Page 108 of A Modest Independence

“He says she will not.”

“That’s odd.” There were only a handful of ladies it could be. The Planks or the Hardcastles or, perhaps, one of the ladies Jenny had met in Calcutta. But if it were truly one of those redoubtable memsahibs, they’d have surely sent along their card. And they’d have wished to meet in the hotel’s salon, not in her private room of all places.

Jenny chewed her lip. “You’d better tell him to send her up,” she said at last. “But not now. I’ll need time to dress and repair my hair.”

Mira conveyed as much to the hotel footman through a crack in the door. She then returned to help Jenny into a dinner dress of fine mull muslin.

When Jenny had purchased the gown from Mrs. McTavish’s shop in Calcutta, it had been plain cream in color, but Mira had lately added shimmering black embroidery to the hem and front of the skirts, giving the whole of it a much more striking appearance.

“How it glistens.” Jenny smoothed the skirts over her crinoline.

“For dancing,” Mira said.

Jenny managed a slight smile. She wouldn’t be doing much dancing in Delhi. Not now that Tom was leaving her. “Your talents are wasted on me, Mira. You do know that, don’t you? There are hundreds of ladies in London who could show off your creations better than I do.”

Mira ducked her head, blushing. “Shall I arrange your hair, madam?”

“No, thank you. I can do it easily enough.” Jenny wandered to the pier glass across the room, swiftly plaiting her tresses and rolling them into a chignon at the nape of her neck. The timing couldn’t have been more propitious. No sooner had she inserted the final hairpin than there was a soft rapping at the door.

She waited as Mira went to open it, expecting she knew not what. She prayed it wasn’t Mrs. Plank or one of the other ladies she’d met on the Indus or the Bentinck.

However, when the door was drawn open, it didn’t reveal Mrs. Plank. A much smaller lady stood on the threshold. She was clad in a frothy, floral-printed muslin gown, her face completely covered by a heavy veil draped down from the brim of her stylish straw bonnet.

Jenny’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Anstruther?”

Mrs. Anstruther waited until the door was shut behind her to sweep her veil back from her face. Her complexion was pale, her brow damp with perspiration. “Do forgive the excess of caution, Miss Holloway. I’m counting on no one noticing me. My husband isn’t aware I’ve gone. I must return to the villa before he realizes.”

Mira withdrew to the opposite side of the room to give the two of them privacy. It made little matter. Mrs. Anstruther didn’t appear to take any notice of the maid’s presence.

Jenny motioned to an empty chair. “Won’t you sit down?”

Mrs. Anstruther shook her head. “I haven’t the time. I shouldn’t even be here.”

“Why have you come, ma’am? And why all the secrecy?”

“My husband won’t permit me to speak of Lord Castleton. I daren’t mention his name.” Mrs. Anstruther proceeded to pace back and forth in front of Jenny, her skirts stirring a faint breeze in the stagnant heat of the hotel room. “Whatever my husband told you about his lordship—”

“About his death?”

“What?” Mrs. Anstruther cast Jenny a look of blank confusion.

Jenny saw no need to spare the woman. “Your husband said that Lord Castleton was killed while storming the walls of Jhansi. That he was nearly cut in half by a rebel sepoy’s blade.”

Mrs. Anstruther’s countenance went from waxen to white. “Yes, he’s told me that. He’s said that Lord Castleton’s body was thrown into a pit with the bodies of unknown soldiers. Do you… Do you suppose it’s true?”

“Have you reason to doubt him?”

“He might have made it up to torment me.” Mrs. Anstruther wrung her hands. “My husband has accused me of the vilest things, Miss Holloway. He believes Lord Castleton and I—” She broke off, turning to look at Jenny. “I’ve come to tell you that it isn’t true. Lord Castleton was not my lover. He was my friend. He sought only to lift my spirits when I was at my lowest ebb.”

“And that was all?” Jenny shouldn’t have asked. This part of Mrs. Anstruther’s history with Giles had no bearing on anything. It was their own private business and nothing at all to do with her.

But Mrs. Anstruther seemed eager to speak of Giles. As if she wanted—needed—to exorcise his ghost. “I confess I did attempt to press a greater intimacy on him at one time, but he rebuffed my advances. He was very kind. Very understanding. But he didn’t come to visit me so much after that and he didn’t respond to all the little notes I sent him. When I tried to call on him at the cantonment in Poona, he wouldn’t even see me.”

Jenny felt an unwilling surge of sympathy for the woman.

So that’s how it had been. A one-sided infatuation that had embarrassed Giles—and Colonel Anstruther, too, if she had any guess. It was somehow worse than a love affair. To have one’s wife openly pining after a fellow who didn’t want her.

“I get so very lonely, Miss Holloway. The colonel and I have so little in common, you see. He isn’t much of a companion for me. How can he be at his age?”