Page 121 of A Modest Independence

“If I care,” he scoffed.

“I never want to presume.”

“It’s not a presumption. It’s a fact. One that may as well be etched in stone.”

A soft blush tinted her cheeks. “My darling…” Her voice sunk. “You must know I feel the same way about you.”

My darling.

The whispered endearment drifted over Tom like a soothing balm. It warmed him to the heart, seeping into the fractured lines and cracks left from so many years of feeling unwanted, unloved.

“I’m beginning to understand,” he said gruffly.

“You mustn’t ever doubt it, Tom. When we part, I don’t wish you to feel as if—”

“Let’s not speak of parting. Not when—”

“We can’t pretend—”

“I don’t want to pretend. I simply want to focus on the here and now.” At that, he stole another kiss. It was deep and fierce. Wholly presumptuous.

Jenny didn’t seem shocked at the intimacy. Rather the reverse. She yielded her mouth to him, her lips clinging to his, returning his kiss with innocent abandon.

Desire rose in him like a fire. He wanted to keep kissing her. To take her in his arms and—

But, no. Not here in Jhansi. Not with Giles’s ghost hovering over them.

His hands dropped from her face. A breath gusted out of him, half laugh, half groan. “And in the here and now, I’d better take my leave of you before I do something stupid.”

Her mouth curved into a smile. “You? Stupid?”

“It’s been known to happen on occasion.”

“I thought you wanted to talk?”

“Not tonight.” He gave her a rueful look. “I’d rather wait until I have your full attention.”

She laughed. “Good gracious, Tom. You have it.”

No, he didn’t. He was sharing it with Giles. Sharing it with her anticipation of the adventure to come. “I’ll wait,” he said again. “It will be worth it.”

Darjeeling, India

April, 1860

Jenny shifted in her seat beside Tom in the back of the wooden cart, her spine stiff from resting it against the metal brackets of one of her trunks. There was no railway line to Darjeeling. A combination of dak cart and steam ferry had gotten them as far as the foothills of the Himalayas, but on arriving in the town of Siliguri in West Bengal, they were obliged to proceed the rest of the way by government bullock train.

The bullock carts were heavy and their progress slow. They wound their way up the twisting mountain road on wheels of solid wood at a plodding pace of less than two miles an hour.

Jenny angled her parasol over her head, tilting it just enough that it could provide shade for Tom as well. The sun was setting fast. Soon she’d have no need for a parasol at all.

It was their second evening on the road. The bullock train had only commenced yesterday evening at dusk, traveling all the way through the night before stopping at a rural station. They’d spent the day there resting in a dak bungalow, she and Mira together in one apartment and Tom and Ahmad sharing quarters with the servants and drivers in another.

“Did you sleep at all?” Tom asked.

Jenny shook her head. “I was too excited.” And too sore. Aching in every limb, in fact. But she wouldn’t burden him with her complaints. Not when he was likely aching himself.

“About the possibility of finding Giles?”