A Modest Independence Read online

  No doubt Mr. Cross felt the same.

  “Is that why you left in such haste?” Mr. Finchley asked.

  “You think my decision to come to London was hasty?”

  “Wasn’t it? You might have stayed at the Abbey through the winter. Lady Helena has made it quite comfortable, I understand.”

  “Indeed, she has. It’s filled with fine furnishings now, and there are new draperies, paint, and paper on the walls. You could have seen the improvements yourself if you’d come for Christmas.”

  His expression was unreadable. It registered neither embarrassment, nor regret. “Business has been unrelenting of late. I made my excuses to Thornhill.”

  “Is that all that kept you away? Business?”

  “What else?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. I thought, perhaps, you may have some other reason for avoiding a visit to Devon.”

  “I’m not Thornhill, Miss Holloway. I don’t enjoy tormenting myself with the past. To me, North Devon is no different from Sussex or Cornwall.”

  Jenny’s conscience twinged. In all the many hours she’d fretted over Mr. Finchley’s failure to join them for Christmas, she’d never once given a thought to his childhood connection to the region. She’d assumed that she was the reason he hadn’t come to Devon.

  Only now, seated across from him at his desk and surrounded by all the manifestations of his profession, did she comprehend the inherent selfishness of such an assumption. She wasn’t the center of Thomas Finchley’s world. Far from it. She was just an unremarkable female he’d known for a brief moment in time. Neither rich, nor beautiful, nor even particularly sweet-tempered. Merely a friend of a friend of a friend. A connection so tenuous it hardly merited thought.

  “I have no good reason to avoid visiting Thornhill and Lady Helena,” Mr. Finchley continued, “save the demands of my clients.”

  “Your clients appear to be excessively demanding.”

  Another gentleman might have flushed at her words. Mr. Finchley only looked at her, his countenance solemn and possibly a little tired. “You’re alluding to Mrs. Culpepper.”

  “Do you have many other clients who accuse you of ruining their lives? It doesn’t seem a good business practice.”

  “Mrs. Culpepper is a special case.”

  Jenny raised her teacup back to her lips. “She’s very handsome.”

  And there it was. The slightest hint of red on Mr. Finchley’s neck, just above the line of his black cravat and starched white linen collar. A blush so faint she might have missed it if she wasn’t looking. “Miss Holloway—” He started and stopped. “I wouldn’t read too much into what you overheard.”

  “I’m simply making conversation.”

  He shook his head. “Why are you here?”

  “For my money, naturally. I thought that was plain.”

  “Yes, but…it’s snowing out. Not ideal weather for making the journey to London. You’d have been better off delaying. Whatever you wish to do with the money Lady Helena has given you can surely wait until spring.”

  She lowered her teacup back to its saucer. “It’s not winter everywhere in the world, sir.”

  “Ah.” He leaned back in his chair. “You wish to travel.”

  “Yes. I wish to…that is…I intend to leave for India without delay.”

  If he was surprised by her revelation, he didn’t show it.

  She pressed on. “I’ve already obtained my travel documents. The only difficulty lies in my need for ready funds. Since Helena has appointed you guardian over my money, it seems I must apply to you for my needs. Though I must say I find it rather an inconvenience.”

  Mr. Finchley continued to look at her, his regard never wavering. “Why India?”

  “Am I obliged to explain myself to you? Is that how this works?”

  “You owe me no explanations. I’m neither your father, nor your brother to command one. However, Lady Helena has reposed certain obligations in me as trustee—”

  “Not because of any concerns about my capacity for managing my own money. You realize that, don’t you? It’s only because I’m her closest friend and you’re Mr. Thornhill’s. She wishes us to get along together.”

  “I wish the same,” he said.

  “Do you?” After the antics of his last client, she supposed he must expect her to rage at him. To lose her temper and storm about his office. As if she would ever make herself so ridiculous.

  “Yes, I do. But you’re obviously still angry with me.”

  Jenny’s temper flared. He was so calm. So infuriatingly steady and reasonable. Did nothing in the world rattle his resolve?

  Well, he’d soon learn that her resolve was just as unshakable as his own.

  “Not any longer,” she said. “Not even then, really.”

  “No?”

  “If I was angry with anyone, it was with myself. I trusted you too easily.”

  “And I breached that trust, did I? Simply by counseling Thornhill on how he might annul his marriage? He was my client, Miss Holloway. He still is.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand. The solicitor-client relationship is sacrosanct. But it doesn’t follow that you needed to squire me about town as if you were enjoying my company. To talk with me and dance with me as if you were my friend, when all the while you—”

  “I am your friend.”

  Jenny was horrified to feel her lips tremble. She told herself to turn the subject. There was no point in confronting any of this head-on. It surely didn’t matter anymore. And yet…

  She was incapable of holding her tongue.

  “I thought you were,” she said. “But when I looked into your eyes that day outside the house in Half Moon Street, I didn’t see a friend looking back at me. I saw a stranger. A man who would do anything to achieve his ends—and those of his client.”

  “I won’t dispute the latter. It’s who I am. My clients must always come first. Before friends and family. Even before myself.” He paused. “I apologize if I hurt you in the process. It wasn’t my intention.”

  Her gaze dropped to the contents of her teacup. She didn’t know what to do with his apology. She wasn’t certain he meant it. For all she knew it was nothing more than a gentlemanly platitude uttered to placate her. “It doesn’t matter.” Good lord, now her voice was trembling as well. She cleared her throat, striving to make her next words as brisk and businesslike as possible. “It isn’t as if there’s a need for us to cry friends. Indeed, once you’ve released my funds, I don’t expect we’ll have any cause to see each other again.”

  Mr. Finchley was silent for a long moment.

  And then another.

  Jenny’s stomach tightened with apprehension. “Is there a difficulty with you giving me my money? I don’t require the entire balance. I only need enough for travel expenses.”

  “Are these travel expenses for you alone?”

  “Who else would they be for?”

  “You’re a young lady. Surely you’ll wish to hire a companion or a—”

  “Hire a companion?” She failed to contain a laugh. “I am a companion. Or, rather, I was. And as for being young, I’ll have you know, sir, that I’ve just passed my twenty-eighth birthday. I’m what society charitably refers to as a dyed-in-the wool spinster. A veritable artifact collecting dust on the shelf.”

  “I hardly think—”

  “Do you imagine I mind such labels? Not a bit of it. I embrace them. I’ve longed for spinsterhood these many years. And now I’ve been given an independence, I intend to take full advantage of the state.”

  “I beg your pardon, but…” Mr. Finchley’s eyes betrayed a hint of exasperation. “You’re no gray-haired grandmother. Unless you mean to announce your age to every person you meet—”

  “Perhaps I shall.”

  “Miss Holloway—”


  “A spinster isn’t so different from a widow, you know. We’re afforded a great deal of freedom in the world. Society will think nothing of my traveling alone.”

  “Society may be disposed to accept it, but there are men—I’ll not call them gentlemen—for whom your advanced years won’t act as a repellent. Without a companion or a maidservant, you’ll be fair game for all sorts of mistreatment.”

  “I can take care of myself, thank you.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But as a lady, there’s only so much you’re capable of defending against. You simply haven’t the strength. Now, if you were to take a maid and a footman on your travels, then—”

  “I’m not hiring a companion,” she said firmly. “Nor am I surrounding myself with a legion of stuffy British servants. I mean to experience the world. To have an adventure. Not to recreate the same tedious environment I’ve been hostage to here in England.”

  His brows lowered. “You feel as if you’ve been a hostage? It was my impression that Lady Helena treated you as a sister. A friend.”

  “She has. Always. But Helena doesn’t exist in isolation. To everyone else in society, I was only her companion. Not her sister, as you say. Certainly not her friend. When her uncle ascended to the title, he had no qualms about tossing me into the street.”

  “Lord Castleton was a blackguard, I won’t dispute that.”

  Jenny didn’t know many who would. When Helena’s elder brother, Giles Reynolds, 6th Earl of Castleton, had been reported dead in India, her uncle had not only taken his title, he’d also attempted to take the vast fortune Giles had left to his sister. The means he’d employed to do so had been brutal, indeed.

  “But he’s well out of the picture now,” Mr. Finchley said. “Unless something has changed?”

  “No,” she admitted. “He’s still cooling his heels at the family seat in Hampshire. He’s made no more threats to any of us.”

  “Then you have no legitimate reason to abandon your life with Thornhill and Lady Helena.”

  “No legitimate reason?” Jenny was incredulous. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to exist in the background of other people’s lives? To be an afterthought? A nonentity, neither proper lady, nor proper servant? I can count on one hand the number of people who’ve actually seen me, who’ve paid me any attention. It’s no life for anyone, least of all for a woman like me.”

  “A woman like you,” he repeated. “Are you so different from every other lady in your position?”

  “Look at me.” She gestured at herself with her teacup, causing the contents to slosh against the rim. “I wasn’t created to shrink into the shadows. I’m strong and stubborn and opinionated. I need more from life than a half existence. I need the sand and the sea and the baking sun of distant lands.” She stilled her hand before her tea spilled over and soiled her skirts. “But you’re a man. You couldn’t possibly understand.”

  Mr. Finchley leaned forward. For the first time, his face betrayed a flicker of emotion. It was gone before she could grasp it. “I understand more than you know.”

  She exhaled, feeling somewhat deflated. Of course he understood. He’d grown up in an orphanage in Abbott’s Holcombe along with Mr. Thornhill, Mr. Cross, and another boy. Helena hadn’t confided the particulars, but Jenny knew enough to appreciate that the experience had been rather traumatic for all of them.

  “Yes, well, then you must see why I want to leave this place. I need to experience the world as a whole person. To live among people who never knew me as a lady’s companion.”

  “Must you go as far away as India to do so?”

  “As to that…” She fidgeted with her teacup. “You did say that your clients always come first, didn’t you? Before your friends or even yourself.”

  “It’s the truth, I’m afraid.”

  She met his eyes. Her heart gave another traitorous thump. “Am I your client now?”

  His regarded her steadily from behind his spectacles. “You are.”

  “And whatever I tell you—”

  “Anything you say to me will be kept in strict confidence.”

  Jenny nodded. She’d thought as much. “You asked me why I wished to travel to India. It’s because I want adventure. To see the world and to live in far-off places. But I have another, far more compelling reason.” She bit her lip, fully aware of the folly of what she was about to confess. “I want to find Giles Reynolds, the missing Earl of Castleton.”

  Mr. Finchley didn’t even blink. He knew as well as she that Giles’s body had never been recovered. To this day, Helena still clung to the hope that her brother was alive out there somewhere. “You and the private inquiry agent that Thornhill has already employed.”

  “Oh, him.”

  “Yes, him. What makes you think you’ll succeed where he hasn’t?”

  “Because, unlike that unassuming fellow, I’ll actually be traveling to India forthwith. I won’t be delaying on every pretext, dithering here and there in England to absolutely no avail. Besides, I know Giles. And, if what I suspect is true, that agent will never be able to run him to ground.”

  “If the inquiry agent can’t find him, Miss Holloway, it’s surely because he’s dead.”

  “No,” Jenny said. “If he can’t find him, it’s because Giles doesn’t want to be found.”

  Tom removed his spectacles so that he could massage the bridge of his nose. It was a reflexive action, one he performed multiple times per day without giving it a thought.

  Only now did it occur to him how he must look without them.

  He wasn’t an insecure man, merely a realistic one. He understood full well that his spectacles were more than an aid to his poor vision. They were a barrier between him and the rest of the world. A scholarly prop behind which he hid the plainness of his person.

  And he was plain. If he ever had any doubt on that score, he need only consult the evidence of his shaving mirror. He was tall but not too tall. Broad-shouldered but lanky. His hair was a commonplace shade of brown, and his lean face was possessed of two nondescript blue eyes, a once broken nose, and bowed lips that were slightly thin.

  None of which would matter if Jenny Holloway wasn’t sitting across from him.

  He settled his spectacles back onto his nose. Miss Holloway’s face and figure once again shifted into focus. “Are you suggesting that the 6th Earl of Castleton has chosen to hide himself away somewhere in India?”

  “It has occurred to me, yes.” She placed her teacup and saucer down on his desk. His gaze flicked to her hands. They were slim, with elegant, tapered fingers. He recalled how well they had fit in his when he’d danced with her. “You must understand something about Giles. He was ever moody and quiet. Never more so than after his and Helena’s mother died.”

  Tom listened in silence. He knew of the tragic fate of the late Countess of Castleton. She’d suffered from acute melancholia after the birth of her children. Her husband had committed her to a private asylum, where she’d remained until her death some years later.

  “Giles was never happy in England,” Miss Holloway said. “There are too many bad memories here. Too many reminders of what happened to his mother. Why do you think he didn’t return home and assume the title after his father passed away?”

  “Happy or no, I hardly think he’d remain in India knowing that his sister was in peril.”

  “How could he know? No one else did. Not until that editorial was printed last October. And if the inhabitants of London didn’t know, how was Giles to learn of it all the way in India?”

  Tom opened his mouth to respond only to shut it again. She had a fair point. The editorial in the London Courant that revealed how Lady Helena’s uncle had tried to have her put away had only gone to press in October. How long before news of it reached India? A month? Two months? Longer?

  “As far as he knew,” Miss Holloway continued, “Helena
was safe and well. He’d arranged it so, don’t you see? He left her all of his fortune. Perhaps he never intended to come home at all.”

  “This is so much conjecture.”

  “I have reason to think it more than that.” She opened the little cloth reticule at her side and withdrew what appeared to be a crumpled piece of paper.

  No. Not a paper.

  A letter.

  She held it tight in her hands. “Giles wrote to me a month before the siege of Jhansi.”

  A surge of jealousy took Tom unaware. “You exchanged letters with him?”

  “There’s nothing out of the ordinary in that.”

  He schooled his features. She was right. He had no reason at all to be jealous. She wasn’t his sweetheart. He had no claim on her at all. She was only a friend.

  An exceptionally lovely friend, the sight of whom made his heart beat faster. Made his palms damp and his mouth dry.

  It was that dratted auburn hair of hers. Thick and gleaming, coiled up in plaits at the base of her neck. The strands were more red than brown. Almost flaming in their vibrancy.

  He wondered what it looked like unbound.

  “I assure you,” she said, “it’s quite unexceptionable.”

  What?

  It took him a moment to regain the thread of their conversation. He cleared his throat. “No. I suppose not. You’re related, aren’t you?”

  “After a fashion.” She paused before explaining, “My maternal grandmother was a very distant cousin of Helena and Giles’s grandmother. It’s not much in the way of aristocratic pedigrees. Barely enough to persuade Helena’s father to take me on as her companion. But he did. I was with her for a very long while and, consequently, I—”

  “You came to know her brother.”

  A flush of color rose in her cheeks. “Yes.”

  Tom’s senses flickered a warning. “How well did you know him?”

  “Well enough.” She extended the letter to him. “This was the last time he ever wrote to me.”

  He took it from her hand. “May I?”

  “Please do.”

  He smoothed out the creases of the letter on his desk. It looked as if it had been balled up at some point. Crumpled and thrown into a dustbin, perhaps. It wasn’t the first such letter Tom had encountered in this condition. The sort rescued from a fireplace grate before the secrets within could be incinerated.