Page 139 of A Modest Independence

“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.