Page 18 of A Modest Independence

“He never said anything about you having found your mother. Nor Helena. At least, not in my hearing.”

“They don’t know about her. No one does except for me. And now you, of course.”

“Is it a secret?”

“It’s been one of mine for a long while.” He didn’t think she would press him on it, but he nevertheless felt obliged to try and explain. “In the orphanage, I learned rather quickly that there was strength in knowledge. The whole place was built on shameful secrets. The more of them I knew, the more power I had. I developed the habit of keeping things to myself. Of sharing as little as possible. Sometimes there was reason. Other times, not. It’s been a difficult habit to break.”

She gave him a thoughtful look. “Do you know the identity of your father?”

He rubbed the side of his face. The rasp of his whiskers abraded his palm. There’d been no time to shave after leaving Fothergill’s house. No time for anything, really, save a hasty trip to the East End. Good lord, but he must look an absolute disgrace.

“Do you?” she prompted.

Tom cleared his throat. “Mrs. Culpepper believes my father to have been either one of the footmen or one of the stable lads. She’s not entirely certain.”

Miss Holloway’s eyes went wide.

“She’s a survivor. She’s always done what she needed to do to get by. In that time and in that place, life was easier with the protection of a man. I don’t judge her for it.”

“You don’t seem to judge her for much of anything.”

“She was an ignorant girl of thirteen. Younger than thirteen when she started her employment. I won’t condemn her for the choices she was obliged to make.”

“Not for her actions as a girl, no. But what about how she’s behaved as an adult? The way she treated you at your office today. I thought her ungrateful before I knew she was your mother. But now—”

“I’m the least of Myra Culpepper’s concerns. She has a life of her own. A family of her own. Not only a husband, but two daughters as well.”

“And a son.”

“Ah, but she doesn’t consider me her son. Her family doesn’t even know I exist.”

“You’ve never met them?” She sounded astonished.

“I wanted to, in the beginning,” he admitted. “I was just a lad. It seemed a fine thing to have a family out there somewhere. Foolish of me, really. They’re not my family. Not in any sense of the word. She made that clear from the beginning.”

Miss Holloway’s face tightened with something very like anger. “She doesn’t deserve you.”

Tom’s chest constricted. He tried to smile but found he could not.

“You know that, don’t you?” She reached out to him, covering his hand with hers. “You’re a good man, Mr. Finchley. One of the very best, if my opinion counts for anything.”

His gaze fell to her hand. Her skin was silky soft, her fingers closing over his in a grasp that was both strong and tender. He swallowed hard. “It does. More than you know.”

She gave him a reassuring squeeze before letting go. “Not all women are cut out to be mothers. They haven’t the sensibility for it.”

He flexed his hand. It tingled with an indelible warmth. As if she’d branded his skin with hers. Was she even aware of how she affected him? The way her slightest touch—her slightest look—altered the rhythm of his heart and breath? He doubted it. She sounded as crisp and no nonsense as she always did, her apple-tart voice tripping along.

“My own mother was such a creature,” she said. “She should never have had children. Though one can hardly blame her. Women haven’t many choices, have they? We must all either marry and consent to being perpetually confined to childbed or end our days as a spinster, despised by all.” An unreadable emotion briefly clouded her brow. “That’s no excuse for Mrs. Culpepper, of course.”

“Of course, but…” He tried to wrap his mind around what she was saying. “Surely life holds more choices for females than spinster or broodmare.”

Miss Holloway’s cheeks flushed scarlet.

Tom inwardly groaned. Hellfire and damnation. Had he truly just referred to married women as broodmares? And in the company of an unmarried lady? “Miss Holloway, I—”

But she answered before he could make his apologies, responding—despite her blushes—as if he’d said nothing untoward at all. “For poor women, perhaps. But not for ladies of good breeding. For us, our very gentility acts as our prison.”

He blinked. “Good lord. You sound like a reformer.”