A Modest Independence Read online

  A Modest Independence

  “Matthews immerses readers in the intricate descriptions of exotic locales…Fans of the series will enjoy exploring secondary characters’ lives and the truly heroic compromises Tom makes to be with the woman he loves.”

  -Library Journal

  “As always, Matthews’ attention to historical accuracy is impeccable…Strong, smart characters and a daring quest result in a Victorian love story with a charmingly modern sensibility.”

  -Kirkus Reviews

  “For fans of sweeping romances with exotic vistas…Jenny Holloway is a powerful female heroine that Jane Austen would be proud of, setting off with an inquisitive mind and a superb sense of exploration…A very excellent and entertaining read.”

  -Readers Favorite

  The Matrimonial Advertisement

  “For this impressive Victorian romance, Matthews (The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter) crafts a tale that sparkles with chemistry and impresses with strong character development…an excellent series launch…”

  -Publishers Weekly

  “Matthews (The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter) has a knack for creating slow-building chemistry and an intriguing plot with a social history twist.”

  -Library Journal

  “Matthews’ (The Pug Who Bit Napoleon, 2018, etc.) series opener is a guilty pleasure, brimming with beautiful people, damsels in distress, and an abundance of testosterone…A well-written and engaging story that’s more than just a romance.”

  -Kirkus Reviews

  A Holiday By Gaslight

  “Matthews (The Matrimonial Advertisement) pays homage to Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South with her admirable portrayal of the Victorian era’s historic advancements…Readers will easily fall for Sophie and Ned in their gaslit surroundings.”

  -Library Journal, starred review

  “Matthews’ novella is full of comfort and joy—a sweet treat for romance readers that’s just in time for Christmas.”

  -Kirkus Reviews

  “A graceful love story…and an authentic presentation of the 1860s that reads with the simplicity and visual gusto of a period movie.”

  -Readers’ Favorite

  The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter

  “Matthews’ tale hits all the high notes of a great romance novel…Cue the satisfied sighs of romance readers everywhere.”

  -Kirkus Reviews

  “Matthews pens a heartfelt romance that culminates into a sweet ending that will leave readers happy. A wonderfully romantic read.”

  -RT Book Reviews

  The Lost Letter

  “The perfect quick read for fans of Regency romances as well as Victorian happily-ever-afters, with shades of Austen and the Brontës that create an entertaining blend of drama and romance.”

  -RT Book Reviews

  “A fast and emotionally satisfying read, with two characters finding the happily-ever-after they had understandably given up on. A promising debut.”

  -Library Journal

  A MODEST INDEPENDENCE

  Parish Orphans of Devon, Book 2

  Copyright © 2019 by Mimi Matthews

  Edited by Deborah Nemeth

  Cover Design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design

  Cover Photo by Ildiko Neer / Trevillion Images

  Design and Formatting by Ampersand Book Interiors

  E-Book: 978-0-9990364-8-8

  Paperback: 978-0-9990364-9-5

  Sale of the electronic edition of this book is wholly unauthorized. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden without written permission from the author/ publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  www.PerfectlyProperPress.com

  Table of Contents

  Praise For The Novels of Mimi Matthews

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Research Notes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Titles by Mimi Matthews

  Selected Sources

  In memory of Sapphire

  December 24, 2001–February 1, 2019

  Colonial India has always been a source of great fascination to me. My paternal grandfather lived there before partition, when it was still under British rule. For nonwhites, like him, there was nothing romantic about the British Raj and I had no intention of romanticizing it in my novel. When writing A Modest Independence, I attempted to portray Victorian-era India as it truly was, in all its good and bad. In doing so, I may have inadvertently used period words or descriptions that some might find offensive by modern standards. For this, I humbly apologize.

  To that end, a word on nomenclature: In my novel, the residents of various countries are often referred to as “native Indians,” “native Egyptians,” or just plain “natives.” This is a reference to their status as native-born citizens of a particular country—as opposed to colonial occupants of said country. It is not meant as a pejorative.

  London, England

  February, 1860

  Jenny Holloway raised the hood of her wool cloak up over her head. It was snowing in London. Little flurries that fell to the ground, disappearing in the icy black slush that was soaking through the hem of her sensible skirts as she stood outside the Fleet Street law offices of Mr. Thomas Finchley, Esquire.

  She’d visited the unassuming building several times before and had no good reason to hesitate. It wasn’t as if she was paying a call on a former beau, nor even on an estranged friend. Mr. Finchley was neither of those—not to her, at least. He was only a solicitor.

  More to the point, he was her solicitor. Which made this a business matter.

  She stiffened her spine and made her way up the steps to the front door. A brass plaque fixed beside it bore the names of both Mr. Finchley and Mr. Keane, the solicitor who shared his offices. It was the latter who greeted her when she rang the bell.

  “Miss Finchley!” Mr. Keane’s thin face lit up in recognition.

  Miss Finchley?

  Jenny blinked. Had Mr. Finchley told Mr. Keane that she was his sister?

  “Do come in out of the cold.” Mr. Keane opened the door wide, standing back for her to enter before shutting it behind her. He assisted her out of her wet cloak. “Finchley is occupied with a client. I daren’t disturb him. But allow me to offer you a cup of tea.” He turned to address a weedy-looking young clerk hovering nearby. “Tea, Mr. Poole! And here. Put the lady’s cloak by the fender to dry.�
�

  Jenny removed her bonnet and gloves, permitting the young man to take those as well.

  “Is your brother expecting you, ma’am?” Mr. Keane asked.

  Her brother. How absurd. The two of them looked nothing at all alike. She was tempted to correct Mr. Keane, but common sense kept her silent. There was no good reason to destroy whatever fiction Mr. Finchley had woven on her behalf, especially if it had been spun to protect her reputation. Besides, she wasn’t likely to see Mr. Keane again after today. By this time tomorrow, she’d be on board a steamer bound for Calais.

  Providing Mr. Finchley cooperated, that is.

  “He was aware I’d be arriving in London this week,” she said, “but we hadn’t yet fixed upon a day for me to call. I daresay I should have made an appointment.”

  “It mightn’t have done you any good.” Mr. Keane ushered her up a narrow staircase and down an equally narrow hall to a small anteroom. It was warm and snug, equipped with a set of comfortable-looking chairs and a low wooden table. “Do have a seat. Your brother shouldn’t be too much longer.” His head tilted slightly at the sound of a raised voice drifting through the closed door of Mr. Finchley’s office. “I’d give it another ten minutes.”

  Jenny lifted her brows. She couldn’t make out the words being exchanged behind the door, but the raised voice was definitely female. She reminded herself again that Mr. Finchley’s affairs were none of her business. Even so…

  But she didn’t have time to ponder, for at that very moment the door to Mr. Finchley’s office burst open. Shrill words, no longer muffled, spilled out into the anteroom.

  “You’re ever cruel to me. Trying to punish me. To deny me the things I want most in life. It’s your way of getting revenge on me. Don’t say it isn’t.” The woman gave a dramatic sniffle. “If you cared for me at all, you’d increase my allowance. It’s the least you owe me.”

  “I don’t owe you anything.” Mr. Finchley’s deep voice was quiet, his words hardly audible.

  “You ruined my life!” The woman’s voice elevated to as-yet-unreached heights as she at last emerged through the open door of Mr. Finchley’s office. She was garbed in a fashionable silk and velvet afternoon gown, a velvet-trimmed hat perched atop a head of impressively coiffed mahogany curls.

  Jenny stared at her. She’d half expected a cheaply clad young tart. Instead, Mrs. Culpepper was a mature woman. A beauty, to be sure, but not one in her first bloom.

  “And what are you looking at, madam?” She seared Jenny with a poisonous glare. “I’ll thank you to keep your eyes in your head.” She sniffled again, though Jenny could see no evidence of tears, and with a swish of starched petticoats, marched from the room.

  Jenny waited for Mr. Finchley to storm from his office and follow after her, but there was no sign of him. Perhaps he didn’t care enough about his relationship with Mrs. Culpepper to try and salvage it.

  He certainly hadn’t cared when their own friendship had fallen apart last October.

  “I say,” Mr. Keane muttered in embarrassment. “Where has Poole got to?”

  “Here, sir!” Mr. Keane’s clerk trotted down the hall, a silver tray in his hands.

  “Is that tea?” Mr. Finchley at last emerged from his office. He was dressed in a well-tailored black suit, his frock coat worn open to reveal a single-breasted waistcoat draped by the gold chain of his pocket watch. He looked calm and composed. Perfectly at his ease. One would never know he’d just been engaged in a heated altercation with a woman.

  Well…perhaps his dark brown hair was a little mussed. As if he’d lately run his hands through it. Other than that, he looked as ordinary as ever.

  If one could ever call Thomas Finchley ordinary.

  Jenny clasped her hands tight in front of her. She’d hoped that when they met again, she’d be indifferent to him. That she’d feel nothing at the sight of his handsome face and figure.

  Not that most people would have described Mr. Finchley as handsome. Bookish, maybe. Or scholarly. A gentleman with a weight of responsibility on his shoulders. Someone to confide in. To solve one’s problems, for a fee. Not a man to make a woman’s heart beat faster.

  Jenny’s heart didn’t seem to understand that, the treacherous thing. It was thumping quite madly. As if it were only yesterday he’d laughed with her and danced her around the parlor in Half Moon Street. As if he’d never lied to her. Had never played her for a fool.

  It was those eyes of his that caused her such alarming palpitations. So worn and wise—and so much older than all the rest of him. As if they’d seen everything, experienced everything. They weren’t the eyes of an overworked solicitor. Not any that she’d ever seen. No. Thomas Finchley had the eyes of a weary angel.

  All he need do was look at her and her pulse lost its rhythm.

  But he wasn’t looking at her now. He didn’t seem to notice her at all. His attention was entirely fixed on the dratted tea tray. A typically selfish male, only bestirring himself at the prospect of food and drink. But then he turned his head and those light blue eyes met hers. His gaze was solemn behind the lenses of his silver-framed spectacles and…not at all surprised.

  He’d been aware of her the whole time. He’d known she was there, even as Mrs. Culpepper stormed from his office. Possibly even from the moment Jenny had first crossed the threshold.

  Was there anything Thomas Finchley didn’t know?

  She moistened her lips. Her mouth was dry as the Sahara. She couldn’t summon the barest croak. Not that there was any need for speech. The silence between them spoke volumes. Indeed, the very air seemed to echo with the last words she’d uttered to him. Words to which he’d offered no response.

  What sort of man are you?

  “Put the tray down in my office, Poole,” Mr. Finchley said. And then: “Miss Holloway? Will you join me?”

  “Miss Holloway?” Mr. Keane’s eyes darted from her to Mr. Finchley and back again. “Oh dear, and to think I’ve been addressing you as Miss Finchley.”

  “One name’s as good as the other.” Mr. Finchley motioned toward his office door, a hint of impatience in the gesture. “Ma’am?”

  Jenny smoothed her skirts. This was business. Strictly business. “Yes, of course.” She walked past him to enter his office, careful that her gown didn’t brush his legs as she went by. She wanted no illusion of intimacy between them. They might have met before—might have dined together and danced together—but they were as good as strangers. The Mr. Finchley she’d known last year had been an illusion. A convenient mask behind which the real Thomas Finchley hid himself to achieve his ends.

  Who the real man was, she neither knew nor cared.

  He shut the door behind her. “For what it’s worth, I never claimed you were my sister. I simply refrained from correcting Keane’s assumption.”

  “Would it have been so scandalous for an unrelated female to call on you as I did last October?” Jenny hadn’t had much choice at the time. There had been no one else to turn to after the Earl of Castleton had dismissed her from her position as lady’s companion to his niece, Lady Helena.

  “Not scandalous, no. Only out of the ordinary.”

  “And, therefore, worthy of remark.”

  “Precisely.”

  She cast a cursory look round his office. It was large and fairly well organized. A monstrous barrister’s desk formed the heart of it, its surface covered in neat stacks of papers and rolled documents tied with ribbon. The walls were lined with bookcases filled with row upon row of leather-bound books, their gold-stamped spines unreadable behind closed glass doors.

  “You arrived in London only this morning,” he said.

  It wasn’t a question. She answered it nonetheless. “I caught the early train from Abbot’s Holcombe.”

  She’d spent the past three months living with Mr. Thornhill and Lady Helena at Greyfriar’s Abbey, their isolat
ed estate on the North Devon coast. Neither had expected her to remain on in her role as Helena’s companion. Certainly not after Helena had settled a generous sum of money on her.

  Five thousand pounds, to be precise.

  Helena called it a modest independence. To Jenny it was an absolute fortune. “I saw no reason to delay,” she said.

  “Quite.” Mr. Finchley went to the tea tray. “Will you sit down?”

  Jenny took a seat in one of the upholstered chairs opposite his desk. She arranged her skirts about her legs, ignoring the brief twinge of self-consciousness about the age—and relative plainness—of her woolen gown. It didn’t matter one jot whether or not it was as stylish as that worn by his last client. She hadn’t come to London to engage in a fashion contest with a highflyer.

  Mr. Finchley poured them each a cup of tea, not bothering to ask how she took hers. There was no need. They’d shared countless cups of tea during their brief acquaintance.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Mr. Finchley inclined his head. “I trust Thornhill and Lady Helena are well?”

  “They were in excellent health when I left them.”

  He sat down behind his desk. “And Mr. Cross? How is he adjusting to the new mistress of Greyfriar’s Abbey?”

  Neville Cross was yet another resident of the Abbey. A childhood friend of both Mr. Finchley and Mr. Thornhill, he’d suffered a head injury as a boy that still affected his speech—though not, Jenny suspected, his reasoning.

  “Mr. Cross is quite well.” Jenny took a delicate sip of her tea. “He and Helena get on famously.” She hesitated before adding, “But it can be a bit trying to live with a newlywed couple. The pair of them are in their own world much of the time. One feels like an intruder.”

  A vast understatement.

  What one felt was inadequate.

  She’d never been the sort to pine after love and affection. She was too sensible. Too pragmatic. But being in Helena and Mr. Thornhill’s company day in and day out—seeing the little touches they shared, the whispered confidences and private glances—had begun to make her feel a certain emptiness. A lack of something in her life.