Page 103 of A Modest Independence

The carriage they’d hired was waiting outside. It was an odd vehicle. Nothing more than a shabby box on wheels, pulled by a team of two horses. Ahmad stood at the front near the driver, conversing with the man in rapid Hindustani. When he saw them, he broke off his conversation and came to assist them into the cab.

“Did you have any luck with the servants?” Tom asked as Ahmad climbed in after them. The carriage shook as the horses sprung into motion.

“None whatsoever. They’re completely loyal to their sahib.”

“I can’t think why.” Jenny withdrew a paper fan from her reticule and flicked it open. The leaves were patterned with a watercolor print of the Himalayas. “He seemed an awful sort of man to me.”

“They’re frightened of him,” Ahmad said. “He’s the great white hunter. A larger-than-life figure in their eyes.”

Tom considered the matter. “And what of his wife?”

“Equally oppressed, I suspect,” Jenny said. “A prisoner in her own home.”

“Or a lady of delicate sensibilities unable to adapt to the rigors of life as a colonial.”

Jenny frowned at him. “Must you play devil’s advocate?”

“If it keeps us from jumping to conclusions, yes.”

“There’s only one conclusion to make. Giles is dead. He died at the siege of Jhansi, just as the colonel wrote to Helena two years ago. There’s no longer any doubt.” She turned her face to the window. “Nothing else matters now.”

Tom felt a burgeoning sense of unease. He didn’t know what to say. Not when they were in company with Ahmad. And even if they weren’t, how the devil was he supposed to comfort her? To cushion the loss of a man who—

But that was the crux of the matter. Tom didn’t know who Giles had been to Jenny. Not anymore.

He dropped his voice. “Is there anything I can—”

“Could we not discuss it at the moment?” She wafted her fan. “I can’t think straight in this heat.”

Ahmad fixed his gaze out the opposite window, effectively withdrawing himself from the conversation.

Tom appreciated the man’s efforts at invisibility, but it made it no easier to speak with Jenny. She didn’t say another word until they arrived at their hotel, and only then to take her leave of him.

“I need some time to myself,” she said upon entering her room. “A few hours rest until tiffin.”

He stood at the door, one hand resting on the doorframe, the other clutching his hat. “You’re worrying me.”

She gave him a weak smile. “Don’t worry. Nothing that’s happened today is any worse than what we expected all along. We both of us knew there was little chance we’d find Giles alive.”

Then why do you look so ravaged? he wanted to ask. Why do you look as if your heart has been broken into a million pieces?

“You’ll summon me if you need me?”

She promised she would, and then slowly, and quite firmly, shut the door in his face.

Tom entered his own room on a muttered curse, hurling his hat at the bed in a flare of frustration. It bounced against a panel of mosquito netting and ricocheted onto the marble floor. “Blast it.”

Ahmad emerged from the dressing room, a pile of shirts draped over his arm. “Is Miss Holloway unwell?”

“I don’t know.” It was the honest truth. Tom had no idea how she was feeling, physically or otherwise.

Good God, but he hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t anticipated that Jenny would be genuinely grieved at the loss of the man. She wasn’t Lady Helena. She hadn’t spent the past years hoping and praying that Giles was alive. She’d said herself that she had no reason to doubt the initial reports of his death. That the kiss she and Giles had shared wasn’t enough to spark an affinity between them.

But that wasn’t all she’d said.

Tom stopped where he stood. His stomach turned over on a wave of apprehension. Hell and damnation. How could he have overlooked it? How could he have failed to recognize—

He turned sharply to Ahmad, his heart thumping hard in his chest. “I must speak with Miss Holloway.”