean it when I say that I love you?”

  “Jenny, I—”

  “Here, I want to show you something.” She took a step back from him to reach inside the neckline of her jacket bodice. After a bit of fumbling, she withdrew the end of her necklace. His diamond ring sparkled there in the sunlight.

  Tom went still. “Have you been wearing that this whole time?”

  “Since last month. Do you think it too sentimental?”

  He touched the ring. “What I think is that it belongs on your finger.”

  “You must put it on me afterward.”

  “Afterward?”

  She unclasped her necklace and dropped it into his palm. “You did say that we’d done everything backward.”

  “Ah. So we have.” He unthreaded the engagement ring from the chain. “After today, I propose we proceed in a more linear fashion. It will make things easier.”

  “You propose.”

  Tom smiled. “Yes, that. Forgive the oversight. I suppose I never quite got up the nerve.” He took her hand. It trembled slightly in his. “Will you marry me, Jenny?”

  “I will. With all my heart.”

  Tom slipped the ring onto her finger. It caught at her knuckle before sliding snugly into place. “There. A perfect fit.”

  She held out her hand to admire it. “I don’t know how you managed to guess my size with any accuracy.”

  “Don’t you?” His expression softened as he looked at her. “I’ve memorized everything about you. In the end, I fully expected those memories would be all that I had.”

  Jenny brought her hand to cradle his cheek. “Because you respected my choice. You were willing to let me go in order to make me happy.”

  “You make me sound frightfully noble.”

  “You were noble. And I know how much it cost you. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way you looked when you left my room that night at Shepheard’s. The memory of it has plagued me every day that we’ve been apart.”

  “I hope that isn’t why you came back.”

  “What? Guilt, do you mean? No. It was love that brought me back. I don’t believe anything else in the world could have persuaded me.”

  He lowered his forehead to rest against hers. “I do love you, Jenny. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. It’s rather a burden to put on you, being loved so much by a man like me.”

  “I think I can bear it. The real question is whether you can bear being loved by me. I have it on good authority that I’m a managing female. An eccentric one as well. Our marriage isn’t likely to be a pattern card of perfection. Do you suppose you could be happy?”

  In answer, Tom bent his head and captured her mouth with his. He kissed her softly, deeply, drawing her close in a fierce embrace.

  Jenny brought her arms around his neck, returning his kisses with equal fervor. The waves lapped up around their feet, but she didn’t mind it. Tom didn’t seem to mind it, either. It was only the sound of Paul and Jonesy’s furious barking that finally roused them from their embrace. The two dogs were running up the cliff path back to the house, making the most tremendous racket as they went.

  “Well,” Jenny said as she caught her breath.

  Tom looked down at her, smiling a foolish, lopsided smile. “Well.”

  “Do you suppose Helena and Mr. Thornhill have returned from the village?”

  “They might have done. Would you like to go up and see?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good.” His arms tightened around her. “I’m reluctant to let you go.”

  “Then don’t,” she said softly.

  He kissed her again. And then again, before lifting his head to look into her eyes. “We’ll have to go up eventually. Lady Helena and Thornhill will want to hear our news. No doubt they’ll expect us to set a date.”

  A jolt of alarm brought Jenny back to her senses. “Gracious. I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t suppose you have a preference?”

  “The sooner the better,” he said. “I can’t be without you any longer. Unless, of course, you’d prefer a large wedding with all of the traditional trimmings—”

  “Indeed not. The very idea is enough to put me off my food.” She smoothed his waistcoat. “I’d far rather marry at the registrar’s office as Mr. Thornhill and Lady Helena did. That way, we needn’t wait for weeks on end for the banns to be called.”

  “An excellent idea. We can return to London for our honeymoon. And then…”

  “What?”

  He smiled down at her. “The next adventure begins.”

  An answering smile spread over Jenny’s face. “The next adventure.” She stood up on the toes of her boots to press another sweet kiss to his lips. “I rather like the sound of that.”

  London, England

  September, 1860

  “I have a wedding gift for you,” Tom said.

  Jenny’s cheek was pillowed on his bare chest, her arm curved round his midsection. She was boneless with exhaustion. “Our wedding was yesterday.”

  He pressed his lips to her hair. “I know. I meant to give it to you afterward, but we’ve been rather…distracted.”

  “Distracted?” A laugh bubbled up in her throat. “That’s certainly one way of putting it.”

  From the moment they’d returned from the registrar’s office, they’d been unable to keep their hands off of each other. Kisses in the carriage on the drive to Half Moon Street had led to Tom carrying her over the threshold and—by some miracle—up the stairs to their bedroom.

  Jenny had had no mother to tell her what to expect on her wedding night. No elder sister or kindly aunt. But she wasn’t wholly ignorant of the marital act.

  Even so, she hadn’t anticipated that she and Tom’s wedding night would commence in the middle of the day. And she hadn’t expected to repeat the activity quite so many times, nor with such exciting variation.

  Not that she had any complaints.

  Tom Finchley was a tender, considerate, and very thorough lover. Even in those moments when he gave himself up to his passions and shuddered in her arms, he always ensured that she was shuddering right along with him.

  Jenny hadn’t imagined she could feel so close to someone. At once so powerful and so very vulnerable. But she loved him. Trusted him with her whole heart. There was never an instant when she was tempted to hold herself back from expressing it. Nor an instant when she didn’t welcome Tom expressing the same.

  “Distracted. Deranged. Delirious.” His chest rumbled on a husky laugh of his own. “However you choose to describe it.”

  “I’ll have to think of a better word.”

  “Do that.” Tom slowly disentangled himself from her arms. She made a soft sound of protest. “Shall I bring you back a cup of tea?” he asked as he rose from the bed and pulled on his trousers.

  “What about my gift?”

  “It’s still packed away in my luggage.” He bent his head and kissed her warmly on the mouth. “I’ll be back momentarily Don’t move a muscle.”

  Tom was true to his word. No sooner had she put on her nightgown and sat up in bed, her back propped against a pile of fluffy pillows, than he returned with the tea tray. He set it down on a nearby table.

  “What would you like first? Tea or your wedding gift?”

  She gave him a look.
>
  Tom grinned. He climbed back in bed to sit next to her. “It’s two gifts, really.” He put a wrapped package in her lap. “This is the first one.”

  With all the excitement of a child at Christmas, she swiftly removed the paper and twine. Inside the wrappings was a small lacquer box. She glanced up at Tom in question.

  He was watching her intently. “Open it, love.”

  Something in his gaze put Jenny on her guard. This, she realized, was a gift he’d put a great deal of thought into. Resolving to be thrilled by it no matter what it might be, she lifted the lid and peered inside.

  And there, laying atop a bed of velvet, was her mother’s emerald medallion.

  Her eyes flew to his. “How in the world…?”

  “Surprised?”

  Tears threatened as memories flooded her mind. But she wasn’t going to weep. Not now. This was a moment of joy. “I should say so.” She lifted it out of the box. After all these years, the weight of it still felt familiar in her hand. “Good gracious, Tom. How on earth did you find it?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “It was Treadway, the inquiry agent Thornhill hired to find Giles. He plainly had no interest in traveling to India, so I had Thornhill send him to Chipping St. Mary instead.”

  “What?” She blinked up at him. “When?”

  “Sometime in April.”

  “But…we were still abroad in April.”

  “I know we were. I mentioned the medallion to Thornhill in the letter I posted to him the day we arrived in Calcutta. After you told me about your father selling it, I knew I had to get it back for you. And since we were already in India to find Giles and since Treadway was doing nothing except making a nuisance of himself, it seemed only logical—”

  “Oh, Tom.” She embraced him fiercely.

  His arms closed around her. “You’re pleased, I take it?”

  And tears did spring to her eyes then. Not because she was grieved about her mother or her father or the history of the medallion. But because she was grateful. So wonderfully, heart-clenchingly grateful to have married Tom Finchley. To love and be loved by him.